The Sandcastles and Dams of African Dictators
All
dictators on the African continent have sought immortality by leaving a
legacy that will outlive them and endure for the ages. But all have
inherited the wind.
Kwame Nkrumah led the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonialism in 1957. Nkrumaism
sought to transform Ghana into a modern socialist state through
state-driven industrialization. He built the Akosombo Dam on the Volta
River, at the time considered the “largest single investment in the
economic development plans of Ghana”. He promoted the cult of
personality and was hailed as the “Messiah”, “Father of Ghana and Pan
Africanism” and “Father of African nationalism”.
He crushed the unions
and the opposition, jailed the judges, created a one-man, one-party
state and tried to make himself “President for life”. He got the
military boot in 1966. He left a bitter legacy of one-man, one-party
rule which to this day serves as a model of dictatorship for all of
Africa. Nkrumah died in exile and inherited the wind.
Gamal Abdel
Nasser sought to create his own brand of Arab socialism and nationalism
and propagated it as a secular Pan-Arab ideology. Using an extensive
intelligence apparatus and an elaborate propaganda machine, he promoted a
cult of personality projecting himself as the “Man of the People.” He
built the Aswan High Dam with Soviet aid. He ruled Egypt in a one-man,
one-party dictatorship and crushed all dissent, particularly the Muslim
Brotherhood. Today the Muslim Brotherhood is in power and Nasserism is
in the dustbin of history. Nasser left a legacy of military
dictatorship in Egypt and inherited the wind.
Mobutu Sese Seko
proclaimed himself “Father of the Nation” of Zaire (The Democratic
Republic of the Congo), and became dictator for life. He declared, “In
our African tradition there are never two chiefs….That is why we
Congolese, in the desire to conform to the traditions of our continent,
have resolved to group all the energies of the citizens of our country
under the banner of a single national party.” Mobutuism consisted of the
delusional thoughts of Mobutu and his program of “Zairianization”. He
promoted a cult of personality describing himself as the “the
all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will
to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake”.
Mobutu built the Inga Dams over the Congo River hoping to create the
largest hydroelectric facility in the world. He left a legacy of
kleptocracy and inherited the wind.
Moamar Gadhafi proclaimed the
“Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” and ushered the era of the
state of the masses (Jamahiriya). He sought to elevate Libyan society by
reducing it to a massive collection of “people’s committees”. He
brutally suppressed dissent and squandered the national resources of
that country. He launched the Great Man-Made River, the world’s largest
irrigation project and proclaimed it the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”
After four decades in power, the “Brother Leader” and author of the
Green Book literally suffered the death of a sewer rat. He left a legacy
of division and destruction in Libya and inherited the wind.
Idi
Amin Dada, the “Butcher of Uganda” and the most notorious of all African
dictators, imposed a reign of terror on the Ugandan people and
sadistically displayed his tyrannical power to the international press.
He pompously described himself as “His Excellency President for Life,
Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the
Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British
Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” He built no dams
by damned the Ugandan people for 8 years until he was forced into exile.
He left a legacy of death, destruction and ethnic division in Uganda
and inherited the wind.
The “Great Leader”?
The
late Meles Zenawi, like all African dictators, sought to make himself
larger than life. He was not only Ethiopia’s savior but Africa’s as
well. He sought to project himself as a “visionary leader”,
“inspirational spokesman for Africa” and supreme practitioner of
“revolutionary democracy.” Following his death sometime in late Summer
2012, the propaganda to deify, mythologize, exalt, immortalize and
idolize him became a theatre of the absurd. Hailemariam Desalegn, Meles’
handpicked titular prime minster, in his speech to the party faithful
in parliament virtually made Meles a lesser god offering blessings of
“Eternal Glory to Our Great Leader.” Even the original “Great Leader”
Kim Il-sung of North Korea achieved no more glory than being “The Sun of
the Nation”. Desalegn promised to consummate his own divinely delegated
mission with missionary zeal: “My responsibility now… is to
successfully carry out the aims and ambitions of a great and notable
leader… Following in the footsteps of our great leader, we will strive
to maintain and develop the influential voice in regional, continental
and international forums” and “successfully implement the aims and
vision of our great leader. He was not just a brilliant generator of
ideas: he was, par excellence, the embodiment of selflessness and
self-sacrifice…”
Was Desalegn talking about Meles or the Man of Galilee?
