Big Men Little People

by Alec Russell

  The intervention coincided with the annual Non-Aligned Summit in Durban. Kabila flew down to the Indian Ocean port to put his case before, it is claimed, retiring to his hotel room with two bottles of Chivas Regal. He had not, it seemed, changed since Che's day.

  I sent an e-mail to a Malawian friend to bemoan the Congo's fate. 'It is simple,' he wrote back. 'This will stop only when our leaders stop being greedy.'

  *

  In the arid heat of Botswana, many miles to the south of Kinshasa's rotting humidity and rotten political culture, a taciturn former British detective was hard at work in the mid Nineties, convinced that the people of Africa did not have to give up hope of emerging from the stranglehold of the continent's corrupt elites. Graham Stockwell served for many years in a crack anti-corruption unit in Hong Kong. He opened a directorate run on similar lines in Botswana in late 1994 and, after a year of building up a team sponsored by the government and British aid money, launched a high-profile advertising campaign. The message was rammed home from car-stickers and roadside posters, by radio and television and even at school:

  'Bribery - Heads you lose. Tails you lose. Either way you lose' and 'A corrupt country is like a country with lung disease. It has no future.'

  His message, and his steadfast confidence, made a rare and reassuring sight in Africa. Economists estimate that over the last two decades $15 billion a year have been siphoned out of the continent, more than its annual allocation of foreign aid. Corruption is, of course, not unique to Africa. Dollar for dollar there are plenty of Asian and central American dictators who have embezzled as freely as Mobutu. Hurt by their reputation as the frontrunners in graft, Africans point to the record of Italy and other Western states. But its effect has proved far more destructive in Africa than elsewhere. Its economies have not just been undermined by graft, they have been devastated by it. The 'dash', the West African word for bribe, is a way of life all over the Third World. It oils the wheels in societies that lack a fully functioning state and so, it can be argued, often supplements rather than subverts. But in too many African states the elites have graduated from deploying the 'dash' to selling off the state. Mobutu was the most infamous embezzler, but he was not alone.

  Successive Nigerian governments, military and civilian, have siphoned off billions of dollars of oil revenue which should have propelled the continent's most populous and vibrant nation into becoming a world leader. The looting peaked between 1993 and 1998 under the repressive military regime of General Abacha, who is estimated to have stolen more than three billion dollars. Kenya's Moi bestrode a system that rapidly degenerated down similar lines. Moi was less ostentatious than Mobutu and Abacha. But, despite his many pledges to eliminate corruption, many of the worst offenders stayed in his circle until its end. While little is known about Moi's holdings, he was believed to control a vast property and business empire, a charge his supporters inevitably denied.

  With its population of barely two million and its post independence history of democratic elections - virtually unique in sub-Saharan Africa - Botswana was a far cry from the bedlam of Kenya and Zaire. In his nondescript office on the edge of the capital, Gaborone, Mr Stockwell acknowledged that it would be far, far harder to tackle many of the societies to the north and even south.

  Even South Africa, which likes to regard itself as the continent's leader in ethics, as well as politics, is under threat. The white minority government wrapped itself in a mantle of probity and contended that the culture of bribes stopped at the Limpopo. It was true that the bureaucracy for the most part functioned without palm-greasing. But behind the scenes, the corporate values were as suspect as those in many a state to the north, and within a decade of taking power the ANC rapidly started to blur the distinction between party and state.

  Stockwell's message is simple. If a government is genuinely committed to stamping out corruption, then a society, however diseased by the cancer of bribes, can be cured, but it has to start from the top. Stung by critics’ claims that they were as corrupt as the Nationalists, Mandela's government set up an anti-corruption commission. But five years into ANC rule it had failed to expose a single high-ranking official even though there was no shortage of allegations . At the start of the new millennium the ANC was rocked by a scandal over a multi-billion dollar arms deal from which several senior politicians had allegedly benefited from huge bribes. Jacob Zuma, who became president in 2009 was himself embroiled in the allegations. After Nigeria’s General Abacha died of a heart attack in 1998, his reformist successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, tried to redress the financial mismanagement that marked his tenure. Abacha's family handed back to the government more than $750 million, but it was widely regarded as only a fraction of what Abacha had amassed.

  Attempts by the West in the mid-Nineties to impose more stringent conditions on aid and loans have helped to limit the funds pouring into dictators' pockets. But the swiftness with which corruption scandals tarnished the new democratically elected governments in Malawi and Zambia, after their Big Men rulers were ousted in the early Nineties, highlighted the difficulties of ushering in a new moral code. For century’s politics in Africa, as in many others parts of the world, have been a route to riches. The independence politics in Africa have been a route to riches. The independence leaders merely refined the lessons of history. Asked by an American delegation in the late Eighties about the reports of his fabulous wealth, Mobutu said: 'Yes, I have a fair amount of money. However, I would estimate it to total less than $50 million. What is that after twenty-two years as head of state of such a big country?' (7)

  I was in South Africa when Mobutu died in 1998, still searching for a permanent exile. I discussed his career with a young student friend who was keen to learn about the rest of his continent.

