A rogues' gallery: for many years, Western liberals were reluctant to criticize the poor leadership qualities displayed by most of Africa's politicians. There was a sense of guilt over the fact that Africans had suffered badly under colonialism and it was wrong to dump on them for not immediately embracing democracy and human rights. (Africa - Leadership).

Kofi Annan doesn't think much of the quality of leadership in Africa. Mr. Annan is Secretary-General of the United Nations and an African himself, so he's well qualified to judge. In 1998, the Secretary-General gave the UN Security Council a frank report. He blamed much of Africa's instability on its leaders. If the continent is going to get itself straightened out, said Mr. Annan, then its leaders must start fighting corruption, political laziness, and human rights abuses instead of wars.

The domination of Africa by European powers began to fade in 1957. That was the year in which the United Kingdom granted independence to the Gold Coast. The country, which changed its name to Ghana, was the birthplace of Mr. Annan.

After independence, Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah, a man who started out with great promise. But, the story of his leadership of Ghana has become the blueprint for scores of other post-colonial leaders in Africa. First came the economic mismanagement. Then, when critics questioned his leadership, the crackdown on opponents began. President Nkrumah closed down Ghana's Supreme Court and threw his critics in prison without charge. Soon, a personality cult was developed around Kwame Nkrumah and his followers started calling him "the redeemer" or "the warrior." Only one political party, Mr. Nkrumah's, was allowed.

The list of his enemies grew and a couple of attempts were made to bump him off. In 1966, President Nkrumah was on a visit to China so the army took the opportunity to pull off a coup and deposed the dictator.

The Nkrumah model has been copied many, many times since. A leader comes to power on a wave of public popularity. Soon, money from the public accounts starts to disappear, and then political opponents begin to vanish. All political parties except one are banned. Starvation and disease ravage the population while the leader grows enormously rich. Eventually, the leader is removed, usually violently, and the whole miserable cycle begins again.

A few who have followed this career path have been better than Kwame Nkrumah, many have been a great deal worse. Some have been dreadful beyond belief.

Jean Bedel Bokassa led the Central African Republic from 1966 to 1979. He had himself crowned Emperor of his tiny, impoverished nation in a lavish, multi-million dollar ceremony. He placed his crown on his own head, just as Napoleon Bonaparte had done. In 1979, the Emperor took part in the murder of 100 schoolchildren in a prison, and then ate some of his victims.

Idi Amin Dada ruled Uganda from 1971 to 1979. The man was a buffoon, but a vicious and evil one. In 1972, General Amin announced that God had told him in a dream to expel Uganda's Indian and Pakistani populations, who owned almost all of Uganda's businesses. They were the lucky ones; as many as 500,000 other Ugandans that Idi Amin didn't like for one reason or another were killed.

Hastings Banda came to power when Malawi gained its independence in 1964 and stayed in charge until 1994. In 1971, he declared himself president for life and, while many of his people died of malnutrition, Mr. Banda managed to find enough public money to build himself 13 palaces in different parts of the country.

Sadly, these are not the only members of the African rogues' gallery of leaders. A partial list would include: Jomo Kenyatta (leader of Kenya 1963-78), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire 1965-1997), Siaka Stevens (Sierra Leone 1968-85), Francisco Macias Nguema (Equatorial Guinea 1968-79), Felix Houphouet-Boigny (Ivory Coast 1959-93), Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia 1977-91), P.W. Botha (South Africa 1978-1989), and on and on and on.

Notice anything these leaders have in common apart from being thieves, murderers, and despots? They all stayed in power for a long time, and it wasn't because they were deeply loved by their people. Let's look at a current leader to see how these men managed to hold onto their offices for so long.

Robert Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe and has been since 1980. In the September/ October 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Mugabe is offered as "Exhibit A" in an article about what's wrong with leadership in Africa. Written by Robert I. Rotberg of Harvard University, the article looks at how President Mugabe handled Zimbabwe's June 2000 parliamentary elections.

