The sight of a battered Morgan Tsvangirai and his limping, bandaged fellow dissidents emerging from court in Zimbabwe spoke eloquently of the depth to which the regime of Robert Mugabe has sunk. Mr Tsvangirai is now in hospital with a suspected skull fracture.
Among the seriously injured in court, beaten and tortured, according to their lawyers, were Lovemore Madukhu, leader of the National Constitutional Assembly, with a broken wrist and head injuries, and activist Grace Kwinjeh with head wounds that nearly severed her ear.
The latest excesses have brought a torrent of expressions of concern from around the world, including a warning from President Bush that he would hold Mr Mugabe responsible for the safety of opposition leaders and, significantly, from South Africa. Pretoria has to date refrained from joining Zimbabwe's public critics, preferring what it has called a policy of "quiet diplomacy", seen by many as quiescence.
Although Mr Mugabe has been manoeuvring to get himself another term as president, the evidence is that there are now deep divisions in his Zanu-pf party and increasing pressures from the business community for him to retire. The party is split over who will succeed him but his long-successful divide-and-rule tactics have started to backfire as the two main factions are coming together to try to prevent him from staying on.
The respected, non-partisan International Crisis Group (ICG) argues in a paper this week that for the first time in years a convergence of political and economic factors may make possible Mr Mugabe's negotiated departure. It warns, however, that his exit alone, without significant democratic reforms, would be pointless.
The ICG persuasively calls on the 14-member state South African Development Community (SADC) to step up its diplomatic role as honest broker for an agreed exit strategy. That should include pressure on reformers in Zanu-pf and the two wings of the Movement for Democratic Change, the leader of one of which is Mr Tsvangirai, to declare their willingness to be part of a power-sharing transitional government to oversee development of a new constitution, repeal repressive laws and hold presidential and parliamentary elections by 2010.
Mr Mugabe, to use Maozedong's analogy, is now a "paper tiger". His regime's social base has evaporated entirely; its economic foundations have rotted. He has no friends internationally. All that remains is the snarl of the tiger, the thuggish police whose own survival depends on propping up their leader. He will go soon. But does he have the sense to avoid the Ceausescu route?