  'I would like to be a lawyer or set up my own business,' he mused. 'But maybe I should go into politics to make lots of money.'

  Three months later he was given another object lesson in Big Man rule when the obituaries were written for Malawi's Dr Hastings Banda. With his Victorian pieties Banda was less destructive a leader than Mobutu. But his logic was the same: 'little people' were playthings to be despised; and his cackle was as sinister as anything I heard in the Congo.

  2 - The Last Days of a North London Doctor

  Dr Hastings Banda - Dictators and Democracy

  The Ngwazi's beady eyes peered at me out of his tiny shrivelled body. For a moment the 'chief of chiefs' appeared nonplussed. Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Africa's first but sadly not last president for life, glanced for reassurance to his 'official hostess', Cecilia 'Mama' Kadzamira, his long-time nurse, companion and business partner. I was briefly reminded of long-forgotten school day nightmares of being summoned before a headmaster. In years past this would have been the cue for a flick of the fly whisk with which Banda used to belabour importunate questioners. Instead he cackled and settled into his chair. And thus the Church of Scotland elder and African nationalist guru turned puritanical despot proceeded to belittle the traditions of his fellow Africans, the very people on whose behalf he had plotted the end of white rule in a Soho basement more than half a century before.

  During the Ngwazi's thirty years as absolute ruler of Malawi his infrequent interviews were gruelling affairs. For years he banned foreign correspondents. When he did grant an audience he liked to berate his interlocutor before a gallery of fawning mbumba, the garishly clad women with whom he surrounded himself on official tours. If he was wearing his sunglasses you knew you were in for a tirade. When I saw him, in August 1995, however, the chorus had long since been disbanded. Only the glamorous 'Mama' was left. She sat a discreet few feet away, the model of courteous charm, controlling his hearing aid, prompting the odd answer and rephrasing questions. This was his first interview with a British correspondent for many years. It was also to be his last. Not only was Banda no longer master of Malawi's destiny, he was not even master of his own.

  Inside his Mudi House residence the governor general'
s quarters in the colonial era, time had stood still. His British lawyer, Clive Stanbrook, a top London QC, who secured my interview, called him 'Your Excellency' as if nothing had changed. But the brickwork on the walls was crumbling; foot steps were muffled and the flower beds were overgrown. Dust sheets covered the furniture and his Scots memorabilia. Even his famed tiger heads were obscured from view.

  I saw Banda a year after elections had brought down the curtain on his long rule. Overshadowed by President Mandela's inauguration in South Africa, Malawi's first democratic elections in late May 1994 had attracted little attention in the outside world. But they, too, were an important signpost for the continent. The election of President Bakili Muluzi marked the end of one of Africa's longest-serving tyrants. Banda was the last of the first generation of post-colonial nationalists to remain in office. A new wind of democracy and accountability seemed to be blowing through southern Africa. There were even hopes it could waft further north.

  For Banda the turning of the tables could not have been more complete. When I saw him he was under house arrest charged with conspiring to murder four politicians, including three cabinet ministers. They had been bludgeoned to death by the police with sledgehammers in 1983 after daring to voice dissent. Malawians had little doubt the orders came from the top: so personalized was Banda's rule, he was even reputed to sign most of the government cheques. The difficulty was to prove in a court of law that he sanctioned the murders.

  Physically too the Ngwazi was a shadow of his bouncy old self. Banda was as old as the twentieth century. While his official birth date was 1906, independent estimates reckoned he was born in 1898. His voice was hardly a quaver. It seemed at times as if it would shatter the delicate bronze parchment which was his skin. His frame was eggshell-thin. The giant hearing aid attached to a Heath Robinson-esque contraption heightened the impression that he was near his end.

  But the self-confidence was authentic Banda. For three decades he interfered in every aspect of life in his impoverished central African nation. He banned long hair, tight jeans and mini-skirts. He even prohibited the Simon and Garfunkel hit 'Cecilia' on the grounds that it was disrespectful of 'Mama'. It was classic tin-pot stuff, but these eccentricities were merely a quixotic façade. The man who once boasted that his enemies were 'food for crocodiles' was, when challenged, as ruthless, thieving and selfish as any of his more conventional despotic peers. His regime passed the three 'c's African Big Man test with ease - corruption, crackdown and cult. Millions of pounds were embezzled from state funds. Hundreds were killed by his security forces. He was worshipped like a God. As he sat bolt upright in his standard charcoal-grey pinstriped suit with a handkerchief protruding just so, it required little imagination to believe those days continued.

  His contemporaries, Kwame Nkrumah, the father of African nationalism, who led the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana in 1957, and Jomo Kenyatta, the independence leader of Kenya, had long since left the stage. Tanzania's Julius Nyerere and Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, whose idiosyncratic and idiotic economic policies wrecked their countries, were indulgently humoured as Africa's sages. But only with the greatest reluctance would the Lion of Malawi concede that he too had roared his last. 'I am not doing politics,' he declared as if retirement had been his choice. 'I am just resting now.'

