OF LIES AND DESPOTS

OF LIES AND DESPOTS

““They made us many promises, more than I can remember. They only kept but one. They promised they would take our land, and they took it.” ----Red Cloud

Who was it who wailed “If only I had the luxury of lying?” I do understand the burden of French president Sarkozy who had to complain in private to Obama about Netanyahu “the liar”. Here is how the press report put it:

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar" in a private conversation with US President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week's G20 summit in Cannes.
"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.
"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter. Obama is lying too as he has cuddled up to and tolerated many shamelessly lying despots. They are “his” liars. As we Ethiopians say, you love your baby snot and all. Politics and lies seem to cohabit comfortably, alas. Impostors who can delude the crowds make effective despots. They fear not the lie in other words. Every year at the general meeting of the African Union or the UN a carnival of liars is held. Coup makers and murderers pay lip service to democracy and the will of the people. Those who easily and readily promise the sky to gullible millions will steal the land from all of them. Easy, invade Bahrain and then weep for the people of Syria. Invade for your own limited political objectives and then swear concern for the welfare of the people (France in Ivory Coast and Libya, America in many other places). The lie is important. If Netanyahu lies as Sarkozy alleges then most French people know that Sarkozy himself plays loose with facts actual or historical.
The existence of the WMD was one of the worst lies America and Britain played on the world with Colin Powell in the role of the pathetic messenger. We all saw the carnage that was justified by that huge lie. Africans were promised paradise and deprived of their land and freedom. Ethiopians have been promised three meals per day and millions are still starving and eating once a day has become a luxury. The lies are so effective that there are still many naïve souls who believe that Western troops are in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring democracy to the peoples there. Lying has become the pillar of the State in many countries and most despots rely on lies as much as arms to perpetuate their rule. A link has conveniently been made between Al Qaida in the Horn, in North Africa and the Boko Harem in Nigeria. The Africom operations are destined to carve out a New Africa, dominated by the West and serving the interests of the West. More drone bases would appear on African soil (the latest one is in Arba Minch/Gamo Gofa/, Ethiopia) and American troops would fight along African ones (Ethiopia, Uganda, etc) to crush any resistance to western domination. A good example of the big lie is the fraud that the war against Libya exposed. Kaddafi was said to have thousands of African mercenaries (many black refugees and workers were killed as a result by the so called rebels), that he was going to bomb Benghazi and killed some six thousand Libyans (the NATO war killed many more actually) and that jets bombed civilians. The whole accusation was presented by the Libyan For Human Rights many of whose members were to become members of the Transitional Council to win power.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Sociologist and Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) has put it as follows:
“The claims of the Libyan League for Human Rights (LLHR) were coordinated with the formation of the Transitional Council. This becomes clear when the close and cagey relationship of the LLHR and the Transitional Council becomes apparent. Logically, the Obama Administration and NATO had to also be a part of this.
Whatever the Transitional Council is and whatever the intent of some of its supporters, it is clear that it is being used as a tool by the U.S. and others. Moreover, five members of the LLHR were or would become members of the Transitional Council almost immediately after the claims against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya were disseminated. According to Bouchuguir individuals with ties to the LLHR or who hold membership include Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni.

Dr. Mahmoud Jibril is a Libyan regime figure brought into Libyan government circles by Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi. He would undemocratically be given the position of Transitional Council prime minister. His involvement with the LLHR raises some real questions about the organization.

The economist Ali Tarhouni on the other hand would become the minister for oil and finance for the Transitional Council. Tarhouni is Washington’s man in Libya. He was groomed in the United States and was present at all the major meetings about plans for regime change in Libya. As Minister of Oil and Finance the first acts he did were privatize and virtually handover Libya’s energy resources and economy to the foreign corporations and governments of the NATO-led coalition against Libya.

