The Null Device blog: Mugabe, in his own words

One feels one must applaud the refreshing honesty of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe; after all, while many in his profession swear up and down to be champions of freedom, he's one of very few to equate himself to Hitler in his own statements.

"Hitler in Zimbabwe has one objective - sovereignty for his people, recognition of their independence and their rights to freedom. If they say I am Hitler, let me be Hitler ten-fold and that's what we stand for."

Mugabe, who sports a toothbrush mustache, made these remarks as his government clamped down ruthlessly on dissent, detaining and torturing hundreds of dissidents. (via Die Puny Humans)

(I seem to recall that some other African tyrant, back in the 1970s, idolised Hitler and put statues of him in all his cities.)

There are 3 comments on "Mugabe, in his own words":

Posted by: kenny http:// Fri Mar 28 06:16:19 2003

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16170

Posted by: jason http://jasonnolan.net Fri Mar 28 13:00:54 2003

Was it Idi Amin? Do I win something?

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Fri Mar 28 13:18:43 2003

It could have been; he called himself Conqueror of the British Empire, which is echoed in Mugabe's paranoia about Tony Blair trying to do him in, or it could have been someone else.

I recall that the despot in question's regime ended when an Israeli anti-terrorist SWAT team took him down after he killed an Israeli hostage (one of the engineers who built some facility for his government, I think).