  Much of my interview was a history lesson. It was like delving into the long-forgotten archives of a dusty museum. One moment Banda was under the kachere tree whose branches shaded his first lessons in the bush, the next he was fulminating against Sir Roy Welensky, the Rhodesian leader of the short lived white-led central African federation which he replaced.

  For Banda this was also a last chance to air one of his favourite obsessions. 'African history ... I have to admit there is not very much of that. The Africans were not an educated people ...'

  Banda was at least more honest than many of his fellow despots who despised their people in private but praised them in public. 'That is the trouble in Africa today - too many ignorant people who do not know anything about history,' he once told Malawi's parliament. 'And if they do know anything about it they do not know how to interpret and apply it. That is why Africa is in a mess. That is the tragedy of Africa: too many ignorant people are in a position of power and responsibility.(1)

  The irony is that, as the twenty-first century dawns with new hopes once again, it is the story of the Ngwazi and his rise to power more than anything that needs ramming home to Malawians: Banda was among the more astute Big Men. He was one of the few to appreciate that it was in his interests to limit his exploitation. He also genuinely seems to have had an under standing of the requirements and rhythms of his people's rural life. But his story shows all too clearly how easy it is for dictators to take office on a wave of popular support, a vital lesson for Africa as it dreams of democratic rule.

  *

  The rutted dirt track snaking off from Malawi's main highway could be anywhere in Africa. For twenty miles a first-time visitor would be convinced he was on the wrong road. All around is featureless bush. Then without any warning, the potholes give way to smooth tarmac. An arch and wrought-iron gates come into view. Suddenly the visitor is in another world. The neat red-brick buildings visible through the railings of a smart front gate could be lifted from the grounds of a nineteenth-century British boarding school. There is a library - home to a dictionary signed by Ronald Reagan - a golf course and, of course, a rugby field. The pupils wear green blazers topped by straw boaters and learn Latin and Greek. Only one subject is strictly forbidden - the local language, Chichewa.

  Welcome to the Kamuzu Academy, known far and wide as the Eton of Africa. From its foundation in the early Eighties, every year primary schools all over Malawi submitted candidates to compete for about seventy places. The lucky ones were plucked from rural poverty to a life of academic excellence - and also unfamiliar and anachronistic public school ways. With an expatriate staff and grounds which lacked for nothing, Banda's aides boasted it was a rare institution of excellence in a continent of mediocrity. They also claimed it was the old man's gift to the nation. He was said to fund the estimated £6,000 annual cost for each pupil. Such, at least, was the myth. In reality, after he lost power it emerged that the funds had come from the national purse at a time when the government spent about seven pounds a year on the average school-child.

  The academy was the ultimate white elephant - an idiom that would almost certainly have delighted Banda's childish sense of humour. His obsessive attempt to transplant elements of Victorian society into Africa was a potent reflection of the identity crisis affecting parts of the continent at the end of white rule. Banda's life story mirrors the end of colonialism. He stood for and espoused many of the colonists' precepts, in particular their muscular Christianity and patronizing disregard for the IQ of the native African. Like a mad scientist he blended that with a dose of spurious African lore and tradition to justify his personal rule. It was to prove a dangerous combination.

  The disengagement of the colonial powers in the twentieth century had as seismic an effect as their arrival had had less than a century before. Between 1880 and the First World War, some ten million square miles with about 110 million subjects were taken over by the European nations. Less than two generations later, most of them had gone. Dragged in many cases out of the Iron Age, the new African states had been coated with a veneer of modernity and then left to cope with the complexities and confusions of the new order and the twentieth century as best they could. In some cases the colonists had barely set up administrations before they were preparing to leave. Many only started to train up their successors as they packed their bags.

  When the Union flag was hauled down in Bechuanaland in 1966 the newborn Botswana was the third poorest country in the world, with twenty graduates and less than five miles of tarred road.

  With a mixture of fear, indifference, anger and fascination,

  Africans had been exposed to a range of new ideas and aspirations. And yet, suddenly,
they were free as new nations, and, inevitably, in thrall to a massive cultural trauma and schizophrenia. Banda was the archetypal product of his age. He was Western Europe without the liberalism. He was Africa without the communal values. For the people of Malawi it was the worst of both worlds.

  Banda's long and complex relationship with the colonial world began at an early age. Like so many of the first generation of African statesmen he was educated by missionaries. Indeed, he took Hastings as his Christian name from the surname of one of his early Scots tutors. But as a teenager he suffered a humiliation which would have alienated many Africans from the white man for good. He failed his first round of teaching exams, because, he later claimed, he was so small that he had to stand up and so was accused of cheating and disqualified. Yet, far from retiring to his village, he set off towards southern Rhodesia in search of an education. It was to be an extraordinary odyssey through southern Africa, America and Britain which was to last nearly fifty years.