This week events in Honduras have brought back horrible memories - the 'c' word - coup. It's like a geopolitical equivalent of Babycham, Slimcea, Bell-bottomed trousers ans sideburns - a reminder of the 1970s.
Africa has not been without its coups recently, such as in Mauritania and Guinea last year. The events in Madagascar were nothing short of a coup d'etat where an elected president was replaced not at the ballot box but through street protests, which no matter how well-organised would never have amounted to anything had the army not changed sides.
What's more I see that the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja, is acting in something of a high-handed manner. He's dissolved his Parliament and the country's highest court. He's doing this because he wants to stay on in power. The Nigerien constitution gave him two terms, the last of which is coming to an end. The idea behind term limits on politicians is based on mistrust and the hope that there is a limit to the harm one person can do in a limited period. President Tandja points to his success as president of Niger and support for his remaining as president. Certainly there do not appear to be other would-be candidates to fill his shoes, and since taking power he certainly hasn't beggared his country; he didn't have to, as it was already at the bottom of mos international indices.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Guinea's coup
The reaction of the international community and many commentators to last December’s coup in Guinea shows woeful lack of understanding for African developments. Looking at the event through a really narrow and legalistic framework it has been characterised as an example of a step backward from “democratic” development to a world dominated by men with guns. But where was democracy in Guinea? It was a country whose many resources were being freely pillaged by a corrupt coterie close to the increasingly incapacitated President Conteh. While there were voices raised in opposition to his regime they were too feeble and badly organised to mount any effective resistance, and you got the feeling that, given half the chance, these civilian voices would be just as adept at the grand larceny of the state’s resources.
Captain Dadis Camara’s coup has the potential of wrenching the country out of this quagmire and offering Guinea and its people an alternative.
Elections are to be held later this year; indeed Camara wanted to hold them next year when the basic infrastructure for holding a poll might have been put in place, but the solicitous international community insisted that they be held sooner rather than better – as if going through the motions of holding a ballot can introduce democracy in a country with high levels of illiteracy and with no experience of casting ballots or counting them.
Captain Camara is not standing in the elections. This is a pity, because he has shown himself to have vision beyond what passes for vision among many of Guinea’s politicians - getting rich quickly. He joined the army after his university education, so he must be set apart from semi-literate thugs of the past like Samuel Doe or Idi Amin who used the army as a means of gaining power quite literally through the barrel of a gun.
He has pledged to hand over power to civilian politicians. Because such people wear business suits the international community feels more comfortable with them than uniformed soldiers. That such besuited figures are often thieves doesn’t seem to worry them – indeed it may be a further common feature.
Captain Dadis Camara’s coup has the potential of wrenching the country out of this quagmire and offering Guinea and its people an alternative.
Elections are to be held later this year; indeed Camara wanted to hold them next year when the basic infrastructure for holding a poll might have been put in place, but the solicitous international community insisted that they be held sooner rather than better – as if going through the motions of holding a ballot can introduce democracy in a country with high levels of illiteracy and with no experience of casting ballots or counting them.
Captain Camara is not standing in the elections. This is a pity, because he has shown himself to have vision beyond what passes for vision among many of Guinea’s politicians - getting rich quickly. He joined the army after his university education, so he must be set apart from semi-literate thugs of the past like Samuel Doe or Idi Amin who used the army as a means of gaining power quite literally through the barrel of a gun.
He has pledged to hand over power to civilian politicians. Because such people wear business suits the international community feels more comfortable with them than uniformed soldiers. That such besuited figures are often thieves doesn’t seem to worry them – indeed it may be a further common feature.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
A rogues' gallery
In recent days Gabon has been treated to a veritable rogue’s gallery as African heeds of State attended the lavish funeral of ex president Omar Bongo. Among those in attendance were fellow plutocrats and kleptocrats Paul Biya of Cameroon, Bongo’s father-in-law Dennis Sassou-Nouesso of the Congo and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, renowned the world over for his respect of human rights, a position he inherited from his uncle the Great Miracle Francisco Macias Nguema. (The word on the grapevine is he has AIDS, and while he’d like his son to take over, he couldn’t access the loot in a New York bank because there is an outstanding arrest warrant out for him for assaulting guests at a high society party he tried to gatecrash.)
But what had the presi8dent and former president of France, supposedly a liberal democracy here?
Of course Presidents Sarkozy and Bongo had a number of things I common. Both had serious height issues and Omar Bongo was known to wear platform shoes. Both men shared a passion for younger women whom they subsequently married, tough in Bongo’s case his most recent wife, the daughter of the president of the Congo, died a few months ago.
During the funeral ceremony both Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac were booed by elements in the cro9wd. Strangely they weren’t saying “You neo-colonial bastards. Thanks for helping to maintain that greedy bastard and his family for the past four decades, while we the people of Gabon went short of food and basic healthcare.” No. The anti-French tone apparently stems from moves by French courts to charge Bongo with fraud. After all, Bongo had to go to a hospital in Spain for his medical treatment. But it’s obvious that Gabon and France are now the best of friends again, and Bongo’s son Ben-Ali Bongo won’t have to worry that he’ll be clapped in jail when he vests France after becoming president.
Ok, I know, he hasn’t actually been elected yet, but that’s just a formality, isn’t it.
But what had the presi8dent and former president of France, supposedly a liberal democracy here?
Of course Presidents Sarkozy and Bongo had a number of things I common. Both had serious height issues and Omar Bongo was known to wear platform shoes. Both men shared a passion for younger women whom they subsequently married, tough in Bongo’s case his most recent wife, the daughter of the president of the Congo, died a few months ago.
During the funeral ceremony both Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac were booed by elements in the cro9wd. Strangely they weren’t saying “You neo-colonial bastards. Thanks for helping to maintain that greedy bastard and his family for the past four decades, while we the people of Gabon went short of food and basic healthcare.” No. The anti-French tone apparently stems from moves by French courts to charge Bongo with fraud. After all, Bongo had to go to a hospital in Spain for his medical treatment. But it’s obvious that Gabon and France are now the best of friends again, and Bongo’s son Ben-Ali Bongo won’t have to worry that he’ll be clapped in jail when he vests France after becoming president.
Ok, I know, he hasn’t actually been elected yet, but that’s just a formality, isn’t it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Libreville
Libreville in Gabon is one of those schizophrenic African capitals. You land at an airport surrounded by leafy suburbs, not far from the beach. There is none of the anarchic and threatening hassle found at Kinshasa. From its nearly antiseptic locale you are whisked along four-lane highways along a palm-tree-fringed corniche fringed with swaying palm-trees and African sculptures which leads into the heart of the city; on one side the Atlantic ocean, on the other a sequence of gleaming ostentatious buildings, including the presidential residence and the Intercontinental Hotel, a symbol of the new neo-colonialism to afflict countries in Africa. The Quartier Louise is full of expensive boutiques, clubs and restaurants. It could be in metropolitan France, but it’s a little dirtier. Still it’s not too dissimilar in this respect from parts of Marseille, except for the excruciating temperatures.
Walk a little away from these quartiers, with their immaculate immeubles, and the seductive odours of Libreville’s chic shops give way to another, less inviting smell (not uncommon in Africa) of rotting fruit and vegetables, body odour, urine, excrement; the assault upon the olfactory senses produced by the concentration in confined spaces of the poor and the destitute.
Libreville could be called Bongoville, so well does it reflect the regime of Gabon’s deceased president Omar Bongo - a veneer of quasi sophistication hiding a reality of penury and want, a jarring testimony to a people whose wealth has been stolen by a few and squandered on flashy baubles.
Walk a little away from these quartiers, with their immaculate immeubles, and the seductive odours of Libreville’s chic shops give way to another, less inviting smell (not uncommon in Africa) of rotting fruit and vegetables, body odour, urine, excrement; the assault upon the olfactory senses produced by the concentration in confined spaces of the poor and the destitute.
