Yesterday, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected a resolution by the African Union to begin talks with dictator Robert Mugabe, citing continuing violence by the government against its people and the role of South African president Thabo Mbeki—who has shown no inclination to side against Mugabe—as mediator of any discussion.

"The conditions in Zimbabwe today are not conducive to negotiations," said Tsvangirai. There's a stunning article in today's Independent that gives another brutal example of what those conditions are like:

He has whipped strangers with barbed wire and hit them with iron bars. He has stood by while old men were beaten half to death, as he chanted songs glorifying the violence.

Gibson became one of Robert Mugabe's foot soldiers when the 84-year-old President turned an election into a guerrilla war. He is one of thousands of members of the armed youth militias who have turned on their own people in a vicious campaign of looting, torture and murder. But now Gibson is risking his life to tell his story. He was forcibly recruited into the campaign of terror and now he can see no way out. Not yet 25, his life is now completely "alien" to him he says. There is no end in sight, even now the elections have come and gone and the terror tactics have succeeded in overturning the opposition's first round lead and returned Mr Mugabe to office.

So begins "The shame of a Mugabe torturer: 'I am being forced to kill someone'." As those of us here in America get ready to leave our offices early en route to a holiday weekend celebrating democracy, this article is a sobering reminder of what others are willing to do to achieve it for themselves. Or prevent it for others.