Book Review: The State of Africa: A history of Fifty Years of Independence by Martin Meredith

TITLE: The State of Africa: A history of fifty years of Independence.
AUTHOR: Martin Meredith
PAGES: 752
PUBLISHERS: Free Press, London (2006)
GENRE: History

Martin Meredith book is conceive and offer insightful knowledge on the historical development of Africa as a continent, before the settlement of European colonialist, through the struggle of independence, the emerging of nations and the state of Africa, as a continent, in the world map.

As Times journalist who did corresponding in Africa, an auto-biographer and a writer, Meredith has written an outstanding book. A masterpiece. Albeit if his use of facts is anything to go by, the author went to greater length to glean for facts and figures from respected authors and sources. The authoritative bibliography speaks for itself.

The book’s magnitude in understanding the contemporary state of the African continent-from whichever facet you see it- is echoed by Bob Geldof. The Irish pop singer who has been involved greatly with charity work in the continent (notably the fund raising record Do they know it’s Christmas’ for 1984 Ethiopian famine victims), says “you can’t even contemplate about the contemporary state of Africa without first having a look at why Africa as a continent is where it is.”

The State of Africa starts with the ancient African kingdoms before the scramble and partition of the continent by European colonialists lead by Germany’s Otto von Bismarck in the Berlin conference. With little knowledge the colonialist least cared as they curved out states transcending across ancient lands separating kingdoms, tribal lands and merging other which never existed before.

Notable are the Bakongo of Congo, Ashanti of Ghana and King Moshoeshoe of Tswana. The Britons got their protectorates to Great Britain, the French assimilated minor French provinces in Africa; the Belgians were content to reap Zaire to enrich king Leopold II, together with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Italians.

The seed of discord was thus implanted.

The Europeans forcefully struggled and settled in Africa. As Christianity and western education spread in the Africa, an elite class emerged and fought for independence. The old guard- African leaders who inherited power from colonialists- brought the birth of nations amid glimmer of hope riding the crest of expectations about the future of Africa.

The European colonialists retreated- hastily like in Algerian independence struggle- to leave the leadership to Africans. The old guards experimented with ideologies. Some countries picked up economically shortly before the coups, the cold war effects and the lingering neo-colonialism.

Martin Meredith writes of the effects of the East and West power struggle effects on the continent. In their ism-schism of capitalism and communism the elephants- USA and USSR- descended on the African grass for the struggle of world supremacy.

The cold war, Otiose to Africa, was triggered by emergence of sovereign states which could topple the scales at world scene. At its peak in ‘60s US supported Mobutu Sese Seko to plunder Zaire and aided in usurping Liberia’s resources. American firestone controlling rubber plantations helped prop semi-illiterate Samwel Doe.

On the other hand Russia, in association with Cuba, propped Major Mengistu Haile Mariam red terror in Ethiopia and thwarted west influence in Angola against rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in a blood bath.

The struggle of Anglo-phone and Franco-phone effects on the continent in former colonies is tackled. With otiose cultural misgivings Britain and France flex their muscles to neo-colonize their former colonies with devastating effects.

French propped and later turned against Jean Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic because he was a French soldier during the WWII. In a bid to suppress the spread of Anglo-phone influence in central Africa, French propped and maintained a genocide regime in Rwanda against the Tutsi and moderate Hutus.

The effect was the 1994 Rwandan genocide which spread towards DRC and Northern Uganda causing the fall of two ‘Anglo-phone’ leaders, viz. Mobutu Sese Seko and Milton Obote.

In the story “In the name of prophet” The State of Africa has extensively covered the Egyptian revolution against the monarchy of King Farrouk and it culmination to pan-Arab fever that culminated to 1965-67 Arab-Israel war. Muarmar Gadaffi’s taciturn involvement in internal affairs of Chad and the bloody diamond fields of Liberia and Sierra Leone war by training guerrillas.

The root cause of Nigerian conflict on Biafra war is caused partly by the murder of Chief Abiola is elaborately written. In addition, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgians and The CIA, and the culmination of the Zaire’s war is written with historical flair.

My gripe with the book is the casting of France. Meredith, a Briton, espouses the idea of treating the French as villains in expense of the Britons. It aligns with the Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla with a story of a French illegal nuclear testing gone haywire.

The effect, a giant dinosaur, creates havoc in New York City. The French in the movie are down casted and stereotyped like the Arabs and Russians.

Meredith treats British colonies, especially South Africa and Sudan with velvet gloves.

In “A degree in violence”, a story of Robert Mugabe (need I say a villain); little is said of suffering of Zimbabweans under the apartheid rule, And Mugabe’s house arrests and the death of his infant son. Likewise the impact and magnitude of apartheid rule in South Africa is sidelined.

