Cradle-robbing dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe cuts into a huge birthday cake. Courtesy AFP.

Mugabe turned 83 on Wednesday — one year closer to his sweet, sweet death (unless he’s a robot like Castro). It promises to be a time of celebration for a few dozen millionaires. This Saturday is the big event! It’s a party worth over $50,000 dollars, enough to pay for the drugs of a few hundred AIDS victims for a year or even tons of grain to feed his people.

Meanwhile, the rest of Zimbabwe isn’t doing so well. Inflation is up 1600% in the last year, though that may have gone up since I last checked half an hour ago. Fuel, water, food, and electricity barely exist there. Stores are no longer selling because government price controls are forcing them to do it at a loss. How does bark stew and mud pie sound to you? Not so good, but for Mugabe, there’s plenty of cake to go around. My bet is that most Zimbabweans haven’t seen that much food in a long time.

Yet Mugabe doesn’t want anyone else to have any fun. In fact, after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change held an unannounced rally that took the police completely off guard, the government decided to squash a legally sanctioned rally by firing live ammunition and rounding up hundreds of supporters. Then? No parties for the MDC this month, or the next, or the next. All political rallies or gathering have been expressly banned. Instead, business owners are being harassed to make “donations” to the party fund while civil servants are getting their wages docked.

Unfortunately, it does not appear as if the party is going to be crashed by the international community. The only ones who can do that are the people of Zimbabwe, and while some analysts are seeing greater desperation and dissent both among the people and even officials, as long as Mugabe has the security forces it may never happen. Maybe someone should push him in the pool and see if he short-circuits?…