Who's hot? Who's not?

HOT: Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan)

The general has been down so long, that anything looks like up to him. So when Musharraf declared martial law this week, even his innumerable enemies had to concede that Musharraf still has enough political juice to be reckoned with. Is the state of emergency a desperate move to retain power? Will his bizarre assault on Pakistan's judges and lawyers capture the imagination of the public? Will the scolding by the United States help, or harm his reputation with Pakistan's intransigent intelligence services?

He's got nowhere to go but down from here, but for today? The man is red hot.



NOT HOT: Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

At long last, the world is getting ready for a Zimbabwe without Robert Mugabe. At 83 years old, he no longer has the energy or political will to keep control of the ruling ZANU-PF party. Could anyone have imagined five years ago that the ZANU-PF leadership would be talking about ousting Mugabe in a coup d'etat? Of course not. Mugabe's pitiful plans to run for re-election one more time are looking more and more like the pleas of a tired old man to go out on top. We're betting he'll be out long before the 2008 elections.

A shocker from Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe came perilously close to a moment of critical self-realization when he acknowledged that an economic meltdown, massive emigration and widespread malnutrition have turned Zimbabwe into an international "laughing stock". A quarter of Zimbabweans have fled the country, and of the remaining eight million people, nearly half will be requiring food aid in the coming year.

Shockingly, Mugabe even made what may have been his first ever public conciliatory remarks about his bitter political enemies, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Anyone who's read what Mugabe's had to say about the MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the past must have been shellshocked when Mugabe said

We have become the laughing stock because of hunger. We all need to eat, whether you are Zanu-PF or MDC. Let's unite.

- Robert Mugabe

Mugabe calling for unity with the MDC? Based on his previous attitude towards the MDC, you get the sense that Mugabe would rather unite with a prostate tumor. It would be foolish to say that Robert Mugabe is unaware of Zimbabwe's miseries, but a statement calling for unity between ZANU-PF and the MDC suggests that, perhaps, he's also finally seeing the light at the end of the political tunnel. He has acknowledged that Zimbabwe's social and economic problems are, for once, of greater concern than whether or not ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe are in power forever. Could this statement further suggest his readiness to depart from the political scene?

Mugabe's acknowledgment of Zimbabwe's problems stopped short of an admission of guilt, however. While quick to take credit for everything that had gone right in Zimbabwe, Mugabe and ZANU-PF have forever been unable to take the blame when their harebrained schemes have backfired.

You won't have Bob Mugabe to kick around anymore

Stop me if you've heard this before, but Robert Mugabe's career in politics looks like it may be coming to an abrupt end. If Zimbabwe were a normal country, they would have voted out a leader who has managed to single handedly ruin the economy and send a quarter of the population into exile, but that's just not how dictatorships work, now is it?

Mugabe's main method of retaining power has been the most effective tool of the African big man - cronyism. Over the years, Mugabe has, by and large anyway, eschewed the iron fist in favor of the velvet glove that offered potential political enemies a way into the ruling party to grab a share in the earnings from corruption. It's a classic strategy, and one that's proved to be extremely effective. The only problem is, what happens when the ruling political class runs out of money to steal, and people to extort bribes from? Robert Mugabe has been discovering the answer, and it isn't pretty.

Since independence, Mugabe has held a firm grip on the ruling ZANU-PF party, making quite sure never to let any single person rise through the ranks to the point where anyone would consider him or her to be "next in line". Yet because of Zimbabwe's economic implosion, a challenger within ZANU-PF has thrown down the gauntlet. A political faction within ZANU-PF led by retired General Solomon Mujuru has found itself engaging in a power struggle with the octogenarian Mugabe. So what's their beef?

Mugabe has insisted on running for reelection in 2008, and while he's hinted that he may step down if elected, he's also said that he intends to rule Zimbabwe until "at least" 2010. The Mujuru faction, on the other hand, is apparently insisting that Mugabe retire as soon as possible, which would lead the way for either Solomon or his wife Joyce to take control of ZANU-PF, which would lead the Mujurus just one more rigged election away from taking control of the country. Mugabe, of course, doesn't want to hear it, and he's attempting to fight back. Mugabe has ordered the state run press to insult the Mujuru faction, and has forbidden any "flattering" coverage of the Mujurus. Simultaneously, he's ordered the same outlets to provide extremely flattering coverage of Emmerson Mnangagwa, a politician who has fallen in and out favor with Mugabe, but who leads yet another ZANU-PF faction hostile to the Mujurus. Unfortunately for Mugabe, however, the press has very little influence on decision making inside the Zimbabwean politburo, and Mnangagwa's proximity to Mugabe is seen as little more than a crippling political liability.

Ominously for Mugabe, Solomon Mujuru appears to have gained supporters from the armed services, which is the only political faction Mugabe cannot afford to alienate. After squashing an alleged coup back in June, rumors abound that the Mujuru faction has reached out to the army, promising a greater role in government in exchange for their political support in the struggle with Mugabe. Nobody has been able to ascertain if the army backs the Mujurus, or if they will, as is also rumored, launch a coup if Mugabe is pushed out. As the only state institution capable of providing the muscle to prop up the government, the Army's political support has become the brass ring Harare's kleptocrats are flailing away at.

Now 83 years old, Mugabe is increasingly showing signs of frailty, and that he now lacks the physical and political vigor that sustained him during his most intense political challenges. The sharks are circling the lifeboat, and frankly, it's impossible to see how Mugabe is going to win that elusive final term to secure his "legacy" in politics. This isn't to say that the ZANU-PF predators looking to oust Mugabe will be any better for Zimbabwe's exhausted population of paupers, but I'm having a hard time imagining any scenario where Mugabe can outwit, or outmaneuver, them for much longer.

Sympathy for the devil

People always say that if you live long enough, you'll see everything at least once. Today is one of those days, for today, I have come to defend the honor of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

OK, perhaps "defend" is a strong word, but I've been following the recent brouhaha surrounding Robert Mugabe's presence, or lack thereof, at a summit of European and African leaders to be held in Lisbon this December. British prime minister Gordon Brown has spared absolutely no effort to inform the press that he intends to boycott the summit if Robert Mugabe attends. Mugabe, whose dislike of the UK knows few boundaries, has gamely shrugged off Brown's threat as political grandstanding. Sadly, Mugabe is absolutely right.

Gordon Brown's decision to treat Robert Mugabe like a radioactive leper is, of course, quite fair. Mugabe is a horrible man, and he's managed to completely destroy Zimbabwe during the nearly 30 years he's been in power. However, I have yet to be able to find a single good reason that Mugabe has been subjected to a level of disgust and scrutiny that the United Kingdom has yet to apply to some of the world's even more notorious dictators. I have been searching in vain, for example, for any boycott threats Brown has made to yesterday's featured dictator, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, or the truly infamous Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea.

My own opinion of Robert Mugabe has been quite clear. However it much it pains me to do so, though, I will be the first to admit that the UK's rhetoric on Mugabe has become somewhat ... overheated. It would be one thing, I suppose, if Mugabe's notoriety for violence were at issue, but it's not. In fact, when the Mugabe regime carried out the bloody gukurahundi, Zimbabwe's official relations with the United Kingdom were quite good, still basking in the post-colonial glow that claimed Zimbabwe would be the country that proved blacks and whites could live together in harmony on African soil.

While the low level war conducted against one of Zimbabwe's largest ethnic groups for political reasons does not appear to have overly troubled the United Kingdom, Mugabe's utterly scandalous comments about homosexuality appear to have done more damage to Anglo-Zimbabwean relations than the apparently more trivial murder of 30,000 Ndebele in Matabeleland. Yet this can't be the only explanation for Britain's stance on Mugabe either, since no other African dictator has gone on the record to express an even vaguely dissimilar view of homosexuality. Could it have been policy of forcing white farmers off the land? It's possible, but Mugabe and Britain worked as parters on this project before things went sour, and even then, Britain's tone regarding Mugabe wasn't even half as poisonous then as it is today. So what, then?

I'd also love to chalk it up to the sour relationships that develop between former colonies and their former colonial masters, but the theory falls apart when comparing official British government rhetoric about Mugabe to that of Omar al-Bashir. Considering Sudan's rather notorious involvement in Darfur, you'd think that his responsibility in the rape, murder and displacement of millions would generate just a bit more opprobrium than Mugabe ran into for having Morgan Tsvangvirai beat up in prison. Mugabe jailed him, but you can bet that al-Bashir or Obiang Nguema would have ordered Tsvangirai to be shot.

After, Mugabe might be an intractable dictator, but at least since the end of the gukurahundi anyway, he has not been a mass murderer. I wish the entire world would snub Robert Mugabe, but I also wish they'd extend the exact same rhetoric, and the exact same treatment, to dictators who make Robert Mugabe look like a creampuff. Consistency may or may not be the hobgoblin of small minds, it can serve as a checkpoint for keeping things in perspective. Mugabe cannot be compared to the likes of Saddam Hussein, Than Shwe, or Pol Pot, because he's simply not brutal enough. Bad, yes, the worst, no.

So there you have it: a defense, however, weak of Robert Mugabe. I hope I don't ever have to do that ever again.

UPDATE: Comrade Bob may be an asshole, but does he have to make me look like an asshole for sticking up for him one time? No sooner had I finished this post when I learned that Mugabe is withholding water from the city of Bulawayo to punish them for voting against ZANU-PF. Thanks for nothing, Bob.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe ...

Zimbabwe's octogenarian dictator Robert Mugabe has, apparently , decided that the current smoldering ruins of his nation's economy aren't, er, smoldering or ruined enough. Therefore, in a fit of inspired brilliance, Mugabe has decreed that the small handful of foreign owned companies remaining in Zimbabwe should hand over 51% ownership to "native Zimbabweans", thereby destroying whatever slim chances remained that foreign companies will be bringing any investment whatsoever to the world's most damaged economy. A bill to nationalize the assets in questions has been produced, and there's no doubt whatsoever that Mugabe's rubber stamp parliament will give it the green light as soon as possible. Nationalization is a controversial process anywhere it's practiced, but in Zimbabwe, "nationalization" has simply become a shorthand term for punishing your political enemies with the confiscation of their property, and handing it over to your political cronies as a reward for their continued loyalty. And in Zimbabwe's tough times, buying loyalty is proving harder than ever.

