AFRICA’S UNFORTUNATE SONS AND THEIR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY WHILE IN POWER
By Bamba Mass Human Rights Activist UK
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 scarce resources necessary for basic survival. The English word “thug” comes from the Hindi word “thug” which means “con man”. “Thugees” are well-organized criminal gangs that robbed and murdered unsuspecting travelers over a century ago to today.
Africa’s identity is poverty, Africa’s identity is suffering, malnourishment, civil war, and OUR identity is death everywhere on the continent.
African rulers and number of people killed during their rule
Menghistu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) 1,500,000
Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 0,800,000
Cl.Theonesta Bagosora chief coordinator Rwandan Genocide 0,800,000
Jonas Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 0,580,000
Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 0,570,000
Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) 0,555,000
Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 0,530,000
Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 0,528,000
Muhammad AL Bashir (Sudan, 1989-present) 0,525,000
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Centrafrica, 1966-79) 0,422,000
Mohmar Gaddafi (Libya 1969-present) 0,108,000
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (1979-present) 0,080,000
Hissene Habre (Chad, 1982-1990) 0,078,000
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe, Ndebele minority 1982-87,) 0,040,000
Yuweri Mussaveni (Uganda, 1986-present) 0,030,000
Lansana Conteh (Guinea Conakry 1984-2010) 0,016,000
Yahya AJJ Jammeh (Gambia, 1994-present) 0,002,000
“Thugees in Africa”, mugs, rob, pillage, plunder, rape and kill unsuspecting whole nations and peoples and secrete away their billions in stolen loot in European and American banks.
Today, we see the incredibly extreme lengths Libyan thugtator Muammar Gaddafi is willing to go to preserve his thugocratic empire floating on billions of stolen oil dollars hidden in foreign bank accounts and corporate property holdings. The British Government recently announced that it expects to seize “around £20 billion in liquid assets of the Libyan regime, mostly in London alone.”
The Swiss Government has similarly issued an order for the immediate freeze of assets belonging to Gadhafi and his entourage. The Swiss central bank announced that it will freeze Gaddafi’s 613 million Swiss francs (USD$658 million), with an additional 205 million francs (USD$220 million) in paper or fiduciary operations. In 2008, before a diplomatic incident involving the arrest of one of Gaddafi’s sons for assault in Switzerland, Gadhafi’s Swiss holdings amounted to 5.7 billion in cash and 812 million francs in paper and fiduciary operations. In 2006, the Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund had investments of $70 billion. The U.S. closed its Embassy in Tripoli and slapped a freeze on all Libyan assets described as “substantial.”
Now when the Libyan people felt enough is enough they rebelled and to protect his empire of corruption and stealing with his son small thieves, Gadhafi has ordered his air force to bomb and strafe unarmed civilian demonstrators demanding an end to his 42-year rule. His son Saif al-Islam threatened to dismember the country and plunge it into a civil war that will last for 30 or 40 years. In a televised speech, the young thug promised a bloodbath: “We will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet. I will fight until the last drop of my blood.” The buffoonish al-Islam contemptuously reassured the world: “Plan A is to live and die in Libya. Plan B is to live and die in Libya. Plan C is to live and die in Libya.” For someone who has no official role in government, it was an astonishing statement to make.
Gadhafi himself has vowed to fight on and die “like a martyr” in the service of his thugogracy. He urged his supporters in Green Square to fight back and “defend the nation.” He exhorted, “Retaliate against them, retaliate against them… Dance, sing and prepare. Prepare to defend Libya, to defend the oil, dignity and independence.” Gadhafi promised: “At the suitable time, we will open the arms depot so all Libyans and tribes become armed, so that Libya becomes red with fire.” It is not enough for Gadhafi and his thugs to have bled the Libyan people dry for 42 years; they now want to burn down the whole country to ashes. Apres moi, le deluge! (After me, is the flood!)
