The army and the police are under the direct control of his party,
ZANU-PF, and they relentlessly intimidate ordinary Zimbabweans. They arrest
and murder activists for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the party
led by Morgan Tsvangirai.Mr Tsvangirai himself is arrested almost every day: the sole purpose
of imprisoning him is to disrupt his campaigning. As Zimbabwe starves,
thanks to Mugabe’s inept economic management, food and medicine are being
used by his cronies as weapons with which to coerce the population into
voting for ZANU-PF.Yesterday, Mugabe boasted that he would go to war rather than hand
over power to the MDC. If he wins the election on June 27, it will only be
because he has bullied the population into submission.The West continues to watch helplessly as Mugabe destroys the last
vestiges of democracy in Zimbabwe. Sanctions against the country are already
in force, but show no sign of persuading Mugabe to step down.The next option would be for the West to take direct military action
against him, but that seems highly unlikely, and not only because it would
resurrect his legitimacy as an “anti-colonialist warrior”.So what can be done? The UN must put heavy pressure on South Africa
and China, Mugabe’s remaining supporters, to drop him. Once that happens,
members of his own party should force him to relinquish power.Elections could then be held, perhaps supervised by the African Union.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an international reluctance to confront
South Africa and China. They have prevented the topic from being discussed
by the UN Security Council.We can only hope that reason and humanity will soon persuade at least
Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, to jettison the man who is
leading Zimbabwe, and all of its suffering people, over the precipice.
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