Death of the ageing dictator, what a sad day

OK. Just want to shatter some of the anti-dictator euphoria that’s going around in thick wads at the moment. What will the world be with a few old crackpot politicians clinging on to power for dear life?

How boring would it be if all leaders conformed to democratic ideals and actually stepped down when their time was up?And by-the-way, where have the hordes of angry protesters been the last 30 years or so?I know, they’ve been happily taking it up the bum while singing the praises of the murderous regimes ruling them and calling to the rest of us to ‘respect our leaders and not be agents of foreign agendas’.And now we are expected to applaud the faceless masses who, with a little help from their power- hungry mates in the military, managed to topple a few despots.So,whenIgrowupIwanttobe an ageing dictator. ‘Strue!Just look at the things these chaps get away with and tell me it’s not a perfectly profitable gig. And it lasts about 25 years on average.Except maybe for the eccentric Idi Amin, but he made an indelible mark during the eight years he was ruling the roost.Foreign media who unkindly dubbed my hero the ‘Butcher of Uganda’ said he might have been the most notorious of all Africa’s post-independence dictators.Depending on who you listen to or the level of the person’s sobriety at the time Amin’s score of people who were killed, tortured, or imprisoned (or all of the above) stand proudly between 100 000 to half a million.He was ousted in 1979 and fled into exile.Sadly, the pudding bowl-cheeked dictator who had more obscure titles than a Britney Spears album passed quietly in 2003 in Saudi Arabia before those chaps at the International Criminal Court (ICC) could lay their dirty paws on him.Imagine having to call someone His Excellency, President for Life,Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, Lord of the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.And we sniggered at Founding Father of the Nation.Strangely, Amin was staunchly supported by another chap who has a penchant for the eccentric and bizarre monickers who is under considerable pressure at the moment. Man of the moment, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who relinquished the title of prime minister bestowed upon himself, the honorifics or is it horrific titles, ‘Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ or ‘Leader and Guide of the Revolution’, said that ‘cowards’ were trying to distort the truth and giving a wrong picture of what was happening in Libya.Libyans, he said, were being shown as being ‘bad people’.The leader of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya delivered a peculiar (even for his standards) speech and also read from a law book in defiance of the ‘the rats that are with the United States’.Oh, and he also called his subjects cockroaches, on drugs and drunk. A true sign of a dictator on his way.He was referring to protesters who took to the streets to oust him and his family Egypt style, or is it hoeka Tunisia style?’I am a warrior’ said the colonel who is rumoured to always travel with a voluptuous blonde Ukrainian nurse. He also roared ‘I am not going to leave this land, and I will die here as a martyr.’Earlier his playboy son, Saif al- Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi said they ‘will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet’.In 1996, during a protest in Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison, at least 1 000 prisoners were killed by the security forces. Maybe Saif al-Islam hinted at the consequences and repercussions that might follow if the demonstrators persist. It is the same son who paid Mariah Carrey US$1 million for four songs and has his finger in every conceivable money pot in Libya.The people and the Gaddafi’s believe they are richer than God. I think so too.But who was surprised when reports surfaced recently that the ousted Tunisian president took cash, gold, diamonds and jewellery worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Apparently in one of his safes, there were kamma large wads of 500 euro notes, as well as priceless jewellery.Unfortunately France, Switzerland and Canada have already frozen the assets of Ben Ali and his family.Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was toppled last month after magnificently ruling Tunisia for 23 years. His wife was notorious for her lavish lifestyle and is suspected of having pocketed much of the country’s wealth over the years and of taking personal stakes in much of the economy. Do I see Gucci Grace in this?Last week’s fallen dictator, former air force pilot Hosni Mubarak and his family apparently amassed US$ 70 billion, mainly from army contracts.Who said the army doesn’t look after its own?But the experts say that’s hyperbole and kicking an ageing dictator when he’s down and out. But where there is smoke there’s fire.

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