Mugabe’s Dirty Secret

Robert Mugabe is the worst of the worst. He has revoked property rights on farms and conducted massive electoral fraud. He starves his people—the so-called “breadbasket of Africa” is now a basket case. He has demolished ghettos and pushed the urban poor into the rural countryside, fearing that they will create a critical mass strong enough to undermine his regime. To summarize, he has transformed Zimbabwe into an international pariah.

And it keeps getting worse . Now he’s revoking the citizenship of Zimbabwe nationals with foreign lineage. Via the BBC:

In the wake of the government’s crackdown on illegal buildings and unlicensed traders, Zimbabweans of foreign parentage are finding themselves in a particularly difficult situation… A change in the citizenship law shortly before the 2002 presidential elections meant that being born in Zimbabwe no longer automatically conferred nationality. Although most observers believe the law was designed to disenfranchise whites, it also affected the status of Zimbabweans who have roots in other African countries.

People with just one parent or grandparent of non-Zimbabwean origins are now in a real fix as they prepare to be deported to countries that many of them have never known.

But I for one hope this law will be enforced across the board. Because it turns out the Hitler of 21st century Africa has a little secret: Mugabe’s father was from the neighboring country of Malawi. As much as I’m in favor of sending in the Marines to give Mugabe a taste of regime change with extreme prejudice, there could be an even easier way—if we could get this new citizenship law to apply universally, we’d solve the country’s biggest problem without any bloodshed.

(Implausible, but a man can dream…)