"The Western media noticed when Mugabe sent supposed war veterans onto thousands of white-owned farms to cow rural workers and white supporters of the new opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which is headed by the union leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Hundreds of MDC supporters, black and white alike, were beaten, and several dozen were killed. Government orders that rural clinics and hospitals refuse treatment to MDC backers got less attention, as did having teachers suspected of supporting the MDC hauled from their classrooms and beaten."

With President Mugabe in charge of the election apparatus, the vote itself was a shambles. The boundaries of ridings were not decided until three weeks before the vote and were kept secret from the opposition until a court order opened them up. United Nations observers found that between 10% and 25% of the people listed as qualified voters were in fact dead. MDC candidates were beaten up and had their homes firebombed. Just before voting day the head of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum said there had been "a complete subversion of the democratic electoral process."

The 2000 election in Zimbabwe is typical of many that have taken place in Africa over the last couple of decades. Under pressure from aid donors in the industrialized world many African leaders have erected a facade of democracy. In reality, it's been business as usual. Opposition candidates have "accidents" and are found face down in ditches. The state-owned news media only carries stories, always flattering, of the president/prime minister/general who is seeking election. The leader's people decide who is eligible to vote and then count the ballots on election night. And, if an opposition starts to gather strength, the ruling party can always send the police and army out to persuade voters to change their minds.

So, it's not surprising that once in power, Africa's leaders rarely suffer electoral defeat. At the same time, a huge number of Africa's leaders have been busy stealing their country's assets and making their friends and relatives rich.

Theft of a nation's wealth is a turn off for foreign investment; or, at least, good foreign investment. If a well-run, ethical company knows the leader of a country is stealing from the public purse, the company will probably invest in growth somewhere else. Unscrupulous businesses and organized criminals trying to launder dirty money are the ones most likely to be investors in states run by crooks. This, of course, is bad news for the citizens of such states.

Again, we can turn to Zimbabwe as an example. In 1980, when Robert Mugabe came to power, Zimbabwe was in pretty good shape. By African standards, the country had a well-educated workforce. It had valuable resources for export such as gold, minerals, tobacco, and corn. There was a solid tradition of manufacturing for export, and a very attractive tourism industry. President Mugabe was a highly educated leader with a university degree in economics.

Despite all these advantages, Zimbabwe's economy is now in reverse. Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services) is declining, annual inflation is 80%, and there are no foreign currency reserves. The Africa Competitiveness Report 2000 lists Zimbabwe as having one of the worst economies in Africa. The people of Zimbabwe are one third poorer than they were at independence in 1980.

Those who study these things say that President Mugabe is to blame for Zimbabwe's economic slide. Part of the independence agreement was that good land was to be bought from white farmers and given to landless black Zimbabweans. Some of that happened, but the best land somehow ended up in the hands of Mr. Mugabe's associates. Then, the President decided to just take the land away from white farmers without compensation.

In 1998, about 13,000 soldiers were sent to help support the corrupt regime of Laurent Kabila in Congo (formerly Zaire). This was a disastrously costly adventure for a country with an economy as shaky as Zimbabwe's. There are strong suspicions that Mr. Mugabe and his friends were rewarded with some of the Congo's mineral wealth.

Robert Mugabe now owns at least six mansions in Zimbabwe, and he has bank accounts in all the usual places.

While all of these excesses of poor leadership were going on, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) watched from the sidelines and did almost nothing. There was some tut-tutting as thugs such as Charles Taylor in Liberia, Daniel arap Moi in Kenya, and Sani Abacha in Nigeria butchered their citizens. But, as many of the leaders sitting around the OAU's table were shady characters themselves, the organization itself rarely went any further than expressing mild disapproval. During the 1990s, the OAU did become more active, but it was still weakened by its structure. In 2001, the OAU, which was founded in 1963, began a year-long transition. The African Union (see page 20, African Solutions) is supposed to be a stronger organization that will have some power to deal with the violence that plagues the continent.

