They knew he was a thug?

Regional observers  have said Zimbabwe's presidential poll did not reflect the will of the people, hours after Robert Mugabe was sworn in for another term.

The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) election observers said pre-poll violence had undermined the vote's credibility.

BBC regional correspondent Peter Biles says it is a major blow for Mr Mugabe.

Mr Mugabe claimed a landslide victory as the sole candidate after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew.

The statement from the election observers comes on the eve of a summit of African Union (AU) leaders in Egypt which Mr Mugabe is expected to attend.

"In 1987, after conducting a murderous campaign to crush the forces of a rival liberation hero, Joshua Nkomo, and the people of Matabeleland, the province that was Nkomo's base, Mugabe and Nkomo signed a unity accord that merged the two forces into a single party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or ZANU-PF, which still rules Zimbabwe.

Then why did UMass honor the guy when they knew he was a thug?

There is one major, imponderable difference now: The gruesome violence has been inflicted in the Internet age.

The photographic and video evidence of atrocities is online in real time: the women whose bottoms were beaten for so many hours they've turned deep purple; the men whose backs are pocked with burns from dribbled, burning plastic; the young boys and girls with broken legs and black eyes.