The Vision and Legacy of the “Visionary Great Leader”
Like
all African dictators before him, Meles had illusions, delusions and
obsessions. He did not have a grand vision; he had illusions of
grandeur. Like Mobutu before him, Meles had the illusion of building
Africa’s largest dam, the so-called Grand Renaissance Dam, on the Blue
Nile at a cost preliminarily estimated (unadjusted for cost overruns) at
nearly USD$5 billion. Experts believe such a dam if built will “flood
1,680 square kilometers of forest in northwest Ethiopia, near the Sudan
border, and create a reservoir that is nearly twice as large as Lake
Tana, Ethiopia’s largest natural lake…. The current cost estimate [for
the dam] equals the country’s entire annual budget…” Moreover, the dam
“could cut the Nile flow into Egypt by 25% during the reservoir filling
period” and substantially reduce the reservoir capacity of the Aswan
High Dam. According to a document obtained by Wikileaks from the private
intelligence group Stratfor, “Sudan’s president Omer Al-Bashir had
agreed to build an Egyptian airbase in his country’s western region of
Darfur to be used for assaults on The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
(GERD) should diplomatic efforts fail to resolve the dispute between
Egypt and Ethiopia over Nile water-sharing.” A legacy of regional war and strife?
Meles
did not have a growth and transformation plan; he had delusional plans
of economic growth and transformation. As I have demonstrated in “The Voodoo Economics of Meles Zenawi”,
Meles “has been making hyperbolic claims of economic growth in Ethiopia
based on fabricated and massaged GDP (gross domestic product) numbers,
implying that the country is in a state of runaway economic development
and the people’s standard of living is fast outstripping those living in
the middle income countries.” When the U.S. State Department reported
an average inflation rate (FY 2008-2009) of 36 percent, Meles predicted a
decline in inflation to 3.9 percent in 2009/10. His Growth and Transformation Plan (or what I called “Zenawinomics”) which I reviewed in my June 2011 commentary “The Fakeonomics of Meles Zenawi”,
“is a make-a-wish list of stuff. It purports to be based on a
‘long-term vision’ of making Ethiopia ‘a country where democratic rule,
good-governance and social justice reigns.’
It aims to ‘build an economy
which has a modern and productive agricultural sector with enhanced
technology and an industrial sector’ and ‘increase per capita income of
citizens so that it reaches at the level of those in middle-income
countries.’ It boasts of ‘pillar strategies’ to ‘sustain faster and
equitable economic growth’, ‘maintain agriculture as a major source of
economic growth,’ ‘create favorable conditions for the industry to play
key role in the economy,’ ‘expand infrastructure and social
development,’ ‘build capacity and deepen good governance’ and ‘promote
women and youth empowerment and equitable benefit.’ Stripped of
its collection of hollow economic slogans, clichés, buzzwords and
catchphrases, Meles’ growth and growth and transformation plan is plain
sham-o-nomics. A legacy of inflation, economic mismanagement, crushing foreign debt and environmental destruction?
Meles
had no national vision; he only had a vision of ethnic division. His
warped idea of “ethnic federalism” is merely a kinder and gentler
reincarnation of Apartheid in Ethiopia. For nearly two decades, Meles
toiled ceaselessly to shred the very fabric of Ethiopian society, and
sculpt a landscape balkanized into tribal, ethnic, linguistic and
regional enclaves. He crafted a constitution based entirely on ethnicity
and tribal affiliation as the basis for political organization. He
wrote in Article 46 (2) of the constitution: “States shall be structured
on the basis of settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of
the people.” In other words, “states”, (and the people who live in them)
shall be corralled like cattle in tribal homelands in much the same way
as the 10 Bantustans (black homelands) of Apartheid South Africa.
These tribal homelands are officially called “kilils” (enclaves or
distinct enclosed and effectively isolated geographic areas within a
seemingly integrated national territory). Like the Bantustans, the
Killilistans ultimately aim to create homogeneous and autonomous ethnic
states in Ethiopia, effectively scrubbing out any meaningful notion of
Ethiopian national citizenship. Meles’ completely fictitious theory of
“ethnic (tribal) federalism)”, unknown in the annals of political
science or political theory, has been used to justify and glorify these
Kililistans and impose an atrocious policy of divide and rule against 90
million people. A legacy of ethnic balkanization, political polarization, brutalization, and sectarian strife?
Under
Meles, Ethiopia became the poster country for international alms and
charity and crushing international debt. During his two decades plus
tenure, Ethiopia has been among the largest recipients of “economic
aid”, “development aid”, “military aid”, “technical aid”, “emergency
aid”, “relief aid”, “humanitarian aid” and aid against AIDS in the
world. As I argued in my commentary “Ethiopia in BondAid?”, Meles has successfully subverted international aid and loans, particularly U.S. aid, to strengthen his tyrannical rule. A legacy of international aid addiction and beggary?
Corruption under Meles Zenawi has put Ethiopia on life-support. The World Bank recently issued a 448-page report entitled, “Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”
. The cancer of corruption has metastasized in the Ethiopian body
politics. The Telecommunications Sector of Ethiopia is in terminal
stage:
Despite the country’s exceptionally heavy recent investment
in its telecoms infrastructure, it has the second lowest telephone
penetration rate in Africa. It once led the regional field in the laying
of fiber-optic cable, yet suffers from severe bandwidth and reliability
problems. Amid its low service delivery, an apparent lack of
accountability, and multiple court cases, some aspects of the sector are
perceived by both domestic and international observers to be deeply affected by corruption.
