If Mugabe were white, would we let him get away with such brutality?

He has survived because of support from a tacit coalition of black racists, masochistic white liberals and white cynics

A beautiful country is being destroyed. Under a competent government, its inhabitants would prosper, partly through agricultural exports. But because of Robert Mugabe's misrule, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans are already starving in the midst of what should be plenty. Because of the longer-term consequences of his brutality, millions of people will be condemned to generations of poverty, disease and famine.

Yet no one outside Zimbabwe seems to care. It is true that international bodies have passed bleating resolutions, saying that they do wish that Mr Mugabe would behave better. Curiously enough, he has taken no notice. It will require more than hand-wringing from the United Nations, the Commonwealth or the Foreign Office to chase him from office. The Government decided to take a tough line and ban Mr Mugabe's henchmen and their families from visiting London. But his government is not going to fall merely because his kleptocrats' wives are prevented from using their credit cards. All this is a dreadful example of human-rights abusers exploiting Western spinelessness, but the explanation is clear. Mr Mugabe has survived because he has been able to rely on support from a coalition of black racists, masochistic white liberals and white cynics.

Throughout Africa, the younger leaders insist the failed policies of the past must be broken with. To symbolise this, the Organisation of African Unity has been renamed. The new African Union (AU) claims that it will promote a new economic plan for development. This would be encouraging, were it true. But if these leaders were remotely sincere, they should have been willing to denounce Mr Mugabe. They have failed to do this for two reasons.

First, he can always deploy the rhetoric of anti-colonialism, potent among politicians wishing to divert attention from their countries' abject failure and who are always tempted to wallow in primitive emotions rather than address themselves to the formidable difficulties of governing.

Secondly, his most publicised victims are white farmers. It matters not that those men's forebears hacked their acreage out of the bush. It is equally irrelevant that, until recently, the white farms provided employment for hundreds of thousands of blacks, and were vital to the economy. It also seems of no consequence that their methods and successes could profitably be copied by other nations. On an African visceral level, the emotional satisfaction of blaming the white man for the continent's problems takes precedence over the continent's real difficulties.

By now, the British Government should have confronted the AU. If it did believe in a new dispensation for Africa, our ministers should have said, it must start by doing everything possible to prevent Mr Mugabe from wrecking an important African country. If necessary, it should be willing to co-operate in military action to remove him. If the AU were not prepared to do this, then all its talk about newness and progress would just be so much sales patter, designed to entice more foreign aid and to refresh Swiss bank accounts. Any African government which refused to repudiate Mr Mugabe and to assist in moves against him should have been informed that it would receive no aid from Britain, and that we would also do everything possible to block any aid from the European Union.

But this was never likely to happen. The upper reaches of British foreign policy are populated by far too many cringing liberals who will go into the most humiliating intellectual contortions before admitting that a black man could be blamed for anything, especially if he is in dispute with a white. In terms of the volume of human suffering, Zimbabwe is a black-on-black conflict. The miseries inflicted on the white farmers are only a tiny proportion of the misery which Mr Mugabe has inflicted on his country.

This is where the white cynics share the guilt. When Mr Mugabe won power, dismay was widespread among British conservatives. The hope had been that Bishop Abel Muzorewa would win the post-Lancaster House election, thus ensuring a pro-Western government and some continuity with the era of Ian Smith. In the event, however, Mr Mugabe did not seem too bad. He did not butcher all the whites in their beds; he did not apply to join the Warsaw Pact. He merely let his thugs loose against his fellow blacks in Matabeleland.

This was not mindless violence. Antagonism between the majority Shona tribe and the Ndebele of southern Zimbabwe had a long history. Joshua Nkomo, the leader of the Ndebele, was once asked – when in his cups – what would happen after independence. "When that day comes,'' he replied, "we'll drive the Shona dog before us, as we always have.''

Mr Nkomo had reckoned without weight of numbers, not to mention control of government power and command of military hardware. It was Mr Mugabe's North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade which did the driving. However, the outcome went far beyond any measures which could be justified as a containment of tribalism and an assertion of central authority.

Tens of thousands of Ndebele were slaughtered in a deliberate infliction of state terror. No one will ever know the exact figure and hardly anyone in the West has cared. Leftists averted their gaze from anything which might discredit a black government. Rightists shrugged their shoulders, believing that nothing better was to be expected from a black government.

In Britain, where more concern should have been expected given our recent historic ties with Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, no senior politician rushed to take an interest. The Tory government had no desire to re-engage itself with Zimbabwean affairs, or to re-open any wounds which might have resulted from the Lancaster House settlement. The Labour opposition was equally unwilling to annoy its friends in Africa.

This was wrong all round. Mr Mugabe ought to have been condemned, and threatened with instant expulsion from the Commonwealth. Instead, he got away with a massacre. This may have led him to conclude that he could commit further massacres at his choice. And so he is, even if the agents are now starvation and disease rather than bullets and shells.

It would not be easy to remove Mr Mugabe by military means, especially when everyone is concerned with bigger game in Iraq. It is possible to take action against Sierra Leone, which is on the coast, but Zimbabwe is well inland, and we would require forward bases from a friendly neighbouring African country.

But if we really wanted those bases, does anyone doubt that we could obtain them? Does anyone doubt that we would already have taken action, if a white government were behaving in the way that Mr Mugabe is? If Mr Mugabe is allowed to complete the destruction of Zimbabwean agriculture, his country might take 100 years to recover. We have a moral duty to prevent him from sabotaging his people's future.