Libreville could be called Bongoville, so well does it reflect the regime of Gabon’s deceased president Omar Bongo - a veneer of quasi sophistication hiding a reality of penury and want, a jarring testimony to a people whose wealth has been stolen by a few and squandered on flashy baubles.
Monday, June 8, 2009
This presiden't dead
The attitude towards Omar Bongo’s death-throws in Gabon reminds me of the old Monty Python sketch about the parrot: “This parrot’s dead”. “No it’s not, it’s just pining.” Less than twenty-four hours’ ago the Gabonese Prime Minister would have had his people believe that the man who’d been president for forty-two years was in rude good health and enjoying a holiday in Spain, though with his gargantuan wealth, the result of years of plundering state coffers, it wasn’t just a cheap package deal.
Gabon is a country which should be rich. It’s got lots of oil and a small population. Instead, the nation’s oil riches have generally been skimmed off by the president, his family and his wider circle of well-wishers, cabinet ministers, and senior civil servants. It is estimated that Bongo has real estate in France worth $190 million, while his bank accounts hold another $130 million. He and his mentor president Leon M’Ba, were French puppets, African ciphers who basically protected French political and commercial interests in French Equatorial Africa. The French have soldiers there, ostensibly to protect the many French civilians, though everyone knows that their real role is to protect the government in the event, highly unlikely, of civil unrest. In some ways Bongo has lately been the most civilised of dictators. Instead of killing opponents he has bribed them to stay quiet, a policy which some in the west should attempt to follow.
Lately Bongo’s French friends have become a little more lukewarm about backing their former allies in Africa. Sarkozy has been responsible for a lot of this reassessment. This is why Bongo did not make a bee-line for a nice, plus Parisian clinic on the first signs that the grim reaper were eyeing him up, but was forced to seek treatment in Barcelona. Had he landed in France there was the risk that he might have been arrested.
So what will happen to Gabon now? The constitution stipulates that the president of the senate, Mme Rose Francine Rogombe, should take charge in the event of the death of the head of state. Things are not quite as rotten as in Guinea. There is some infrastructure. The army is perfectly loyal. Because Bongo acted like a king, indeed an emperor, it is quite likely that power will eventually pass to one of his off-springs, maybe his son who is minister for Defence, but most people seem to accept that his daughter Pascaline is the real boss in Libreville.
Gabon is a country which should be rich. It’s got lots of oil and a small population. Instead, the nation’s oil riches have generally been skimmed off by the president, his family and his wider circle of well-wishers, cabinet ministers, and senior civil servants. It is estimated that Bongo has real estate in France worth $190 million, while his bank accounts hold another $130 million. He and his mentor president Leon M’Ba, were French puppets, African ciphers who basically protected French political and commercial interests in French Equatorial Africa. The French have soldiers there, ostensibly to protect the many French civilians, though everyone knows that their real role is to protect the government in the event, highly unlikely, of civil unrest. In some ways Bongo has lately been the most civilised of dictators. Instead of killing opponents he has bribed them to stay quiet, a policy which some in the west should attempt to follow.
Lately Bongo’s French friends have become a little more lukewarm about backing their former allies in Africa. Sarkozy has been responsible for a lot of this reassessment. This is why Bongo did not make a bee-line for a nice, plus Parisian clinic on the first signs that the grim reaper were eyeing him up, but was forced to seek treatment in Barcelona. Had he landed in France there was the risk that he might have been arrested.
So what will happen to Gabon now? The constitution stipulates that the president of the senate, Mme Rose Francine Rogombe, should take charge in the event of the death of the head of state. Things are not quite as rotten as in Guinea. There is some infrastructure. The army is perfectly loyal. Because Bongo acted like a king, indeed an emperor, it is quite likely that power will eventually pass to one of his off-springs, maybe his son who is minister for Defence, but most people seem to accept that his daughter Pascaline is the real boss in Libreville.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Leaving government to the politicians in Guinea
Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has announced that he will not be a candidate in the elections to be held in Guinea at some time towards the end of 2009. He was at pains to point out that none of the present governing council will contest them either.