The Ivory Coast sometime ago was nearly on the verge of civil war, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In December 2010, Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down after he was decisively defeated in the presidential election. His own Election Commission said his opponent Alassane Ouattara won the election by a nine-point margin. The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations, the United States, the European Union all said Ouattara is the winner. Gbagbo has turned a deaf ear and prepared to use thugs to plunge the Ivory Coast into civil war to protect his empire of corruption. In 2000, Gbagbo imposed a curfew and a state of emergency and ordered security forces to shoot and kill any demonstrators in the streets: “Police, gendarmes and soldiers from all branches of the armed forces are ordered to use all means throughout the country to oppose troublemakers.” Like Gaddafi’s mercenaries today, Gbagbo’s troops back then went on a killing and beating rampage. The European Union, the Swiss and United States Governments have frozen Gbagbo’s assets in their countries amounting to billions of dollars
In May 2010, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi said he won the parliamentary election by 99.6 percent. “According to the World Bank, roughly half of the rest of the national economy is accounted for by companies held by an EPRDF-affiliated business group called the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). EFFORT’s freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms on loans from government banks.” The regime’s own anti-corruption agency reported in 2008 that “USD$16 million dollars” worth of gold bars simply walked out of the bank in broad daylight
In 2005, Zenawi demonstrated the extremes he will go to protect his empire of corruption. Zenawi’s troops under his direct command and control mowed down 193 documented unarmed protesters in the streets and severely wounded nearly 800. Another 30,000 suspected opponents were jailed. In a meeting with high level U.S. officials in advance of the May 2010 election, Zenawi told them in plain words what he will do to his opposition if they try to “discredit the election”: “If opposition groups resort to violence in an attempt to discredit the election, we will crush them with our full force; they will all vegetate like Birtukan (Midekssa) in jail forever.” it does not leave much to the imagination to figure out what he will do when the people ask him peacefully to leave power.
Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh vowed to stay in power at whatever cost. Saying God put him in power and only God can remove him from power. His Empire that he is crafting, forcing the populace into virtual poverty thus their dependence directly on his hand outs would force them to subjugate then to become his servants. Making the birth of his only son a public holiday in the whole country signals to all around that a successor is born. He rules in an Idi Amin style with all the bogus degrees he can muster: Sheick, Professor, Doctor, Nasirudeen, GCMG, GMRG, and ECT.
On April 10-11, 2000 GAMSU organized a large scale protest that threatened the Jammeh administration. The students demonstrated on April 10, 2000 to protest the alleged beating to death of Ebrima Barry a secondary school student at the hand of fire service officers in Brikama, Western Region. Apart from the outrageousness of the fact that fire service officers were asked to discipline a student, the government failed to properly investigate the matter. The GAMSU student leadership made demands and an autopsy report (which was widely believed to be a cover up) stated that Ebrima died of natural causes. A spontaneous student protest ensued at the Gambia College, where a Gambia Students' Union (GAMSU) sub-union existed Jammeh was in Cuba at the time and according to sources close to statehouse, he was shaking with fear that his regime has collapsed and when he got the reassurances from his security chiefs that they would do all to keep the situation under control, Jammeh was said to have personally ordered for those demonstrators to be shot with life rounds. He was said to have said “shoot and kill anyone found on the streets kill the bastards kill them all I don’t care” 14 students were killed and up to this date no one was punished for those crimes even though his government held an enquiry into it and people were found culpable for the crimes. Instead majority of them were promoted within the army and police.
His minority ethnic Jola tribe have produced his worst killers so far the likes of Musa Jammeh (aka Malia Mungu ) Idi Amin’s notorious killer in Uganda), Tumbul Tamba, Solo Bojang ect. They can kill without mercy and HRH, eliminate any who stand in his way. He has diverted millions into his wife’s Moroccan account, bought houses in America and Middle East through thieving. Chief thief and chief womanizer of Africa who watches women to strip dance for him, doesn’t care marrying girls as young as 17yrs.The Dictator vowed to stay in power threatening to crush any who ever try to remove him. He said God put him there and only god would remove him no election or coup would. While he bought a mansion for his wife Zainab and her kids in the United States worth millions of Dollars, his people can barely afford bread and for generosity sake, he would be seen throwing bisketes at his people who would scramble over it while he watches and laugh.
