Thank God our puny little tin-pot despot is no longer as invisible as he was a couple of years ago. He has made the grand list of mean-spirited tyrants several times this year - a very good piece of news for Gambia. Thanks for sharing Bamba Laye. And may the writer's new year wish come true!
 
Baba 
 

> Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:27:56 -0600
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [G_L] Fwd: On the death of Kim Jong-Il
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> 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.
> Tweet
> 
> 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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