Well:
Well, Mr. Samīs article is tempting to have a total pessimistic view of the
continentīs past, present and future. However, he did not realize the the
efforts made by various countries undertaking economic and political reforms
in the past decade, and the progress made, in spite of the immense
difficulties, in generating growth, show that this pessimism would be
misplaced.
Thanks for sharing.
SS.Jawara
Stockholm, Sweden.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jungle Sunrise
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 3:45 PM
Subject: An interesting Article by Charles Sam
This article by Charles Sam of African Hope International,
([log in to unmask]) makes very interesting reading. This article was
culled from The Opinion column of The Gambia Daily Observer. I wish to
apologise in advance for any grammatical or typographical errors as I had to
re-type the entire article myself.
I am also joining others in congratulating the Lions of Teranga and wishing
them the best of luck in their next march.
Have a good day, Gassa.
African nations must arise
We all know that Africa needs REFORM and a NEW PATH. I will praise any
African leader who puts forward such a reform plan. But collectively so far,
they have been doing the matutsi [mind you, there are exceptions, but they
are pitifully few]. My beef with the collective leadership comprises the
following:
1. They like to grandstand, holding big summits, making big speeches and
announcing grandiose plans: African Renaissance, Omega Plan, MAP, etc.
Champagne glasses click; booze flows. Then everybody goes home and forgets
about what was said. What happened to the African Union idea? What happened?
2. They have not shown the capacity to LEARN from their own history. As a
result, they keep repeating their own stupid mistakes again and again and
again. General Samuel Doe stole Liberia's presidential elections in 1985. It
instigated the civil war that destroyed the country together with him. In
October 2000, General Robert Guie stole the elections in Ivory Coast. The
country descended into chaos and civil strife. Has Robert Mugabe learnt
anything from these?
3. They are not serious about reform because they do not want to relinquish
or share power. Ask them to to establish multi-party democracy and they will
perform the "Babangida Boogie" -- One step forward, three steps back, a flip
and a sidekick to land on a FAT Swiss bank account!! Much ado about nothing.
And get this: As long as African leaders are not serious about reform, MORE
African countries will implode. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon,
Guinea, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, to name a few, are candidates. Obviously,
next time when these leaders meet at Abuja to unveil another "grand plan," I
will show up with my "CUTLASS." Out of the 54 African heads of state, name
me just 10 of them who are willing to hold free and fair elections and
gracefully bow out of office if they lose. When the Soviet Union collapsed
in 1989, the wind of change swept across Africa, toppling long-term
autocrats. In 1990, only 4 African countries were democratic. This tiny
number increased to 15 in 1995; now we have slid back to 14 and the
democratisation process has STALLED.
THE VAMPIRE AFRICAN STATE
Today, most Africans blame bad and corrupt leadership as the major cause of
Africa's woes. The post colonial leadership, with few exceptions,
established defective political and economic systems in which enormous power
was concentrated in the hands of the state and ultimately one individual.
The political systems were characterized by "one-man dictatorships" (or
Sultanism) and the economic systems by "statism" or dirigisme -- heavy state
participation or direction of economic activity. The rationale for the
adoption of these systems are well-known: the need for national unity,
ideological aversion to capitalism, and the need to protect the
newly-independent African nation against foreign exploitation.
Over time, these systems metastasized into an ugly monstrosity. where
government as it is generally known, ceased to exist. Today, "government,"
as an entity, is totally divorced from the people and perceived by the
ruling elite as a vehicle, not to serve, but to fleece the people. The
African State has been reduced to a maffia-like bazaar, where anyone with an
official designation can pillage at will. Thus, what exists in many African
countries is a "vampire" or "pirate state" -- a government hijacked by
aphalanx of gangsters, thugs and crookes who use the instruments of the
state to enrich themselves, theri cronies and tribesmen. All others are
excluded (politics of exclusion).
To understand why a rich country is rich and a poor country poor, examine
how the rich in both countries make their money. In the Us, the richest
person is Bill Gates, with a personal fortune of $68 billion. He generated
his wealth in the private sector, producing software, thus, having something
to show for his wealth. By contrast in Africa, the richest persons are heads
of state and ministers, who accumulated their wealth by raking it off the
backs of their suffering peasants. Quite often the chief bandit is the head
of state himself.
This form of presidential banditry merely re-distributes wealth and does not
result in the net creation of wealth.
Consequently, a peculiar system of governance now pervades Africa, where the
primordial instinct of the ruling elite is to loot the national treasury,
perpetuate themselves in power and brutally suppress all dissent and
opposition. Worse, the booty is not invested in Africa but in foreign banks.
According to a United Nation's estimate, in 1999 alone, more than $200
billion in capital was siphoned out of Africa by the ruling elite (The New
York Times, 4 February 1996; page 4). Note that this amount was more than
Africa's foreign debt of $320 billion. A Un Report on Global Corruption,
released in Vienna in April 13, 2000 observed that "up to $30 billion in aid
for Africa, twice the GDP of Ghana, Kenya and Uganda combined, has ended up
in foreign bank accounts" (New Vission, April 15, 2000). Furthermore,
capital flight out of Africa, on an annual basis, exceeds what comes into
Africa as foreign aid.
