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Africa always has been a magnet for the power-crazed politician, the militant madman, the diabolical dictator.

In the last fifty or so years, among many has stood out Ugandan Idi Amin, a former British army lieutenant who seized power and styled himself, “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr. 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”.

In the eight years of Amin’s diabolical reign it is estimated half a million people were killed. So many bodies were thrown to the Nile crocodiles that at times the intake to the country’s hydro-electric plant became blocked by body parts. Thousands of Ugandan Asians were forced to flee the country, settling in Britain, Canada, and Australia.

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu reigned as president of Zaire for thirty-two years (1965–1997). He forced all TV news channels to show an image of him descending through clouds from the heavens, prior to every newscast.

In his spare time he tortured and hanged his rivals, and was a particularly close friend of Republican US presidents, Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. In 1968, Mobutu lured an ex-education minister out of exile with promises of an amnesty, only to have him tortured. While still alive, his eyes were gouged out, his genitalia ripped off, and his limbs amputated one by one.

Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic proclaimed himself “Emperor” on December 4th 1977. It took a while as he’d been in power since overthrowing the CAR government of his cousin David Dacko in early 1966.

On March 4th 1974, Time Magazine carried an article on Bokassa, entitled, “Lord High Everything Else”. One paragraph reads:

The people of the C.A.R. know the importance of devotion and obedience: the hallmark of Bokassa’s reign is arbitrary and unpredictable terror. Government officials are frequently summoned at a moment’s notice to the presidential palace. If Bokassa is angry, they can expect anything from a drunken tirade to a personally administered presidential beating to instant imprisonment. Even harsher treatment has been meted out to the President’s political opponents, real or imagined. Michel Mounomboye, security chief at the time of Bokassa’s takeover, had his eyes torn out in front of his family before being executed. When Lieut. Colonel Alexandre Banza, who backed Bokassa’s grab for power, was accused in 1969 of planning another coup, he was dragged before a Cabinet meeting where Bokassa slashed him with a razor. Guards then beat Banza until his back was broken, dragged him through the streets of Bangui and finally shot him.”^[1]

Bokassa remained in power until he was overthrown by André Kolingba in 1981. At his trial he was accused of treason, murder, cannibalism, and embezzlement. The cannibalism charge was not proven, though all other charges were. He served six years in jail before being pardoned by Kolingba.

Before he died, in 1996, Bokassa proclaimed himself the thirteenth apostle and declared he’d had secret meetings with the Pope.

One of the scariest of Africa’s dictatorial madmen is still in power today.

Robert Mugabe has been responsible for the most appalling atrocities in his native Zimbabwe, and still confounds his critics by continuing to rule that nation despite a recent election that should have felled him and his cronies from government. He continues to defy the world, and the world sits around playing with its thumbs, and does nothing.

There is another ghastly figure presently loose in the jungles and plains of Africa, in Mobutu’s old stomping ground of Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The very name is ironic. Today, there is little chance for democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Laurent Nkunda is a self-styled general of the rebel Rwandan Tutsi tribes. While a democratically elected government resides in the capital, Kinshasa, rebel forces roam the eastern area of this vast country killing, torturing, raping at will. Nkunda is their leader. His mission, he says, is to protect Tutsi tribesmen from attack by Hutu rebels who fled into the Congolese jungle after the Rwandan genocide of 1994. There can be little doubt his true aim is to overthrow the government and seize power.

Most of the rebel groups in the DR Congo agreed to be assimilated into the armed forces. Nkunda has always refused. His army is known to be several thousand strong, and while there are 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the country, no-one seems inclined to take on Nkunda.

His forces have committed some of the gravest atrocities known to man. Particularly brutal is their attitude towards women.

This, from Stephen Lewis, Canadian Ambassador to the UN from 1984-1988, and an expert on Africa (courtesy of “The Other Side Of Sixty”):

……in the case of the Congo, you have a war on women. You know, if I may make a somewhat more intellectual observation, rape is no longer a weapon of war. Rape has become a strategy of war. You rape women in such numbers, so savagely that you humiliate entire communities through the women. The women hold the communities together. On the continent of Africa, nothing happens without the engagement of the women, particularly at the grassroots, particularly on the ground. And what happens is that the entire community is subdued, oppressed, overcome by these roving bands of marauding militias, who rape the women, move the community off the extractive resources, which is what they want, or turn the women into sex slaves and the men into the laborers who do extract the resources. And it’s hideous, the consequences, and it’s been going on since 1996. More than a quarter of a million women have been raped. And what is so unfathomable about it is everyone in a position of power knows, and it continues. I’ll never never comprehend…..”^[2]

^{(Read more of this harrowing report at the link below)}

While Nkunda’s forces are not the only perpetrators of such crimes – government soldiers can be equally brutal and uncontrolled – his is the largest in the region.

