When all the passion has settled a few positive things will be seen to have emerged from what is still being miscalled the Iraq war. So far it’s been less a war than a walkover. Watching the daily proceedings on television my mind kept flicking back to that rugby encounter late last year at Twickenham, between England and South Africa. A 50-point thrashing that some optimists still refer to as having been a match.
One of the postives of the Iraq invasion was voiced by a Sky News reporter who said, ‘Other dictators all over the world will be sitting up and taking notice of the trouncing of Saddam Hussein. Some must be trembling in their boots.”
These comments might well have sounded a faint alarm bell just north of our borders, for there are some startling similarities between Saddam Hussein’s cycle of terror and brutalisation and that of Robert Mugabe. After their accessions to power both Saddam and Mugabe displayed qualities of salutary leadership. Saddam was only second in charge of Iraq when he instituted a national policy of building schools and hospitals; Mugabe did the same, vowing that illiteracy would be wiped out by his education policies. Today Zimbabwe boasts a literacy rate of 80% and above.
As power slowly corrupted them, both men began to metamorphose into unredeemable monsters. Both brought their countries to the brink, both doing so under the aegis of bogus democracies. The hollowest political laugh of last year was Saddam’s claim of a 100% poll in his favour in the Iraqi general election. The last election in Zimbabwe was as fraudulent.
In their times, Saddam and Mugabe have used brutality, fear and genocide as tools of power. Both have massacres on their hands. There are now far too many proofs of the savage excesses of the Mugabe secret police to be ignored — save by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, that is. Saddam showered his family and cronies with handsome rewards. How many farms each do Mugabe’s family members, his top ministers and police and army chiefs own?
The similarities pile up. Among the more significant is that, as Saddam Hussein ran his murderous course, for the most part neighbouring Arab countries looked steadfastly in the other direction. Certainly no visible action was taken to tame the beast. In Zimbabwe’s case the SADC ministers, inspired principally by Thabo Mbeki’s lordly hands-off approach, have also turned their heads away. The African Union hasn’t even got around to discussing Zimbabwe.
When it comes to hose-down public entertainment both Iraq and Zimbabwe have produced virtuoso comedians in their Ministers of Information. It’s hard to decide whether Jonathan Moyo’s porkies outdazzle those of Mohammed Saheed-al-Sahaf; the latter was last seen denying the Americans were anywhere near Baghdad while he had a Abrams gun-barrel resting on his left shoulder.
A bizarre similarity is in the matter of the reported poverty in size of Saddam’s honeymoon gear and the absence of a practical third of any such gear in Mugabe. According to commentator Mark Steyn of The Spectator, Saddam Hussein is blessed with a set of Bonsai
genitalia, whereas rumours have long since told of the complete lack of an actual dwang attached to President Bob. It is said that many years ago his was amputated by some embittered white doctor, a radical surgical remedy for an otherwise quite medically treatable infection. Didn’t Hitler only have one testicle?
Whether deficiencies in one’s basement can be the cause of malignant oligarchical lunacy is for trick-cyclists to decide. What is plain is that now could be the ideal time for George Bush and Tony Blair to fly past and lob a few daisy-cutters onto Mr Mugabe and his thugs. This is by no means an original idea. At a protest march mounted in Johannesburg last weekend by the Concerned Zimbabweans Abroad organisation, many of the banners called for exactly this kind of action: Bush: Give Mugabe 48-hours read one of them. SMS messages to the new SABC Interface programme included quite a few making the same call.
Any force invading Zimbabwe wouldn’t meet much resistance. No one doubts the efficiency of the Zimbabwe militia when it comes to the beating up and terrorisation of a defenceless citizenry, the raping of women, the torching of villages. But there’s considerable doubt as to their capability of standing up to adversaries who show signs of fighting back. I fear that Mr Mugabe’s thugs would leave their Iraqi counterparts standing when it comes to throwing away uniforms and fading into
the scenery.
So what’s stopping Tony Blair and George Bush from having their pleasure? Both say their main purpose in Iraq was in ridding the world of a rogue. Mugabe and his murderous cohorts are their own weapons of mass destruction. They’ve given a whole new meaning to the name, Zimbabwe Ruins.
Come on, Tony and Dubya. In your role as international mercenaries take a quick detour south on your way back. You must have lots of leftover ammo.
Archive: Previous columns by Robert Kirby