Harare - The leader of President Robert Mugabe's notorious war veterans militia has threatened prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai over his failure to turn up this week for a regional summit on the Zimbabwean crisis in Swaziland.

The meeting of the politics and security troika of the Southern African Development Community, the 15-nation regional alliance, was meant to discuss the five-week stalemate in the implementation of a power-sharing agreement between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the two groupings of Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

Tsvangirai refused to travel to the summit after Mugabe's regime refused to issue him with a new passport, giving him only an emergency travel document.

Jabulani Sibanda, chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association, was quoted Wednesday in the state-controlled Herald newspaper as saying that Tsvangirai was causing Zimbabweans "to suffer."

"If he behaves the way he is behaving, this nation will take action to defend itself from him. He is leaving the people of Zimbabwe with one option: to take action."

He did not specify what action his militia would take, but the war veterans are held responsible for the killing of hundreds of MDC supporters in the last nearly nine years of violent repression imposed by the 84-year-old autocrat.

The power-sharing deal has been stalled since it was signed on September 15, with Mugabe and Tsvangirai at loggerheads over the allocation of cabinet posts between their parties. Mugabe outraged the MDC by unilaterally allocated all the key ministries to his party.

The SADC troika meeting was postponed until Monday next week, in Harare, but Tsvangirai has warned he will continue to stay away unless he is given a passport.

The authorities claim there is no paper for issuing new passports.

The crisis is taking an increasing international dimension, after Botswana this week urged that fresh presidential elections be held in Zimbabwe, but this time under international supervision.

Tsvangirai won the first round of the last presidential election in March but did not secure enough votes for outright victory. He withdrew from the run-off against Mugabe in June after dozens of his supporters were killed.

Mugabe ran alone and claimed a landslide victory. That election, which was condemned worldwide, led the African Union to call on the two men to form a unity government. (dpa)