Zimbabwe may be far and away the worst-run country on the planet.

The economic statistics alone would be a joke if they were not so grim for its impoverished people: 80 percent unemployment; an inflation rate of over 1,700 percent (if you were so foolish as to make the exchange, you could get 17,500 Zimbabwe dollars for one U.S.) and projected to reach 4,000 percent; over one-fifth of the population economic refugees in neighboring countries.

And this was once one of the wealthiest nations in Africa, mineral-rich and the continent's breadbasket. Its people survive today on international food handouts.

This disaster is the handiwork of Zimbabwe's president of 27 years, Robert Mugabe, and these past weeks he's demonstrated how he's managed to stay in power so long.

After Mugabe banned political rallies, the opposition held a public prayer meeting that was savagely broken up by the police and regime thugs. Opposition leaders were jailed and beaten, and those who tried to leave the country were intercepted at the airport and beaten there.

The chief opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is said to have a fractured skull and broken arm.

To their shame, other African leaders - especially those in South Africa and the African Union - have been silent to the point of indulgence about Mugabe's depredations. If he runs again, as he is threatening to do, in another rigged election, they should refuse to recognize the results.