Peter Tatchell, a revolutionary hero of our times

In championing the removal of Mugabe, he has become something of a darling of the right

For a brief time, after the major battles for gay liberation in this country had been won, it looked as if Peter Tatchell was just going to carry on with the great fight regardless of the minor fact that it was all but over. His campaigning on marginal and widely distrusted issues, such as the lowering of the age of consent to 14, made him look like a man who simply wouldn't accept victory with grace.

But instead of becoming bogged down in the sometimes quite arcane details of polishing gay rights to perfection, Mr Tatchell has branched out, not only into international gay issues but into human rights more generally.

He can still be relied upon to spot the gay angles on British issues with a gimlet eye. He's still, of course, committed to seeing an end to Clause 28. But far from pouring all of his formidable energies into these issues alone, he has emerged on a far wider platform.

What an antidote Mr Tatchell's presence is to the sight of the bloated dictator Robert Mugabe, medals clanking, in Paris. Mr Mugabe is there to take part in a France-Africa summit and, say the French, to receive a firm reprimand for his bad behaviour in starving and terrorising so many of his 12 million countrymen. The world has been patient with Mr Mugabe's excesses for many years, finding it reasonably easy to put on the back burner the issue of the massacre of 10,000 to 20,000 people in Matabeleland in the early 1980s. More difficult to deal with has been Mr Mugabe's land redistribution project, which consists of removing white farmers from their land, then, in the absence of farming expertise or equipment among the new owners, leaving the land derelict, the economy collapsed and the people starving. Apparently, a number of other African leaders find all this rather admirable. Maybe, in a gradual, fair, consultative and controlled fashion, it could have been. Too late now. The whole thing has instead been a blood-curdling disaster.

Much of Europe's inability to take a stand over this surely arises out of colonial guilt, and an unhelpfully cringing sort of reverse racism. Much of it also arises out of the colonial resentment and anti-white racism of the other southern African nations, who carry on backing Mugabe against Europe, no matter how much his people suffer.

The old monster's presence in Paris is itself testament to the mind boggling real-politik that contributes so much to the glazing over of otherwise intelligent eyes when it comes to international diplomacy. The Mugabes and their apparatchiks have been under an EU travel ban, which has been lifted on condition that the French don't veto the renewal of sanctions against his regime.

And other than the limited disapprobation promised by that dubious trade-off, nothing much else is planned to rescue Zimbabweans from starvation and torture. Even their suspension from the Commonwealth is likely to end soon, as South Africa and Nigeria, two of the three nations charged with monitoring Zimbabwe's record – Australia being the other – feel that Mr Mugabe has "suffered enough".

Nearly every other interested party in Britain is happy to splutter about how outrageous it is that Robert is sampling the meals of France's pre-eminent chef, while his wife, Grace, enjoys the shopping, when his people are suffering so terribly and so needlessly. Of course, it's outrageous, of course the French are gross for playing host to such a travesty. But Mr Tatchell has what seems to me like a good way of dealing more practically with the matter.

A veteran of direct-action campaigning, Mr Tatchell is in the French capital to deliver a 100-page deposition outlining why Mr Mugabe ought to be arrested under the UN convention on torture. Twice before he has attempted a citizen's arrest against Mr Mugabe, one try resulting in his own arrest and one resulting in a beating. In Paris this week he was arrested again, along with 18-year-old Tom Spicer, who has been tortured in Zimbabwe for his political stance against the 78-year-old President. Later, the pair, along with sundry other members of their protest team, were released after a dressing down for demonstrating without a permit. One can only wonder which ticking off, Mr Mugabe's or Mr Tatchell's, was the more strenuous one.

An odd consequence of Mr Tatchell's shift of campaigning emphasis is that in championing the removal of Mr Mugabe, he has become something of a darling of the right. Even the shadow Foreign Secretary, Michael Ancram, has urged Jack Straw to back Mr Tatchell's suggestions. What a pity it is that he won't.

But when a government can't even be relied upon to say whether or not Zimbabwe is at present a suitable place to play international cricket, it isn't likely to suggest that maybe that country's leader should be taken out of circulation. Why pick a wicked dictator up off the streets of a European capital, when the Prime Minister believes that the best way of removing wicked dictators is to bomb the entire population of the country instead?

Mr Tatchell, by the way, is way ahead of both hawks and doves in his own analysis of what should be done about Saddam Hussein. He rejects war, but dislikes the succour such a position gives to that dictator as well. He prescribes a regime-change-from-within strategy which involves funding satellite TV and radio stations to break Saddam's media censorship, and allow the co-ordination of the mounting of a campaign of civil resistance in the country. He advocates training and arming opposition forces in the no-fly zones in the north and south. In this way, he contends, a civilian and military rebellion would avoid the accusation of neo-imperialism and create conditions that would be likely to ensure a more stable and enduring democracy. This, of course, is the very scenario that the US backed away from when the last Gulf war ended.

In Zimbabwe though, Tony Blair has the opportunity to effect regime change with a simple arrest, without involving his great American ally and without the threat of war.

Instead, Mr Blair, apart from being very, very angry with Mr Mugabe, is intent on not much more than being seen not to be involved. Negotiations have been feverish surrounding a summit in Lisbon, which the southern African countries say they will boycott if Zimbabwe is not represented, and which Mr Blair will not attend if Mr Mugabe does. The expected compromise is that Zimbabwe's foreign minister will attend instead.

What I don't understand though, is why Mr Blair is willing to argue for a huge great war in order to unseat one dictator, while he is not willing to countenance the Tatchell route, and risk a period of diplomatic chaos over the unseating of another. The cause is certainly just, because a regime change in Zimbabwe will be sure to save millions from death by malnutrition (at the moment food aid is given out according to political allegiance).

Mr Tatchell doesn't need an army to unseat a dictator, he just needs some friends at the top who will take up his blueprint. Surely it would be a positive step, to decide to arrest torturers, instead of attempting to reason with them. As for those who prefer torturers to Europeans, well they too will have to wake up to the fact that the best way of stopping Europe from sorting it out, is to sort it out themselves. If the right can embrace Mr Tatchell, then anyone can change for the better.

d.orr@independent.co.uk