Zimbabwe for too long has been a country about which it has become difficult to speak, and impossible to stay silent. There will now, quite rightly, be calls for more effective action against Robert Mugabe's wilful tyranny. But before the international community considers intervention that puts its blood and treasure at risk, it should take measures that put precisely what Mr Mugabe's men treasure most - their families and their fortunes - in jeopardy.

With Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, taking refuge in the Dutch Embassy in Harare yesterday after having withdrawn his party from Friday's presidential run-off vote, the moment has arrived when even the most optimistic observers have acknowledged that all last hope for a legitimate transition to a new government has evaporated like water on a hot griddle. The time has come for the political to become personal.

We already know half a dozen of the Harare Henchmen who keep Mr Mugabe in power. It is time to target them, their assets overseas and the children they send to study in our schools and universities. These hoodlums may have no need to cower in Harare, but there should be no hiding place for them and their families abroad.

Who are they? Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe's Minister of Rural Housing, is notorious for his brutality towards opponents and for his desire to succeed Mr Mugabe. Constantine Chiwenga is the ruthless Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Force. The son of Augustine Chihuri, Commissioner General of Zimbabwe Republic Police, has already been deported from Australia. Retired Major-General Paradzayi Zimondi, head of the Prison Service, ordered his officers to vote for Mr Mugabe. Air Marshal Perence Shiri is chief of the Air Force and Mr Mugabe's cousin. Brighton Bonyongwe, formerly a brigadier-general in the Defence Force before retiring to take on the role of head of the Central Intelligence Organisation, enjoys life on his two previously white-owned farms. These men should know that the world is no longer watching and waiting, but readying itself to act.

What can be done to these men? Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister for Africa, urged the United Nations and the African Union yesterday to join Britain and the European Union in considering deeper sanctions: acting against the financial assets of members of Mr Mugabe's administration, against their freedom to travel without arrest, or against allowing children of Mr Mugabe's inner circle to study overseas. Mr Mugabe and his henchmen must be left in no doubt that the world is collecting evidence of his crimes and that a case could be brought in the International Criminal Court.

A civilised world is aware that hand-wringing from the sidelines is no longer a morally fit response to the tragedy of Zimbabwe. Gordon Brown told the House of Commons yesterday: “The world is of one view: that the status quo cannot continue. The current Government is a regime that should not be recognised by anyone.”

Mr Mugabe is reaching his endgame, as yet unwritten. He could succumb to a national uprising, an economic collapse, a foreign invasion. But the most swift, least bloody and most likely conclusion is for his own men to sense that Mr Mugabe's end is near - and with his, theirs. In these circumstances, they will turn on him. It is time to provoke his inner circle to expedite this end.

Britain does not sense any appetite for military intervention. But nor can such intervention ever entirely be ruled out. The world is not in the business of ignoring forever the murderous havoc of Zimbabwe's despot. In the meantime, the West must join Harare's neighbours in squeezing the Zimbabwean leadership until the pips squeak.