His annoyance at the situation is understandable. The future of the country is to be left in the hands of politicians, albeit from the fractious opposition that sometimes appeared to former military strongman Lansana Conteh. These politicians are either venal or completely ineffective.
I think that, though Captain Camara will not take any part in the elections this year, we will eventually see him come to power again, once these civilian politicians have had a chance to run their country yet further into the abyss.
His annoyance at the situation is understandable. The future of the country is to be left in the hands of politicians, albeit from the fractious opposition that sometimes appeared to former military strongman Lansana Conteh. These politicians are either venal or completely ineffective.
I think that, though Captain Camara will not take any part in the elections this year, we will eventually see him come to power again, once these civilian politicians have had a chance to run their country yet further into the abyss.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Cheesed off in Conakry
Since seizing power in Guinea last December, Captain Dadis Camara (right) and his colleagues have done a lot to clear out the stygian stables of corruption that the country had become during the kleptocratic rule of the late Lansana Conteh. Conteh’s son has been charged with involvement in the drugs trade, while former ministers, including a former Prime Minister have also been taken to task and forced to give back the money they stole. Furthermore some unarguably iffy mining contracts have been cancelled or renegotiated.
But the international community, as well as some members of the feeble opposition to Conteh, have not been supportive of Camara’s efforts. Camara recognised that it would take time to organise elections. In a country with high rates of illiteracy and a feeble infrastructure, isn’t a rush towards elections mere folly? Elections shouldn’t be viewed as commodities to be bought and applied in a cynical way. Admittedly, in the bosom of Western Liberal Democracy elections are pretty much meaningless anyway, but in West Africa they just might be viewed with enthusiasm. The international community has therefore forced Captain Camara to hold elections this year, whereas he wanted to hold off until 2010. Guinea is still suspended from the OAU, which viewed Captain Camara’s seizure of power as illegal, but had nothing to say about the manner in which Lansana Conteh held the reigns of government. And then when Camara hinted that he might be a candidate in any future elections the international community went ballistic.
Captain Camara is understandably a bit pissed off with all this, and so part of the vilification process now involves portraying Dadis Camara as a man with a fiery temper. I must admit I would prefer a leader with a short temper to one who smiled self-contentedly as he viewed his accounts statements in a Swiss bank or sipped vintage champagne from antique goblets on board one of his executive jets or beside the pool in one of his palatial Cote D’Azur villas.
Dadis Camara had to look at the way the international community looked on while the country’s former rulers, in league with drug barons and mining companies, ritually pillaged Guinea.
But the international community, as well as some members of the feeble opposition to Conteh, have not been supportive of Camara’s efforts. Camara recognised that it would take time to organise elections. In a country with high rates of illiteracy and a feeble infrastructure, isn’t a rush towards elections mere folly? Elections shouldn’t be viewed as commodities to be bought and applied in a cynical way. Admittedly, in the bosom of Western Liberal Democracy elections are pretty much meaningless anyway, but in West Africa they just might be viewed with enthusiasm. The international community has therefore forced Captain Camara to hold elections this year, whereas he wanted to hold off until 2010. Guinea is still suspended from the OAU, which viewed Captain Camara’s seizure of power as illegal, but had nothing to say about the manner in which Lansana Conteh held the reigns of government. And then when Camara hinted that he might be a candidate in any future elections the international community went ballistic.
Captain Camara is understandably a bit pissed off with all this, and so part of the vilification process now involves portraying Dadis Camara as a man with a fiery temper. I must admit I would prefer a leader with a short temper to one who smiled self-contentedly as he viewed his accounts statements in a Swiss bank or sipped vintage champagne from antique goblets on board one of his executive jets or beside the pool in one of his palatial Cote D’Azur villas.
Dadis Camara had to look at the way the international community looked on while the country’s former rulers, in league with drug barons and mining companies, ritually pillaged Guinea.
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