The General-Secretary of the LLHR, Sliman Bouchuiguir, has even privately admitted that many influential members of the Transitional Council are his friends. A real question of interests arises. Yet, the secret relationship between the LLHR and the Transitional Council is far more than a question of conflict of interest. It is a question of justice and manipulation.

Sliman Bouchuguir is an unheard of figure for most, but he has authored a doctoral thesis that has been widely quoted and used in strategic circles in the United States. This thesis was published in 1979 as a book, The Use of Oil as a Political Weapon: A Case Study of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. The thesis is about the use of oil as an economic weapon by Arabs, but can easily be applied to the Russians, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and others. It examines economic development and economic warfare and can also be applied to vast regions, including all of Africa.
Bouchuguir’s analytical thesis reflects an important line of thinking in Washington as well as London and Tel Aviv. It is both the embodiment of a pre-existing mentality, which includes U.S. National Security Advisor George F. Kennan’s arguments for maintaining a position of disparity through a constant multi-faced war between the U.S. and its allies on one hand and the rest of the world on the other hand. The thesis can be drawn on for preventing the Arabs, or others, from becoming economic powers or threats. In strategic terms, rival economies are pinned as threats and as “weapons.” This has serious connotations.

Moreover, Bouchuiguir did his thesis at George Washington University under Bernard Reich. Reich is a political scientist and professor of international relations. He has worked and held positions at places like the U.S. Defense Intelligence College, the United States Air Force Special Operations School, the Marine Corps War College, and the Shiloah Center at Tel Aviv University. He has consulted on the Middle East for the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department and received grants such as the Defense Academic Research Support Program Research Grant and the German Marshal Fund Grant. Reich also was or is presently on the editorial boards of journals such as Israel Affairs (1994-present), Terrorism: An International Journal (1987-1994), and The New Middle East (1971-1973).

It is also clear that Reich is tied to Israeli interests. He has even written a book about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. He has also been an advocate for a “New Middle East” which would be favorable to Israel. This includes careful consideration over North Africa. His work has also focused on the important strategic interface between the Soviet Union and the Middle East and also on Israeli policy in the continent of Africa.

It is clear why Bouchuiguir had his thesis supervised under Reich. On October 23, 1973, Reich gave a testimony at the U.S. Congress. The testimony has been named “The Impact of the October Middle East War” and is clearly tied to the 1973 oil embargo and Washington’s aim of pre-empting or managing any similar events in the future. It has to be asked, how much did Reich influence Bouchuiguir and if Bouchuiguir espouses the same strategic views as Reich?”
The reality is complicated and like the proverbial Truth needs a contingent of lies to protect it. The West lies to pursue its objectives which are anathema to the interest of Africans primarily. AFRICOM is the new instrument of neo colonial domination and plunder and war against terror is the new name for the scramble of the new Century. The lying despots are the cogs for the wheel of the West and its predatory campaign against Africa. Human rights organizations are being used as a cover for the wars the West is waging against African and other continents. At the end of the day, it is war for valuable resources. The US imports more oil from Africa than from Saudi Arabia. The resistance to the plunder of Africa’s oil and resources comes from the people of Africa and it is this resistance that is conveniently being presented as “terrorism”. The African despots are thus part of the big lie and working against the continent and its peoples. The lie is huge. The stakes are high as Africa’s future is on balance. Meles Zenawi sells bonds to gullible people promising that they will get their money back once the huge dam get finished on the Nile. Ivory Coast is said to be fine with Ouattara and Kabila is said to be a panacea for the Congo while Tsvangirai is expected to be an improvement on Mugabe, and so on and on. All lies. In politics “relative improvement” often hides a lie, the continuation of the same under a new name, a new despot. Lies are the weapons of despots. Gullible citizens trust the lies and become victims of tyrants. The wake up call is still unheard. Many Africans still imagine their salvation will come from the West. Waiting for Godot is the reality we observe with sadness.
How long are we to be fooled?

NATO AKHBAR! WOW!

NATO AKBAR ! WOW !!

There was a time when Allah Akbar only meant God is great. