In a recent edition of Pambazuka news, Alemayehu G. Mariam introduces Africa’s leading ‘thugtators’ – those leaders who cling to power ‘solely to accumulate personal wealth for the ruling class’.

If democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people, a thugogracy is a government of thieves, for thieves, by thieves. Simply stated, a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugs) in designer suits. It is becoming crystal clear that much of Africa today is a thugogracy privately managed and operated for the exclusive benefit of bloodthirsty thugtators.

In a thugtatorship, the purpose of seizing and clinging to political power is solely to accumulate personal wealth for the ruling class by stealing public funds and depriving the broader population of scarce resources necessary for basic survival.

In March 2008, Robert Mugabe declared victory in the presidential election after waging a campaign of violence and intimidation on his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters. In 2003, Mugabe boasted, ‘I am still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be Hitler tenfold. Ten times, that is what we stand for.’ No one would disagree with Mugabe’s self-description. In 2010, Mugabe announced his plan to sell ‘about $1.7 billion of diamonds in storage’. According to a Wikileaks cablegram, ‘a small group of high-ranking Zimbabwean officials (including Grace Mugabe) have been extracting tremendous diamond profits.’ Mugabe is so greedy that he stole outright ‘£4.5 million from [aid] funds meant to help millions of seriously ill people.’

The story of corruption, theft, embezzlement and brazen transfer of the national wealth of African peoples to European and African banks and corporate institutions is repeated elsewhere in the continent. Ex-Nigerian President Sani Abacha, who was judicially determined to be a member of a criminal organisation by a Swiss court, stole $500 million. Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt also have their stolen assets in the hundreds of millions of dollars frozen in Switzerland and elsewhere. Other African thugtators who have robbed their people (and pretty much gotten away with it) include Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida, Guniea’s Lansana Conte, Togo’s Gnassingbe Eyadema, Gabon’s Omar Bongo, Equatorial Guniea’s Obiang Nguema, Burkina Faso’s Blaise Campore and Congo’s (Brazaville) Denis Sassou Nguesso, among others.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THUGTATORSHIPS

Thugtatorships in Africa thrive in the political economy of kleptocracy. Widespread corruption permeates every corner of society. Oil revenues, diamonds, gold bars, coffee and other commodities and foreign aid are stolen outright and pocketed by the thugtators and their army of thugocrats. Public funds are embezzled and misused and state property misappropriated and converted to private use. Publicly-owned assets are virtually given away to supporters in ‘privatisation programs’ or secretly held in illegal transactions. Bank loans are given out to front enterprises owned secretly by the thugtators or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral.

Businessmen must pay huge bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those involved in the import/export business are victimised in shakedowns by thugocrats. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation.

One of the common tricks used by thugtators to cling to power is to terrorise the people with warnings of an impending Armageddon. They say that if they are removed from power, even after 42 years, the sky will fall and the earth will open up and swallow the people. Thugtators sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in the population and use misinformation and disinformation to psychologically defeat, disorient and neutralise the people.

Africa’s thugtatorships have longstanding and profitable partnerships with the West. Through aid and trade, the West has enabled these thugocracies to flourish in Africa and repress Africans. To cover up their hypocrisy and hoodwink the people, the West is now lined up to ‘freeze’ the assets of the thugtators. It is a drama they have perfected since the early days of African independence. The fact of the matter is that the West is interested only in ‘stability’ in Africa. That simply means, in any African country, they want a ‘guy they can do business with‘. The business they want to do in Africa is the oil business, the (blood) diamond business, the arms sales business, the coffee and cocoa export business, the tourism business, the luxury goods export business and the war on terrorism business. They are not interested in the African peoples’ business, the human rights business, the rule of law business, the accountability and transparency business and the fair and free elections business.

Today, the West is witnessing a special kind of revolution it has never seen: a youth-led popular nonviolent revolution against thugtatorships in Africa and the Middle East. Neither the West nor the thugtators know what to do with this kind of revolution or the revolutionaries leading it. President Obama said, ‘History will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation in Egypt, that we were on the right side of history.’ Well, what is good for Egypt is good enough for Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, the Sudan, Algeria, Kenya, Bahrain, Djbouti, Somalia and Zimbabwe. The decisive question in world history today is: are we on the right side of history with the victims of oppression or are we on the wrong side with thugtators destined to the dustbin of history?

Power to youths in Africa and the Middle East!

Sub-Saharan Africa Meeting on Freedom of Expression and the Internet
Johannesburg
15-18 February 2011

The Department of Media studies at the University of the Witwatersrand recently hosted a Sub-Saharan Africa Expert Meeting on Freedom of Expression and the Internet in Johannesburg. This was one of a series of consultations and training workshops, which are jointly organised by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr. Frank La Rue, and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Other meetings were held in Asia, Latin America and MENA.

The purpose of these meetings is to explore the most pressing issues according to region, within the general topic of Internet freedom. Delegates to the Sub-Saharan meeting were from all over the African continent including Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Namibia and Uganda.

The meeting was broken into eight sessions over three days. During these sessions issues such as the problems of access to the internet, legal instruments to protect Freedom of Expression as well as those used by governments to erode that freedom, the collusion of ISPs with governments and their liability as intermediaries and campaigning and advocacy were discussed.

Case studies from all parts of the African continent were presented. The direst instance in which Freedom of Expression was being violated by a government was Uganda, where according to Geoffrey Ssebagala, from the Human Rights Journalist Network, conditions for journalists and activists were perilous. He said the Ugandan government was very repressive and was targeting all methods of communication including mobile phones, the Internet and postal deliveries. He even cited instances of government agents breaking into the houses of private citizens to take their mobile phones and laptops in an effort to ascertain whom they were communicating with and what they were saying. Arrests of networks of journalists and activists usually followed these break-ins.

Points of interest during the meeting included Guy Berger’s presentation during the session on Censorship; Henry Maina in the session on Legal instruments relating to Freedom of Expression and the Internet and Claire Ulrich’s presentation during the session on campaigning and advocacy.

Guy Berger from Rhodes University presented his notes on hate speech and the Internet using the recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa as an example. He questioned whether it was time to revise old restrictions, which had become outdated.

Henry Maina of Article 19 in Kenya began his presentation by indicating that there are three major instruments that are applicable in Africa with regard to Freedom of Expression. These are the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights, the African union Convention on Prevention and Combating Corruption and Related Offences, and finally the African Charter on Democracy Elections and Governance. Mr. Maina also discussed the Declaration on Principles of Freedom of expression in Africa. He noted that while it is a declaration, it is the clearest available document on Internet freedom.

Editor of Global Voices’ in French Claire Ulrich presented a study of the use of the Internet for protest in Tunisia. She said the Tunisian uprising did not happen by chance. It was the result of the merging of cyber activism from exiled activists abroad and from an uprising in Tunisia. Despite great access to the Internet within Tunisia, the government was very repressive and censored the Internet through the use of filters that blocked words and sites on the Internet.

The meeting concluded with several recommendations being made regarding the thematic areas of each session. The information provided during this meeting will be included in Mr. Frank La Rue’s report to the UN Human Rights Council on Internet Freedom, and will also provide some specific advocacy plans for improving the situation of Internet freedom in the various Sub-Saharan regions.

In principle, I don’t have a problem with the idea of an anti-sanctions rally. Anyone who still clings to the myth of them being targeted or a grand illusion orchestrated by our Dear Leader, needs to face reality: sanctions are real, they are not targeted, and they are wrong.

As with most things, ZANU PF took the recent anti-sanctions rally much too far. Now what would have been a rallying point for all Zimbabweans, has been reduced to little more than an exercise in futility and the beginning of ZANU PFs campaign for debatable elections. By no stretch of the imagination can anyone claim that it was a legitimate expression of the peoples’ wishes. For one thing, the people were told to go. A friend called me in distress, after the technicians at a printing concern near downtown Harare were ordered (after an ID check) to attend the rally, and his indigenously owned and operated business lost time, money and customers.

Happily, there are reports the police walked out of the rally during the President’s speech, leaving members of the public with better things to do to do the same.

Forced attendance is nothing compared to the relentless assault on the intelligence of ordinary Zimbabweans. The injury is made worse when you recall that it is the same regime that in the early 80′s instituted a policy of education for all, punctuating the savanna with numerous schools and teachers’ colleges. Or that during Gore reNzara, the same regime bragged to anyone who would listen that even ana ambuya vekumusha understood economic concepts like the drivers of hyperinflation. Yet yesterday they saw fit to treat the assembled masses like drooling five year olds.  Zimbabwe supposedly has some of the most educated members of government in the world, and these same people chose to publicly offer moronic platitudes like comparing Our Dear Leader to Cremora – a bland white powder, or saying

“There is no president the world over who has degrees like President Mugabe. He is brainy and that’s why he is feared.”

