Tendai Biti Strips Down Dictators | ZimEye Tendai Biti All dictators are sustained by fear, patronage and chaos. The arsenal of this group of people is huge ,sophisticated but essentially predatory, brutal and short term. Power must be surrendered to one individual; the godfather. That power is normally acquired from a military coup ,a liberation struggle in the case of most of African dictatorships or some civil war triumph. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni being a good example of this. The most complex and entrenched dictator is the Founder of the new African Nation. He who held the chains at the time of transition from colonialism to independence. The Founding father of the nation. This lot personalise the State and have both de jure and de facto power. They are essentially the State .They are constantly reminding everyone of history and their unique role in liberating the country. One of Kamuzu Banda s famous regular statements was to remind Malawians of “how they were all dogs ” before he liberated them. To the extent that they own they state the culture of entitlement and impunity is the constant order of the day. Hardly anyone of them ever gives up office voluntarily .They die in office or are removed in a violent coup. Director Kelvin Kevin Macdonald made the Last King of Scotland in 2006 that made star Forest Whitaker win an Oscar for playing the life of dictator Idi Amin Dada but trust me all these dictators are so amazing so ingenious and yet so outrageous in respect of what they can do for power and money.Each deserve his Hollywood block buster. They belong in different categories.They are those like Togo s General Gnassinge Eyadema. A young man who become President at the time of Togo s independence from the French but vandalized the same and ran a personalized dictatorship for 41 years until his demise in 2000. He is in the category of those that assumed office immediately after independence The Founding Fathers of the Nation. There are a notorious bunch. Try Omar Bongo Odimba of Benin ,who took power in 1967 at the time of independence and died in office in 2009. Try Mzee Kenyata, and Hastings Banda. The egnimatic Felix Houphert -Boigny falls in that category.He assumed office at Cote de Ivoire s independence in 1960 but died in office in 1993. hung on to power through a complex mixture of bribery and coercion of the country powerful historical tribes and generous accommodation of army officials. None of his predecessors were able to do that plunging the country into civil war. That is one of the threat points of these omnipotent autocrats. They became the State itself such that their demise creates a vacuum that can never be filled effectively thus creating conflict or down right collapse of the State. We saw this in post Siad Barre s Somalia.After his death in 1991 war lords who had benefited from his patronage and protection simply turned on each other. The story of dictator Francois Tombaibaye of Chad is little known but deserves reference too.The eerie looking man took power at independence in 1960. He was so bad that when his officers killed him in 1975 there were parties and orgies in Chad s capital of NDajemena . But lets not create the impression that all of post independent Fathers were so dictatorial and predatory . .Mwalimu Nyerere despite challenges in economic management was a charming humane person. I find great humanism too in Kenneth Kaunda despite his many challenges mistakes and omissions . The poet President Leopold Senghor who ruled Senegal from independence in 1960 to 1980 was a brilliant philosopher who was moderate by the standards that were being proffered by his contemporaries. He did not die in office and handed power to an associate the lanky chocolate black Abdou Diof. But if you thought the first generation of dictators were horrible ,take a look at what I call the second generation class.This is a large group of monsters that acquired power ,mainly through coups against the autocratic founding Father. This lot do not have the legitimacy ,and sometimes the popularity and appeal of the Founding Father. So the dictatorship is more vicious.Further to the extent that they betrayed,and they organized a coup ,they know that what they did to the Founder can also be done against them. This lot therefore tends to be more paranoid ,does not trust anyone and is absolutely ruthless to the point of idiocy . .That is the point about Idi Amin Dada exposed in the Last King of Scotland. With great respect to Idi Amin Dada,the godfather of this lot has to be Joseph Mobutu Seseseko. The history of the country we now know as DRC is tortured and painful.I have no intention of uncovering it but the various mutations of this vast peace of beautiful rich but cursed land tell a story on its own. These names include Congo Free State,Belgian Congo,Republic of the Congo,Zaire and now the DRC. Mobutu carried out his American backed coup in 1965 following a paralysis brought about by a stand off between the President Joseph Kasavubu and the Prime Minister the late and great Patrice Lumumba. From then on Mobuto defined new horizons of theft and kleptocracy.He turned DRC into a one party state at the same time building a personal fortune that ran into billions.He was so wealthy that he could pay off his country s sovereign debt and and regularly lent money to his treasury. This man was a monster in the same league of the chief looter if the Congo ,King Leopold of Belgium. Another notorious second generation gangster is the unbelievable,Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic.The fellow took power in 1979 .This son of a kraal head ceased power in a 1966 coup against his cousin David Dacko . Therein after came a circus of repression abuse and state failure of such unbelievable proportions . The French had to remove this clown by military intervention in 1979 but not before the country had been rendered so dysfunctional.Empty coffers ,chaos and unbelievable patronage . If you visit the CAR s international airport today ,Bangui Mokoto International Airport ,the Emperor s legacy hits you in the face.Road runners scrounge for food whilst ,vendors sale tomatoes and exotic equatorial fruit at the same. The immigration officer has to be fetched from somewhere while poor passengers wait. Add to this list the likes of Paul Biya of Cameroon who assumed office in 1982. Also add Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso who carried out his coup against his friend ,the great Thomas Sankara in 1987. I suspect Gambians would complain if we left out their own Yahya Jammeh who carried his coup in 1994 against another long timer ,Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara who had ruled Gambia since 1964. But the last mention must surely go to Africa s longest serving dictator. It is not whom you are thinking of but his buddy Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo ,the dictator from the Equatorial Guinea who ceased power in 1979 through a coup against his uncle ,another notorious dictator Francisco Macais Nguema who had been in power since independence in 1968. Despite the Equitorial Guinea being one of the richest countries on the continent due to its oil,this is a country which is characterized by corruption,repression ,poverty and massive suppression of the media. A real tin pot dictatorship in a sea of wealth. It is just amazing the democratic deficit still on this continent . It is amazing how African populations can seat and watch helpless without power to fight back and regain their spaces against these dictatorships. Five decades after independence this is not on. It’s just about time that new generations rolled back time and rewrote their own history . This balance sheet of failure is an embarrassment to all Africans. And I did not even mention all of them. Zikomo.
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 14:44:32 +0000
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