It seems the brutal tyrant in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has lost his head p.r. guy. Never mind. With puff-pieces like this one, who needs p.r.? “A Hero To Many!” Whoever Rachel Swarns is, she’s clearly a Rainesian. I love this paragraph:
Mr. Mugabe is criticized in the West for encouraging blacks to invade white-owned farms, for hounding journalists and judges, and for jailing opposition party leaders. But to some leaders, particularly in Africa, he is a hero. To them, he is the guerrilla who ended white rule here in 1980, the statesman who expanded access to education and health care and the revolutionary who is returning land stolen from blacks during the British colonial era.
“Criticized in the West.” This is a man who jails his opponents, rigs elections and is fomenting a famine in his country by brutal evictions of the only productive farmers. He’s viciously homophobic and reviled by any serious African analyst as a menace to any democratic trends in the region. But the Times sees his good side. Of course they do.
The Dish 