In a country where ordinary citizens no longer drive because of the scarcity of fuel, Mugabe has rewarded the bigwigs in the state security services with brand new Mazda 3's. In the old days, he was fond of rewarding his friends with Mercedes-Benzes, but even dictators have to tighten their belts when the going gets really tough. Mugabe had better hope that a shiny new Japanese economy car satisfies the police and military brass, because the rank and file army - the only institution capable of propping up the tottering regime, are defecting over their low wages - which come to less than $10 month. Mugabe has offered to step down from power if he wins the 2008 presidential elections (curiously, he made no such promise to do so if he lost), but frankly, it's difficult to imagine that he can hold onto power for even that long. It's difficult to see how Zimbabwe can even afford the cost of staging yet another round of nakedly crooked elections when the nation's political and economic institutions have practically ceased to function.

Mugabe offers to step down in 2008

Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe is reportedly offering to resign after the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008. The 83 year old Mugabe is said to have informed his military general staff that he would be willing to step down in exchange for their assistance in securing a parliamentary win for Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party.

Mugabe wishes to run for re-election in 2008, and if the reports are accurate, he wishes to win the election to save face and "humiliate the Western governments bent on re-occupying us". After winning in 2008, he would hypothetically turn control of the country over to a successor. Which successor? Nobody knows, as Mugabe has cycled through countless sycophants since coming to power in 1980. Mugabe certainly knows how to control the Zimbabwean electoral process, with a mix of force and fraud, and there seems to be little doubt that Mugabe could pull out another ZANU-PF win if he really wanted to.

Mugabe's advisers have read the writing on the wall, however. Zimbabwe's economy is the worst in the world, and Mugabe's own security services chief has publicly advised Mugabe that the public is so fed up that Mugabe might not even win a rigged election in 2008 - an unthinkable proposition for Robert Mugabe. Mugabe's lied for so long that it's hard to imagine anyone taking him seriously this time, but this certainly is the first time Mugabe has made any indication that he'd be willing to step down at all period.

UPDATE: Radio Netherlands Worldwide hosts a round table discussion on the political and economic meltdown in Zimbabwe (available here).

No South African bailout for Mugabe

Apparently, the rumors that the South African Development Community were planning to rescue the Zimbabwean economy by pegging the value of the Zimbabwean dollar to the South African rand have, apparently turned out to be inaccurate.

Well, the reports probably were accurate. After all, they were leaked by sources inside the SADC itself. However, the SADC wasn't quite prepared for the flurry of condemnation that followed. Why would anyone in their right mind prop up Robert Mugabe's regime by fixing his economy and leaving (for the most part) the political problems that have ruined it in place? Within less than two days, South Africa went from expressing "concern" over the Zimbabwean economic nightmare, to pitching the rand idea, to denying everything. I've got to hand it to Thabo Mbeki - he's certainly figured out the mechanics of the news cycle par excellence. Once an invaluable ally in the anti-apartheid struggle, even some of the same black South Africans who once owned Mugabe a debt of gratitude are starting to get fed up with Mugabe's intractable tyranny.

There's no denying, however, that South Africa has made a royal mess out of their relationship with Robert Mugabe, and they're looking for a quick and politically painless exit from their once inseparable relationship with Mugabe. President Mbeki is learning first hand how "regional leadership" isn't all it's cracked up to be. South Africa did not create the Mugabe dictatorship - true. However, they suddenly realized just how ineffective their "quiet diplomacy" with Mugabe was.

I suggest that Thabo Mbeki start reading up on the nature of dictatorships to find out why Robert Mugabe has put his own interests ahead of his relationship with South Africa, or even that of his own people. It might even save South Africa a bit of embarrassment down the line when they will inevitably deal with the same problems down the line with Angolan dictator José Eduardo dos Santos! And until then? Well, there's always the strategy of "quiet disengagement", which is also known as, "ignore him, and maybe he'll just go away". It doesn't work any better than "quiet diplomacy", but it certainly offers the same results with even less work.

Mugabe's comatose economic policy

Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is living proof why octogenarian Marxists have absolutely no business trying to manage a nation's economy. Consider Mugabe's classic Marxist response to his country's eye popping, regime threatening, hyperinflation, to wit, unleashing the state security services on shopkeepers who violate state price controls. Mugabe's blamed the British government for hatching a devious plot to undermine his regime by somehow getting shopkeepers to ignore government price controls and has instituted a crackdown by the "inflation police" to remedy the problem.

If you're the sort of person whose eyes glaze over when the topic of economics comes up, pay attention to this painless summary of what caused Zimbabwe's hyperinflation. Due to horrendous economic mismanagement and scandalous public corruption, the value of the Zimbabwean dollar has plummeted as the reserves of foreign "hard" currency in Zimbabwe's central bank dwindled to nothing. Without any hard currency to back up the value of the Zimbabwean dollar, the Zimbabwean government found itself unable to pay for imports of things like oil, food, and so on. With no cash on hand, the government simply printed more money. When you have a growing supply of worthless money chasing an ever dwindling supply of goods, inflation is born. When the government's printing presses outstrip the supply of goods by an enormous margin, you wind up with hyperinflation.

