Kim Jong-Il: Internet Expert

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il raised eyebrows around the world recently when he proclaimed himself to be an "expert" on the internet. Kim's comments came during a summit meeting with arch-enemies South Korea, who proposed the creation of an industrial park with a shared internet link between the two countries.

"I am an Internet expert" said Kim, "many problems would arise if the Internet is connected to other parts of the North."

So ... does this mean that Li'l Kim is totally l33t? Is he playing World of Warcraft, or using Bittorrent, or editing articles on BGP on Wikipedia?

Let's just say it's doubtful.

One of the perks of ruling a country whose state ideology worships you as a living demigod is having internet privileges. One of the downsides of living in a country whose ruler you are forced to worship as a living demigod is not having internet privileges. Kim Jong-Il certainly sees no need to let his captive population communicate in the outside world. Hence his comment that "problems would arise" if North Korea had internet access is true in the sense that North Koreans would have a chance to learn that their country is not the richest in the world, and that their dead Great Leader is not actually revered around the world as a divine supergenius. North Korea's freedom of the press is, officially, the worst in the world. There is literally no aspect of mass communication that is not controlled by the state. In a country where televisions and radios are locked in to one station and channel, the odds that the government would allow access to any outside source of information are around zero.

Still, if you happen to see someone in a chatroom with the handle "Pulgasari" bragging about his internet expertise, try to humor him. He doesn't really get out much.

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.

Ich liebe Dich

Niccolo Machiavelli coined one for the ages when he opined it is best to be both feared and loved, however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved. Obviously, the man knew that one of the many perks of being a dictator is having a better than average shot at both.

Now obviously, some dictators have failed at having it both ways. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini managed to endear himself with the people, but never quite found a way to actually scare Italians. Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin got the fear part down to a science, but even with a relentless cult of personality that managed to engender respect - even reverence, Uncle Joe failed miserably on the "loved" portion of the equation.

Which leads us to a man who most people would view as history's least lovable dictator, German Führer Adolf Hitler. Adolf certainly had the "fear" part down pat, but how did he score on being loved? Well, according to an upcoming book called Letters to Hitler: A People Writes to Its Führer, Hitler did far better than one would expect from a short, bloodthirsty megalomaniac whose primary form of communication was screaming. The book compiles letters to Hitler recovered by Soviet troops in East Germany written by ordinary Germans to their dictator, and while some sycophancy is obviously included, there appears to have been a genuine outpouring of affection towards Hitler. Sure, he may have been bristly and aloof, but there had to be something that inspired a woman to write to him and declare "I would like to make you my little puppy my dear, my eternal, my lovely Adolf".

Historians would like us to believe that Hitler was some sort of magician who "wove a spell" around the Germans, but this is just a tedious cliche used a shortcut to explain how people internalize their feelings for authority. Hitler himself was about as lovable as a viper with the ebola virus, but something about his mien stirred genuine feelings of affection from ordinary Germans. Could it have been daddy issues on a national scale?

Nowadays, dictators appear to have largely dispensed with the loved part of Machiavelli's equation, opting largely to rule through one or the other. Hugo Chávez buys love with oil money, and Than Shwe uses riot police, but is it so much to ask that one of today's crop manages to provide some balance? Call me old fashioned, but I'd like to think we've got a right to expect more from the world's most notorious tyrants.

We will, in fact, have Pervez Musharraf to kick around

So the world's most beleaguered dictator finally gets one in the win column. Amid opposition boycotts, parliamentary walkouts, and a series of looming Supreme Court challenges to the entire process, Pakistan's military strongman, General Pervez Musharraf, has won another five year term as president on Saturday.

That the seemingly terminally compromised Musharraf could cruise to re-election highlights just how bad Pakistani politics are. With the lack of fresh political energy in Pakistan, it's little wonder that voters opted for more of the same. Whether or not they would have done so without the self-defeating boycotts and walkouts by what passes for Musharraf's political opposition is another matter entirely. There doesn't appear to be as much enthusiasm for the return of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan as there does among pundits on the BBC and in the Washington Post, but Musharraf managed to strike a power sharing deal with her anyway. Perhaps the good general summed it up best with this pithy comment on the state of politics in Pakistan: "democracy means majority, whether there is opposition or no opposition".