In
the Construction Sector, “Ethiopia exhibits most of the classic warning
signs of corruption risk, including instances of poor-quality
construction, inflated unit output costs, and delays in implementation.”
Corruption in the Justice Sector “takes one of two forms: (a) political
interference with the independent actions of courts or other sector
agencies, or (b) payment or solicitation of bribes or other
considerations to alter a decision or action.” Corruption in the Land
Sector is inherent in the law. “The level of corruption is influenced
strongly by the way policy and legislation are formulated and enforced.
For example, the capture of state assets by the elite can occur through
the formulation of policy that favors the elite.” In other words, the
laws are written to rig the bidding process to give Meles’ cronies,
buddies and supporters a significant advantage so that they can pick up
state assets at fire sale prices. A legacy of endemic corruption?
Meles’
“revolutionary democracy” as an ideology or policy guide never quite
transcended the sloganeering and phrase-mongering stage, but he indulged
in its rhetoric whenever he was overcome by revolutionary fervor. In a
seminal analysis of “revolutionary democracy” and arguably the “first
paper to seriously examine the political programme and political
philosophy of EPRDF based on a review of its major policy”, Jean-Nicolas
Bach of the Institute of Political Studies (Bordeaux, France) in 2011
described “Abyotawi democracy (revolutionary democracy) [as] neither
revolutionary nor democratic.” Bach argued that revolutionary democracy
is a ‘‘bricolage’’ (hodgepodge) of “Leninism, Marxism, Maoism, and also
liberalism” concocted by a “small group of party ideologists around
Meles, and a few agencies.” As an ideology, “revolutionary democracy”
“provides justification for fusing political and economic power in the
party-state run by EPRDF.” A critical “review of party pamphlets and
official party/state discourses reveals the degree to which
revolutionary democracy has become an ambiguous doctrine vis-a`-vis
‘liberalism’” and “remains a powerful fighting tool to exclude internal
and external ‘enemies’.” One commentator recently likened revolutionary democracy to communism and fascism. Revolutionary democracy is responsible for delivering a 99.6 percent parliamentary victory to Meles’ party in 2010. A legacy of rigged and stolen elections and bad governance?
Melesismo: Meles’ Greatest Legacy
Meles’ singular legacy is Melesismo, a political legacy I foretold in my December 2009 commentary entitled “The Raw Machismo of Power”.
Meles perfected Melesismo– the political art of “My way, the highway,
no way… or jail!” Melesismo reaffirms the ignoble principle that might
makes right.
Meles’ worshippers proclaim they are marching in his
footsteps with the same reverence of those who claim to walk in the
footsteps of the Man of Galilee. They ostentatiously display raw
machismo invoking the divine power Meles. How little things have
changed? From a legacy of the divine right of kings to a legacy of the
divine rule of a lesser god!
Meles’ worshippers seek to
mythologize, canonize and idolize him. But they cannot reincarnate Meles
as the “Messiah”. Even the great Nelson Mandela is undeserving of
“eternal glory”. He said so himself, “I am not a saint, unless you think
of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” Neither saints nor demons
deserve “eternal glory”. Meles will eventually be consigned to the
dustbin of history as nothing more than another petty African tyrant.
Meles’
greatest legacy would have been what he said his legacy would be. In
2007, Meles said his “hope is that [his] legacy” would be not only
“sustained and accelerated development that would pull Ethiopia out of
the massive deep poverty” but also “radical improvements in terms of
good governance and democracy.” Without radical democratic improvements
by Meles’ worshippers, Meles will be remembered in history as a
reactionary petty African tyrant.
Is it possible for Meleismo to hold the center after Meles? Will Melesismo survive Meles?
My
friend Eskinder Nega, the personification of press freedom in Ethiopia
today, who was jailed by Meles, was likely right in foretelling the
inevitable implosion of the “EPDRF”. Eskinder wrote, “Scratch beyond the
surface and the EPRDF is really not the monolithic dinosaur as it is
most commonly stereotyped. [It has become] a coalition of four distinct
phenomenon: the increasing confusion of the dominant TPLF [Tigrayan
People's Liberation Front], the acute cynicism of the ANDM [Amhara
National Democratic Movement], the desperate nihilism of the OPDO [Oromo
People's Democratic Organization] and the inevitable irrelevance of the
incongruent SEPM [South Ethiopian People's Movement] (a grab bag of
some 40 ethnic groups from the southern part of the country).”
Meles
was a man with a mission who confused mission with vision. He has
completed his mission. History will record his legacy to be human rights
violation, press suppression, ethnic division, endemic corruption,
obsessive secrecy and a political culture whose lifeblood is impunity,
lack of accountability and transparency. Shakespeare wrote, “The evil
that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their
bones…” Scripture teaches that “He that troubleth his own house shall
inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”
Meles and his worshippers have profoundly troubled the Ethiopian house
and they shall inherit the wind!
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
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