Mugabe's fetish for implementing halfassed Marxist economic policies have left him unprepared for dealing with the world's worst hyperinflation. The classic economic view of inflation states that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon. Mugabe himself probably knows this, but for whatever reason, he continues to ignore the reasons the Zimbabwean dollar is worth less than a square of toilet paper. Why institute economic reforms when you can have the cops rough up shopkeepers for failing to adhere to prices concocted at random by government bureaucrats?

"Do not distort our prices. Stop it or we will force you to close or we take over your factory!"

-Warning to Zimbabwean shopkeepers in government newspapers

Mugabe is doubtlessly aware that even if shopkeepers sold their goods at the official price, the actual value of the currency received at the end of the day will be worth much less by the end of the next day, precipitating the need for yet another set of "official" prices on a daily (or more!) basis. The merchants lose money on every single transaction, and when they're out of goods, they're out of business, thereby reducing even further the number of goods available to buy with the still skyrocketing supply of banknotes. As always, Mugabe's solution is making the problem infinitely worse.

It's impossible to imagine that Mugabe actually believes he has any chance of succeeding, which prompts the question of what Mugabe intends to do when his police and soldiers are getting tired of being saddled with mountains of worthless money that can't buy them food or clothing. A real economist would have stopped the bleeding years ago by implementing government austerity plans and tackling corruption. Mugabe, however, relies on extravagant perks to his minister and access to stealing public monies as the cement that holds his ever increasingly shaky government coalition together. In other words, when beating the crap out of store owners fails to fix the problem, Mugabe's going to need one hell of a Plan B.

UPDATE: Archbishop Ncube is begging Great Britain to invade Zimbabwe and overthrow Mugabe. I think this qualifies as a "discourse on post-colonial power", don't you?

Crushed by cash

Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly 30 years, and during this time, he's tackled a number of challenges to his authority without breaking much of a sweat. You name the crisis, and Mugabe's had a response. Is a portion of your populace supporting rival politicians? No problem, just send a North Korean trained goon squad to blast them to pieces. You say trade union leaders are clamoring for democracy? Just arrest them and beat them within an inch of their lives. Even if the problem is just poor people creating unsightly slums, Mugabe's found ways to come out on top.

However, not all problems can be solved by force, and one such trouble in particular might just lead to the end of the Robert Mugabe era. What's that problem, you ask? Hyperinflation. I've mentioned before on how Zimbabwe's inflation rates have gone well over the 1,500% mark, but it appears now that the worst is yet to come. In the past three days alone, the Zimbabwean currency has devalued by half, a rate of inflation of somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 percent for the month of May alone. June's been even worse, with currency values now changing twice or more per day as the government simply prints more Zimbabwean dollars to chase after a scandalously tiny supply of goods to buy with their mountains of money.

Yesterday, one US dollar bought 300,000 Zimbabwean dollars and it's expected to rise to 400,000 to 1 by today. Outgoing US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell said the embassy's economic forecast based on the past year's pattern predicts the rate of inflation to reach a staggering one and a half million percent by the end of the year. Normally, the ZANU-PF regime has been untroubled by Zimbabwe's economic woes, just as long as long as the ruling elites had access to reserves of foreign currency that had, in the past, usually been gained by taking kickbacks on government contracts. At one point, this was a very lucrative business in Zimbabwe, and more than one ZANU-PF minister made a fortune skimming contracts on everything from pencils, to oil, to canned goods.

The good old days can't last forever though, and Zimbabwe no longer has any hard currency with which to buy anything. With the country flat broke, power brokers in ZANU-PF are nervously contemplating the possibility they will have to try and make do with getting paid government salaries in Zimbabwean dollars - a frightening prospect for anyone at the moment. The fear of their own poverty, more than any other issue, appears to have driven a solid wedge between Mugabe and the ZANU-PF leaders who used to act as his rubber stamp ministers and parliamentarians. Party infighting, and even coup plots, are tearing apart Comrade Bob's once politically unassailable ruling clique.

Mugabe is desperate to buy US dollars on the black market, if only to secure the gasoline and electricity to keep his security services with the bare minimum of resources required to scare his enemies. He's learning the hard way that these same security services have a finite level of patience for being paid with Zimbabwe's Monopoly money currency, and the odds of Mugabe collapsing under the weight of mountains of worthless cash increase every day. Sure, normal people in Zimbabwe are screwed by this, and the poor even more so!, but they might be able to take comfort in knowing that the symptoms of their economic misery might just prove to be fatal to the man responsible for it all.

E Unus Pluribum

Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe paid a leisurely visit to Tripoli this week for a warm tête-à-tête meeting with his Libyan counterpart, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. On the agenda? Qaddafi's favorite topic, of course: African unity. What did two of Africa's longest serving dictators propose? Why, uniting the entire continent under a single government for the purpose of "solving [Africa's] own problems". You don't have to guess too hard what it means when a pair of utterly unrepentant dictators are both calling for when they suggest ruling an entire continent under a single government.

