Opposing Mugabe: the socialist rule of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has destroyed the economy of this once-prosperous African nation. Despite calls for "freedom," Mugabe is having none of it.(ZIMBABWE)

Morgan Tsvangirai may be the luckiest man in Africa. He has been for many years the most prominent foe of Zimbabwe's brutal dictator Robert Mugabe, and in spite of three assassination attempts, numerous arrests, and at least one savage beating by police that nearly killed him, he is still alive.

In spite of more assassination threats and other tactics intended to keep him out of Zimbabwe ahead of a June 27 run-off election pitting him against Mugabe, Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are refusing to be intimidated. Mugabe's thugs now roam the length and breadth of impoverished Zimbabwe, destroying the property of MDC supporters and, in a particularly cruel twist, denying food to those

who do not support the aging monster determined to run this once-prosperous country into the dust rather than relinquish his grip on power. Tsvangirai's MDC, meanwhile, offers little more for its platform than getting rid of Mugabe--but that may be promise enough. Appealing for self-government and promising to protect the basic rights of Zimbabwe's citizens, the MDC's platform of governance says it all: "We want our people to be free."

In truth, Zimbabwe's oppressed millions have not breathed free air for a very long time. Soon after his rise to power in 1980, Robert Mugabe showed his true colors by ordering the systematic massacre over several years of at least 20,000 citizens who opposed his regime (the so-called Gukurahundi massacre, carried out by an army brigade trained in North Korea). Moreover, Mugabe's radical socialist economic policies have, over the past 20 years, slowly strangled the economic vitality of the country once deemed the breadbasket of southern Africa. Zimbabwe's slide into destitution accelerated in 2000, when Mugabe began driving white farmers off their lands and giving the land to political cronies.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

Today Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy of any nation (37 years for men and 34 years for women, according to the World Health Organization) and the world's highest rate of inflation (over 100,000 percent annually as of April of this year). From an exporter of food it has become dependent not only on imported food but also upon food aid distributed by international relief organizations. Mugabe is reviled in Zimbabwe and ostracized abroad, yet continues to cling limpet-like to power, insisting that foreign plotters and domestic subversives are to blame for his country's misfortunes, and that only his enlightened leadership can save Zimbabwe.

Political opposition to Mugabe has been gathering steam since the beginning of the decade, even as Zimbabwe's dictator has descended into increasing brutality and paranoia. The MDC, founded in 1999, managed in 2000 to stave off Mugabe's attempt to rewrite the Zimbabwean constitution to protect himself and his cronies from any legal prosecution over the Gukurahundi affair and to legalize his theft of land from white Zimbabweans. The movement also won 57 of 120 parliamentary seats open in the 2000 election, establishing itself as the first legitimate political opposition Mugabe has faced in many years.