Will the high court invalidate Musharraf's reelection? Will he declare martial law if they do? Will Pakistan finally give up the pretense of being a functioning nation state and just return a Mogul emperor to the throne? Stay tuned.

"It's become fashionable to pretend to be democratic"

The normally taciturn and reclusive Isaias Afewerki appears to have transformed himself into something of an extrovert lately. I've already posted an article about Al-Jazeera's video interview with the Stalinist Eritrean dictator, and now I've found a delightful interview Afewerki granted to the Los Angeles Times. So how does Afewerki defend his rotten record? As might be expected, Afewerki blames all of his country's ills on neighboring Ethiopia and its superpower ally, the United States. Of course, Afewerki can't quite explain how Eritrea's rotten relations with Addis Ababa and Washington accounts somehow forces his government to torture political prisoners or indefinitely conscript his citizens as indentured servants, but I don't suppose anyone was really expecting him to connect the dots there, anyway.

I was especially interested to read Afewerki's defense of Eritrea's press freedoms (which are currently the third worst in the world):

There is no independent press anywhere. Who guides the so-called independent media? Who finances these organizations? Unfortunately, the independent media are being manipulated by those who can afford to buy them.

If his career as a dictator doesn't pan out, he still might have a bright future as a guest columnist for Media Matters. Even better, Afewerki provides a straightforward defense of tyranny itself. When asked if Eritrea's so called "democracy" might ever get around to letting people vote once in a while, Afewerki was blunt:

You can see today how this concept of democracy is abused. It's very sad. Democracy in its real essence should provide people with equal opportunity.

You see, it is precisely because Eritrea cannot guarantee equal opportunity to everyone that it has denied it anyone. Except, of course, to Isaias Afewerki himself. Speaking of which, has he ever thought of stepping down so that Eritrea could, perhaps, rejoin the rest of the world?

It's become a habit for me not to discuss this issue. I believe in a political process that will take this country from one level to a higher level. I see myself in this process. I think I'm moving in the right direction.

We'll take that as a no, Isaias. You can read the interview in its jaw dropping entirety here.

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.

Than Shwe in the news? Sort of.

The entire world is paying attention, or at least pretending to pay attention, to the crackdown on dissident monks in Burma. Missing in most of the coverage is any mention of just who runs the system that caused all this drama in the first place - SPDC chief Than Shwe. The coverage of the unrest in Burma has mostly avoided mentioning Than Shwe by name, preferring to run with "the military junta", "the generals" and so on and so forth. Then again, considering how Burma's top brasshat likes to avoid the limelight, this is somewhat understandable.

For now, Than Shwe remains in charge of the ruling SPDC party despite rumors of ill health and a desperate power struggle with the SPDC's number two man, Maung Aye. It's rumored that the delays in organizing the crackdown on the protesting monks were due to infighting among the generals, which could be construed as yet another sign of Than Shwe's diminishing influence. Nevertheless, Than Shwe's position at the top appears to still be intact, so much so that the United Nations will be directing its ineffectual pleas for "peace" and "restraint" to Than Shwe himself.

Perhaps the United Nations would try a different tack if they actually bothered to learn more about Than Shwe. How do you deal with a man who is, above all else, more of a brutal and monomaniacal kleptocrat than is an actual political leader? I can give you a hint: handing him a petition isn't going to get them very far, nor are "solidarity protests" in Belfast. The fact that the United Nations appears determined to deal with Than Shwe the same way they'd deal with the prime minister of Belgium shows that the international diplomacy bureaucracy still hasn't managed to to read the the essentially atavistic urges that motivate dictators, much less how to deal with them.

