There are still too many odious tyrants in the world, and not all of them started off as dictators – some, like Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, and Robert Mugabe, started off as elected politicians and gradually strangled democracy and liberty in their countries. Of those, Mugabe is the furthest down the path, and the natural endpoint of his race-baiting and populist left-wing economics is now in view, as a catastrophic cholera epidemic has Mugabe appealing for international assistance even from his nemesis (Great Britain); like so many of Africa’s disasters, the epidemic is the work of bad government, the direct result of Mugabe’s efforts to stamp out the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party:
The cholera epidemic has been caused by the collapse of the country’s water and sewage systems since the ruling Zanu (PF) party removed control of those services from cities with MDC mayors three years ago and set up the inept Zimbabwe National Water Authority.
This atrocity has even left-leaning African leaders calling for Mugabe’s ouster:
Yesterday, in unusually robust words for an African leader, Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga called on African governments to work together to topple Mr Mugabe. “Power sharing is dead in Zimbabwe and will not work with a dictator who does not really believe in power sharing,” said Mr Odinga, referring to the negotiations on forming a unity government with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) that Mr Mugabe has strung out for nearly three months. “It’s time for African governments to take decisive action to push him out of power.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa expressed similar sentiments, openly calling for Mr Mugabe’s removal. “If they say to him ‘step down’, and he refuses, they must do so militarily,” he said.
That would be Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Tutu calling for military force to remove Mugabe, if you’re keeping score at home. Mugabe won’t go quickly, and his end has been predicted before as his campaign against white farmers throttled his country’s once-successful agricultural yield. But with the likes of Odinga and Archbishop Tutu ready to call for his head, he may finally be approaching the end of the line.
You mean the same Tutu who opposed US military intervention in Afghanistan?
Do you mean he won’t go quietly?
OK, so Mugabe is a pig and should go. Who does the going? I hereby nominate one of the armies that caused so much misery in Africa in the first place. Think the Belgians will go?
“I hereby nominate one of the armies that caused so much misery in Africa in the first place.”
Zulus, Moors, Mahdis? Please be more comprehensive.
Dai, I was being sarcastic, but King Leopold of Belgium wanted to cash in on the African Colony phase the Brits, French and Germans cashed in on. So what he did in the Congo (Leopoldville as a name of a city tells you lots) was an example of destruction and misery that few then could equal. Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot learned a lot from him. And since they love to trash us now, I figure let them clean up a mess they helped cause.
Man, Mugabe is so screwed. He was lucky that his country didn’t have any oil or WMD programs so Bush had no interest in forcing regime change. His brilliant plan backfired though because, with Obama, we’ll now return to invading countries with humanitarian disasters going on. He’d better get to work on a clandestine nuclear program or try to weaponize the cholera so that Obama doesn’t order the 82nd or the 101st in to topple him.