Back in November 2017, the world celebrated as the tyrant, Robert Mugabe, was removed from the Presidency of Zimbabwe and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa. It seems that the world was a little premature in its sense of relief.
Mugabe had presided over the total collapse of Zimbabwean economy as well as a reign of terror aimed at white residents and anyone who did not agree with him. Somehow, he survived in office for almost 30 years but, by the latter part of 2017 his time was up. He was ousted in a military coup and his erstwhile ally, Mnangagwa, took over; sadly, it seems that things have got no better under the new President and may even have become worse.
News reports from Zimbabwe now refer to riots and general chaos. There are apparently shortages of food, medicine, fuel and even money; inflation is again rampant. The internet has been shut down, reopened and shut down again in an attempt to prevent opponents of the regime from communicating, the armed forces have instituted a brutal assault on protesters and people have died on the streets. In the midst of this mayhem, President Mnangagwa has absented himself by touring Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan before heading off to the regular junket for the rich and powerful in Davos, Switzerland. He has indicated that he has no interest in returning home before he has finished his taking full advantage of his status as a 'world leader'.
It's clear that far from being any sort of saviour, Mnangagwa is simply yet another of the horde of ghastly, power hungry, corrupt, thieving and murderous thugs who have risen, scum-like, to the top of the cesspit that passes for politics across much of Africa. From Egypt and Libya in the north, via the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly known as Zaire) and the Central African Republic to Uganda, Zimbabwe and even South Africa today, Africa has been riven with tribal conflicts for decades, centuries and probably millennia. Dictators and tyrants have come and gone by the bus load, often departing with vast amounts of loot while their people have been brutalized and starved. The response of the western world has been, for the most part, to sit back and do nothing other than pour huge amounts of money into schemes ostensibly supposed to provide relief for those in need but, in effect, which have merely served to enrich the monsters.
How can it be that Mnangagwa is welcome at Davos ?
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