Diamonds are a dictator's best friend. Just ask Robert Mugabe, president
and dictator of Zimbabwe.

When things seemed to be at their worst for Mugabe, diamonds were
discovered at Marange, in eastern Zimbabwe. The old monster was saved
because he got enough money to pay his thugs. One of the first lessons of
dictatorship: Keep the thugs happy.

Mugabe, who had destroyed his currency, starved his people and turned the
breadbasket of Africa into yet another begging bowl, looked as though he
was through, when in 2006 diamonds were found in an unexpected place.

Thousands of itinerants flooded into Marange to lay claim to the riches,
under the colonial-era mining laws. They had few tools, but they had hope.

Sadly, they also had Mugabe.

He sent in his military to evict the miners. They used helicopter
gunships; at least 200 miners were slaughtered and the rest were driven
off. The army took over the diamond fields and Mugabe was renewed in
power.

There has been enough money (about $1.7 billion a year), through official
and unofficial diamond sales, not only to keep the thugs in power and their
Mercedes-Benzes fueled. But there also may have been enough money quiet
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change and impotent prime minister.

When I asked two very brave women, who have cycled in and out of jail
because they tried to do something about the pitiful condition of
women in Zimbabwe, whether they were hopeful about Tsvangirai and the
opposition, one of them snorted: “Government in Zimbabwe is about who gets
a Mercedes-Benz.”

Peter Godwin, who was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1957 and who has
been a fearless chronicler of the decline and fall of his homeland in
books and articles, has pointed out the evil of these “coalition”
governments. It is, he has said, a spoils system where elections are
negated when the contestants decide they both won; and in a united
government, they can just divide up the spoils instead of fighting over
them.

In Zimbabwe the fear is that Tsvangirai, rather than resolving to get rid
of the Mugabe government apparatus, if he ever becomes president, will
keep it and perfect it. Mugagbe preserved the most repressive colonial 
laws to use at will himself, while blaming the white settlers for them.

One of Mugabe's gambits, detailed by Godwin, is particularly cruel: How you
appear to win elections fairly when you have coerced the electorate
cruelly. Suspected opposition supporters are seized by the police and the
military in the rural areas and then are taken to torture centers -- located in
schools -- where they are beaten and maimed. Often, their feet and legs are
pulped. The children of dictatorships learn their lessons early. The victims 
are sent back to their villages as a perpetual reminder of
what happens if you vote against the “Big Man.” 

Even so, it should be noted the Mugabe lost the last election and simply
stayed. His concession to the winner, Tsvangirai, was to stop bringing 
treason charges against him and to make him prime minister. Not so much 
power-sharing as loot-sharing.

Watch for more of it as faux democracy continues in Africa, south of the
Sahara and possibly north of it.

Like Godwin, I was born in Rhodesia. Like many young people at the
time, inside and outside of the country, we dreamed of a free,
multi-ethnic Africa -- the whole continent a kind of Garden of Eden. Our
template for that was Rhodesia of the time: peaceful, prosperous, idyllic,
but in need of extending the franchise genuinely to all the people -- de
facto ensuring black government.

Instead, we got Ian Smith: a brave fool who tried to extend the status quo
and brought on a race war which brought Mugabe to power.

In his first days as president, while Mugabe was feted around the world
and showered with honors, he sent his dreaded 5th Brigade into
Matabeleland; the stronghold of his opponent Joshua Nkomo, later to be
incorporated into the Mugabe system of government, but not before 20,000
of his Ndbele people had been killed by the Mugabe men.

For 31 years, the government of Mugabe and his “security” men has reduced
Zimbabwe to ruin, driving maybe as many as 3 million people into refugee
status in neighboring countries, starving and beating the people of my
childhood.

The tears of Africa, like diamonds, seem to be forever. 
-- For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate