The continued tyranny of Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president equivalent of Stalin, blames the West for his country's economic woes. It's an old tactic employed by all tyrants: they disguise their actions by distracting the people.

HARARE, Zimbabwe Jul 25, 2006 (AP)— President Robert Mugabe opened a new legislative year Tuesday with a speech to Parliament blaming economic problems on the U.S., Britain and other Western critics of his human rights record.

Zimbabwe is in a state of economic collapse, suffering from the world's highest inflation rate more than 1,000 percent and shortages of all basic goods. A quarter of its 16 million people has emigrated since 2000 and millions more are dependent on aid.

"My tribute goes to the gallant people of Zimbabwe for continuing to exhibit great fortitude despite the prevailing economic challenges which are orchestrated by the country's detractors," the 82-year-old president told legislators....

In what has become a ritual, Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, blamed the country's woes on his foreign critics.

"We note with concern the continued imposition of illegal sanctions by the European Union and the United States of America at the behest of our erstwhile colonizers," Mugabe said, in reference to Britain.

"We feel proud that we have defeated that strategy that was aimed at the collapse of our economy and the happening of regime change."

The United States and the European Union have imposed travel bans and other targeted sanctions against Mugabe and members of his government.

So in fact, the "sanctions" are not aimed at the people of Zimbabwe, but their oppressive ruler who has destroyed their homes, impoverished the already impoverished beyond all imagination, and engineered starvation. There is a special place in hell for this son of a bitch. As I've previously detailed, Mugabe and Mugabe alone is responsible for his country's crisis, which involves every type of assault on human liberty.

Mugabe's assault on the poor
Mugabe's assault on the poor, continued
Mugabe's assault on the poor, part III

Just like the Declaration of Independence was a list of George III's crimes, let us form a similar one about Mugabe:

From the beginning he has had dissidents tortured, and like any of Stalin's successors, having his henchmen torture and murder his opponents is not a rarity. Rigging elections is so expected that one hardly bats an eye, even to hear that voters are threatened with withheld aid should they elect Mugabe's opponents. This March, Mugabe threatened people with death if they tried to overthrow his government "unconstitutionally." Of course, "unconstitutionally" means anything that might break Mugabe's power, no matter how justifiable by the principles of freedom.

Sadly, mainstream media largely ignores these sins in favor of more visible ones. It was in 2000 when Mugabe commenced his policy of stealing arable farms from owners (because they were white) and redistributing the lands to his supporters; the shift from agricultural to residential use is the cause of Zimbabwe's famine. Last year, Mugabe began sending his thugs to raze hundreds of thousands of homes belonging to his rivals' supporters. He has people arrested for "informal" commerce. He has made it a crime to own foreign currency, so that when his cronies at the central bank continue with hyperinflation, the people are left as poor as possible. And this latest article reports that Mugabe's "national regulating authority" (a euphemism for secret police) will "monitor electronic communications" beginning next year.

Is there nothing left for him to trample? For the good of Zimbabwe, someone needs to assassinate this bastard.