To western ears at least, the phrase "African unity" has a peculiarly soothing ring to it to western ears. To American ears in particular, applying the word "unity" to "Africa" conjures up images of "problems" solved by "togetherness", even though both are hopelessly ignorant misconceptions. The first misconception is that there's some sort of monolithically identifiable entity of "Africa" that is universally hungry, poor and maladjusted. The second notion is that this place would somehow become "fixed" if only there could be "unity". Both notions are complete rubbish.

Africa is a mix of many nations and even more peoples. Some of them are together by choice, but most are not. The borders of most modern African nations were hobbled together by 19th century European technocrats half a world away, with practically no concern for whom they wished to associate with, or how they wished to lead their lives. Some nations have managed to make these curious new artificial nation states work. After all, if Belgium can do it then why can't Kenya? More often, however, this is not the case, nor should it be the case. Because there are so many "Africas" and countless different African peoples, no single possible government could ever hope to represent them all.

Africa, unlike the United States or Australia or China, does not have a single dominant culture, political tradition, or even a common language. This was the case in Africa before European colonialism, during colonialism, and will continue to be the case well after colonialism in Africa passes from living memory. In our frenzy to deny a pluralistic identity to people in Africa, we are essentially infantilizing an entire continent. There is no more a pan-African identity than there is a pan-Asian one, or pan-American one. Frankly, heterogeneity has a far better track record than artificial unity. Many have tried to cobble such an identity together, but have invariably failed, and usually for reasons they don't even seem to be able to understand. I'll give them a hint. Identity and culture transcend mere incidental geography, and the individual is naturally resistant to being subsumed into a group. In other words, "it would be nice if you'd ask us if we even want your artificial unity".

If your next door neighbor were a con-artist, would you open a joint checking account with him? Of course not. So I'm not clear how anyone in their right mind would still hang on to the "African unity" shibboleth when the greatest and most visible supporters of the concept just happen to be dictators like Qaddafi and Mugabe.

Gukurahundi

From This is Zimbabwe comes news of a new book about Robert Mugabe's infamous Gukurahundi ethnic cleansing campaign in the early 1980's. If you don't know about Mugabe's war against his country's own Ndebele population using North Korean trained death squads, you owe it to yourself to read the newly released Gukuruhundi in Zimbabwe (available via import from amazon.co.uk). I also personally recommend Our Votes, Our Guns by Martin Meredith, which provides a history of Gukurahundi, a detailed political history of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, as well as a personal and political history of Robert Mugabe himself.

Robert Mugabe rewards himself

Let's pretend for a moment that you're the dictator of a country that has long since reached the point of political, economic and social collapse. Your country, once one of the region's wealthiest, is now among the world's poorest, thanks to you. To make things worse, unemployment has surpassed 80%, inflation at nearly 4,000%, power cuts are rampant, and where your country used to be a major food exporter, it is now almost completely reliant on foreign charity to feed itself. What would you do next?

If you're Zimbabwean autocrat Robert Mugabe, the answer is simple: spend nearly $5,000,000 of public funds on a museum honoring yourself.

If Mugabe's decision to spend that much money on an utterly frivolous temple to himself seems odd, it shouldn't. He's always had a preference for putting symbolism at a higher premium than the mundane business of governance; his museum will simply reflect this. Since Mugabe's actual achievements as President have been frankly negligible, his museum will apparently devote the bulk of its space to honoring Mugabe's role as a freedom fighter against the government of Rhodesia. And that's probably a good thing, since good will for Mugabe took a fairly sharp nosedive when he decided to become de facto President for life of the nation he worked so hard to liberate.

The museum will also devote a large amount of exhibition space to gifts from visiting diplomats and heads of state (sound familiar?), a rather embarrassing choice in a country where the populace has been put into poverty by the government. One article describes one such recent gift that will be going in the museum, a 16 foot long stuffed crocodile given to Mugabe by his toadies in the ruling Zanu-PF party. One such sycophant, the improbably named Webster Shamu, gushed that the taxidermy specimen ...

" ... symbolized maturity, distilled and accumulated wisdom, and majestic authority - attributes that have been characteristic of the president's leadership during the protracted anti-colonialist struggle and even in the current struggle against imperialist and neo-colonialist forces."

That's obviously great news for the Zimbabwean public, who might have had cause to suspect that their country's transformation into a hell hole was due to leadership completely bereft of maturity, distilled or accumulated wisdom and majestic authority. Whatever else Mugabe's subjects might be angry about, I suppose they can be grateful that Wilson Shamu has cleared that up.

John Howard's shaky comparison

In a tedious row over international cricket, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has made a ridiculous comparison of Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party to Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. I think we can all agree, that however bad Mugabe's rule has been for Zimbabwe, the comparison of Mugabe to Hitler is inapt, offensive, and absurd.

After all, Hitler managed to fix the German economy.

UPDATE: Howard backs off a bit.

UPDATE II: This is my 100th post of 2007. I told you that I'd be stepping things up this year.