Taiwan a country not recognized by the international community UN is in the tiny Gambia’s only known business partner arming the Gambian Tyrant.
In April 2010, Omar al-Bashir of the Sudan claimed victory by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote. The EU EOM declared the “deficiencies in the legal and electoral framework in the campaign environment led the overall process to fall short of a number of international standards for genuine democratic elections.” Another election stolen in broad daylight; but that is not all Bashir has stolen. According to a Wikileaks cablegram, “International Criminal Court [ICC] Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told [U.S.] Ambassadors Rice and Wolff on March 20 [2009] that [Ocampo] would put the figure of Sudanese President Bashir’s stash of money at possibly $9 billion.” After the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, the first warrant of its kind for a sitting head of state, a sneering Bashir flipped his middle finger at the ICC: “They will issue their decision tomorrow, and we are telling them to immerse it in water and drink it“, a common Arabic insult which is the equivalent of “they can shove it up their _ _ _.” Bashir recently he said he will not run for the presidency again. (It is not clear if had decided not to run because he wants to enjoy his stolen billions or because he expects to put on the jail jumpsuit of the ICC.)
In February 2010, a group of soldiers in Niger calling itself the “Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy” stormed Niger’s presidential palace and snatched president Mamadou Tandja and his ministers. In 2009, Tandja had dissolved the National Assembly and set up a “Constitutional Court” to pave the way for him to become president-for-life. Niger’s state auditor reported that “at least 64 billion CFA francs [USD$128-million] were stolen from Niger’s state coffers under the government of former president Mamadou Tandja.” Tandja is sitting in jail in southwestern Niger.
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” (probably rejects of his diamond-crazed wife Grace). 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.”
In December 2007, Mwai Kibaki declared himself winner of the presidential election. In 2002, Kibaki, criticizing his predecessor Daniel Arap Moi regime, urged the people to “Remain calm, even when intimidated or provoked by those who are desperately determined to rig the elections and plunge the country into civil war.” In 2007, Kibaki and his Thugees unleashed such violence against the civilian population that 1500 Kenyans were killed and some 600 hundred thousand displaced, almost plunging Kenya into civil war. The Kroll Report revealed that Moi stole billions of dollars using a “web of shell companies, secret trusts and frontmen” and secreted the loot in 30 countries. Kibaki stonewalled further action on the report, including prosecution of Moi.
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 organization 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 blind (and pretty much have 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.
Godfathers and African Thugocracies
The business of African governments is corruption. African thugtators cling to power to operate sophisticated criminal business enterprises to loot their national treasuries and resources. These African “leaders” are actually “godfathers” or heads of criminal families. Just like any organized criminal enterprise, African thugtators use their party apparatuses, bureaucracies, military and police forces to maintain and perpetuate their corrupt financial empires.
When the U.S. first announced its “kleptocracy asset recovery program” to the world in July 2010, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered the message, not at some international anti-corruption forum, but at the African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda. Holder told the gathered African thugtators majority of who are major thieves who stole from their people and save in America and Europe.
He said to them
“Today, I’m pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Justice is launching a new Asset Recovery Initiative aimed at combating large-scale foreign official corruption and recovering public funds for their intended – and proper – use: for the people of our nations. We’re assembling a team of prosecutors who will focus exclusively on this work and build upon efforts already underway to deter corruption, hold offenders accountable, and protect public resources.
Holder’s announcement was nothing short of breathtaking. It was as though he was addressing the national convention of the “Commissioner” of all the Mafia families from New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlantic City, Las Vegas, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. In Kampala, Holder was talking directly to the African equivalents of the Godfathers of the Bonnano, Columbo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime families in one place. Absolutely surreal!
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 “privatization 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 victimized in shakedowns by thugocrats. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation.
Armageddon: Thugtators’ Nuclear Option
One of the common tricks used by thugtators to cling to power is to terrorize the people with warnings of an impending Armageddon. They say that if they are removed from power, 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 neutralize the people.
