LONDON, April 2, 2008 (AFP) - South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu proposed Wednesday sending an international peacekeeping force to Zimbabwe in the wake of the unresolved presidential elections.

Tutu told the BBC he favoured 'a mixed force of Africans and others' to protect human rights in the beleaguered African country.

'It is a peacekeeping force,' he said. 'It is not one that is going to be aggressive. It is merely ensuring that human rights are maintained.'

The former archbishop said he supported any deal that would stave off conflict in Zimbabwe, but added that he believed the evidence supported claims by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that it had unseated President Robert Mugabe.

'Anything that would save the possibilities of bloodshed, of conflict, I am quite willing to support,' he said.

'The people of Zimbabwe have suffered enough, and we don't... want any more possibilities of bloodshed.'

He continued: 'In a fraught situation such as we have had in Zimbabwe, anything that is helping towards a move, a transition, from the repression to the possibilities of democracy and freedom, oh, for goodness sake, please let us accept that.'

Peter Hain, a former British government minister who was a prominent campaigner against apartheid in South Africa, meanwhile said Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler, should not act unilaterally to hasten Mugabe's departure.

Hain called on the international community to put pressure on the backers of Mugabe's government, including China.

'What matters is that there is an orderly transition of power and that if Robert Mugabe needs a safe passage then the international community can accommodate that,' Hain told BBC radio.

He called on leaders from Zimbabwe's southern African neighbours to 'work together with everybody, from the United Nations to Beijing -- which has of course bankrolled Mugabe's regime -- to London to Paris to the European Union and the Commonwealth, everybody should work together to support the restoration of democracy and the verdict of the people.'

Hain added: 'An African solution to this crisis is in the end what is needed.'

Pressure increased Wednesday for the release of results from the election as Zimbabwe's state media acknowledged that Mugabe, in power for 28 years, had likely failed to win a majority.