Zimbabwe is not the only crisis

Robert Mugabe has plunged Zimbabwe into the darkness of mob rule and hyper-inflation. Morgan Tsvangirai did the right thing by pulling out of the sham election as he simply would not have been allowed to win it.

Besides, taking part would have dignified a murderous process and resulted in many more deaths among his brave supporters.

There is no hope of ever having a free, fair or even humane election campaign while Mugabe is president and armed thugs roam the streets.

The rule of law has been under sustained assault for more than a decade, but the results of the March 29 presidential poll, however tarnished by obvious rigging, showed Tsvangirai winning and there was just the slightest chance that he could actually emerge victorious. Those chances are now finished.

That being said, there is just a hint in the UN Security Council that Mugabe is a good villain to have around. There are no vetoes likely to get in the way of condemning his barbaric regime.

Myanmar, North Korea, Israel and a host of other nations all have Security Council support that dilutes or even blocks any motions of censure regardless of how well justified.

Zimbabwe has no powerful friends of that calibre which makes condemning Mugabe a non-controversial issue and diverts attention from other areas of the planet where human rights are being abused on a regular scale.

Not for one moment does that lessen Mugabe's culpability, but it does raise the question as to why, with other countries that regularly abuse human rights, there is such silence or faint-hearted condemnation.

The international community speaks with unusual unity when dealing with Mugabe. It is a shame that other areas of humanitarian concern are not represented with such unity of prose.