The talk of boycotts might scare a country like Belgium, but considering that most of Burma's trade involves heroin, mining and oil, it's a safe bet that Than Shwe isn't going to worry about boycotts. Besides, they only affect the poor. Who cares? There's been some talk about shaming China into restraining Burma with talk of an Olympic boycott, but wait - how will the Chinese know if the boycott is over Burma or Darfur? In the end, it's meaningless, because China has absolutely no intention to tell Than Shwe what to do, and Than Shwe has absolutely no intention to listen even if they did. Finally, a diplomatic relationship built on mutual understanding!

It's almost as if Than Shwe has figured out that there's no point in being a dictator if you're just going to let the rest of the world tell you what to do. Amazing, isn't it?

"Penniless" Baby Doc apologizes to Haiti

Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier wants his former subjects to know how very sorry he is.

In a frankly bizarre radio address, the now exiled dictator who began his reign at the age of 19 admitted that "bad things" may have, in fact, occurred during his rule. Duvalier wisely omitted specifics, but claimed he "solemnly take(s) historical responsibility" for Haiti's miserable condition during his 15 years in power. Baby Doc also took the unusual step of begging the Haitian people's forgiveness, requesting "forgiveness from the people, and ask(ing) for the impartial judgment of history".

Broadcasting in French, a language only around 10% of his former countrymen can actually understand, the former dictator admitted his dire financial straits, saying he has been "broken" by his 21 years in exile in France. The irony of having a former dictator who embezzled a fortune from the poorest country in the western hemisphere talking about his hardships has not gone unnoticed by the relatively small handful of Haitians who were able to understand Baby Doc's unusual mea culpa. This report quoted a Haitian man named Robert Duval, who hit the nail on the head when he said "I don't accept his apology. He killed thousands of people, stole money and destroyed the psyche and heart of a people. This guy should be in jail and I'm just waiting for him to come back so that can happen."

The chances that France will extradite Duvalier to Haiti to stand trial are roughly equivalent to my chances of winning the Miss Venezuela contest, but one has to wonder why Baby Doc is suddenly in such a confessional mood? He certainly hasn't been at a loss for opportunities to apologize for his misrule in the past 20 years, so why now?

Where's Mahmoud?

To date, I have said practically nothing about Iran's diminutive holocaust denying president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Surprisingly, nobody's written in to ask why a blog devoted to dictators hasn't devoted so much as a single post to such a prominent world leader who is frequently described as a dictator. And since nobody's asked, I can go ahead and explain why. Mahmoud's exclusion from Dictators of the World cannot be construed an endorsement of his politics, or his ability to govern Iran democratically. Mahmoud has been shut out from DotW because he's not a dictator.

Yes, you heard me right the first time. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a dictator. Ahmadinejad is the president of Iran, and Iran certainly is ruled by dictatorship. Mahmoud himself, however, is not the dictator of Iran. It seems that many people have forgotten, although I can't imagine how, that Iran is no run of the mill dictatorship, but a theocracy run by a dictator. During the American hostage crisis, nobody knew, or cared, who the president of Iran was, because everyone on earth by that point recognized the dictator calling the shots in Iran. So, I hear you cry, if Iran is a dictatorship, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn't the dictator of Iran, who is? That honor goes to Iran's "supreme leader", the reclusive Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In fact, Ahmadinejad can claim halfway credibly that his election was perfectly democratic - in a sense. For you see, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president was only made possible when the theocrats in the Ayatollah's 12 man Guardian Council approved of Ahmadinejad's candidacy in the first place, signifying in advance that the presidential figurehead running the day to day affairs of Iran would be utterly compliant in advance with the wishes and desires of "Supreme Leader" Khamenei. So why is it that we don't hear more about the real dictator of Iran? Whatever other failings Khamenei may have as a politician, he certainly gets credit for staying out of the limelight. His name and image adorn billboards in Iran, but he stays extremely quiet when it comes time to discuss his job as Iran's dictator. His role as "guardian of the Iranian revolution" means he is free to involve himself as much, or as little, in Iran's domestic and international affairs as he pleases. Frankly, without Khamenei telling him what do, think and say, we can safely say that we have no idea how Ahmadinejad would rule Iran if he were merely left to his own devices.

