One Would Think That This Might Be Mugabe’s Tipping Point ….

….. But based on the non-reaction from other African countries, it incredibly appears not (bolds are mine):

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has told supporters that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was attacked earlier this month - and deserved the beating.
At a Zanu-PF party meeting in Harare, he said Mr Tsvangirai was clearly told not to attend a banned rally.

Inside the meeting, Mr Mugabe called on Zanu-PF members to maintain party unity as he sought a new term as leader.

….. “Yes, I told them he was beaten but he asked for it,” AFP news agency quoted Mr Mugabe as saying.

“We got full backing, not even one [other African leader] criticised our actions.”

….. Zimbabwe’s economy is in meltdown, with inflation of 1,700% and widespread poverty and unemployment.

On Thursday, UN humanitarian director Rashid Khalikov said that 1.4 million Zimbabweans would need food aid this year, as harvests were only due to meet one-third of the country’s requirements.

Any kind of international intervention will be next to impossible if the neighbors of Mr. “Yeah, we savagely beat him — so what?” can’t even bring themselves to speak out against the humanitarian and human-rights calamity that continues to grow ever worse.

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UPDATE: Investors Business Daily similarly editorializes (HT Instapundit), and has a graph showing that Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted at an average rate of 6% a year for the past 5 years.

UPDATE 2: A subscription-only editorial in the Wall Street Journal today rips South African leader Thabo Mbeki for his passive role in Zimbabwe’s implosion:

The failure of African leadership on Zimbabwe reflects especially badly on President Mbeki and his government, led by the African National Congress. In the kindest interpretation, Pretoria fears a failed state on its northern border. But by what measure is Zimbabwe not already a failure? Once stable, its economy is a wreck, notching up the world’s highest inflation rate, at 1,700%. Millions of Zimbabweans are fleeing, mostly to fast-growing South Africa, where they work as domestics, waiters and teachers.

Less kindly, and more accurately, the South African leader has simply taken Mr. Mugabe’s side in his war on Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions, its press and opposition, and its people. The ANC and Zanu (PF) were both liberation movements that wrested power from white-led regimes and have held it since — the past 27 years in Zimbabwe and 13 in South Africa. Mr. Mugabe claims special cult status for winning a war, while the ANC merely settled — in the view of some in South Africa — for a negotiated transition from apartheid.