Time to Forcefully Oust Mugabe - Christian Science Monitor

Washington - In the past decade, working as a US diplomat and then as a human rights advocate, I've had the perversely unique opportunity to meet on occasion with one of the longest-serving dictators in the world, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

These three- or four-hour marathon meetings were right out of central casting, with an out-of-touch octogenarian autocrat spouting vitriol against the British, democracy, and American corporate interests while sipping tea and speaking in an English accent even Queen Elizabeth would envy. In one of the early meetings, no one in the room at that time took seriously his vague threat that he would rather watch his house burn down then give away the key to the presidential mansion. Mugabe's latest announcement that he is forming a new government without the opposition despite their power-sharing deal clarifies what he meant: that he would never leave power willingly as long as he was alive, and that he would destroy the country if he had to in order to maintain his grip on power.

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0116/p09s03-coop.html