<B>By Nicholas RAINER</B>

What?s the man to do? Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Zimbabwean opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is damned if he does and damned if he doesn?t. If he runs in the Zimbabwean elections ? which have become a contradiction in terms, along the same lines as military intelligence ? he will only be lending credibility to what will probably be a fatally flawed exercise. If he doesn?t, he will be giving the world?s most grotesque despot (North Korea?s Kim Jong-il trails not far behind) a clean run to victory. This is probably the type of situation that Joseph Heller had in mind when he penned his masterpiece, ?Catch-22?.

Morgan Tsvangirai has made up his mind though. With steely resolve, the former trade unionist explained in The Guardian yesterday why he has decided not to challenge 84-year-old Robert Mugabe at the end of the month. ?I can no longer allow Zimbabwe?s people to suffer from this torture, for I believe they can bear no more crushing force. This is why I decided not to run in the presidential run-off. This is not a political decision. The vote need not occur at all costs, as the Movement for Democratic Change won a majority in the previous election, held in March. This is undisputed by the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwe electoral commission.?

He went on to plead for the use military intervention, in the form of a peacekeeping force not ?trouble-makers?. But there?s a fat chance of that happening unless Bob discovers black gold in his backyard. Western leaders, for one, are loath to put their money where their mouths are. For all the talk about democratic values and the need for free and fair elections, actions are few and far apart. Admittedly, the international system is based on the sanctity of the State?s sovereignty. Yet this lofty ideal stops applying as soon as oil comes into play.

For what it?s worth though, the white man has done enough harm in Africa already. Moreover, two of Mugabe?s most vociferous critics, the US and Britain, have lost any moral authority they may once have had since their murderous invasion of Iraq. And, even if Zimbabwe is far from being a hotbed of religious fanaticism, any military incursion by these countries runs the risk of ending in civil war. Only Africa has the legitimacy to take action against one of its own. This it has patently failed to do.

Rewind to the late 1990s. Thabo Mbeki was adamant about the continent?s ability to move forward together. ?Such are the political imperatives of the African Renaissance which are inspired both by our painful history of recent decades and the recognition of the fact that none of our countries is an island which can isolate itself from the rest, and that none of us can truly succeed if the rest fail. The second of the elements of what we have described as the genuine liberation of the peoples of Africa is, of course, an end to the tragic sight of the emaciated child who dies because of hunger or is ravaged by curable diseases because their malnourished bodies do not have the strength to resist any illness.?

Sadly for the millions of Zimbabweans beset by those very evils, Thabo Mbeki?s bold and inspirational talk of an African Renaissance faltered at the very first hurdle. And, just like Humpty Dumpty, he?s found out the hard way that sitting on the fence can lead to only one thing: a big fall. The only question that remains is, ?Who?s going to pick up the pieces??