Pray for Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe has violated property rights, trashed the rule of law, destroyed civil society and wrecked the economy in Zimbabwe. Now he declares war on the people:

The ebbing regime of Robert Mugabe began its fightback in earnest last night, launching raids against opposition offices and foreign journalists in what many feared was the start of a campaign of intimidation.
Paramilitary police raided opposition offices at a hotel in central Harare, ransacking rooms as riot police moved in to arrest foreign journalists at a guest house in the capital. George Sibotshiwe, spokesman of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that the party’s headquarters in the centre of Harare and offices in Meikles hotel in the capital had been raided. “They took nothing. They simply ransacked the place,” he said.
As many as four journalists were arrested, including a reporter from the New York Times, in a separate raid on Harare’s York Lodge hotel, where many correspondents were staying.

Naturally, the Mugabe regime wants to eliminate foreign witnesses to the anti-democratic bloodbath that's in store:

Leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change said the raids heralded a campaign of political repression to safeguard President Robert Mugabe, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. His party, known as ZANU-PF, has already lost control of the lower house of Parliament, according to official results from Saturday’s elections, a huge turnabout in a nation where Mr. Mugabe has long controlled virtually all levers of power.
But the government has still not released a tally of the presidential race, prompting international criticism of the delay and concern that attempts were under way to manipulate the count. The government has said the count has been slow because the election was the first one for all national offices at once.
The opposition says that tallies posted at each polling place show that its candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, won 50.3 percent of the vote, barely enough to gain the majority needed to avert a runoff election against Mr. Mugabe.

Mugabe wants immunity from prosecution. Ed Morrisey says:

Clearly, Mugabe has no intention of putting himself in jeopardy of prosecution -- a tacit admission of his crimes as de facto dictator of Zimbabwe. After 28 year of disastrous rule as Prime Minister and then President, Mugabe has destroyed the national economy, rigged elections, abused his power to maintain his regime, and perhaps committed even worse crimes about which only his victims know.

The damage Mugabe has done to his nation's economy may be irreparable. By persecuting white farmers and forcing them off their farms, he turned Zimbabwe from the breadbasket of Africa into a basket case. Now, he is fighting to escape justice -- at the hands of his fellow Zimbabweans who've seen through his demagoguery.

In contemplating Mugabe's career, one is reminded of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and its chapter entitled "Why The Worst Get On Top."