The gentleman pictured opposite this page is one of the most infamous dictators of our time, a photogenic face we all know. Now, what does Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe have in common with Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, or, Than Shwe of Burma, or, Hu Jintao of China?

All of them are shrewd salespeople.

In this issue of Independent World Report, you are going to read about the blood diamonds sold by the Mugabe regime. A few pages forward, Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov of Turkmenistan would be shaking hands with one of the top leaders of the free world, and you will be told what product this dictator from Central Asia is offering at a high price, unless, you have already made a guess.

Dictators are no strangers to the pages of this magazine, since we have already covered some of them in our past issues: Than Shwe, Qaddafi, Islam Karimov et al. And each time we run a story that profiles any one of them, we find it rather amazing how business savvy they are.

Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan sells cotton to the world, forcing the school-children of his country to slave the cotton fields.

Than Shwe is bankrolled by Asian governments and multi-national businesses.

Omar al-Bashir remains a virtual protégé of Hu Jintao.

We wonder if the Chamber of Commerce of Strongmen does exist somewhere, but, this is really not about what dictators sell, or, even how they sell. This is about who is buying from them.

Who is investing in Burma or Sudan; who is wearing the soft cotton t-shirt that is stained with the blood of 200,000 schoolchildren of Uzbekistan; who is driving on Saudi oil; who is buying gas from Turkmenistan; who considers Morocco an economic partner.

Dictators — it is frustrating that we still have so many of them. But, disgusting is the fact that it is us who buy from them.♦