Zimbabwe's tragedy continues

With inflation at over 100,000% and unemployment topping 80%, the economy has collapsed. Life expectancy in 1990 was 60 - it's now 37. Over 45% suffer from malnutrition.

Yet Zimbabwe had been an African success. Well-run farms, good primary healthcare and education and rich mineral resources, from gold to platinum. This disaster is man-made, inescapably the fault of Zimbabwe's President for 28 years, Robert Mugabe.

That's why, despite massive electoral rigging, and with 3 million in refugee camps unable to vote, Robert Mugabe still lost the Presidential elections.

However, Mugabe's ZANU-PF party hangs on. There is now to be an election run-off between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). There's no date for this vote, and meanwhile, Mugabe's thugs beat up and arrest MDC supporters.

The world looks on in despair. Much depends on Zimbabwe's neighbours, and especially South Africa. Ordinary Africans seem alarmed at Mugabe - witness the South African dockers refusing to unload Chinese arms bound for Mugabe's military.

Britain's role is diplomatic - to encourage African leaders to isolate Mugabe, press for a UN arms embargo and construct an aid and investment package for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe to incentivise change.

Yet we could do something symbolic. John Major's Conservative Government recommended President Mugabe for the Order of the Bath in 1994, despite Mugabe's record of human rights' abuses in the Matabeleland.

We should strip Mugabe of this ill-judged knighthood. I've written to the Head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, who chairs the Forfeiture Committee that makes such decisions. The fact Britain still honours Mugabe is a scandal.