Nkunda is well educated. He studied psychology at university level and speaks four languages. He uses religion, like so many of his ilk, to control his followers and justify his crimes. Nkunda calls himself a Pentecostal Christian and wears a lapel badge that says, “Rebels for Christ”.

Yesterday, UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon called for an extra three thousand UN troops to be sent to the DR Congo. Even if he gets them, it’s hard to imagine what they can do. The UN has a mandate not to interfere in the internal politics of another country, except in the case of genocide.

It’s time someone interfered in this war-torn nation, to prevent Laurent Nkunda from becoming the next Idi Amin, or Mobutu, or Bokassa, or Mugabe.

It’s time the world stopped sitting around playing with its thumbs, and did something.

^{[1] “Lord High Everything Else”, TIME, March 4th 1974}

^{[2] “Stephen Lewis”, “The Other Side Of Sixty”, November 11th 2008}

Filed under: Evil

The news media has swamped us all today with pictures of Barack Obama at the White House meeting with George W Bush. We saw the Obama’s arriving, watched as they were greeted by Laura and George on the front porch, dozed quietly on the sofa as they toured the inside of the house, then laboriously walked all around the outside.

So far as we’re aware, Barney was given no opportunity to bite the president-elect. Everything was kept very cordial.

In fact, too damned cordial. There has to be etiquette, of course. It’s how the rich and powerful behave when together at such times, but was I the only one who found the vision of Barack Obama, sat comfortably in a chair chatting amiably to George W Bush, somewhat frustrating?

It was never going to happen; to even expect it would be foolish. There was way too much at stake for the notion to, even momentarily, drift through Obama’s mind. But it did pass through mine.

Would it not have been the most wonderful image to carry through life to one’s grave, had Barack Obama stepped out of his limousine in front of the White House, walked over to the present incumbent, and punched him hard on the nose, saying:

“There you go, George, that one’s from the American people.”

Filed under: Magic moments

The airline, British Midland (BMI), has just announced it is curtailing all long-haul flights out of Manchester, England, from January 2009. This will include transatlantic flights to and from Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Since 2001, BMI has operated one Manchester flight a day into, and from, Chicago.

The loss of this route means the only service between O’Hare and Manchester (non-stop) will be operated by American Airlines. British Airways advertise the route, but don’t operate any aircraft on it, instead diverting all their customers to the one AA flight.

The cost-cutting decision by BMI came as a direct result of a takeover of the company by the German airline, Lufthansa.

Once again we are seeing a degradation of service to the public. No longer is there a choice for passengers wishing to fly to northern Britain from Chicago, unless of course one is foolish enough to book via Vladivostok or Kazakhstan.

Throughout the world, as companies merge or are swallowed up by the huge corporates, choices for the consumer dwindle until options are no longer available. The western world makes such a fuss about communism – state ownership resulting in little or no choice for the consumer; literally, a question of take what you’re offered or do without – but is there any difference in real terms between state ownership and corporate monopoly? Both achieve the same result: total control over you and me.

It’s unlikely the demise of BMI’s service from Chicago will effect many who read Sparrow Chat. Only those like myself, who use the service regularly – though only once or twice a year. When I do travel back to Britain, though, I don’t wish to fly with American Airlines. I don’t like the way they do business; they’re more expensive; I don’t like their aircraft – there’s no individual entertainment system on AA’s Boeing 767’s, unlike BMI’s Airbus 330, and the food’s crap.

More importantly, I hate being told I have to purchase a product I don’t want, at an inflated price due to lack of competition.

In future, I’ll fly Virgin Atlantic to London, Heathrow, and then drive to my destination. So, stick that in your cold, stodgy burgers, American Airlines!

Unfortunately, as corporates grow even bigger and ‘small business’ is run out of town more often, lack of option will fast become normality for us all.

^{[1] “BMI abandons long-haul services out of Manchester”, FT.Com, November 6th 2008}

Filed under: An opening for Aeroflot, perhaps?