Harare - The failure by Zimbabwe's new power-sharing government to tackle the "grim and precarious" human rights situation in the country could lead to more violence in the run-up to the next elections, Amnesty International warned Thursday.

The head of the New York-based rights watchdog, Irene Khan, was speaking to reporters in Harare at the end of her six-day inspection visit to the southern African country - the first ever by an Amnesty secretary-general to Zimbabwe.

Over four months after the establishment of a power-sharing government between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), "the human rights situation in Zimbabwe is grim and precarious," she found.

Human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers continued to be harassed, threatened and subject to "malicious arrest and prosecution," she said.

Khan also sounded the alarm over a renewed spate of white-owned farm invasions by Zanu-PF loyalists, saying 2,800 farmworkers had been affected by the violence since February.

The situation was fuelled by a "dangerous culture of impunity" at "every level of the state," she said.

Around 200 MDC members and supporters were killed last year in a wave of state-backed violence by Mugabe supporters following his defeat by Tsvangirai in first-round presidential elections.

Despite new elections due within 18 months, the new government showed no sense of urgency in implementing provisions in September's power-sharing agreement that might prevent a repeat scenario, according to Amnesty.

Khan, who had sought but did not obtain a meeting with Mugabe but met with several ministers from his party and the MDC, as well as with rights activists and abuse victims, called on Mugabe and Tsvangirai to publicly call their party members to order.(dpa)