EDITORIAL: Mugabe in the dock

There are very legitimate objections to the International Criminal Court - the United States has voiced most of them - but none detract from the case for indicting Zimbabwean strongman Robert Mugabe. Indeed, there are few more worthy targets. A three-pronged strategy of freezing the regime’s assets, pressuring South Africa to stop supporting Mr. Mugabe and an indictment comprise the best hope of dislodging the regime which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rightly said this week “must be held accountable by the international community.”

Most of the court’s present activities focus on conflicts in Africa - but why not Mr. Mugabe? The legal brief could focus on the regime’s atrocities in the 1980s, which are well documented. There is now precedent - with which the United States will surely be uncomfortable - for indicting figures in non-signatory nations. Early last year, the court indicted a Sudanese official and a militia leader in connection with atrocities in Darfur. So, even though the precedent itself raises thorny issues, an indictment could move forward if there were a will.

It should. Mr. Mugabe’s tyranny has violated much more than the legalistic tests of an international criminal tribunal. In recent weeks, over 80 figures in the political opposition have been murdered. Opposition leader and former presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai, who bested Mr. Mugabe by a small margin in a March runoff election, just withdrew from Friday’s election. Mr. Mugabe has vowed not to relinquish power whatever the results. This compounds a record of profound inhumanity to the populace. Consider 2005’s “Operation Take Out The Trash.” This ostensible “anti-squatter” initiative targeted the poor and the political opposition as it bulldozed whole cities and towns on the pretense that the communities were “illegal.” An estimated 2.4 million were affected, according to the United Nations. A dishonorable mention goes to this regime’s profoundly irrational economic policies, which have resulted in a world-worst 100,500 percent inflation rate and a Zimbabwean dollar trading at 50 million per U.S. greenback.

The repressed people of the former Rhodesia have no recourse from this regime’s inhuman behavior. We hope to see Mr. Mugabe in the dock. Until that moment, an indictment - coupled with new financial restrictions and a better effort from South Africa - sends the signal that Mr. Mugabe has no place atop his repressed country.