More promising, though, is another made-in-Africa initiative. Africa's Millennium Action Plan is the work of the heads of state of three regional superpowers -- Nigeria, Algeria, and South Africa. This is a program to promote good government, freer trade, and economic growth. South African President Thabo Mbeki is the main architect of the Millennium Action Plan (MAP).

The plan's central idea is that Africa's development depends on its full involvement in the global economy. For this to happen, there must be a combination of reforms within Africa and help from outside the continent. The important reforms are:

* Establishing peace, and more democratic government;

* Respecting human rights;

* Investing in people by providing better health care and education;

* Diversifying economies, and encouraging trade both within Africa and with the outside world; and,

* Combating disease and boosting the use of new technologies.

In return, the MAP asks the developed nations for more debt relief, the removal of trade barriers, and an end to farm subsidies. President Mbeki and those who are onside with the plan are hoping that African leaders will commit themselves to democracy and human rights, to tackle disease and reform their economies. If Africa's leaders can get their acts together, the rest of the world will start investing in the continent again.

With history as a guide, that makes it a very big "If."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Most Western democratic nations, including Canada, have policies toward dictatorships such as those common in Africa, which they call "constructive engagement." The argument is that continuing to have contact with such regimes gives the opportunity to persuade them to change their ways. However, Robert Rotberg, writing in Foreign Affairs, says this "almost never works." He argues for a tough love approach that cuts off all aid donations, all lending all state visits, all government-to-government contact and all contact through multilateral organizations. Discuss the merits of these differing approaches.

2. Open a clipping file on the African Union and periodically check the organization's progress towards setting up an elected parliament, a central bank, a common currency, a court of justice, and other institutions that are promised in its charter.

3. There have been some good leaders in Africa. Assign teams of students to research one of the following and write a brief biography for presentation to class: Nelson Mandela (South Africa), Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Sam Nujoma (Namibia), Quett Masire (Botswana), Sir Dawda Jawara (The Gambia), Leopold Senghor (Senegal).

FACT FILE

The Amani Trust, which monitors human-rights abuses in Zimbabwe, says there were 11 politically motivated assassinations in July 2001 alone.

FACT FILE

Ranulf Higden was a Benedictine monk who drew a map of the world in 1350 and claimed that Africa contained one-eyed people who used their feet to cover their heads.

Websites

Global Coalition for Africa (Democratization and Good Governance) - http://www. gca-cma.org/edemo.htm

Organization of African Unity - http://www.oauoua.org/

The World Movement for Democracy in Africa - http://www.wmd.org/ africa/africa.html

Wo-Yaa, African Web Portal - http://www.woyaa. com/

RELATED ARTICLE: Violence and power.

In The Graves Are Not Yet Full (published in August 2001), Bill Berkeley, starts by writing "This is a book about evil." Mr. Berkeley is a New York Times editorial writer, a contributor to Atlantic Monthly, and a longtime observer of African events. He concludes that Africa's seemingly endless conflicts are not random, not tribal, and not unfathomable. They are, in his analysis, incited by despotic rulers or would-be rulers who manipulate violence to maintain power and get rich.

"After a decade of reporting on Africa's conflicts, I knew that there was in fact no such thing as `just another tribal slaughter,'" he writes. "They are all provoked from on high." He argues that Africans are not the "mass of pathetic victims" we see on television, but lively, courageous people victimized by unscrupulous opportunists - some African, some not - who take advantage of weak civic institutions, poor education, and feeble communications to stir up mass violence for their own ends.

Bill Berkeley names a long list of African villains, and includes one of his own countrymen. Chester A. Crocker was Assistant Secretary of State for Africa during the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-89). Mr. Crocker was the chief architect of the policy of "constructive engagement" with white-ruled South Africa, and was an apologist for Liberia's murderous President Samuel K. Doe. Many Africans would like to see Chester Crocker tried as a "war criminal," Mr. Berkeley writes, but "maybe Crocker was not so much a war criminal as the kind of figure many war criminals depend on: an articulate front man, capable of putting an intellectual gloss on otherwise crude power politics."

