Another day in African politics...

Another day in African politics...

Robert Mugabe wins a - despite low voter turn out - decisive victory in the Zimbabwe polls. The lackey of the British imperialists, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been well and truly crushed. Mugabe magnanimously agrees to speak to Tsvangirai about the balance of power in Zimbabwe, a topic he's also sure to raise with African leaders who are due to meet in Cairo for the African Union summit next week, already defiantly pointing out: "I would like some African leaders who are making these statements [of political corruption and a blatant abuse of power] to point at me and we would see if those fingers would be cleaner than mine." African politics at it's best? No, not really.. It's more of the same from a continent where the words democracy and politician are incompatible in the same sentence. The continent that gave us little and big dictators - in the sense of a person who is a "tyrant: a leader who rules a country with absolute power, usually by force" - such as; Idi Amin, Joseph Mobutu and his successor Laurent Kabila, Dr. Hastings Banda, Muammar Gadafi, Hosny Mubarak, Arab Moi and the spineless Thabo Mbeki, successor of - Africa's only non morally corrupt leader - Nelson Mandela.

Robert Mugabe's unsurprising victory warranted the usual response from the totally ineffective UN. The UN Security Council said that: "conditions for free and fair elections did not exist and it was a matter of deep regret that the elections went ahead in these circumstances". The Security Council of United Nations indeed. Powerful stuff, once again, with the same show of iron will when dealing with dictators, resolve which will no doubt put Mugabe in his place, like it did Saddam Hussein. Western leaders on the whole deal with African dictators pretty badly, often playing in their hands by giving them reasons to suppress their unfortunate citizens. The democratic west managed to inspire Mugabe to claim his electoral victory as "100% empowerment and independence from British Imperialism" as unfortunately did Nelson Mandela who is in Britain, guest of his imperial hosts, celebrating his 90th birthday.

Noble spokesman Mandela may well be but, at his age, he's clearly not thinking straight. Denouncing Mugabe's dictatorship is all good and well but don't do it from Britain as this is exactly, according to Mugabe, the sort of rhetoric of failed leaders, like Tsvangirai, who are lackeys of the imperialist Brits and Yanks. The inherent symbolism Mugabe will be able to use, like all dictators he knows that a populace without myths is impossible to govern and his anti colonial stance has served him, as it has other African dictators, extremely well since he over threw Ian Smith. Too bad for Mandela there were no African leaders to share the podium with, and that his high-powered audience included former President Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and actor Robert DeNiro, as similarly this didn't win him any respect from the African dictator of the moment.

Mandela's predecessor Mbeki is not to be heard of except to support Mugabe whilst the South African embassy in Hararee boots out Zimbabwean opposition supporters who take refuge there. Why do democratic western politicians put up with this situation? I'm sure the world would be much more likely to understand why Mugabe's removal is necessary. He might not have weapons of mass destruction and Zimbabwe might not be resource rich but the man has obviously stepped over the same line leaped over by previous over-eager dictators. The British response defies belief; Queen Elizabeth II's withdrawal of Mugabe's knighthood. The ultimate colonial tit for tat. What do they hope to achieve? Instead, why not disregard Mugabe's ranting as the carrying-ons of a morally bankrupt dictator and install a democratic government? Any sort of African style democracy is preferable to the current situations.

If the west doesn't want to get involved for political reasons - there are, of course, Russian and Chinese feelings to be considered as well - then it should, at least, engage more actively and mercenary from their morally superior stance. A pleasant position for the west who, in this instance, do not have to be hypocritical - oil companies wouldn't back a coup in Zimbabwe as they backed Simon Mann and Mark Thatcher in Equatorial Guinea or the Kabilas in the ultra Democratic Republic of Congo - and could do all sort of favours for the Zimbaweans who've had their heads stomped on for far too long. One could quite confidently say that the removal of Robert Mugabe would be a world wide crowd pleaser requiring very little spin nor lies.