Mugabe thugs raid opposition headquarters

CNN:

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has said police have raided its Harare offices, just one day after its presidential candidate announced he was withdrawing from Friday's runoff election due to intimidation by President Mugabe's supporters.

Morgan Tsvangirai said state-sponsored violence against his supporters had made it impossible for him to run. The government says the vote will go ahead and denied the accusations, blaming the MDC for inciting violence in the weeks ahead of the run-off vote.

"A free and fair election is impossible," Morgan Tsvangirai told reporters. "We in the MDC have resolved that we will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate ... sham of an election process."

Monday's raid came as world leaders challenged Mugabe's legitimacy and threatened United Nations action.

In a statement issued Sunday evening in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's office called for an immediate end to "the campaign of violence and intimidation that has marred this election."

"The secretary-general deeply regrets that, despite the repeated appeals of the international community, the government of Zimbabwe has failed to put in place the conditions necessary for free and fair runoff elections," Ban's office said.

"The circumstances that led to the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai today from the presidential elections represents a deeply distressing development that does not bode well for the future of democracy in Zimbabwe."

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Zimbabwe cannot be called a democracy. Under Mugabe it is a thugocracy that has made it clear it will not respect the will of the people. It will probably take Mugabe's demise for democracy to have a chance in Zimbabwe and even then the surviving thugs will try to destroy it. If the International Criminal Court wants to continue its demonstration of impotence, the only way the people of Zimbabwe can get just is by an outside force in a regime change operation.