Playing God with Mugabe

What we see in Zimbabwe today is naked political terror, orchestrated solely to extend the reign of a once legitimate but now illegitimate ruler who has led his people to a hell on Earth. Destitution, murder, rape and mass beatings are the order of the day -- and a so-called election this Friday, which is now the barest sham. Let Mugabe himself be my witness. "We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X on a ballot," he warned this month. "How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?"

If "only God" can remove him, Mugabe also says, "the British and Americans want to play God. They have given themselves a role which is not their own, of installing and deposing governments. They want to do the same here, but we say to them they are not God." Especially in the post-colonial Africa's south, and especially after Iraq, that argument has traction.

When South Africa's ANC -- which could make the difference in Zimbabwe in a way that London and Washington cannot -- finally came out this week to condemn the Zimbabwean government for "riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights" of its people, it made a point of recalling how Africa's former colonial rulers trampled on the principles of freedom and human rights. "No colonial power in Africa, least of all Britain in its colony of 'Rhodesia,' " it argued, "ever demonstrated any respect for these principles."

Then there is the appeal to absolute, unlimited state sovereignty. At an election rally Tuesday, Mugabe cried: "The elections are ours; we're a sovereign state and that is it." By contrast, the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has called for an African-led and U.N.-backed team to facilitate a transition in the country. Senior people in his own party, which won more seats than Mugabe's Zanu-PF in the parliamentary elections in March, will privately go further. They do not believe that rulers should be allowed to get away with murder -- literally -- behind an iron curtain of absolute sovereignty. They are asking for more help from outside. They want the U.N. to go further than it has in its recent Security Council resolution. Above all, they want South African President Thabo Mbeki to get off his fence.