http://dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2011-12-19-on-the-death-of-kim-jong-il

Opinionista
Ivo Vegter
On the death of Kim Jong-Il

The reason we loved the Nando's “dictator” advert, pulled because of
fears for the safety of the chain's Zimbabwean employees, is because
it expresses a wish all of us share.
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This week, we mourn the deaths of Václav Havel, the man who led the
former Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution against Soviet domination,
and of Christopher Hitchens, the man of the astonishingly agile mind,
who railed against totalitarianism in all its forms.

In fitting counterpoint, news broke this weekend that the Dear Leader
of North Korea has obliged them, and joined the Brother Leader of
Libya on the ash heap of history.

It's been quite a year for dictators and international fugitives. Many
were deposed, and not a few died. Few were more odious than North
Korea's Kim Jong Il, who presided over a country that stubbornly clung
to a vicious brand of communist thought control.

North Korea has long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. Its standing
army is exceeded only by those of three vastly larger countries:
China, the USA and India. Per capita, it is by some margin the largest
in the world. For every thousand of its starving people, fifty
better-fed soldiers guard the country's deserted streets, barren farms
and empty food shops from foreign attack.

After all, the greed of American neo-fascist imperialist warmongers
knows no bounds, and the jealous bastards have troops just across the
“demilitarised” zone for a reason. In international relations
departments, the term “juche envy” is used to describe such latent
Yankee aggression.

Rare visitors to the secretive state report many positive emotions –
happiness, national pride, and when appropriate, grief – etched on the
faces of newsreaders and tour guides. North Korea has concentration
camps in which live humans – those who failed to hold Kim in
sufficiently high esteem, along with their parents, siblings and
children – are subjected to gruesome chemical weapon experiments.
You'd smile too, if that was your alternative.

Inept though the country's official propaganda is, it should be noted
that in reality, Kim Jong Il was dead for two days before anyone – but
anyone – knew about it. At first, reports said he, the indefatigable
Dear Leader, had died of fatigue. Reports remain mixed at the time of
writing, but the Korean Central News Agency, the source for a great
deal of amusement and very little truth, says it was a myocardial
infarction.

Such secrecy is the mark of a thoroughly repressive totalitarian
state. It is also why the song I'm so ronery, from that superb
documentary, Team America: World Police, is so funny. Few people –
outside an unthinking few on the far left who support by default
anything the free world opposes – have any sympathy for the porcine,
totalitarian bastard. He died with the blood of uncounted millions on
his hands.

Much the same sentiment (though at somewhat lesser scale) goes for
Osama Bin Laden, the non-national paramilitary leader whose death in
May was celebrated by all freedom-loving people on the planet, despite
any disquiet that the robust application of military force on the part
of the world's powerful but free nations might raise.

And the same also holds true for Father O'Gaddafey, to use the Irish
variation of the name of the Brother Leader with 112 Names. (I made
that up. To be clear, I made up the Irish variation, not the bit about
112 names.)

Let us not forget Tunisia, where the death of a salesman, Mohammed
Bouazizi, by self-immolation led to the overthrow of its dictator of
24 years, Zine el Abedine Ben Ali. Or Egypt, where courageous
protestors first toppled the 29-year dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and are
now engaged in resistance against the military rule that followed. Or
Yemen, where Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled since 1978, has been
forced out of office, and will decamp this week, if he proves true to
his word.

Many other countries across the Mahreb and Levant have witnessed
dramatic political change in the last year as their long-oppressed
peoples find their voices, their inspiration, and their courage to
fight for freedom.

The events of 2011 prompted an inspired Nando's advertisement. The
visuals are hilarious. The politics are shrewd: the notion that Robert
Mugabe and PW Botha were birds of a feather was spot-on. And the
nostalgic lyrics, which never fail to raise a lump in the throat, are
beautifully ironic. Here's a subtitled version of the most famous
recording, by Mary Hopkin in 1968. (And if you're interested in the
original Russian gypsy song, it is here. Do your self a favour -
Editor)

But despite the happy light this advert casts on political
developments in the world, the dictator dominoes still have a way to
go. Despite all this progress, it is sobering to note how many vicious
tyrants the world still holds.

I'd like to make a wish, in the spirit of the year that has been. With
the #godisnotgreat Twitter furore that followed the death of the
Hitch, I got all I wanted for Christmas, so this will have to be a New
Year's wish. I'd like to see a dozen more dictators resolve to go, or
be forced out by revolution or death.

Let's start with the Nando's ad, and the observation that it was
pulled from television stations for fear of the safety of employees in
Zimbabwe, the country ruled by the dictator it lampooned.

1. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe

Mugabe was once arguably a hero of the freedom struggle, but he turned
liberation into an awful parody. He started his three decades of
tyranny with the Matabeleland massacres, and spent the remainder
turning his beautiful country into a cesspit of oppression, violence,
corruption and poverty. What used to be the food basket of southern
Africa became a hyperinflationary joke. Many died. Many more suffered
brutal beatings or starvation. Millions fled.

Almost nobody, except the thugs on Mugabe's payroll, is willing to
defend his destruction of Zimbabwe, and that's a boast not even many
dictators can make.

Mad Bob, you've done enough to prove that only the good die young. Go.

2. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran

Iran's president was the object of the Green Revolution, the popular
but as-yet incomplete uprising that started the social networks'
obsession with the overthrow of tyrannical regimes.

The image of Neda Agha-Soltan's beautiful, startled face as she died
on camera will forever be engraved on my mind. The Twitter hashtag
that brought this new kind of news coverage to the world,
#iranelection, stand etched in the annals of history as a turning
point in how people interact on social networks.

The Green Revolution to a considerable extent inspired the uprisings
elsewhere in the region, by demonstrating that the love of freedom
gives power and courage even to the most oppressed peoples. Iranians
led the march to freedom. They deserve some of the success that others
have achieved.

Iran has a long and fractious history. It has degenerated by stages,
from the flowering civilisation of Persia, to a modern but corrupt
Cold War client state, to the backward and repressive theocracy it is
today. From the outset, Iran's revolutionary rulers have indulged in
reckless diplomatic and military brinkmanship, both overt and covert.
Its government persists on a path of nuclear stand-off, threatening
its neighbours and the free world in the hope of dominating the
region. Its religious leaders routinely torture and kill people,
including women, for exercising even the most petty freedoms.

The Iranian regime has become odious – too offensive for its own
people to tolerate. It is no surprise that it has to buy the
acquiescence of the middle class with cheap fuel and handouts. It is
no surprise it has employed the Basij, millions of violent thugs
reminiscent of Hitler's “brown shirts”, to enforce strict religious
codes and suppress political resistance. The revolutionary path of
Iran will end, and a free society will emerge. What was once a great
civilisation will rise again. The question is how long it will take,
and how bloody it will be. For the good of the Iranian people, and the
world, Ahmadinejad must go. If he takes Ayatollah Khamenei with him,
few will complain.

3. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Arguably less violent but no less oppressive than Iran, this awkward
ally of the US lies at the heart of the Middle East. Its oil-driven
engine is in dire need of an overhaul. Either the regime needs to
change, or the people need to change the regime. Under a strict
interpretation of religious law based on the teachings of a
fundamentalist sect, women are segregated from male society and live
their lives as chattel. In the ultimate insult to their legal
competence, they are subject even to male children, if a male adult
cannot serve as guardian. Minority tribes, guest workers and Hajj
pilgrims who don't share the Saudi interpretation of Islam have few
rights, and suffer injustices ranging from petty discrimination to
domestic abuse. Religious freedom is non-existent in Saudi Arabia,
which officially considers the Quran and Sunna to be its constitution.
Political parties, trades union and public protests are banned. The
press is heavily censored. If I were Saudi, this column wouldn't get
published, and I'd be jailed. Lucky I'm not gay, because that could
earn me a flogging or execution at the hands of the enlightened
monarchy. The House of Saud must fall. It is time for Sheik Abdullah
to go.

4. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan

His 22 years in command of the Sudan have been blighted decades of
violent civil war, brutal repression, medieval religious rules,
genocide in Darfur, and the documented theft of many billions of
dollars from the people of the Sudan. Make us happy and go, Al-Bashir.
To hell, if heaven won't have you.

5. Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea

Eritrea has suffered under brutal misrule ever since its independence
from Ethiopia 20 years ago. Afewerki dissolved parliament in 1992, and
it hasn't met since. There is no private, free media at all in his
country, so we can't know just how bad things really are, but tales
about draconian work camps, religious persecution and tens of
thousands of political refugees make it clear that he is no longer
welcome among his people. Go.

6. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela

A darling of the socialist left, Chávez has confiscated private
property, suppressed the media, taken control of formerly independent
universities, and persecuted political opponents, including by
co-opting the judiciary as a political weapon. Venezuela's bountiful
oil revenue affords Chávez the opportunity to bribe citizens with
subsidised necessities and political patronage, a strategy that, as
with Iran, is not atypical of repressive regimes. Ironically, this
produces some statistics that give cover to his defenders on the left,
and give force to his attempts to export the “Bolívarian revolution”
to Latin America and beyond. The truth, however, is simple: Chávez is
a brutal socialist thug on an oil drip. He needs to go.

