West condemns Mugabe, ignores other Africa despots

But while he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals. Or play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups. Or sit on oil.

With corrupt and authoritarian governments close to the norm on the continent, it is not surprising that African leaders ignored Western demands that they censure Zimbabwe's president at a summit this week and some welcomed him with hugs.

As Mugabe himself has asked: How many African leaders can point a clean finger at him? How many held a better election than his one-man runoff that followed a campaign of violence against his foes that induced the opposition leader to quit the race?

While some African leaders have condemned Mugabe, many admire him for thumbing his nose at the West and pointing out its perceived hypocrisies, like the Bush administration appealing for human rights in Zimbabwe while facing criticism over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo.

"We Africans should learn a lesson from this," Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said in praising Mugabe's election to a sixth term.

"They (the West) think they can dictate to us and this is not acceptable. Africans should stand for Zimbabwe. After all, what did the West do for Africa?" said Jammeh, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1994 coup.

Just a decade ago, much of Africa was gripped by hope as a wave of democracy swept the continent.

It began with the extraordinary sight of protesters in the West African state of Benin taking hammers to a statue of Lenin. Within three years, 26 countries had held multiparty presidential elections on a continent known for one-man rule.

When elections in South Africa ended white minority rule in 1994, there was not one single-party state left in sub-Saharan Africa. Western nations tied aid to free elections and severed ties with dictators they had supported in the name of the Cold War fight against communism.