So why haven't we heard more in the western press about the Ayatollah that actually rules Iran? It's very hard to say for sure. It could be because he is, if anything else, a powerful Muslim religious leader, and as we've all learned since 2001 or the Danish cartoon riots, the Western press has been very careful about offending Muslim religious sensibilities by calling a holy man a dictator, even if he is. Secondly, as I noted above, Ali Khamenei does most of his work behind the scenes. Unlike his very public predecessor, Ali Khamenei does not have the air of the firebrand cleric who never met a photo opportunity he didn't like. Rather, Khamenei is content to tell a puppet like Ahmadinejad what to do, and let Ahmadinejad take the political heat. It's probably nice work if you can get it.

As Iran's nuclear standoff with the planet intensifies, keep your eyes peeled for any mentions of Ahmadinejad's boss in the press. At present, those mentions are few and far between, but with Iran consuming an ever greater percentage of reporting, his name is bound to come up ... eventually. Until then? Khamenei is perfectly content having you believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is actually Iran's dictator.

"The jaunty nipples of collectivism"

Yesterday, I took a look at Kim Jong-Il's insane plan to use kidnapping to improve North Korea's dismal propaganda movie industry. If you've ever wondered why any dictator would think anyone would sit through a three hour long socialist parable featuring a cheap Godzilla knock off, you're not alone. Pulgasari: Legendary Monster obviously represents the low end of the communist propaganda arts spectrum, but that's not to say that The Party didn't occasionally dabble in more substantial fare.

The late Chinese dictator, Mao Zedong, declared that art becomes useless unless it has become wedded to politics, and that politics, naturally, are useless unless they are in the service "of the people". Art for art's sake? That, my friends, is decadent, and bourgeois! After the revolution, everything becomes political, don't you know?

Looking back, perhaps The Chairman didn't understand that "the people", broadly speaking, were not inclined to confuse political propaganda with art. The well known notion that the arts tend to slip away from ideological yokes when given half a chance also appears to have been ignored. Still, just as Kim Jong-Il couldn't wait to try his hand at the movies, Mao Zedong couldn't wait to tamper with his particular favorite art form: Chinese opera.

And so, courtesy of Jim Lileks, an analysis of the Maoist opera masterpiece "The Red Detachment of Women".

Portrait of the dictator as cinephile

It should come as no surprise that even dictators have hobbies, so it should come as no surprise that being a dictator allows one to pursue a hobby to extraordinary lengths. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is reportedly one of the biggest movie buffs on the planet, with a collection of over 20,000 foreign films in his library. Of course, like any true dictator, Lil' Kim is not content to merely watch movies when he could try his hand at making them.

In 1978 during his father's reign, Kim Jong-Il arranged for the kidnapping of an extremely famous and well respected South Korean director, Shin Sang-Ok, during a business trip Hong Kong. When Shin's ex-wife went to Hong Kong to investigate his disappearance, she too was kidnapped by North Korean secret police and spirited off to Pyongyang. To Shin's horror, the junior Kim turned out to be a fan, and naturally, put Shin to work on his pet projects.

It seems that Kim had been disappointed with North Korea's staid and boring propaganda films bureau, and sought to bring his tastes as a movie buff into promoting North Korean Normally, the phrase "socialist cinema" conjures images of movies about nickel smelting and tractors, so you can imagine the horror the "Orson Welles of South Korea" must have felt when Kim Jong-Il announced that his new captive would be directing North Korea's most ambitious project to date: a Communist reworking of the Japanese monster movie Godzilla. Shin gamely went ahead and produced Kim's monster movie, but was thrown into a North Korean prison camp for trying to escape. Shin and his ex-wife finally managed to escape in a daring flight from their North Korean guards during a business trip to Vienna, after which, the director was finally free to talk about their ordeal, both physical and artistic, under Kim Il-Sung.

Kim Jong-Il has remained committed to the arts, however, and is reported to shunt aside lesser concerns like famines, floods, and nuclear proliferation talks aside for his real passion: film. He hasn't apparently kidnapped any other famous directors, but now one of South Korea's hottest directors is offering to bring his hit movie to North Korea on the condition that Kim shares his creation with the people of North Korea.

