ANALYSIS
Robert Mugabe Typifies Most of Africa’s Post Colonial Leaders
By Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr (Rtd.)
Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr (Rtd.)
As we went to press, the consensus all over the world is that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has to go because of the deteriorating economic situation but more so, the appalling health conditions of the Zimbabwean people. In my own interpretation, that translates to using all means possible to ensure that Mugabe is from power. Some of the notable voices demanding immediate international action to force him out of office include that of former US President Jimmy Carter whose efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe were totally rejected by Mugabe's government. Mr. Carter in his wildest imagination could not understand how one man holds an entire nation hostage in the wake of such a state of health emergency currently facing the South African nation. With over 3,500 people dying of cholera every week, a tragedy deemed reversible if help from outside was not denied by a paranoid leader fearing anything remotely resembling a management that is not state controlled, compelled Carter to go out of his way to suggest military intervention as a last resort to boot Mugabe out. Jimmy Carter has always been my idol but for him to suggest military intervention in Zimbabwe sounded uncharacteristic of the peacemaker I knew. War as I come to understand it lately solves no political problem but remains what it is in crude military definition-to kill people and destroy their properties until they surrender.
Another notable voice unequivocally demanding the removal of Mugabe from office by all means possible is that of Raila Odinga, Kenya’s Prime Minister. Too bad but he only reminded me of the power struggle his country went through last December during their violent presidential election that killed over 1000 Kenyans and displaced 300,000 more. So for Odinga to be making a judgment over a political tug of war affecting a neighboring country with a recommendation to resort to force, makes the Prime Minister look rather forgetful too soon.
However, since President Mugabe’s recent controversial election victory in which the international community particularly, the G8 nations accused him of vote rigging, coupled with his intransigence to fairly share power with Morgan TShagari, the opposition leader most felt was the true winner, Mugabe for the first time in his over a quarter century one-man-show government is confronted with the dreadful prospect of losing power that always seemed indispensable.
Afer the demise of colionial rule, most African leaders like Mugabe derived their power bases from popular but less informed anti-colonialist-resistance movements, pressure groups or political parties that focused only on the need to change the colonial status quo but not how to build a foundation for a durable post colonial democracy. As a result, two issues came to play in sustaining most leaders that took over the seat of governments: one, they govern their countries on the same principles as the colonialists by enjoying absolute power over everything and everybody. Opposition forces were only allowed to exist as long as they remained unthreatening underdogs to the ruling party. Two, the nation’s armed or security forces, like before, became the institution in whose arms rest the lifeline of the ultimate ruler. To make them the kind of loyalists answerable to them alone, the smart ones ensured that the security forces were well politicized, completely stripped off their professionalism and most important of all, drew their membership from the same ideological, religious or ethnic background as that of the leaders’. That’s one fundamental reason why leaders like Mugabe continue to cling on to power with impunity. He is not the exception in the African political theater but an integral part of a larger number of African leaders entrenched all over the continent with no hope of reasonably phasing out this monarchial mentality in the 21st Century.
These military organizations have however culminated into organizing many military coups in Africa where in many instances; urgent need for political change is only possible by forcing these super leaders out of power. Unfortunately, these coups that toppled africa's first, second or even third generation post-colonial leaders more often than not proved the operation rather ineffective in correcting the political, social and economic problems they intend to solve. From the numerous coups in Africa since independence, I can only remember one with a progressive outcome that benefited the democratic process of the nation affected. In 1991 Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali overthrew the twenty-three year old government of General Moussa Traore-another classic one-man-show leadership-but within a year handed over power to a civilian government with a new Constitution introducing among other things, term limit for presidents in office. The country, although a land-locked nation with relatively limited resources has since enjoyed a kind of stability only found in genuine democratic nations.
Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone after countless coups and counter coups for almost five decades, finally came to their senses by realizing that term limit and nothing else was the secure and safe path to consolidating permanent democracy. If The Gambia had adopted the policy, one would have proudly used it as a benchmark for indicating to other nations that all former British colonies in West Africa have done it so why not the rest of Africa?