I quite doubt that anyone could be in fear of an 87 year old man who didn’t command a vast army, no matter how ‘brainy’ he was.

Do they think we’re stupid? Yes.

While Our Dear Leader and his cohorts make an embarrassing spectacle of lamenting sanctions, they forget and distract us from realising that we are slowly becoming South Africa and China’s client state. Zimbabwe manufactures very little. Redistributing what pittance is left of foreign owned companies would not change that. It will not change China’s increasing ownership of the ‘people’s resources’ neither will it stop the influx of South African goods onto supermarket shelves.

My first ever visit to the Harare Magistrates Court was disheartening. The uninterested police officer at the front/information desk barely looked up from texting to tell me to go in the wrong direction for court five. The building looked full of distressed relatives and distracted looking lawyers, and the scent of urine as I turned a corner reminded me of the broken window theory. The theory postulates that a house falling into disrepair has deep psychological effects on a community. With time the entire community becomes like that house – dysfunctional. I wondered where our broken window was and if it wasn’t too late to fix it.

I met a woman whose husband was one of the accused. We found ourselves sandwiched together in a crowd that was vainly attempting to overhear what was going on in the court room, which was a whole lot of nothing. Our magistrate decided not to show up that day. Seeing the state of the 45, I couldn’t help but get emotional. But she was stoic, and even managed to give me some words of comfort. It wasn’t my husband who was charged with treason but hers, yet here she was comforting a foolish, emotional woman who was there to show support for a co-worker.

On my second day I arrived in time to be sandwiched in the back of the court itself. While we waited for the magistrate, who was over an hour late, I overheard some interesting conversations, one of which was between two student activists.  ‘They’re trying to frustrate us into leaving’, the one said as people began to leave. ‘The magistrate is there waiting for people to leave’. Another pointed out that it was unreasonable to charge the 45 with attempting to overthrow the government, ‘after-all’ he said, ‘a revolution is not started with a laptop, a projector and an analysis of the legal system’. ‘It’s the repressed people’, the other whispered back, ‘who will start it’.

Interestingly, that was the same day the million man march was supposed to be held at Harare Gardens ‘from 11am until the fall of a dictatorship’. Later that evening a BBC journalist reporting from Johannesburg reported the attempt at revolution. 40 people showed up for the march. I believe the rest are located in places with better internet connections.

When the judge did finally arrive, he ordered the public gallery be cleared of anyone who was standing. Before he had even finished giving the order the entire gallery was seated on the floor, some knelt where they could. ‘They will not take this away from us!’ I heard the student activists mutter. Everyone in that room was determined to stay. I was awed (and tearful again) this was where the revolution was happening.

Today, I wanted to write a blog about the President’s birthday – the unfounded and tasteless hype. I wanted to express my anger because  in view of the two million people who are expected to face famine this year, or the 90% unemployment rate, the mind numbing propaganda on television and radio or the vendors outside my office who are so desperate and hungry they cannot help but be overly aggressive, a lavish presidential birthday party is nothing but irresponsible and insensitive. But I can’t. I found out that my colleague has been charged with treason, that he faces death or imprisonment for watching a DVD.  And suddenly my hands are still and my tongue is silent.

This is wrong.

If media reports are to be believed social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are being credited with driving the recent overthrow of North African dictators. In light of this, speculation is rife about staging a similar event in Zimbabwe.

I recently received an email from an individual or group who are trying to organise a similar uprising. To my understanding all communication about this meeting has been via the Internet. I hope that while they have taken notes from the afore-mentioned revolutions, they are aware that it is not possible to replicate them here.

Traditional media such as print, radio and television are strictly controlled by the government for a reason. They have a reach and influence over the vast majority of Zimbabweans that is not yet paralleled by any emerging new media. Internet penetration is estimated at a rate of 24% of adults living in urban centres. Popular revolts are not powered by the comfortable urban middle classes, who in Zimbabwe’s case make up the majority of those who have regular access to the Internet, they are powered by the young and idealistic.

While Zimbabwe’s youth are ripe for driving a revolution, the recent demonstrations and violence against foreign business owners in support of Indigenisation suggest that they are a political tool, rather than a tool for change. They have unwavering and what is more dangerous unquestioning support for the political parties they are aligned to.  Zimbabwe has yet to see a youth wing or movement that is more powerful or has greater influence than those established by political parties.

Revolutions have no blueprints, and as Trevor Ncube rightly states in his reflections on recent events “Zimbabwe is neither Tunisia nor Egypt”.