Au revoir, mon ami!

Has anyone else been following the election in France this past week? Well, even if you haven't been, it seems like half of the world's dictators have just lost one of their best friends: outgoing French President Jacques Chirac, who has highlighted a lengthy, some would say interminable, career in French politics, has apparently managed to become best friends with nearly every single dictator in Africa and the Middle East.

Chirac's friendship with the mercifully deceased Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is legendary, of course, once gushing "you are my personal friend. Let me assure you of my esteem, consideration and bond" to the Butcher of Baghdad. Saddam, who apparently wasn't particularly looking for compliments, must have been somewhat baffled by his newfound Gallic admirer, but became fast friends with Chirac all the same. Especially since Chirac found no problem with selling nuclear technology to Iraq during Chirac's stint as French Prime Minister in 1975.

Did Jacques Chirac object to Saddam's unique stipulations that the nuclear technology transfer program "contain no persons of either the Jewish race or Mosaic religion" both on the Iraqi and French sides of the project? Mais non! Pas de problème, mon ami! Saddam eventually came to find his strangely obsequious ally very useful indeed, especially when the French adamantly opposed the war the eventually toppled him. He might have preferred French military support, but that's something of a sore topic with France.

Chirac stepped up his fawning relationship with world dictators when he became President of France, especially when the dictators in question ruled French speaking, or especially, former French colonies. Chirac not only bankrolled, but struck up personal friendships with some of the world's most notorious tyrants, such as Algerian dictator Abdelaziz Bouteflika, autocrat Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d'Ivoire, and Tunisian strongman Zine El Abdine Ben Ali. The more notorious the reputation, the greater Chirac's apparent eagerness to strike up a friendship.

Even Chirac's notorious hostility to the English language couldn't prevent Chirac from striking up a personal friendship with Zimbabwean dictator, and international pariah, Robert Mugabe. So consistent was Chirac's track record in maintaining friendship with the world's most repressive leaders, Mugabe could not help but feel offended when France later made a big show of possibly denying Mugabe permission to visit Paris. If it's any comfort to Robert Mugabe, Chirac's newfound reluctance came only after his former willingness to embrace Mugabe caused a scandal in the French press. Chirac finally found courage enough to ignore the feelings of the French public and extend a warm hand to the visiting dictator. Mugabe was right to take umbrage, however briefly justified. Since when had the scorn of the public stopped Jacques Chirac from cozying up to a dictator?

While some will grant that maintaining diplomatic relationships with dictatorships is an unavoidable necessity, is it really necessary to befriend the dictators themselves? Chirac saw no problem with this whatsoever.

UPDATE: President elect Nicolas Sarkozy vows to discard the French status quo with regards to coddling injustice in the name of "stability".

Horn of Africa Week: The exile problem

As we all know, there's been quite a lot of news about Robert Mugabe's declining fortunes in Zimbabwe lately. There has been focus on the state of the economy, the harried political opposition and so forth, but I notice one story of interest missing from all the discussion regarding Mugabe's future. Namely, if Mugabe is ousted, what happens to exiled Ethiopian dictator Haile Mengistu Miriam? What happens to an ousted dictator when his dictator patron is knocked out, anyway?

After his ouster in a 1991 coup d'etat, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe where he was received in exile as a personal guest of Robert Mugabe, and given what has been described as a "lush" estate in the Harare suburb of Gunhill, protected by bodyguards provided by the Zimbabwean secret police, ostensibly to protect him from being kidnapped and dragged back to Ethiopia where he was convicted in absentia for crimes against humanity committed during his reign.

However, Mugabe's own position in Zimbabwe is increasingly untenable, and it's a good bet that whoever replaces him will be in no mood to extend such high profile hospitality to a notorious former dictator. Just ask former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, who found himself deported from exile Nigeria back to Liberia and onwards to a war crimes trial in Sierra Leone. Mengistu is one of the last remaining former Marxist dictators on the continent, which is what prompted fellow Marxist Mugabe to offer him a cushy home in exile. With the odds of Mugabe himself finding safe refuge in exile after his seemingly inevitable ouster so slim, the chance that anyone will also Mengistu as part of a two-for-one deal are practically nil. Even Ethiopia's sworn enemy, Eritrea, won't have anything to do with Mengistu, as Eritrea was especially brutalized by Mengistu when it was still a part of Ethiopia.

I suppose there may still be a place for a former Marxist tyrant with blood on his hands to live free of charge as a guest of the state. Perhaps Cuba? Venezuela? San Francisco? I'm not sure who would have him, but when Mugabe's time is finished, be sure to keep an eye peeled for news regarding one of the world's most loathsome political refugees.

Mugabe cries: "It's a conspiracy!"

Paranoia is a terrible personality trait for a normal person, but it's indispensable for any dictator worth his weight in self-awarded medals. Hence, it comes as little surprise to learn that Robert Mugabe has kicked his fear of everything up a notch and put a stop the operations of all nongovernmental organization aid groups operating in Zimbabwe on the pretext that they were working with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.