Thuggish Ghadafi and sons warned Libya will “spiral into civil war for the next 30 to 40 years and the country’s infrastructure ruined” without the Ghadafi dynasty. His eldest son Saif who thought all along he would succeed his criminal father said Libya will be awash in “rivers of blood”. If they try to remove his father: “This is an opposition movement, a separatist movement which threatens the unity of Libya. We will take up arms… we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other.”
Now when the Libyan people felt enough is enough they rebelled and to protect his empire of corruption and stealing with his son small thieves, Gadhafi has ordered his air force to bomb and strafe unarmed civilian demonstrators demanding an end to his 42-year rule. His son Saif al-Islam threatened to dismember the country and plunge it into a civil war that will last for 30 or 40 years. In a televised speech, the young thug promised a bloodbath: “We will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet. I will fight until the last drop of my blood.” The buffoonish al-Islam contemptuously reassured the world: “Plan A is to live and die in Libya. Plan B is to live and die in Libya. Plan C is to live and die in Libya.” For someone who has no official role in government, it was an astonishing statement to make.
Gadhafi himself has vowed to fight on and die “like a martyr” in the service of his thugogracy. He urged his supporters in Green Square to fight back and “defend the nation.” He exhorted, “Retaliate against them, retaliate against them… Dance, sing and prepare. Prepare to defend Libya, to defend the oil, dignity and independence.” Gadhafi promised: “At the suitable time, we will open the arms depot so all Libyans and tribes become armed, so that Libya becomes red with fire. It is not enough for Gadhafi and his thugs to have bled the Libyan people dry for 42 years; they now want to burn down the whole country to ashes. Apres moi, le deluge! (After me, the flood!)
Zenawi has been talking about “genocide” for years. The 2005 European Union Election Observer Mission in its Final Mission Report strongly chastised Zenawi and his associates for morbid genocide rhetoric: Zenawi “is quick to talk up threats to his country, whether from malcontents in the army or disgruntled ethnic groups among Ethiopia’s mosaic of peoples. Radical Oromos, a southern group that makes up about a third of Ethiopia’s people, often fall under suspicion.” Last year, he compared Voice of America radio broadcasts to Ethiopia with broadcasts of Radio Mille Collines which directed the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
If Africa’s thugtators plan to use the “nuclear option” and bring Armageddon on their societies, they would be wise to know who is destined to win the final battle between good and evil. Gadhafi’s fate now dangles between what he wants to do to bring this unspeakable tragedy to a swift conclusion, the will of the Libyan people once they vanquish his mercenaries and the International Criminal Court to whom the U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously to refer Moammar Ghadafi and members of his government in Libya for investigation and prosecution for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Like al-Bashir of the Sudan, Ghadafi and members of his thugocratic empire will not escape the long arms of justice. The days of massacring unarmed demonstrators, strafing and bombing civilians and detention of innocent people by the tens of thousands with impunity are gone. Justice may be delayed but when the people open the floodgates of freedom, “justice (not blood) will run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream” and wash out the wreckage of thugtatorship into the sea.
Their Business Partners in Africorruption, Inc. who care little or nothing for the people but the people they do business with and those fall they switch sides where ever it suits their interest.
Africa’s thugtatorship have longstanding and profitable partnerships with their partners outside Africa. Through aid and trade, these partners have enabled these thugocracies to flourish in Africa and repress Africans. To cover up their hypocrisy and hoodwink the people, the same partners would line up to champion for the people whenever they can no longer shut their ears any longer with the cries of the victims they would pretend 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 those business partners are only interested 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, they are witnessing a special kind of revolution never seen before in their dump yard: A youth-led popular nonviolent revolution against thugtatorships
Africa and the Middle East is shaking and neither they the business partners nor their thugtator friends knew what to do with this kind of revolution. President Obama said, “History will end up recording that at every juncture in the situation, Africans are on the right side of history.”
