When a people, either by force, complacency or ignorance submit to an authoritarian government, invariably the people will suffer. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictatorship as it inevitably deprives people of one of God’s most essential gifts: free will. We have seen throughout history the price people of paid when submitting to dictatorship. The annals of history read like a who’s who on Hell’s most famous citizens: Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, Khan, Napoleon, Ivan the Terrible and so on all of these historical figures valued political power far more than acting in the interests of the people they supposedly represent. Today, there are no regimes as brutal and as murderous as a Hitler or a Stalin, but there are quite a few that rise to the level of a Mussolini.

Frequent readers of are certainly familiar with the travails of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, but what of Africa’s tin pan tyrant? What of Robert Mugabe? Mugabe made a name for himself by leading Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) out of oppression at the hands of that country’s white minority government. Like most politicians however, Mugabe became corrupted with power. As president of Zimbabwe his decline into madness began when Mugabe decided to institute land reform. Mugabe argued that White owned farms, which account for the vast majority of land ownership should be distributed to the majority black population, after all, this land was stolen form the native inhabitants during the colonization of Rhodesia in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Frankly, Mugabe’s basic premise was sound. The land was stolen and the native inhabitants were entitled to compensation of some form, but that compensation should have come from the government, if at all, or more aptly from Britain, the instigator of Rhodesian colonization in the last century. In taking land from White farmers, Mugabe, deprived Zimbabwe of its most fertile and productive land. Zimbabwe for years was known as the breadbasket of Africa, producing enough food stores to supply its needs and those of its neighbors. After land reform, this land passed into the hands of unskilled subsistence farmers with no knowledge of modern agricultural techniques. As a result, Zimbabwe began to experience food shortages and starvation has now become a major problem for the countries 12 million people.

As a dictator, Mugabe has used oppression, violence and political favoritism to ensure his continued hold on power. During the last presidential “election” he ensured his own victory through fraud at the expense of the vocal opposition. Since then Mugabe has sought to punish those who support his political rivals. Most recently he has ordered the demolition of townships across the country, which the government says were constructed illegally. As a result, over 700,000 people have lost their homes and their livelihood. To make matters worse, Mugabe has denied UN offers of assistance for the new homeless of Zimbabwe. Mugabe, naturally denies the fact that his evictions were targeted at his political rivals, claiming the demolition of thousands of homes was designed to clear out crime infested cities (and we thought eminent domain was a problem).

The UN now says Zimbabwe is in meltdown and the country is spiraling into chaos. They point to halving of the Zimbabwean life expectancy, food shortages, lack of social services, etc. Indeed, Mugabe even disallowed the UN from supplying tents to the hundreds of thousands of homeless who now reside in the streets thanks to their esteemed president. At a UN Conference only this summer, Mugabe along with Hugo Chavez, charged that it was America and the West at the root of third world poverty. Perhaps on that day his mirror was broken. As we see, the price of dictatorship is high indeed and its roots are all too subtle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4101228.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4508078.stm