Ironically of course, Zimbabwe didn't need handouts of food or medicine until Mugabe himself turned one of the continent's most economically successful countries into one of the world's poorest, but I will reluctantly concede a point to Mugabe: starving your own people to death is, generally speaking, a politically pragmatic approach to getting rid of your domestic political enemies.

With the foreign do gooders out, the ruling Zanu-PF party is set to take over distributing food, and as it so happens, there only happens to be enough food to go around to people who areas where people have voted for Zanu-PF. That's a pretty astonishing coincidence, is it not? Actually, no, it is not. Mugabe has always used food as a weapon, and Zanu-PF continually tells the people, very straightforwardly, that if they want to eat or work, that they must vote for Zanu-PF, or else go poor and hungry.

The question is: how long can Mugabe hold on once Zanu-PF voters start going hungry, too?

Mbeki speculates on Mugabe

Worried about the future of Zimbabwe? Well, according to Zimbabwe's neighbors, you shouldn't. For example, South African president Thabo Mbeki believes that Robert Mugabe will step down peacefully, although he sounded surprisingly non-committal about this bombshell revelation, as if someone asked him if he would be available for cocktails on Friday:

"I think so. Yes, sure."

And what does his excellency base this opinion on?

"You see, President Mugabe and the leadership of ZANU-PF believe they are running a democracy."

Robert Mugabe may believe a great many things, but at no point would he ever concede privately that "elections" in Zimbabwe are anything but a cynical exercise in ballot stuffing and voter intimidation. Mbeki, who is not actually an imbecile, tacitly concedes this point, thereby completing a logical circle and taking his observation back to square one:

"You might question ... whether elections [in Zimbabwe] are genuinely free and fair, but we have to get Zimbabweans to where they do have genuinely free and fair."

Did you catch all that? Mugabe and ZANU-PF will step down peacefully because they "believe" they are running a democracy, and while Zimbabwean elections are not free and fair, if we can just get Zimbabweans to believe that they are, well, then return to the first statement: Mugabe and ZANU-PF will step down peacefully because ...

Nobody with a grain of common sense could believe for a minute that President Mbeki actually thinks that Robert Mugabe or his loathsome ZANU-PF cronies are going to step down peacefully, but as I've mentioned before, Mbeki would rather not take Mugabe to task in public, which is why he's framed his replies to queries about Mugabe in such speculative, politically harmless language.

Does Mbeki have some sort of inside knowledge about Mugabe's political future? It's possible, but if he does, he's certainly not sharing it with the public, preferring instead to engage in harmless speculation that pretends there's nothing seriously wrong in Zimbabwe. In reality, Mbeki knows Mugabe, and knows that Mugabe has given every indication that he intends to be president until he dies. It's this realization that makes Mbeki's public squirming over Mugabe uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially for everyone who's fed up with the out of control events in Zimbabwe.

So what does all of this amount to? Another squandered opportunity for South Africa to do anything constructive in ending Mugabe's ruinous dictatorship, of course. Mbeki should pause for a moment to reflect on whether his country's allegiance to southern Africa's political and economic wellbeing outweighs his country's, long repaid, debt to Robert Mugabe for his aid in the struggle against apartheid. By taking the shortsighted view, Mbeki is engaging himself as a silent partner of Mugabe and taking a passive role in the oppression of millions of his neighbors.

UPDATE: The Zimbabwean state run Herald newspaper has printed a scandalous threat against resident British diplomat Gillian Dare.

Neighbors "at one" with Mugabe

What on earth were people expecting?

The buzz leading up to today's meeting of the South African Development Community (SADC) centered around "what are Zimbabwe's neighbors going to do about Robert Mugabe and his demolition of Zimbabwe"?

For weeks, western governments and eminent personalities such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu have been requesting, nay, demanding that Mugabe's neighbors work together to bring an end to the seemingly interminable crisis in Zimbabwe. So again, what would the response from Mugabe's neighbors be now that the eyes of the world are fixed squarely on them?

Frankly, I find it nothing short of appalling that otherwise sensible journalists and media pundits would even frame this as a "question". Where the hell have they been for the past 20 years? Anyone who has a shred of sense could have told you the obvious answer in advance:

Nothing.

That's right - nothing. After the summit, all 14 leaders issued a statement pledging support for and solidarity with Robert Mugabe. No matter how disastrous Mugabe's misrule, no matter how dismal the human rights situation is, no matter how low the life expectancy drops, no matter how high the inflation or unemployment, there's not a single thing Mugabe's peers will say, much less do, about it.

Back when African summits were regularly derided as "meetings of the dictators' club", it was considered bad form for one dictator to denounce another dictator for, well, being a dictator. Since then, African nations have made considerable progress replacing some of the old "big man" dictatorships with more democratic governments. However, the buzzwords "democracy", "accountability", and "African solutions to African problems" are fine sentiments, but to date, completely meaningless when dealing with problems like Robert Mugabe. Just as in the days of the dictator club, African leaders are loathe to criticize someone like Mugabe, who was, after all, a hero of Zimbabwe's war of independence and a crucial ally in the anti-apartheid struggle.

