Mugabe Wins

The result of this past week's war on democracy by fascist Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe has been the withdrawal of his electoral rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, from the dubious run-off set for the end of this week. Said Mr. Tsvangirai:

...he could neither participate “in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” nor ask his voters to risk their lives in the face of threats from forces backing President Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe's government has said "win or war" and war it has been:

A governing party militia blocked his supporters from attending a major rally in Harare on Sunday, the head of an election observer team said. The opposition said rowdy youths, armed with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr. Tsvangirai.

It was the latest incident in a tumultuous campaign season in which Mr. Tsvangirai has been repeatedly detained, his party’s chief strategist jailed on treason charges that many people consider bogus, and rampant state-sponsored violence has left at least 85 opposition supporters dead and thousands injured, according to tallies by doctors treating the victims.

With the neighbors step up?

Mr. Tsvangirai’s decision to quit the race seems intended to force Zimbabwe’s neighbors to take a stand. There are growing cracks in the solidarity that African heads of state have shown for Mr. Mugabe, an 84-year-old liberation hero whose defiant anti-Western rhetoric has long struck a resonant chord in a region with a bitter colonial history.

The United States and Britain are pressing to put Zimbabwe’s political crisis on the United Nations Security Council agenda on Monday, a step South Africa, the region’s most powerful nation, has consistently opposed.

So South Africa et al are standing idly by while the thug class has been unleashed in classic totalitarian fashion:

Mr. Tsvangirai, a charismatic former trade union leader who has been Mr. Mugabe’s hated rival for almost a decade, charged Sunday that the president’s violent, vengeful strategy had displaced 200,000 people, destroyed 20,000 homes and injured and maimed over 10,000 people in what he called “this orgy of violence.”

That's how it works.

In a just world it'd be next stop, The Hague.