This week, on television, I saw children weeping in front of a United Nations envoy because they had not been able to get their invalid mother out of her home before Mugabe's bulldozers razed it to the ground.

Nearby a baby had been similarly crushed. All of the families were homeless and desperate women thrust a screaming baby, which had lost its mother, into the envoy's arms. Marie-Antoinette-like, she ordered them to feed it, only to be told they had no food. In that same news item I watched that same envoy smile as she presented Mugabe with a gift-wrapped present from the UN.

And when I call the United Nations a busted flush, people take me to task! How can our Government call anyone trying to escape Mugabe's regime a "failed" asylum seeker and attempt to return them? Surely their origin alone proves their right to sanctuary.