Clinton Tells African Despots To Quit

US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton has warned African despots to give up power or find themselves “on the wrong side of history,” The New York Times reported yesterday.

Clinton, who addressed the African Union in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, said that African authoritarian governments ruled by aging despots were “no longer acceptable.”

“The status quo is broken,” she said yesterday. “The old ways of governing are no longer acceptable. It is time for leaders to leave with accountability, treat their people with dignity, respect their rights and deliver economic opportunity. And if they will not, then it is time for them to go,” said Clinton.

Some of the longest serving dictators in Africa include Cameroon President, Paul Biya, 78. Biya took over from Ahmadou Ahijo in 1982 and might be standing for another election this year after 29 years in power.

Muammar Gaddafi, the embattled Libyan dictator seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1969. He is currently battling the rebels who are trying to end his 42-year reign.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, 87, is another African dictator who became Zimbabwe’s prime minister in 1980 after independence elections. The former Marxist guerrilla became president in 1987 and has held fast to power despite a deep financial and health crisis that has almost ruined the country he fought so hard to free.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, 66 declared himself president in January 1986 when he seized Kampala after a five-year guerrilla struggle. Museveni banned multi-party politics shortly afterwards. He has been in power since then and was re-elected this year for another term.

Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola, 68, assumed the presidency of the mineral-rich country in 1979, four years into a civil war with UNITA rebels that finally ended in 2002.

President Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo, 67, seized power in a 1979 coup but then lost the country’s first multi-party elections in 1992 to scientist Pascal Lissouba. He regained the presidency in 1997 after a brief but bloody civil war and was re-elected in 2004 for a further seven-year term.

Clinton also urged the African Union, AU, to end its lingering relations with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi.

American officials have been deeply frustrated by AU’s efforts to mediate on behalf of Colonel Gaddafi, who for decades lavished support on African leaders — many of them autocratic — and led the union itself two years ago.

—Simon Ateba