Jammeh without doubt, could have mustered the courage and determination and do it in the same fashion Ghana’s Jerry Rawlings did. In that case, he could have tailored out a constitutional framework that would have assured him and his followers a degree of continuity, prosecutorial immunity or persecution under a new government. Going for the 40 years he has promised to stay in power may be possible but the risks in these modern times are enormous and the consequences of an unceremonious change especially, considering the regime’s trail of carnage and brutality, might be drastic as well.
However, in countries like Zimbabwe where the armed forces have been politicized for so long, the chances of a coup could only be measured by how well the leader can keep the soldiers happy with the payment of their salaries and allowances uninterrupted. The moment the economy starts showing signs of the kind of stress that delay or postpones the payment of monthly wages to members of the security forces, then the chances of a coup or mutiny become much greater.
Being a former military man, Mugabe should be equipped with all the stratagems to prevent a coup by especially, fermenting deep suspicion among the ranks for any group or individuals to toy around with toppling him. He might have also over the past thirty years ordered his commanders into committing many illegal acts that could slam them with a litany of indictments in his absence.
It’s the same with other members of his government, who for years have aided him as ministers, civil servants, diplomats, political leaders, ethnic interest groups and even private citizens with successful business links made possible by his government. That’s why it’s hard to understand a simplistic statement from world leaders demanding that Mugabe must go as if he were alone. Every time that statement is invoked, it makes me wonder how many Zimbabweans cringe in fear of that prospect.
Of course, frequently shown pictures of very sick Zimbabweans dying of cholera in rural routes can be interpreted as a failed nation requiring immediate rescue; but in contrast, one wonders how serious the nation has failed with Mugabe always shown surrounded by well-dressed-well-fed civilian and military personnel followed in the background by happily dancing Zimbabweans in ceremonial uniforms zealously cheering their leader.
Mugabe alone would have easily been removed from power if those thousands of Zimbabweans associated with him and his government since 1980 were not a serious factor in the equation. In the same way he had monopolized and enjoyed the timeless power in his hand; Zimbabweans from all works of life have also perfected their skills in finding and maintaining positions or favors under his leadership by all means necessary. Critical among such means is the ability to become a sycophant, a blind loyalist, a tribal or family member or a valuable technocrat. In an unusual change of government therefore, all these people who perhaps have over the years built solid family and business foundations by sheer patronage, risk losing everything to a new leader.
For example, in Liberia in 1979 and in Ghana around the same period, Samuel Doe and Jerry John Rawlings respectively, executed almost every top member of their governments including the Heads of state. They also orchestrated a systematic dismantling of business enterprises built by individuals or companies linked with former government officials. In Zaire, after Kabila removed Mobutu from power, every family that mattered in the ousted government was forced into exile or destroyed completely. Visit Nigeria and see what happened to Abacha’s loyalists when he died mysteriously. The brutalities and reigns of terror pale in comparism with Somalia after President Muhamed Siad Barre’s twenty-two-year-old government was ousted in a military coup in 1991.
In a nutshell, these life presidents who can never be defeated in democratic elections because of all the state conditions favoring them, will continue to pose the same problems to the world as long as there is no term limit to how long they can stay in office. The late President Felix Houphouet-Boigny ruled the Ivory Coast for decades-unopposed in five elections- until his death in 1993 after which his nation once considered to be among the most promising in West Africa, became totally ungovernable due to a bloody power struggle. Togo might have faced the same fate if Eyadema’s son didn’t inherit the presidential seat from his father. Mubarack of Egypt, Ghaddafi of Libya and Lansana Conteh of Guinea, are all leaders whose replacements are after all unimaginable.
Apparently, South Africa is being solicited to help in Zimbabwe as if that country’s house is in the kind of order that qualifies it to take charge in the region. Just recently, xenophobic South Africans had gone into the rampage attacking Zimbabweans and other nationals for coming into their country and allegedly stealing their jobs and resources. For South Africa to therefore use military force against Zimbabwe will be the perfect catalyst to mobilize the ZANU-PF militants into a war of resistance reminiscent of the Mujahadeen against the Russians in Afghanistan. In fact, the 40-year-old ruling African National Congress (ANC) has enough problems in hand with colossal legal tussles to prevent a breakaway party that threatens the democratic future of the Republic of South Africa.