The offer may be tempting, but I'd be willing to bet that Kim will take a pass on this offer. After all, he can always wait until it comes out on DVD, right?

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.

Omar al-Bashir "ready for cease fire"

The military dictator of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has declared that he's ready to declare a cease fire with rebels in Darfur at the start of peace talks to be held in November. All across the world, professional diplomats are breathing a sigh of relief at finally receiving some sort of commitment from the Sudanese government to end the senseless violence in Darfur. To show how serious he is about pursuing peace, al-Bashir named his minister of "Humanitarian Affairs", Ahmed Haroun, to co-chair a panel set to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur. That Ahmed Haroun himself is one of the biggest perpetrators of human rights abuses in Darfur is, perhaps, besides the point, right?

Omar al-Bashir's sly inclusion of Haroun in his panel to "get to the bottom" of abuses al-Bashir himself has sanctioned is just another in a long list of his fuck-you gestures to the rest of the world. Omar al-Bashir knows that he's already won in Darfur, and that years of stalling tactics with the "international community" have already given him the time to either kill, or displace, the same people in Darfur that were causing him so many headaches to begin with. It's easy to talk peace when you've already won, after all. What's more, Omar al-Bashir is doubtlessly more than aware that the aforementioned international community, who have made themselves look busy on Darfur if nothing else, will not jeopardize the precious concept of "peace in Darfur" by insisting that any of the parties responsible for the violence actually be held accountable for their actions. Sure, in an ideal world we'd press for accountability, but we can't threaten the peace process with difficult demands. Which is exactly the reaction Omar al-Bashir has been waiting to hear.

Can anyone tell me when the idea that peace alone trumps justice emerged? What good will Sudan's "peace" be when the very men who orchestrated the mayhem will continue to rule over them? Just as Suharto remains unafraid of standing trial over his bloodbaths in East Timor, Omar al-Bashir will not be troubled about his role in Darfur just as long as he manages to stay in power. While that's no mean feat in a country like Sudan, Omar al-Bashir has held the reins long enough to stay on top, and he remains more than savvy enough to have powerful nations and international institutions kissing his ass for merely extending them the privilege of talking to him about resolving the problems in Darfur. In all the recent coverage on this story, I have yet to read anything by anybody that acknowledges the irony of having the world's most powerful leaders congratulating Omar al-Bashir for his sudden willingness to make peace, only after he's received everything he's wanted from the war.

Then again, what good is being a dictator if you can't have your cake, and eat it too?

Soviet posters

Thank heavens for the internet. First Stefan Landsberger took the time and care to create his archive of Chinese communist propaganda posters, and now Alexander Zakarov has upped the ante with a blog devoted solely to Soviet posters.

I certainly owe Josh at The Conjecturer one for linking to this amazing blog in the first place. where I could find it.

Interview with a dictator

After last weeks post featuring a video clip of Al Jazeera's interview with Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerki, I would be remiss if I didn't offer a link to an interview with Afewerki's arch nemesis, Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi.

EthioBlog has reprinted a Time magazine interview with Meles Zenawi, where the interviewer asks some tough questions about democracy in Ethiopia, his proxy war with Eritrea in Somalia, Ethiopia's relationship with the United States, human rights abuses, and whether nor not he intends to step down for good when his term expires in three years. Compared to the soft soap questions Al Jazeera asked Afewerki, Meles Zenawi was clearly put on the spot.

I can't say the interview revealed any surprises until he admitted that "fear" keeps him awake at night.

It has always been fear — fear that this great nation, which was great 1,000 years ago but then embarked on a downward spiral for 1,000 years, and reached its nadir when millions of people were starving and dying, may be on the verge of total collapse. Now it's not a fear of collapse, I believe we are beyond that. It's the fear that the light which is beginning to flicker, the light of a renewal, an Ethiopian renaissance, that this light might be dimmed by some bloody mistake by someone, somewhere.

