I have been writing about the political situation in Zimbabwe for about four and a half years and lived in that country for thirty four years.

Even though I now live in the United Kingdom, I miss the people and the lifestyle - and the weather!

Yes, lifestyles have deteriorated in the last ten years and my family and I were lucky to leave when we did and we saw only the very beginning of the current crisis.

So many years later, I am daily amazed that the international community does nothing to stop Mugabe and his minions from not only further ruining the country, but to stop him from transgressing national and international law, and ensure that he gets to face charges of crimes against humanity in The Hague.

Enough is enough! Each day there are numbers added to the list of people that have died under Mugabe’s ‘rule’. Every day there are children that go without an education because of Mugabe’s ‘rule’. Every day there are people who have to go without health services, food, money and democracy because of Mugabe’s ‘rule’.

Saddam Hussein did less to his people than Mugabe has done to the Zimbabwean people - but Hussein was taken out – with extreme prejudice!

But there isn’t any oil in Zimbabwe…

There is, however, diamonds, gold and other mineral wealth.

Mugabe often rages against the West, alleging that the West wishes to recolonise Zimbabwe with a view to harnessing its mineral wealth. Whilst he is entirely wrong, the mineral wealth is currently being stolen from the country and lies in huge account balances around the world in fronts for Mugabe and his upper echelons.

The money that is being pilfered could quite easily have paid for the rebuild and recovery of the country as a whole, and kick start the economy again - and there still would have been plenty left over for ZANU PF to fill their coffers and their personal purses as well.

Whilst the international community issue statements that would indicate their unhappiness with the Mugabe regime, they do little to rectify the problem.

Mugabe is very quick to advise against regime change, reminding the world about Zimbabwe’s sovereignty, but when his hold on power is backed by wholesale theft, brutal violence, and illegal measures perpetrated by Mugabe’s minions, I do shake my head and ask the question: How much longer?

How many more people have to die? How many more people will have to live in abject poverty? How many more people have to give up their homes and businesses in the search for a community elsewhere in the world that can at least afford them some decency and standard of life?

How many more people are consigned to living in the maelstrom that is the Mugabe dictatorship?

How many more people are obliged to live in holes in the ground, their houses razed to the ground by the brutal ZANU PF regime?

How long will it be before the international community actually draws a line in the sand and declares: So far and no further?

Do Zimbabwean lives count for less than those in Afghanistan and Iraq?

The international community needs to grow a couple and put an end to this vicious and brutal reign of Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man