Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has described the country under President Robert Mugabe as an "unmitigated embarrassment" to Africa. He said that during 28 years of Mr Mugabe's rule, services such as education and healthcare had gone from the best in Africa to among the worst. He is standing against Mr Mugabe in a run-off election at the end of June. Zimbabwe's justice minister said a Tsvangirai victory would plunge the nation into crisis. Mr Tsvangirai was speaking at a gathering of parliamentarians from his party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and media in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. This was, in effect, his election manifesto, the BBC's Peter Greste reports from Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa. 'Gratuitous violence' The MDC leader again condemned the ruling Zanu-Pf party for what his party insists is a campaign of intimidation and violence. He said there would be no amnesty for anyone responsible for political attacks. "The violence that is currently taking place must stop," he said. "There will be no tolerance or amnesty for those who continue to injure, rape and murder our citizens. We consider these acts as criminal acts, not political acts." Senator David Coltart, a human rights lawyer and a member of the MDC, described for the BBC some of the attacks on supporters of his party. "Gratuitous forms of violence... the cutting out of tongues, gouging out of eyes," he said. "And I think that has caused the Morgan Tsvangirai statement. It amounts to a plea in desperation to get this violence to stop." 'Foreign interference' Mr Tsvangirai listed Zimbabwe' s problems as: "The world's highest inflation, 80% unemployment, education that has plummeted from the best in Africa to one of the worst and a healthcare system that has dire shortages of doctors, nurses, medicines, beds and blankets." But the country, he insisted, was about to witness a "new and different era of governance" under the MDC, which won a narrow majority in the parliamentary election in March. The Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, said the MDC was to blame for the country's troubles. He accused the intelligence services of the UK and the US of acting as a sinister third force to undermine the ruling party's revolution. "We are aware that the intelligence services have been involved in some of the acts of politically motivated violence," he said, speaking in the South African capital Pretoria. That is something the MDC, Britain and the US have all denied, our correspondent notes. The justice minister, who lost his seat in the election, said an opposition victory in the run-off vote would reverse the gains of the revolution and destabilise the country. Source: BBC