South African president Thabo Mbeki is one such leader who owes his career to the leaders of South Africa's neighbors, like Mugabe. Dictators like Mugabe, who provided political assistance to the African National Congress, and military assistance to the party's military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, were thousands of times more valuable to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa than anything anyone outside Africa did for South Africa. Old comrades stick together, right? And after all, if anyone starts putting pressure on Mugabe, might people start talking about the lack of political freedoms in their countries? They certainly don't want to see that trend taking off.

Right. So when Thabo Mbeki assured the world that it was engaged in "quiet diplomacy" with Mugabe, it was because saying "frankly, we're friendly with Robert Mugabe and want to keep it that way" doesn't play well in the international press. After all, the new democratic South Africa might actually have a moral obligation to provide leadership in the region, right? I can see why Mbeki might want to nip that sort of heavy political responsibility in the bud before the world expects to rely on South Africa to play a role proportional to their economic and political influence to assist Africa's transition from dictatorships to democracy.

Of course, it's somewhat unfair to single out Mugabe's neighbors for their inaction when the rest of the world can't be bothered to do anything except issue a constant stream of self-righteous indignation. As the Rwandan genocide proved, a non-stop stream of indignant condemnations by the powerful will alleviate some of the guilt over doing nothing to stop the problem in the first place. Even when the catastrophe has burned itself out, and people start pointing the finger at you for doing nothing, you can shrug your shoulders and hastily respond that you had only the best of intentions all along.

UPDATE: I don't imagine this surprises anyone, either.

UPDATE II: Thank you, Joshua Wanyama, for linking to this article, and welcome African Path readers!

Who's hot? Who's not?

HOT: Frank Bainimarama (Fiji)

Since seizing power in a military coup last December, Commodore Frank Bainimarama endured a lot of indignant outrage from world leaders about his "usurpation of democracy", his "contempt for constitutional norms" and so on. As he was doubtlessly aware, everyone stopped caring a month or so later, and he's still in charge. Has he set a timetable for a return to democracy? No, but he's promised that there won't be elections for "at least three years". The press is scared, but Dictators of the World is convinced that the sky is the limit for Commodore Bainimarama's fledgling dictatorship.


NOT HOT: Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

2007 may finally be the year when the 83 year old Mugabe finally loses his grip once and for all. Oh, he can handle political opponents like Morgan Tsvangirai and 61 year old Archbishop Pious Ncube. He's also not losing any sleep over the usual huffy denunciations from the likes of British Prime Minister Tony Blair or American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. What are they going to do, anyway? Write a snarky letter? Complain to the United Nations?

No. Comrade Bob is currently soiling himself over rumors that even the Zimbabwean military and the party he once controlled with an iron fist have had enough of the economic ruin Mugabe has visited upon Zimbabwe. The rest of the ZANU-PF leadership has finally decided to start a power struggle with Mugabe, and rumors of a coup d'etat abound. Let's face it: Mugabe's looking like he's toast.

Obrigado para nada, babaca

As a way to welcome my apparent new Lusophone visitors, I thought I'd get started with some news on a Portuguese speaking dictator.

If there's one thing I've learned to count on, it's that an embattled dictator doesn't usually have to wait very long before another dictator lends a helping hand. Such is the case for Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who has somewhat unexpectedly faced a firestorm of rather huffy international condemnation following a rather innocuous (by Mugabe's standards) police crackdown on the political competition.

What really set the latest round of scolding apart from previous denouncements of Mugabe's regime was that the normally inert African Union appeared to have finally had enough, calling the political problems in Zimbabwe "embarrassing", creating an unheard of opening for other African leaders to chime in and start publicly denouncing the Mugabe regime. South Africa, of course, kept their mouths shut, but considering that criticism of Mugabe's dictatorship within Africa was previously unheard of, Mugabe certainly had to be startled. With a ruined economy, crop failure, and rumors of a party and/or army coup d'etat, Mugabe had to be wondering: won't anyone give me a goddamned break, already?

Enter Angolan dictator José Eduardo dos Santos, who clearly couldn't abide to see a fellow autocrat like Mugabe risk the danger of political or social reform emerging in Zimbabwe. After learning that Zimbabwe's low paid police forces were losing their appetite for clubbing defenseless civilians with rebar, dos Santos thoughtfully stepped into the breach. As a show of comradely support, José Eduardo dos Santos offered to deploy 2,500 paramilitary troopers (known as "ninjas") to Zimbabwe to act as ZANU-PFs riot police, and to nobody's surprise, Mugabe has delightedly accepted dos Santos' proposal.

Considering that Mugabe's favorite rhetorical strawman is "foreign interference", his decision to let in 2,500 armed foreigners enter Zimbabwe seems completely baffling. In fairness, I can't say I find it any more or less confusing than dos Santos' decision to offer military assistance to an international pariah for no other purpose than to terrify Mugabe's political opponents. My inability to reconcile these apparent contradictions inherent in the "new era of African politics" may be at fault, but frankly, I'd thought the Big Man era in African politics was coming to an end. Thanks to José Eduardo dos Santos and Robert Mugabe, I can regretfully put off updating my assumptions for another year.

UPDATE: Or perhaps the "ninjas" will not be going to Zimbabwe after all ...