7 and 8. Raúl and Fidel Castro of Cuba

While we're sojourning on the communist side of Latin America, let's
add the Castro brothers. There is a reason their citizens risk their
lives to flee their prison state on home-made rafts. Useful idiots
such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore find themselves (rightly) moved
by the harsh embargo against Cuba, to (wrongly) romanticise an
idealised, sanitised version of the revolutionary island state. Unlike
them, the people who actually suffer Cuba's much-vaunted “quality of
life” are not entirely enchanted with the island paradise, and prefer
to risk drowning. The Castros must go.

9. Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia

His Excellency Sheikh Professor Al Haji Dr Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jemus
Junkung Jammeh of The Gambia is not very widely known, but those who
do, know him for allegedly killing journalists, proposing to
decapitate homosexuals, disappearing thousands of citizens with
arbitrary detentions and rigged trials, and duping the rest with
claims of miracle herbal cures for everything from infertility to
Aids. Development spending is limited to regions that support him, in
the classic political patronage ploy of dictators. Inspired by the
uprisings in the Arab world, Gambians both at home and abroad have
been protesting his rule all year, noting that the leader of the
opposition is rotting in jail for daring to oppose Jammeh in public.
Yahya Jammeh, your time is up. Go.

10. Bashar al-Assad of Syria

Bashar al-Assad and his father have ruled Syria for a combined 40
years. Intelligence circles are undoubtedly mistaken about the
chemical weapons stockpiles Syria has had for decades. Satellite
imagery shows it has recently been expanding its facilities to
warehouse and manufacture complex chemicals, but surely the chemicals
in question are multi-vitamins. For little babies. After all, Syria
says it's been calling for a WMD-free Middle East since 1987, and none
were found in Iraq, from where a large convoy was seen heading to
Syria mere days before the 2003 invasion. In 2007, an Israeli air
strike targeted what couldn't possibly have been a military nuclear
facility built by the North Koreans, because that would violate the
Non-Proliferation Treaty of which Syria is a signatory.

All this is just western imperialist propaganda, no doubt, but what we
do know is that just this year, thousands of Syrians have died
protesting their continued repression at the hands of the Assad
regime.

The Arab League, not renowned for its aggressive stance against
members on matters of liberty and democracy, has suspended Syria and
imposed sanctions. Never mind a peace deal. Assad is a dangerous,
murderous dictator. He must go.

11. Theodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea

Nguema has ruled his small but oil-rich country for 32 years, after
deposing and killing his murderous uncle. He is Africa's
longest-serving “democratically-elected leader”, having won 99 of 100
seats in elections a few years ago.

He might be chairman of the African Union, but perhaps that is because
they couldn't deny a fellow who claims to be God, and above the
judgement of mere mortals in matters of murder and torture. Besides,
as the histories of UN Commissions on Human Rights, Disarmament and
the Status of Women show, membership of international organisations
means squat, especially when you have oil or broadly oppose the United
States.

Nguema has won several other plaudits. Most of them are fictional,
however, with the notable exception of the Admiralship of the Great
Navy of Nebraska. This is indeed a genuine award, most fitting to this
eccentric tyrant.

His people might be too scared to say so, and foreign governments –
like South Africa – too enamoured of his abundant new oil wealth, but
Nguema is a blot on the African continent. He needs to go.

12... no, scratch that. I was going to include Burma on this list, but
the long-serving tyrant in charge of the military junta in that
benighted country, Than Shwe, has this year given way to the
supposedly civilian rule of U Thein Sein. Though his “election” was
neither free nor fair, he is seen as a pragmatic reformer, has
released opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and convened a parliament
for the first time in two decades. He merits a close eye, but doesn't
make my wish list. Yet. Also, I spent an extra number on the ghost of
Fidel Castro, so I need number 12 for someone closer to home.

12. King Mswati III of Swaziland

Mswati runs his small country as a personal fiefdom. He is the
quintessential kleptocrat, who had the temerity to demand a R400
million “facilitation fee” for arranging a financial rescue package
from South Africa. By all accounts, his interior decorators and luxury
car dealers need this money. Mswati and his thirteen wives – whom he
chooses by annually having the country's most nubile virgins line up
and dance for him – live it up in ever-more lavish style, while his
subjects endure abject poverty. They are dependent on unproductive
subsistence farming or food aid despite living in one of the most
fertile regions of the sub-continent. The popular press makes
caricatures out of fat little despots like Mswati, because ordinary
people needlessly suffer under their boot-heels. Fat little despots
like Mswati ruthlessly crush popular protest, because they know this.
He's a festering pimple on the cheek of South Africa. The sooner he is
gone, the better.

In the interest of modest ambitions, I've limited the list to these
dirty dozen. There are a few more leaders deserving of a proper
ousting, notably in some of the former Soviet states, but getting rid
of this dirty dozen would be a good start for 2012. DM

-- 
-Laye
==============================
"With fair speech thou might have thy will,
With it thou might thy self spoil."
--The R.M

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