Starving Billionaires and Victoria Falls.

Two brutal dictators. Two very different stories.

Two news stories from the same page on the very same day, in fact.

The good news; Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was sentenced to 50 years in prison for his countless atrocities that took over 250,000 Liberian lives between 1997 and 2003. Mass rape, enforced child soldiering and enslavement are also listed upon his crime record.

Excellent news, of course, in the sentencing of a prominent war criminal whilst other tyrants such as Ratko Mladic await their verdict and wanted fugitives such as Joseph Kony are hunted down. 

The bad news; Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president accused of ethnic cleansing and election-rigging whilst overseeing the  country’s super-inflated economy, has been sought as a ‘leader for tourism’ by the UN’s World Tourism Organisation.

Yes, the United Nations. The same international body that presides over nations’ cooperation in law, security, economic development, human rights and, ultimately, world peace. All ideals that Mr Mugabe doesn’t seem to care too much for upon researching his record as president, which includes;

-          Being named as one of the world's ten worst dictators by Amnesty International in 2004.

-         The undertaking of Operation Murambatsvina (English translation: Drive Out Rubbish), in which as many as 700,000 people, according to UN estimates, lost their homes and/or livelihoods amidst the government’s program of mass forced evictions in 2005.

-         The 1983 and 1984 “Gukurahundi” massacres of over 20,000 Matabele citizens of Zimbabwe committed by the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe Army. 

-         Presiding over an economy whose inflation rate soared to an unimaginable 231,000,000% in 2008, that produced the infamous 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknote, and plunged into 80% unemployment.

Hardly a prestigious portfolio to qualify this 88 year old, who is ironically still bound to an EU travel ban himself, to champion his country’s prospects of boosting their near-redundant tourism figures. It almost defies all moral and ethical principles, let alone logic, in handing such statesmanship to a man of his reputation. Does the UN really believe that tourists would appreciate the welcomings of a travel ambassador with such blood stained upon his hands? 

British MP Kate Hoey, chair of the parliamentary group on Zimbabwe, said: “For a man who has destroyed his country’s infrastructure and cynically engineered hunger to be an ‘ambassador’ for tourism is disgraceful – particularly as he has been personally responsible for the downward spiral of the economy and destroyed the tourism industry in the process.” Canada have echoed these sentiments by duly withdrawing themselves from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, with their foreign minister John Baird citing Mugabe’s recommendation as the ‘last straw’ in Canadian participation at the UN body.

And what of Zimbabwe’s citizens? Dewa Mayhinga, of the civil society organisational body ‘The Crisis in Zimababwe Coalition’, commented “It boggles the mind how the UN could appoint Mugabe as an ambassador of any sort. It sends the wrong message to Mugabe that he is now acceptable to the international community”. 

The furore also brings further questioning of the UN’s credibility and its double standards of recent times, such as the striking contrast in their speed of intervention within the Libyan conflict to their current neglect of responsibility within Syria, and the perpetual absence of a global Arms Trade Treaty.

The UN have since released a press statement reassuring the media that Mugabe has not been appointed in any fixed capacity, but the symbolism of his advocacy within the international community will remain an ugly stain upon their judgment and moral standing.