Well, what is good for Egypt is good enough for Ethiopia, Libya, Tunisia, the Sudan, Algeria, Kenya, Bahrain, Gambia, Djbouti, Somalia…, and Zimbabwe. The decisive question in world history today is: Are we on the right side of history now when we remain the victims of oppression or are we on the wrong side with thugtators destined to make us the dustbin their cheating enterprise? The monkey business
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 “privatization 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 victimized in shakedowns by thugocrats. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political interference and manipulation.
Three African leaders and their families had been investigated in Paris over whether they embezzled state funds to acquire vast assets in France including bank accounts, Riviera villas and fleets of luxury cars.
After a series of legal battles known as the "case of the ill-gotten gains", Paris's highest appeals court today authorized an inquiry into Gabon's late leader Omar Bongo, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo-Brazzaville and President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.
The independent anti-corruption organisation Transparency International had brought a case accusing the leaders of laundering their nation's riches.
A police report in 2007 said the Bongo clan had 39 properties in France, mostly in Paris's 16th arrondissement and on the Riviera. The family also had 70 French bank accounts, 11 in Omar Bongo's name. They had at least nine luxury cars in France, including Ferraris and Mercedes worth a total of €1.5m. Bongo, once the world's longest-ruling head of state, died last year and was succeeded by his son Ali.
The family of Sassou-Nguesso, Omar Bongo's father-in-law, had 112 French bank accounts, 18 properties and at least one car in France worth more than €170,000.
The Obiang family had eight luxury cars in France, worth €4.2m. Obiang's son, a government minister, owns an apartment in an exclusive area of the capital.
Transparency International said the assets were worth several times more than the African leaders officially earned.
The NGO fought a long court battle to open a judicial investigation as French state prosecutors opposed an inquiry. Today's ruling sets a precedent for corruption investigations against sitting heads of state. An investigating magistrate will now begin looking into the assets of the three leaders and the role of French banks in acquiring them.
Transparency International praised the court ruling as a "major step forward" in French judicial history that opened the way for other "politically and economically sensitive" inquiries.
The African leaders and their families have denied building up personal wealth in France through embezzlement, money-laundering and the misuse of public funds.
The case threatens to lay bare the opaque deal-making and blind eye to corruption of France's special "Françafrique" relationship with its former African colonies. The case could also strain French diplomatic and business ties with Gabon and Congo, two former colonies, and with Equatorial Guinea, a growing oil exporter.
Switzerland says it has frozen assets worth nearly a billion dollars belonging to beleaguered North African leaders that are charged with using violence their people.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey revealed the amount during a press conference in Tunisia, where she is on a three-day visit, foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel told AFP.
She said Switzerland has linked USD 473 million to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his associates, USD 415 million to Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi and USD 69 million to ousted Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
Shortly after the recent downfall of the despotic regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the Swiss government ordered banks and other financial institutions to freeze assets belonging to the men and their associates in an effort to block secret withdrawals from the accounts.
The embattled Libyan ruler, who is fighting with his opponents at home, faced asset-freeze efforts in a number of Western countries after he embarked on a military crackdown on the country's opposition and revolutionary forces in mid-February.
Meanwhile in Egypt, Mubarak and his family face charges of illegally acquiring wealth and their assets have been frozen.
The ousted president is also under detention for an investigation into the crackdown on protesters during 18 days of anti-regime rallies that toppled him on February 11th.
In January, the French government also called on the banks in the country to freeze accounts belonging to former ruler Ben Ali following his downfall.
On January 14, Ben Ali fled the North African country for the Saudi port city of Jeddah in the wake of a historic revolution that drove him from power after more than 23 years of an iron-fist rule. He left the state coffers empty not even one gold bar in the state treasury was left.
The World Bank estimates that more than $1 trillion is paid in bribes each year. That figure does not even include amounts of public funds embezzled and plundered by high government officials.
A 2002 UNODC study estimated that between $600 billion and $1.8 trillion is the amount of money that is illegally laundered throughout the world each year, and a substantial portion of that is money derived from corruption by African Leaders.
