Playing God with Mugabe

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.

So Zimbabwe brings us back to this great argument of our time, about the rights and wrongs of intervention. This debate is crippled by reducing "intervention" to the single dimension of military action. There are hundreds of ways in which states and peoples intervene in the affairs of other states and peoples without resorting to the use of military force.

War, if it is to be just, must always be the last resort. For good reasons of maintaining international order, the "just cause" bar for interventions has to be set very high -- roughly speaking, at the level of actual or imminent genocide. You would be unlikely to get "right authority" for such action from the United Nations. Crucial among the objections, in the case of Zimbabwe, is the lack of a reasonable prospect of success. How would these troops make things better? The theoretical argument about legitimacy can't be divorced from the practical one about efficacy.

But the choice is not either invade or do nothing; either reach for the gun or leave it to the sadly silent Almighty. "Gun or God" is the Mugabe fallacy. When he asks, "How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?" our job is to provide the answer.

Here are seven things that people outside Zimbabwe can do to help the majority inside Zimbabwe have its democratic will recognized. We -- through our elected governments -- can work for a second, stronger U.N. resolution. We can encourage our governments -- especially those outside the traditional West -- not to recognize as Zimbabwe's legitimate leader any president who emerges from this Friday's terror sham election (assuming it goes ahead, despite Wednesday's appeal for postponement from several southern African leaders).

We can shame the mining giant Anglo American into not pushing ahead, under Mugabe, with its $400-million investment in a platinum mine. We can spread the word that Queen Elizabeth II has at last stripped Mugabe of his honorary knighthood. We can sign the petition to Mbeki and other leaders of southern Africa on avaaz.org, to be published in newspapers across the region.

Then anyone in London on Friday could join a planned demonstration at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party in Hyde Park, respectfully asking the old hero to urge Mugabe to leave the stage. Already in London on Wednesday, Mandela spoke of a "tragic failure of leadership" in Zimbabwe. Mandela's discretion and loyalty to his successor, Mbeki, have, in this regard, outlived their useful term.

Finally, we should listen to what the legitimate representatives of the majority in Zimbabwe say about stepping up sanctions. An obvious objection is that broader sanctions would hurt the people. Sometimes, though, the people are prepared to take the pain for long-term gain.

On their own, none of these steps will have the desired effect. And taken together, they won't get rid of the monster; that depends on the Zimbabweans and their southern African neighbors. But I'll bet you this: Sooner or later, even in Zimbabwe, the ballpoint pen will defeat the gun.

Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to Opinion, is professor of European studies at Oxford University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of "Free World."