- Meles Zenawi

Despite his "fears" about Ethiopia's political and economic progress going down the tubes, Zenawi insists that he will be stepping down when his term expires, a claim dictators often make in haste and repent in leisure. You can read the rest of the interview here at EthioBlog, and judge the sincerity of his claims for yourself.

UPDATE: Thank you, Dan, for giving a shout out to DotW over on The Democratic Piece. Yes, there really are blogs about everything.

Nazarbayev honors Turkmenbashi

OK, so this story is a few days old, but Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev was on a state visit to Turkmenistan last week. I scoured the news for suitable photo opportunities of the man Reigstan playfully calls "Uncle Nazzy" and his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov, but alas - I can't find anything with a suitable freshness date. If anyone has a recent picture of Nazarbayev and Berdimuhammedov shaking hands, hugging, or laughing maniacally together, please consider sending it my way?

Anyway, this story has some intriguing tidbits about life in the dictator lane in Central Asia. Nazarbayev apparently had about as much fun in Turkmenistan as it's possible to have, and as a sign of respect, laid flowers on the grave of the recently departed dictator of Turkmenistan Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niazov, who lest we forget, is reputed to be Berdimuhammedov's real father. I'm not exactly an expert on customs in the former Soviet Central Asia, but in the west, a visitor would have taken great pains not honor the memory of the likes of Niazov, no matter what protocol calls for. Nazabayev himself is a dictator, granted, but Niazov's infamy is such that you'd imagine that Nazarbayev should have been talked out of it. Needless to say, if anyone can link or provide me with a photo of Nazarbayev giving props to Niazov, I'm all over that like white on rice.

Chávez set to jettison allies

When Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chávez described Cuban strongman Fidel Castro as his "mentor", he really wasn't kidding. Like Castro, and other communist dictators before him, Chávez has already begun to jettison the political allies that brought him to power and accused them being "counter-revolutionaries". The party in question is PODEMOS, a party which uncritically helped elevate Chávez to power in 1998. This is also the party that provided Chávez with crucial support for his efforts to pack the Venezuelan Supreme Court with Chávez's political cronies, issued threats against Chávez's political enemies, and in general, did anything the caudillo wanted them to do. Even better, they almost always anticipated his desires in advance. Well, that was then, and this is now, and as Janet Jackson once famously inquired, "what have you done for me lately?"

"If any of you has shame, this is the right time. You have time to join us sincerily and build the revolution. Stop talking nonsense, saying you are revolutionary"

- Hugo Chavez

So what terrible thing has PODEMOS done to transform them into dyed in the wool chavistas to treacherous counterrevolutionaries? PODEMOS leaders expressed reservations about Chávez's proposal to alter the Venezuelan constitution to allow himself to be re-elected in perpetuity. PODEMOS is not alone there, as the proposal is widely unpopular, even among voters who strongly support Chávez. So what gives?

Daniel astutely notes that this is part of the dictator dynamic. Now that Chávez has packed the legislature and the courts with his cronies, PODEMOS is no longer very important in maintaining his grip on power. What's more, one of the key personality traits of the authoritarian leader is the overweening desire to occupy the spotlight of attention. Not sometimes. Not most of the time. All the time. Any "ally" who attaches importance to themselves by virtue of boasting how close they are to Chávez is, by extension, taking some credit for his glorious tasks, and therefore, diminishes the volume of praise and attention that Chávez recognizes as his, and his alone.

Sorry, PODEMOS, you're 99.9% on board with the Chávez agenda, but for an autocrat, that's just not high enough. Enjoy your trip to counterrevolutionary limbo, PODEMOS, and count yourselves lucky that Chávez apparently hasn't gotten around to asking Castro how Cuba got rid of their "counterrevolutionaries".

Bainimarama alleges Australian invasion plan

The military strongman of Fiji, Commodore Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama, is alleging that the chief of the Australian Defense Forces threatened to send troops to Fiji if Bainimarama carried out his (eventually successful) plans for a military coup last November. Speaking to reporters from the Fiji Times newspaper, Bainimarama angrily countered claims made by Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer that Australia was "no threat" to Fiji.