RELATED ARTICLE: African solutions.

Muammar al-Qaddafi seems an unlikely source for a peaceful solution to any problem. In 1969, he staged a military coup to seize control of Libya. Since then, he has never faced an open election and has pumped some of Libya's huge oil wealth into supporting international terrorism. But, there he was in 1999, proposing the creation of an African Union; a cooperative club with institutions similar to those of the European Union.

Since then, Mr. Qaddafi has been a busy man. Libyan troops and helicopters helped put down a coup attempt in the Central African Republic in May 2001. In the same month, he managed to get the governments of Uganda and Sudan to patch up their differences and restore diplomatic relations. For quite some time, he's been writing cheques out for Robert Mugabe to try to keep Zimbabwe's economy from total collapse. Mr. Qaddafi has also paid off the debts some small West African countries owed to the Organization of African Unity (OAU). But, the Libyan leader's brightest moment of late must have come in July 2001 in Lusaka.

Leaders of about 40 countries had gathered in the Zambian capital to start up the African Union, which replaces the Organization of African Unity. Mr. Qaddafi blamed all current African wars on colonialists, who created artificial borders dividing tribal communities. "[Africa's] political nations were invented by colonialists, and when we ensure the integration [of Africa] we will end the conflicts," he said. Mr. Qaddafi's vision is of a continent without borders and he speaks of "going back to an Africa before colonialism, an Africa of tribes and kings."

Mammo Muchie buys into this notion. He's a guest professor at a couple of European universities, and he wrote about the African Union in the September 2001 issue of New African: "The ultimate goal should be to create a union of African peoples, states, and regions by composing a single African nation." This would involve the leaders of 53 countries working together to put themselves out of business by accepting the lesser status of governors of the states they are now running.

Reality is likely to fall short of that; some are predicting the whole African Union venture will fall apart for lack of funding from its impoverished member-countries. Others say there is a lack of political will to make it work.

At the founding of the African Union, Zambian President Frederick Chiluba warned about the consequences of failure. "The African skies," he said, "remain overcast by a dark cloud of violent conflicts, and ethnic, religious, and other unresolved tensions." Mr. Chiluba added that the creation of the African Union marked a point at which leaders have to make a choice: "A choice toward peace, stability, unity, tolerance, and reconciliation ... Or, unending conditions of insecurity, hate, discord, and total oblivion."

HOUSES OF CHIEFS

Ghana, South Africa, and Botswana have recreated a traditional form of governance to help them solve some tricky problems. The Houses of Chiefs deal with issues that concern matters of tradition and custom. For example, a House of Chiefs in Ghana was asked for advice on the issue of land ownership. The Chiefs decided that the traditional form of communal land ownership should be maintained. This gives virtually every Ghanaian a right to some property and rejects pressures from foreign and domestic investors to allow private ownership.

RELATED ARTICLE: `Ocracies.

Democracies are rare in Africa; so rare that the number of true democracies on the continent over the last half century can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The almost universal government style in Africa since independence began to spread in the 1950s has been the autocracy. This is a political system under which one ruler wields unlimited power. In Africa, this has taken the form of:

* A few monarchies such as Swaziland and Morocco;

* Several civilian dictatorships -- Liberia, Kenya, and others, or;

* Many military dictatorships -- Burundi, Sudan, Chad, etc.

A new word has been added to the dictionary to describe another frequently found form of government in Africa. A "kleptocracy" is a system in which a nation's public resources are stolen by government officials. The word comes from the ancient Greek for thief -- kleptes. Foreign loans, military aid, and state export taxes all disappear without trace. Usually, the cash goes into secret bank accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, or other places where bankers don't ask a lot of pesky questions about where the money came from.