Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is far from being the only despot on the African continent. But that doesn’t take him off the hook from criticism by other African leaders for destroying his country and beating and killing his critics.

The issue of Mugabe, which has long been in the news, reared its ugly head again when his main opponent for the presidency withdrew June 22 from the election and fled the country because of the persecution of him and his followers.

Mugabe’s opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, actually is believed to have won the initial election despite reported widespread ballot fraud, but the result was deemed — at least by Mugabe — close enough to justify a runoff election.

In the run-up to the runoff, Mugabe put the hammer down to eliminate the competition and reportedly offered rewards of food and other enticements to his impoverished, starving citizens who agreed to vote for him.

Mugabe claimed to have won the runoff, despite accusations of widespread corruption from international election observers.

In pulling out, Tsvangirai said a free and fair election was not possible in Zimbabwe and the loss of life among his supporters was simply too high a price to pay.

Officials from countries elsewhere in the world (other than, predictably, China and Russia) termed the Zimbabwean election a sham.

Sadly, at first, only one African country spoke out against Mugabe’s reign of terror. A number of other African leaders said  it would be hypocritcal to single out Mugabe from all the other  dictators in Africa.

Much to his credit, Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga in late June broke ranks by calling on African leaders to suspend Zimbabwe from the Africa Union rather than welcome Mugabe to their summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. Since then, a growing chorus of African leaders have publicly criticized Mugabe.

Odinga’s comments came as the U.S. presented the first draft of a sanctions resolution to a deeply divided U.N. security council following the widely disputed re-election of Mugabe.

Once again, it’s up to neighboring South Africa to take the lead. Even though South Africa currently is aligned with Russia and China — two powerful veto-wielding members of the security council — in opposing sanctions, we hope it will change its position following the unprecedented criticism of Mugabe by former leader Nelson Mandela.