INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION
There has been wide international condemnation of the violence but SADC is seen as the only body that can influence events in Zimbabwe. Several of its members have been flooded by millions of refugees fleeing the economic collapse of the once prosperous country.
Tsvangirai, who has taken refuge in the Dutch embassy in Harare since Sunday, said Zimbabwe would "break" if the world did not come to its aid.
"We ask for the U.N. to go further than its recent resolution, condemning the violence in Zimbabwe, to encompass an active isolation of the dictator Mugabe," he wrote in the Guardian.
"For this we need a force to protect the people. We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," said Tsvangirai.
"Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not troublemakers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns."
Pressure has increased on Mugabe from both inside and outside Africa over Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, blamed by the West and the opposition on the 84-year-old president, who has held power for 28 years.
The United States urged SADC to declare both the election and Mugabe's government illegitimate.
Friday's vote was meant to be a run-off between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The opposition leader won a first round in March but did not get the absolute majority needed to avoid a run-off.
Both Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and the leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress said Friday's election must be postponed after Tsvangirai's withdrawal.
ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who rivals Mbeki as South Africa's most powerful man, called for urgent intervention by the United Nations and SADC, saying the situation in Zimbabwe was out of control.
Mugabe remained defiant, telling a rally in western Zimbabwe on Tuesday:
"The West can scream all it wants. Elections will go on. Those who want to recognise our legitimacy can do so, those who don't want, should not."