In addition the book places the onset of Darfur war after the introduction of sharia laws. This is far from Blaine Harden, once a Washington Post bureau chief Nairobi, book Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent placing the problem on British rule. Harden, an American, writes that by the failure to effectively colonize the Muslim North the Britons segregated the Christian South.

The segregation brought two distinct cultures. At independence the ‘suit’ wearing Christian South considered the northern Muslims with suspicion. The Arabs had sold them as slaves.

The passing of sharia laws just exploded a simmering volcano and turned the fissures into a mountain of a problem.

Insightful
Martin Meredith’s book gives insight into understanding the winding politics and events in Africa easily. You will understand why French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally attended, and got booed at Omar Bongo Ondimba’s funeral for interfering with Gabon’s internal affairs. Paul Kagame’s gripe with the France over the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The book should miss in the shelf if you need to know how Charles Taylor ended up at ICC in The Hague and why Omar el-Bashir is wary of ICC indictment and southern Sudan supporting him though the Janjaweed militia kills with impunity.

The reader will be conversant with how Somalia warlord Aideed drove Americans and UN officials out of Mogadishu in ‘Black Hawk Down’

The Great Plunderer: Mobutu Desire Sese Seko, Zaire.

How the cold war waxed Zaire.

American CIA and Belgium forces propped Joseph Desire Mobutu to power fast on 14th September 1960 and later in 1965 as the absolute president.

The two countries felt jittery when Patrice Lumumba sought the eastern bloc; Russia and Czechoslovakia support against Moise Tshombe and Mobutu. Primarily Belgian, colonizers were interested in Zaire resources while USA had cold war interests.

The two countries later plotted the assassination of Lumumba when the eastern bloc intervened on 15th August 1965.

President Eisenhower regarded Lumumba a maddog and ordered CIA to plan his elimination on 26th August. CIA director Allen Dulles authorized Kinshasa chief Lawrence Devlin to use $100,000 for Lumumba's assassination which was to be ‘urgent and a prime objective’.

CIA scientist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb designed an assassination kit of poison intended to be placed on Lumumba’s toothbrush. It expired before the material day.

Mobutu used to answer directly to CIA chief Devlin when he was an army officer and the president to spy on fellow countrymen.

Lumumba was captured by Mobutu’s forces and beaten badly. Mobutu scrutinized him with malicious air, spat on his face and said:

“Well! You swore to have my skin, now it is I who has yours”.

On 18th January 1976 Lumumba and two accomplishes were taken by Moise Tshombe, Belgian policemen and their commissioner. Under the command of a Belgian officer they were shot by a firing squad and buried in graves.

Afraid of their involvement on the deaths the Belgians unearthed the corpses, chopped them in bits and charred them in a barrel full of sulphuric acid. Their skulls, bones and teeth were grounded and the ashes scattered. A tale was rumored that Lumumba and his accomplishes had been killed by ‘patriotic villagers’.

With the deed over, the western world turned to Mobutu calling him ‘a friendly tyrant’ who had western interest at heart. The CIA used Zaire as a base to spy on its neighbors especially Angola. US aided UNITA forces led by Jonas Savimbi to fight the Angolan government backed by Cuba and Russia.

The pain of the cold war still lingers between Angola and DRC to date. Cabinda secessionists group is aided by DRC, and Angola blamed DRC for changing the border of oil and diamond rich region on December last year.

When Angolan backed rebels tried to overthrow Mobutu in 1977 & 78 the west swiftly came to his aid. In 23 years of mobutu misrule the US aid was $860 million despite the worsening economy. Through flattery president Nixon led the west to invest $2 billion for resources of copper, cobalt, industrial diamond and other minerals by 1974.

On the same year, despite mobutu tyranny US propped the image of Zaire further by organizing world heavyweight boxing match between Mohammad Ali and George Foreman dubbed ‘rumble in the jungle’

Mobutu consolidated power to strengthen his rule. He hanged four former cabinet ministers in public attended by 50,000 spectators for being opponents.

“In our African tradition, there are never two chiefs. Can anyone tell me that he have known a village that has two chiefs?”

He started and become the sole leader of movement populaire de la Revolution (MPR), the only political party in Zaire with ‘mobutuism’ ideology where deviation was a constitutional offence.

To built national spirit mobutu used personal power by decree to change western names to African. The name Congo was changed to Zaire. Towns with western names were changed too: Leopoldville to Kinshasa, Elizabethville to Lubumbashi, Stanleyville to Kisangani and Katanga to Shaba.

On equal measure Christian names were dropped for African and any priest caught baptizing Zairian children with Christian names were sentenced to five years imprisonment.

He changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngendu Wa Za Banga which in his Ngbendu tribe meant: “’the warrior who knows no defeat because of his endurance and inflexible will and is all powerful;, leaving fire in his wake as he goes from conquest to conquest.” A more succinct translation in Tshiluba meant ‘invincible warrior; cock who leaves no chick intact’.

European suits were banned too. Men wore a collarless Mao-style tunic without shirt or tie called abscot. The abscot became Mobutu’s personal trademark worn with a leopard skin hat and thick, black framed glasses.

Mobutu built a personality cult. His deeds were praised in songs and dances as the ‘father of the nation’ ‘savior of the people’ ‘supreme combatant’ and ‘great strategist’. Officials in his government had to wear badge with his miniature portrait.

His personality cult took a religious twist. Before and after every TV News there was an image of Mobutu descending, as it were, from heaven. Places where he had worked and lived became pilgrimage points: high places of meditation. His interior minister Engulu Baanga Mpongo once told party faithfuls:

“God has sent a great prophet, our prestigious guider Mobutu. The prophet. Our liberator, our messiah. Our church id MPR. Its chief is Mobutu. We respect him as one respects a pope. Our gospel is mobutuism. This is why the crucifixes must be replaced by the image of our messiah.”

Mobutu’s personal wealth was unusurped by any African tyrant. In 1973 he seized 2,000 foreign owned enterprises- farms, plantations, ranches and factories. The seizure benefited his family and cronies who were given orders like ’you have been allocated’ and ‘the state authorize you t take possession of.. .’

Mobutu controlled the central bank where he channeled money to his personal Swiss accounts. He controlled mining by filling planes with copper and cobalt for personal use. US House of Representatives heard in ’81 that mobutu sold 2,000 ton of copper worth 35M for personal use.

In a country ravaged by poverty mobutu owned three quarters of ranch cattle and produced a quarter of cocoa and rubber in Zaire. His firms become third largest employer. Within 15 years Mobutu was worth more than $5Billion, a sum larger than Zaire’s $3billion debt.

Mobutu bought houses, apartments and estates in Europe, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Morocco and Brazil. He had a three storey luxury cruiser, Kamanyola, to entertain guests. In Zaire he hard three expensive villas in Kinshasa and a $100 million palace in Gbadolite.

The palaces had private zoos, several lakes and gardens, a nuclear shelter and a private airport for his supersonic concord.

To maintain power Mobutu had to bribe his opponents starting a wave of kleptocracy. Consequently it lead to massive inflation, fuel shortage and failing civil servants. 40% of government expenditure was looted while ‘ghost workers’ existed with their salary being pocketed by senior civil servants.
Mobutu had advice for his greedy ministers:

“If you steal , do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Yibana Mayele- steal cleverly, little by little.”

In ’79 an economist sent to revamp the economy, Erwin Blumenthal, had to sleep with a shotgun and a radio to call West German and American embassies when he was threatened by armed men. The problem started when he gave a list of 50 plundering companies owned by Mobutu’s cronies to be investigated against corruption charges.

“Convectional wisdom said that besides Mobutu and his family there are only 80 people who count in Zaire” Blaine Harden, American journalist noted. “At one time, twenty are ministers, twenty are in exile, twenty are in jail, twenty are ambassadors. Every three Mobutu the music stops and Mobutu shuffles the park.”

Shuffling was a method to neutralize his enemies, mobutu said:

“My father used to say ‘keep your friends close, but your enemies closer still’ leaving people in exile was a danger, they were making a lot of noise. The game was to neutralize their capacity to damage them"

Moise Tshombe nephew Nguza Karl-I-Bond was a good example.

He was a foreign minister in ’74 and ’79. He paid the foreign press to mention him a possible successor of Mobutu. He was accused of involvement with the rebel group, charged with treason, tortured and sentenced to death in ’78. He was imprisoned and made prime minister (’79). Nguza went in exile (’81) where he made noise about Mobutu’s regime. He returned in fold, ’85, made a foreign minister and prime minster again.

Use of Zaire as a CIA base to spy on Angola brought tension in the region. Mobutu end came when he got involved in Rwanda's politics by supporting the Hutu rebels.

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda.’ Yoweri Museveni said “so it’s really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think he could have stayed.”

Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Angolan forces outset Mobutu by placing Joseph Kabila as president on 17th may 1977.
The western world deserted him.

Three days before Kabila’s inauguration an elite presidential guard from his Ngbendu tribe mutinied against him. He escaped with his family on a cargo plane belonging to Jonas Savimbi, an Angolan rebel he supported, with bullets ripping into the fuselage as it took of.

He died in exile in Morocco bitter and resentful at the betrayal of his cronies and the US.