Africa’s Dictator-Diplomat

For his admirers and critics alike, Ethiopia's late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, leaves behind a potent political legacy. He will be remembered as an African leader of major historical significance: visionary, despotic, and indispensable.

BRUSSELS – The recent death in Brussels of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi finally brings to light what lay behind his mysterious two-month disappearance from public life. Ethiopia’s government had strenuously denied rumors of serious ill health caused by liver cancer. Now that the worst has, indeed, proven true, Ethiopia and all of East Africa will need to learn to live without the stabilizing influence of its great dictator-diplomat.

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