THE SITUATION in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate to the extent that about one-half of the population is now on food relief in order to survive. Unless international help is given quickly, starvation looms.

On September 15, Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai, who is Prime Minister-designate and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), signed the unity government deal to avert civil war.

It was a humiliating moment for Mugabe to make such a deal in the presence of other eminent African leaders. As it turned out, it seems that he was probably bluffing even as he groped for a safety valve that would help ease the pressure on himself.

The agreement that would have seen Tsvangirai as the prime minister hit the brick wall when Mugabe opted to give key cabinet positions to members of his Zanu-PF party. The MDC leader accused Mugabe of unwillingness to compromise and live up to his end of the bargain.

Leaders of 15 African States recently met under the aegis of Southern African Development Community in Johannesburg to try to unlock the power-sharing impasse in Zimbabwe.

This meeting came just hours after the leader of South Africa's African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, who is expected to become president after elections next year, proposed "the use of force to disentangle the stand-off".

This is a strong statement with which we wholeheartedly agree as it is time a spade is called a spade, however undiplomatically. It also indicated that Zuma would take a much more aggressive stance against President Robert Mugabe than his predecessor Thabo Mbeki.

It is no secret that South Africa has borne the brunt of the three million refugees fleeing Zimbabwe, while Mugabe presides over the world's worst case of hyperinflation and accuses anyone who comments on his economic carnage of interfering in his country's internal affairs.

It is a sad moment for Africa as Mugabe plays a hopeless game of ping-pong over who will take which seats, and in Rwanda and Sudan, it is another sordid exodus of hapless human beings as ragtag militias kill innocent civilians with relative impunity.

It is a most agonising moment for a country that has not had a full and functional government since the sham elections in March which from all reports was won by the MDC and Tsvangirai, who boycotted the rerun.

It is clear that Mugabe has no intention of compromising and reluctantly we have to agree with Zuma that the time for talking has come to an end and some means have to be found to remove Mugabe, who has outlived his usefulness.

It is time African leaders stop handling him with kid gloves in the pretext of non-interference in the internal affairs of another state. Pressure must be intensified, otherwise they will be seen as accomplices in the catastrophe.