"(Downer) was lying" claimed Bainimarama, "because in November the Chief of the Australian Defence Force Angus Houston called me in Sinai. He said 'do not do anything that would pit my soldiers against yours'. In military terms when you threaten someone it involves capability and intention so there was an intention to move troops to Fiji."

Downer dismissed the Commodore's claims, noting accurately (if a bit defensively), that "dictators often make false claims like these in order to build public support for their illegitimate regimes".

While this is true in the general sense, the question arises: why didn't Australia consider an intervention to prevent the overthrow of Fiji's democratically elected government? Bainimarama launched his coup after providing months of warning, and surely, Fiji's ostensibly loyal allies could have found some way to intervene, either militarily or diplomatically, to assure Bainimarama that he wouldn't get away with it.

Whatever the reason, Bainimarama on his part, appears to have calculated very accurately that none of the world's great powers would do anything more than raise an eyebrow when he made his move. And in typical fashion, he was exactly right. What, was Helen Clark going to stop him? Considering how she's presented herself as Bainimarama's staunchest foreign political foe, it might have occurred to her that New Zealand, being considerably more powerful and influential than Fiji, could have brought its own pressure to bear to prevent the coup.

So if I have any disgruntled military leaders in politically unstable countries reading, take heart: all the threats that "America won't stand for this" or "Europe would never let you do this" are so much puffery. I suspect you already know it, but don't take it from me - take it from Frank Bainimarama.

The Dictator Hunter

A new documentary called The Dictator Hunters is making its debut this week at the Toronto Film Festival. According to this article in the Toronto Star, The Dictator Hunters covers the search for deposed Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, and the efforts to bring him to trial for a mind numbingly long list of human rights violations, mass murders and outright massacres he ordered during his reign. Director Klaartje Quirijns focuses on a man named Reed Brody from Human Rights Watch who is now lobbying the Canadian government to get "more involved" with Habré's upcoming trial in Senegal. There's just one problem: the Senegalese have not asked Canada, or any other western nation, for assistance because they insist they don't need any.

As I noted back in July, justice ministry officials in Senegal have expressed confidence in their ability to bring Habré to trial, but have rejected the ruinously expensive and farcically long tribunal sort of trial of the sort that Slobodan Milošević was subjected to. Patiently, and not unreasonably, the government of Senegal has expressed their intention to have opted to try Habré in a regular criminal court.

Now, I will say straight off the bat that I haven't seen The Dictator Hunters. However, I've also seen absolutely no indication that Senegal has mysteriously changed its mind about their desire for the assistance of the industrialized world in conducting this trial. Frankly, it seems a little odd that Reed Brody is pressing Canada, a country with absolutely no expertise in the business of trying dictators, to assist in any way. What little assistance Senegal has asked for has in been in the form of obtaining documents that are, for the most part, already in Europe. In other words, they've asked for no special help, or financing, for the trial itself as far as I can determine.

Reed Brody's rationale that, as a non-colonial power, Canada is in some way "less tainted" than the other Western nations Senegal has already told to stop bothering them misses the point. Senegal is not rejecting Belgium's offers to put Habré in trial in Belgium because of their "colonial taint", as Senegal already has fairly warm relations with Belgium. Senegal rejected offers of assistance with the trial because they truly and genuinely believe that they are capable of conducting it themselves. The thought that a poor African nation can, with proper planning, conduct a criminal trial of a dictator may seem unspeakably farfetched to Reed Brody, but it's also fairly condescending. In the extremely unlikely scenario that the government of Senegal somehow begged Reed Brody to act as intermediary between themselves and Canada? Hey, I guess it wouldn't be so insulting after all.

Inteview with a dictator

Riz Khan of Al Jazeera interviews Eritrean dictator Isaias Afewerki about accusations of sponsoring terror by the United States, and the long running border dispute with Ethiopia. Afewerki, naturally, denies claims of sponsoring terrorism, and claims that there is "no reason" for tensions with rival dictator, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. It's interesting, but it would have been nice if Riz Khan had asked Afewerki any questions about his rotten records on human rights, and why his country is among rivals only North Korea and Cuba when it comes to curbing freedom of the press.