ANOTHER week, another dictator bites the dust.
The fall of Laurent Gbagbo was a lesson to other rulers who don’t listen to the voice of the people, UZ analyst Eldred Masunungere told NewsDay.

“It is important to listen to the voice of the people and not to suppress that voice,” he said. “Gbagbo was doing that in the Ivory Coast. People had spoken loudly that they wanted someone else and he defied the voice of the people. These are the consequences of such defiance. The lesson to all others who are in governance is that you need to take special care of those you govern. No one has an eternal right to govern.”
There you have it. And what did fellow African rulers think of their reception in Benghazi? Not exactly a warm welcome was it? The problem is the people of Libya recall only too well that these rulers, currently attempting to negotiate a ceasefire, were on hugging terms with Gaddafi not so long ago. And suddenly they expect the good folk of Benghazi, on the receiving end of Gaddafi’s brutality, to be reconciled to the dictator and his greedy sons. Not likely.
As is often the case dictators never seem to learn. They dig in when they are supposed to dig out and this is even more true of Gbagbo. It was a curious sight to watch him –– on Monday –– emerge from his subterranean hideout four months after losing a democratic election to Alassane Ouattara. Just a few weeks earlier, before he was smoked out, he had told a radio station: “You are telling me to leave. Leave, to go where? My rival did not win the elections. It’s me who won the elections.”
He is not likely to thank his Paris-based advisers and apologists who told him to soldier on despite Abidjan being under siege from Ouattara’s forces.
“He has no intention of standing down or giving up his power. He will in the coming hours have proposals for the armed opposition,” Toussaint Alain, his European adviser had said.

Speaking of apologists, Goodson Nguni is not doing his handlers or unfortunate ZTV viewers any favours with his drowsy “analysis” on Newshour.
A slouching Nguni struggles to keep the attention of viewers including that of the anchor, whilst spewing his indigestible dose of propaganda.
“The MDC-T is an excessively violent party,” he drones on, while anchor Grace Tsvakanyi reads questions from a script whose origins become ever clearer.

We were amused to read a Telegraph story about Gaddafi’s extravagance. Gaddafi’s nurse, Oksana Balinskaya, claimed that the Libyan leader gave his staff Italian gold watches every year on the anniversary of his taking power.
“On September 1st every year, the date when Gaddafi [assumed power], we were given Italian gold watches with his picture on them. People who work for him for six to eight years have a whole collection,” she said.
Gaddafi was a generous boss, personally ordering that the nurses received an allowance when they visited New York so that they could go shopping, she said, calling the leader “Papa”, or Father.
“You can only tell somebody who works for Papa by their watch,” she said.
“Watch” this space.

The Herald has attached enormous importance to a confrontation between MDC-T and Zanu PF youths at Warren Hills cemetery last week. The incident, the paper claimed, exposed MDC-T violence at a time Morgan Tsvangirai was describing Zanu PF as “merchants of death”.
He was speaking at a memorial for five MDC-T activists killed in the political violence of 2008. It is not clear where the Zanu PF adherents came from but reports link them to a commuter company or Chipangano supporters from Mbare.
Police spokesman Inspector James Sabau said they condemned unprovoked violence and would not hesitate to arrest anyone involved “without fear or favour”.
This is a nice irony. A welcome warning that the police will arrest anyone engaging in violence. It followed a ceremony to mark the violent death of Tonderai Ndira and four other MDC activists.
What steps have law enforcement officers taken to arrest those who were responsible for those deaths? Ndira died a particularly gruesome death. Has his murder been investigated? Has anybody been arrested?
Perhaps the Herald can tell us.

We were amused to see a letter to the Editor of the Herald from someone calling himself “Cde TJ Mapfumo of Mapfumo & Partners, Legal Practitioners, Eastgate, Harare.
The letter, headed “Let’s all rally behind the anti-sanctions drive”, occupied the place normally reserved for the regime’s spokesmen. It said the anti-sanctions campaign was a “master-stroke which has come at an opportune time in the people’s struggle against imperial depredations”.
“It is a master-stroke in numerous respects, the primary one being that in conjunction with the indigenisation and empowerment drive, the struggle against imperial plunder of resources is very much in earnest.”
This is as it should be, the comrade lawyer continued, because the resources belong to the people and “it is they who must defeat the imperial monster”.
He proposed centres where people could just walk in and “throw their anti-sanctions missiles through the barrel of the pen”.
Can you imagine this guy in court throwing his missiles around the court room!
What is funny is that the next letter headed “Hands off our diamonds” sounded very much like the last one! Either that, or there are a number of comrade lawyers hanging around!

Then we had Thabo Mbeki fretting over the fate of “African solutions to African problems”. He complained petulantly that, “denied the right to solve its own problems, Africa will inevitably fall victim to ever-continuing conflict and instability”.
Anybody following the Libyan conflict will know just how anxious the West is to have Africa making at least some attempt to solve its problems!

Herald columnist Tichaona Zindoga claims the West is bankrolling “thousands” of parties and organisations to see that Zanu PF loses power.
“To this day,” he says, “albeit with some close shaves, Zanu PF has won all major elections against the Western-funded MDC…”
Really? You have to be seriously delusional to make claims of that sort, but it is a measure of Zanu PF’s desperation that they can churn out such whoppers.
The West didn’t endorse any of the outcomes in the elections supposedly “won” by Zanu PF, Zindoga complains. He should add, nor did South Africa or Sadc. In particular the 2008 outcome was not accepted as legitimate.
And what of the “thousands” of bogus organisations Zanu PF has invented –– like the Zimbabwe Children of War Liberators Association, Zimbabwe Coffin Makers Association, Zimbabwe Exhumers Association, Youth in Natural Resources Management, the Zimbabwe Congress of Student Unions, Journalists for Empowerment, Destiny for Afrika Network, Zimbabwe Revolutionary Volunteers Front,  the Federation of Civil Society Organisations, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Justice, Upfumi Kuvadiki, and the Millionaires Cashflow Club?
Phew, that was exhausting. And there are dozens more!

One item slipped our attention in coverage of last week’s Livingstone summit. Not a single reference to the anti-sanctions campaign in the communiqué. At least Sadc is no longer swallowing Zanu PF’s propaganda, even if it is forced down the throats of gullible locals like the Johannes Masowe weChishanu women and children seen signing up on the front page of Monday’s Herald.
Then of course there was the ruling against the disgraceful exhumations at Mt Darwin.
Does anybody feel sorry for Zanu PF with all these setbacks? First the loss of the Speakership contest; then the humiliation in Livingstone where the Zimbabwe delegation had to cool their heels while everybody else talked about them; then the ruling in Bulawayo where the nation’s disgust at the political exploitation of the dead was expressed. What a terrible week for them!
But then Nelson Chamisa spoilt it all by giving a hostage to fortune. He no doubt intended his cabinet note to be amusing but doesn’t he know Zanu PF is so desperate for some good news that it will seize on anything that comes its way! Is he a serious politician or not? His lengthy explanation looked suspiciously like the original. In these situations the less said the better.

Muckraker was hugely amused by a letter to the Herald from one “Cde Cad Mash”. He had this to say: “Zimbabweans in the know are fighting hard to keep the British out of Zimbabwe’s politics. The MDCs are working hard to smuggle them in. Involving the British in Zimbabwe’s politics is akin to entrusting a hungry tiger with the treatment and recovery of its wounded prey.”
And where was “Cde Cad Mash” writing this patriotic epistle from? Britain of course!

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