The United States does not consider President Robert Mugabe a legitimate leader and is working with South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique on ways to isolate him, according to a senior US
official.
The US and Zimbabwe's neighbours were also looking for ways to help the internal opposition to Mugabe change the system, Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told a briefing in Washington.
Kansteiner spoke as Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa urged landless blacks to move on to white-owned farms, setting the stage for a possible confrontation with commercial farmers defying eviction orders.
Kansteiner said: "We do not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country. The election was fraudulent, and it was not free and it was not fair.
"We're continuing to work with the South Africans and the Botswanans and the Mozambicans on what are some of the strategies that we can use to isolate Mugabe, in the sense that he has to realise that the political status quo is not acceptable."
Strategies could include more travel and financial restrictions on Zimbabwean leaders, but not trade sanctions, especially during food shortages.
The Agency for International Development (USAid) administrator, Andrew Natsios, announced that the US was contributing an extra 190 000 tons of food to southern Africa, bringing the US total for the year to about 500 000.
He warned: "Unless commercial markets in Zimbabwe are freed of the restrictions the Mugabe government is putting on them, we will not be able to respond adequately to the famine."
Natsios said: "It is madness to arrest commercial farmers in the middle of a drought when they could grow food to save people from starvation."
In Harare on Tuesday, Chinamasa told the state-owned Herald: "Those who have been allocated land should move to the farms and utilise it.
"In fact they (black settlers) should have started moving into the farms when the first 45-day notice period given to the commercial farmers by the government to round up their operations expired," he said.
Police said about 215 white farmers had been arrested since Mugabe ordered 2 900 off their land last Thursday.
The farmers' lobby group Justice for Agriculture (Jag) said on Tuesday 145 farmers had appeared in court to face charges since Friday.
Most had been released on bail and ordered not to return to their farms.
Jag declined to comment on Chinamasa's remarks, but said 15 farmers in the Karoi-Tengwe area had surrendered to police.
"A team of lawyers is looking into legal action. One of the options open is to challenge the bail conditions that are being imposed on the farmers countrywide," said Jag spokesperson Jenni Williams.