It is Zimbabwe today, but the world must brace up for more of these crises in other parts of the continent with governments without term limit. With the world economy in the tank, many countries will be affected by financial crisis that will cause many more governments to be declared failures especially, those welfare countries depending on subsidies or handouts from foreign nations.
I was going to ask the Obama administration to help in this area of urging all African nations to work towards constitutional reform for term limit when drafting a new foreign policy on Africa, but I think this is a responsibility that should be shared among European countries too. The root of the problem can be traced from the time European nations, after centuries of dictating every form of functional government in the continent-and they were not what civilized people will call good governments-left Africa under conditions that were seemingly designed to fail their successors. It may have been as a result of the inadequacy of those Europeans who were in charge at the time. In other words, they probably didn’t know any better after being assured a safe return to their cozy homes in Europe far from any mess that might later emanate from the horrible jobs they left behind. They may have genuinely believed that nothing was wrong with their actions, even the slave trade. Today the world has shrunken smaller to where the burden of the disaster they created is becoming a menace at their doorsteps. And unless the world comes together with a “Marshal Plan” for Africa similar to the one created after the Second World War that helped Europe get back to its feet, the African continent will continue to depend heavily on foreign assistance for survival. I still can’t wrap my mind around how they came up with the figures of Zimbabwe with 80% unemployment knowing how difficult it is in Africa to account for the jobless masses. But hey, those checking should have also added that all the African countries do not have unemployment benefits, health care insurance, Medicaid or Medicare. For curiosity, I’ll be happy to know what the unemployment rate in Somalia and Congo are like.
Today, the types of governments we have in Africa have blocked economic growth across the spectrum causing many able-bodied Africans, especially the youth, constrained in everything out of their lives at home. This has caused an unprecedented drive among African youth to risk everything even their lives just to reach for jobs in the West. But because there are no provisions in Western nations to accommodate such massive influx of immigrants from Africa in particular, a huge chunk of their budgets go into trying to tackle the problem without much success. And I believe the situation will not get any better without a concerted effort by all nations to correct the problem of intolerant governments in the hand of one person for ten, fifteen, twenty-five, thirty or more years with no hope of any change.
These governments usually too over protective of their power bases are seriously suspicious of any progressive ideas or concepts meant to bring about growth beyond what they understand. That is why African Unity has become a mere bumper sticker because of the perceived threatens its realization poses to most of these governments.
They would rather cling to the colonial frontiers within their comfort zones and see their people reduced to street beggars in the name of safeguarding national sovereignty than disregard them and open up broader market opportunities for trade, transportation and other economic activities. In reality, it could mean an attractive boost in the living standards of an underpaid work force, which might in the long run entice highly educated Africans abroad to return home with the assurance of working for dignified wages. However, any boost in the living standard of the continent has to be accompanied by a meaningful democratic atmosphere. But I think there has to be a quid pro quo in the wake of governments willing to adopt constitutions with term limits which must guarantee them full protection from persecution and provide retired leaders with special benefits that will allow them to live with dignity befitting the life of a former President.
If a president thinks that the life that awaits him and his people after leaving office is jail, exile or death then asking him to leave will be as good as building him a gallows and encouraging him to hang himself.
These leaders will have to incidentally or accidentally die in office or be overthrown or assassinated. In any of these possibilities however, what follows after them if their children do not inherit their seats like what happened in Togo, is usually a political crisis caused by vicious power struggle sometimes escalating into senseless armed conflicts.
I therefore call on President-elect Obama to give this a priority as soon as he assumes office in January 2009. ** Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr is a US trained military officer and former Commander of The Gambia National Army. He is author of Meet Me In Conakry (A Novel) and Coup D'etat By The Gambia National Army.