The Zimbabwe Guardian (London)
Tanonoka Joseph Whande
27 March 2008
opinion
ZIMBABWE is holding important elections tomorrow but that Libyan tyrant, Muammar al-Gaddafi, president of "the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", whatever that is, does not want Mugabe "to be bothered with elections" because "Mugabe should just rule until he dies."
Gaddafi did not say if he wanted Mugabe to rule the United States of Africa until he drops dead. We have no idea if Gaddafi himself would want to submit himself to Mugabe's rule.
The Libyan autocrat made this startling statement as he was being hosted and feasted in Uganda during something called the Afro-Arab Festival last week.
One wonders why Africans always form so many useless organisations to deal with the most minute of issues which are already covered by other multitudes of African organisations.
It is tempting to applaud Gaddafi for attending such a 'festival' because, at least, he knows that he is not an African. To that extent, therefore, Gaddafi should talk about his fellow Arab despots in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere and leave Africans to talk about Zimbabwe.
Gaddafi has no right to talk on our behalf; Arab governments in Africa only want our support and camaraderie to promote their exploitative designs. They duplicitously and hypocritically belong to both the Arab League and the African Union while, in the case of Morocco, they are busy pursuing membership in the European Union.
Gaddaffi, who was attending the Afro-Arab Festival in Uganda last week, said President Mugabe and Ugandan dictator, Yoweri Museveni, "should stay in power until they have solved all the problems in their countries or die while still in power."
Gaddaffi is so dead to the world that he is not aware that "all the problems in their countries" are caused by these bad sons of Africa not by former colonial powers.
"They should not be disturbed by elections," the Zimbabwe Guardian quotes Gaddaffi as saying, "because former colonial states want Africa to adopt their system of governance which is not viable here."
It is pathetic how unsuccessful leaders always blame former colonial powers for their failures, greed, corruption and inability to govern.
Twenty-eight years after independence, what excuse does Mugabe have for plunging the nation into such a dismal abyss?
Can Botswana, more than 40 years later, still blame their failures on the British? And who gets the credit for the good things that happened?
The Gaddaffi mentality of viewing elections as "disturbing" the tyranny of murderous dictators should warn the likes of Ian Khama, Jacob Zuma and the new crop of aspiring and emerging African leaders that despots have had their time.
And only three days after Zimbabwe holds its elections, Botswana inaugurates its fourth president in a rather controversial but, more importantly, a smooth transition.
No matter how much incoming president Ian Khama might want to duck it, his ascendancy signals a new chapter in African presidential politics. Hopefully, he can exploit it.
His youth and the system that brought him the presidency in such a peaceful way demands of him to promote democracy even beyond the borders of Botswana. Khama benefited from democracy; will he, like Mugabe did, turn his back on democracy?
It will be interesting to see how the young man walks the tight rope that is African diplomacy, an area overcrowded with notorious dictators. Unless, of course, he finds solace in the political vermin spouted and practiced by the likes of Gaddafi, Museveni, Mugabe and their ilk.
Khama comes to the presidency a clean man and he will need to choose his friends very carefully for we are read from the kind of friends we keep. He has the opportunity to lead the country in a new direction and even adopt changes that others would otherwise be reluctant to make. Africa will be watching and Africa needs inspiration from new leaders not those who join "the trade union of despots."
Africa's dictators have always dominated Africa and ran the continent into the ground. It really is time for the emerging African leaders to show that Africa can, indeed, produce brilliant, caring presidents.
We must now move away from the so-called champions of African independence like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Mugabe, Mandela, Kenyatta, Kaunda, Seretse Khama, etc.
They did their part, for better or worse, and it is time to move on.
Regrettably, those who came after them like Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Fredrick Chiluba of Zambia, Muluzi of Malawi, etc did not do any better with most of them falling back into autocracy and adopting some of the undemocratic behavior of the dictators they replaced.
"Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a onetime favorite of the West, is blamed for a bloody post election crackdown in which police shot to death dozens of students and imprisoned thousands more protesters, including elected opposition leaders," wrote Edmund Sanders in the Los Angeles Times. "Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, who once declared that no African leader should serve more than 10 years, is entering his 23rd. Kenya's Mwai Kibaki swept into office in 2002 on a promise to wipe out corruption but has been embroiled in government contract scandals and alleged cover-up that unravelled his administration" and showed his prowess at election rigging and a total disregard of human lives during last December's elections.
Africans should now introduce a new breed of leaders to resuscitate the continent.
There is no reason why evil rulers should continue to have an upper hand over democratically inclined presidents.
Ian Khama cannot run away from the possibilities staring at him. There is an opportunity to set a new path and precedent for not only Botswana but for Africa.
Gadaffi is championing a single African government and thinks "the term limits entrenched in Western-inspired constitutions and political parties were not conducive for the African political environment."
He said Africa would be safeguarded by revolutionaries and visionary leaders. And he fancies himself as one of them but he is not.
The so-called revolutionaries and visionaries who thrived on Chairman Mao's sayings, quoted Fanon, Stalin, Marx and Engels, destroyed the continent much as the colonialists did but killed more of their own people.
It is time that Africa laid to rest such retrogressive leaders. Africa deserves better than the crop of leaders fouling it up today.
Africa and its Africans must work up and run away from the sad state of affairs in Zimbabwe where the people appear to have literally been beaten into submission.
"In Uganda we have Museveni," the Zimbabwe Guardian quotes Gaddaffi as saying. "In Zimbabwe, we have Mugabe. They are real African leaders. They are serious. They should stay. Such leaders should not go."
This statement was made by an unthinking determined man selfish enough to believe khakistocracy is an acceptable form of government, regardless of what people think; a man whose rhetoric, like that of Mugabe, means less and less and a man whose meaningless populist speechifying has become weather-beaten, a man who thinks Africa is still willing to accept backwardness thrown into its future by evil and wicked man like Mugabe, et al.
Yes, Zimbabwean elections, like elsewhere in Africa, are fraught with danger and teargas, maimings or death are always lurking near polling stations.
But in spite of the abuse of people's votes, every citizen must try to go to the polls and cast their vote for their preferred candidate if it safe to do so. Like one of the candidates, Simba Makoni said, it is not worth it to die for Mugabe, Tsvangirai or for Makoni.
We must never lose pride in our nation which has remained beautiful in spite of the rape it has endured and continues to suffer under Robert Mugabe.
Africa, please, come home now.
Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean journalist
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