After the 2004 Tsunami, over $7 billion was pledged to aid devastated areas, but the flow of that money has slowed because of concerns about corruption. A 2004 report by the African Union claims that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corrupt practices, a figure that represents 25% of the continent’s gross domestic product.
Zaire:
Transparency International estimates that Mobutu in Zaire allegedly embezzled up to $5 billion -1997 Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire is widely regarded as a pioneer of the African kleptocracy. During the period of his presidency (1965) millions of diamonds were exported via the state owned company Gecamines at invoice prices as low as $8.55 per carat (way below market price). The difference between the invoice price and the price achieved on the true value of the stones was deposited in Mobutu’s offshore accounts. Mobutu embezzled US$5 billion from the people of Zaire. A report prepared by the UN after Mobutu’s downfall implicated 54 government ministers and 85 multinational companies based in Europe, the British Channel Islands, Canada, US, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa for violations relating international trade and helping the dictator his brutal crackdown on his people
Nigeria:
According to The Economist, “When Sani Abacha was dictator of Nigeria at the end of the 1990s; the Central Bank had a standing order instruction to transfer US$15 million or so to his Swiss bank account every day.” Over 100 banks around the world were involved in handling Abacha’s loot, including Citigroup, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. Transparency International estimates that Abacha in Nigeria allegedly embezzled up to $5 billion just like his boss Mabutu of Zaire.
Illegal exploitation of Congolese
Capital flight due to transfer mispricing exceeds US$10 billion a year. Fake transactions are estimated to account for an additional $150-200 billion a year. 60 per cent of trade
transactions into or out of Africa are estimated to be mispriced, by an average of 11 per cent.- The incidence of transfer mis-pricing to achieve capital flight out of Africa has accelerated significantly. A study of import and export transactions between Africa and the United States found that between 1996 and 2005 net capital outflows to the US grew from $1.9 billion to $4.9 billion (+257%) through the use of low-priced exports and high-priced imports.
Recently the Daily Mail, exposed the relationship with Tony Blair and the Rwandan dictator
Tony Blair with Paul Kagame at the recent Davos WEF, at which the former UK Prime Minister was at the dictator’s side to introduce him to the assembled movers and shakers. Not surprising, perhaps, given that the event — at which Mr Blair was officially the chairman — was arranged in sole honour of Paul Kagame, the president of the African state of Rwanda.
And this being France’s, Nicolas Sarkozy who was also seen with the dictatorial regime in Gabon they cannot hide France’s interest in those African states. Despite a French court’s indictment of three top African leaders who have huge assets in France the subject on his lips throughout the stylish meeting, held during the World Economic Forum in Davos, was cold, hard cash.
In the case of Zimbabwe, China’s self interest is clear, given that in this case the dictator has promised not to nationalize Chinese properties and investments in the country. China signed nearly $700 million in loan deals with Zimbabwe, its biggest loan package to date, and urged the government to protect Chinese firms from nationalization plans.
Shunned by the west, President Robert Mugabe has increasingly sought help elsewhere. China, meanwhile, covets the mineral resources of the southern African country as Zimbabwe struggles back from economic collapse. Under Mugabe this once thrivining nation is on the brink of disaster – it is battling a cholera outbreak, while water, health and education services have collapsed. Source: Engineering News.
China is also active in Sudan helping arming the dictator to kill more Sudanese simply because most contracts with Sudanese oil goes to Chinese companies.
President Obama of the United States was in Equatorial Guinea to solicit business with the regime regardless of the human rights records in that country.
That remain our fate as African and these are the reason why vast majority of our labour force (the youth) abandon Africa because of hopelessness perpetuated by our evil leaders against their own people. In Africa no matter what one does their people, they are only satisfied when you buy them a tickets to leave what they poisonously belief is a hopeless place (Africa) and taken to the promised land Europe and America. Even with education one educated abroad cannot be compared to one educated at home in Africa even when they both did the same courses and gained the same qualifications.
God help Africa!