In Kenya, "Many people in government have the biggest accounts in foreign
banks. Critics of the Moi government say there is more money from Kenyans in
foreign banks than the entire foreign debt, which is about $8 billion.
Kenya's situation is not unique to the country. It is the reality found
throughout Africa" (The Washigton Times, 3 August 1995, A18). Nairobi
businessman Peter Wamai, charged that, "If they are serious about
eradicating poverty, they would start by returning the money that has been
stolen" (The Washington Times, June 3, 1999; p A12)
To achieve their nefarious objectives of self-aggrandizement and
self-perpetuation in power, the ruling elite take over and subvert every key
institution of government: the civil service, judiciary, millitary, media,
banking and even various commissions with lofty ideals that are supposed to
be non-partisan and neutral -- press/media commission, human rights
commission, and commission on civic education.
As a result, state institutions and commissions paralyzed. Laxity,
ieptitude, indiscipline and unprofessionalism thus flourish in the public
sector. Of sourse, Africa has a police force and judiciary system but the
police are themselves highway robbers and many of the judges crooks. When
president Olusegun Obasanjo was elected as Nigeria's president in 1999, he
launched a highly public campaign against corruption and vowed to recover
the loot stashed abroad by Nigeria's former dictator, the late General Sani
Abacha. According to the Post Express (July 10, 2000), "The late Abacha is
believed to have siphoned more than $8 billion of Nigeria's foreign exchange
into fictitious accounts in Europe, Asia, America, Caribbean and Arab
countries" (p.26). The government disclosed that, by March 2000, %709
million and another 144 million Pounds Sterling has been recovered from the
Abachas and other top officials or the Abacha regime. But this recovered
loot was itself quickly re-looted. When the Senate Public Accounts Committee
looked more closely, it found only $6.8 million and 2.8 million Pounds
Sterling in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Said Uti Akpan, a textiles
trader in Lagos, "What baffles me is that even the money recovered from
Abacha has been stolen. If you recover money from a thief and you go back
and steal the money, it means you are worse than the thief" (New York Times,
August 30, 2000; p. 10). Since politics constitutes the gateway to fabulous
wealth in Africa, the competition for political power has always ferocious.
Political defeat could mean exile, jail or starvation. Those who win power
take over the key institutions and proceed to plunder the treasury. Key
positions in these institutions are handed over the president's tribesmen,
cronies and loyal supporters -- to serve their interests and not those of
the people or the nation.
Meritocracy, rule of law, property rights, transparency and administrative
capacity vanish. Eventually, however, the "maffia African state" implodes,
sucking the country into a votex of savage carnage and heinous destruction:
Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Zaire. The process varies but its onset
follows two predictable patterns.
First, those ezploited by the vampire state are eventually driven to
exercise the "exit option": Leave or reduce their exposure to the formal
sector economy by smuggling and taking their activities to the underground
economy or the black market. This deprives the state of tax revenue and
foreign exchange. Over time, the formal economy progressively sinks and the
state finds it increasingly difficult to raise revenue as taxes are
massively evaded, leading the ruling vampire elite to resort to printing
money and inflate the economy.
Second, those excluded from the spoils of political power eventually rise up
in a rebel insurgency or secede (Biafra in 1967). And it takes only a small
band of determined rag-tag malcontents to plunge the country into mayhem.
Back in 1981, Yoweri Museveni, the current president of Uganda, started out
with only 27 men in a guerrilla campaign against Milton Obote. Charles
Taylor, now the president of Liberia, set out with 150 rebels; the late
Mohamed Farah Aidid of Somalia began with 200 rebels; Paul Kagame of Rwanda
set out with less than 250 rebels. And no African government in
post-colonial era has been able to crush a rebel insurgency.
Thus, one word, power, explains why Africa is in the grip of a never-ending
cycle of wanton chaos, horific carnage, senseless civil wars and collapsing
economies: The struggle for power, its monoploization by one individual or
group, and subsequent refusal to relinquish or share it. The adamant refusal
of African despots and the ruling vampire elites to relinquish or share
political power is what triggers insurgency. In fact, the destruction of
African country, regardless of the processed ideology of its government,
always begins with some dispute over the electoral process. Unwilling to
relinquish or share political power, the ruling vampire elite block,
sabotage or manipulate the electoral process to keep themselves in power.
The blockage of the democratic process or the refusal to hold elections
plunged Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia and Sudan to civil war.
The manipulation of the electoral process by hardliners destroyed Rwanda
(1993) and Sierra Leone (1992). The subversion of the electoral process in
Liberia (1985) eventually set off a civil war in 1989 and instigated civil
strife in Cameroon (1991), Congo (1992), Togo (1992) and Kenya (1992).
Finally, the annulment of electoral results by the military started the
Algeria's civil war (1992) and plunged Nigeria into political turmoil
(1993). Witness the current crisis in Kenya or Zimbabwe. More African
countries will blow.
----- Folks, I am stopping here for now and would send in the final part
when I am less busy.-----
There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see,
yet small enough to solve. -Mike- Levitt-
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here
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