Stephen Lewis, meet Dr. Frankenstein

First the story, precised from today's Globe and Mail.

Armed with 70 sworn affidavits from rape victims, An advocacy group, armed with 70 sworn affidavits, is calling for the prosecution of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his ruling party for crimes against humanity.

The group is headed by Great Canadian and all-round do-gooder Stephen Lewis, who has a long record of being more interested in poverty and social problems overseas than similar concerns here at home.

The group says "Comrade Bob" Mugabe and his party were responsible for a systematic campaign of rape against opposition supporters in last year's election. They point to the cases of 70 Zimbabwean women, all opposition supporters, who were collectively raped at least 380 times by 241 different members of the ruling party and its affiliated organizations.

The black thugs who masquerade as leaders of Mr. Mugabe's party are reportedly preparing their militias for another campaign of systematic rape in the next presidential election, the report says. To stop them from doing it again, it says, they must be prosecuted under international laws on crimes against humanity.

All this is told to us as if it was something new, discovered only by dint of the hard work of this group over the last few months. In fact the campaign against those whose race, tribe or politics differ from those of one of the worst-ever African dictators has gone on since even before the ill-considered handover of power by the lily-white and lily-livered British government in 1980.

Who was one of the loudest voices calling for the government of Ian Smith to hand Rhodesia over to the Mugabe and his brother black racists? Step forward Stephen Lewis, former leader of the NDP in Ontario and Voice of Virtue in the "great civil rights movement" of the 60s.

It's not that they weren't warned. Mugabe and his comrades were self-styled Marxists, intent on seizing for themselves, their cronies and their tribesmen "white cars, white farms and white women".

Of course those who said as much were vilified as incorrigible racists. But see what has happened since the British forced Smith to cede power in 1980. Zimbabwe, at that time the second-most advanced country in sub-Saharan Africa (second only to the terrible apartheid state of South Africa) has descended into abject poverty.

Zimbabwe is literally going back to bush. And who is responsponsible? Who has been in power all that time? Who was just, at the age of 85, selected by his party to lead the party and the country for another five years? "Bob's your uncle."

Stephen Lewis and all the other western liberal do-gooders created Mugabe the Monster. Now, suddenly, they see that maybe they made a mistake. (Apparently they haven't yet found a way to blame the white settlers -- the few hundred that are left -- for the rapes and violence.) But it's too late.

The monster is loose and rampages through the land. No international court of justice will stop him, and there is no reliable justice system in his own country. Only a sudden case of lead poisoning will save Zimbabwe from his further depradations.