Union of despots

Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | July 14, 2003 | (leader page)

[Clive]

The appointment of Robert Mugabe to a senior post in the African Union may look like a snub to President Bush; in reality, though, it is a snub to the wretched people of Zimbabwe.

The AU seems set to go the way of its predecessor, the Organisation for African Unity, in becoming a haven for crooks and tyrants. This is partly because, in common with other international bureaucracies, it is not answerable to anyone, leaving its members free to arrange things in their own interest.

Which is precisely the problem with many of its member states. Governments that do not have to face elections quickly start running the country for their own benefit. Zimbabwe is, perhaps, an extreme example, but is hardly unique: many African states are treated as the personal property of their rulers.

Apologists are always ready with their excuses: these countries are undeveloped, they need more aid, their borders were drawn up arbitrarily by colonial rulers. And it is true that the West must take some responsibility for the terms of its hasty disengagement; but, decades after independence, that excuse is wearing thin.

Mr Mugabe's fellow heads of state are motivated, not by African solidarity, but by the deeper solidarity that exists among authoritarian rulers. They resent the West less from lingering anti-colonialism than because liberal democracies are a living rebuke to Africa's despots and a beacon to her reformers.

President Bush told his audience that Africans must solve their own problems; he looks like having a long wait.

[Clive]

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[propertius]

"And it is true that the West must take some responsibility for the terms of its hasty disengagement; but, decades after independence, that excuse is wearing thin."

Precisely. The West's crime in Africa wasn't colonialism. It was giving independence to countries that weren't ready for it.

We should suspend aid to every African country that hasn't condemned the Mugabe regime or isn't working actively to remove it. That means the only African country that would be a recipient of funds would be Senegal.

That Mugabe should be deputy chairman of the AU shows the new organisation is little better that the tinpot OAU. We think we are giving money to help the plight of ordianry Africans. We are not. We are giving it presidents who should be in prison or on the gallows rather than in government. And to add insult to injury they take our money and then spit in our faces.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

And the other "leaders" of Africa won't discuss it. They're afraid someone might question them throwing the first stone.

[happygrl]

Well said.