for Mugabe's praise singers

To understand this piece in entirety, one must have read another blog www.makutanoafrica.blogspot.com. It is a blog i contribute to with a couple of other Africans across the continent. Two bloggers there (Kay, a South African and Paul, a Kenyan), think Mugabe is a victim of witch hunt by the western media--. I choose to respond to them thus:

I have read your pieces Paul and Kay on how you believe Mugabe is a victim of harsh western press and unnecessary meddling of affairs by western powers. I have seen the passion with which you have come in defence of this despot. But again rules of common sense dictate that everyone should have a say; however thwarted that view may be.
So, do you in all wisdom believe that about a third of Zimbabweans have fled their country because the western press paints Mugabe as a villain?
Do you imagine that the pictures of people whipped and wounded in Harare and other suburbs are just a creative work of videographers and western photo journalists (who interestingly are banned from Zim)?
Do, you, Paul and Kay think that over 150,000% inflation is a mere joke perpetrated by some Ivy League economist at the World Bank headquarters and therefore not true of what is happening in Zimbabwe?
Are you, trumpeters of Mugabe, convinced that the bread queues and endless fuel lines we see relayed from Zimbabwe are fictitious?
Tell me, you who sing Mugabe’s praises--- was it fair to conduct an election where your major opponent at any slight occasion was detained by the Police and never allowed to address rallies. Have you ever fought a chained opponent? How difficult was that victory?
But again, I blame you not. Many of us are still caught in the wave of defending Africa, however grim things are. That is the only way we can prove our ‘patriotism’.
Call me unpatriotic but I will not back a leader who borders on dementia. Call me a traitor but I will not sing praises for a man, who led a country to prosperity only to hasten its downfall.
Label me a bootlicker of the west—but if they are the masters we have to worship in order to have stable economies, fuel and bread in proper supply, then so be it.
Guys, lets face up the reality. Mugabe is a mess. He can cling to all straws, point fingers elsewhere, but truth be told, he bungled in his economic policies. He screwed up. The people rejected him but the military keeps him around.
The west can be blamed for exaggerating, but reality is Zimbabwe ha gone to the dogs.
My only regret is why the ICC did not issue those indictments for him, although Bashir does deserve them too—just like many other African leaders.