West condemns Mugabe, ignores other Africa despots

But the optimism, backed by theories that opening socialist economies to the free market would help pull Africa out of poverty, has evaporated and the democracy movement has stalled.

Today, only 21 states, including Botswana and South Africa, hold relatively free elections. Many of the remaining 31 are ruled by despots, including many offering the illusion of democracy with elections like those Mugabe held.

Rights activists put much of the blame on the West.

"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report.

Among countries he singled out as sham democracies are oil-rich Chad and Nigeria; Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni's friendship with President Bush has shielded him from criticism; and Ethiopia, a major U.S. ally against Islamic militants.

Other oil producers that have managed to avoid international condemnation include Angola, which hasn't held a presidential election since 1992, and Gabon, where President Omar Bongo seized power in a 1967 coup and now reigns as Africa's longest-serving leader.

"Countries that have made a point of overtly aligning themselves with U.S. narratives and policies regarding terrorism appear to have benefited not only from financial and military support but seem successfully to have diverted attention away from their internal poor governance and human rights abuse," said Akwe Amosu, senior analyst at the Open Society Institute in Washington.

Much of the West's focus on Zimbabwe is tied up in the sadness of seeing one of Africa's great success stories fall apart so completely.

When Mugabe led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, the country already had developed industries and an agricultural base that made it nearly self-sufficient because of years of U.N. sanctions imposed against a white supremacist regime.

Mugabe abandoned his guerrilla movement's policies of "scientific socialism" that called for nationalizing industries and land and instead encouraged a fairly free economy that grew and allowed him to make major investments in education and health care.