Lifestyles of the Rich and Ruthless Dictators

It isn't surprising that Robert Mugabe decided to throw himself quite the birthday bash. This dictator has run Zimbabwe into the ground all while he and his wife continue the globe trotting (and trotting over the faces of photographers) and spending extravagantly on their own needs.

For his birthday, he's demanding the following:

The list includes 2,000 bottles of champagne (Moët & Chandon or ’61 Bollinger preferred); 8,000 lobsters; 100kg of prawns; 4,000 portions of caviar; 8,000 boxes of Ferrero Rocher chocolates; 3,000 ducks; and much else besides. A postscript adds: “No mealie meal” — the ground corn staple on which the vast majority of Zimbabweans survived until the country’s collapse rendered even that a luxury.

Those who prefer to give in cash, not kind, are invited to send “donations” of between $45,000 and $55,000 to a US dollar bank account in the name of the 21st February Movement, a youth organisation controlled by Zanu (PF) and named after the date of the President’s birthday.

His nation is the poster children for lifestyles of the poor and wretched.

Of course, this is the same for dictators the world over, but few have a domestic situation as dire as Zimbabwe, with 231 million percent inflation, unemployment rates that are probably above 90% and starvation and disease rampant.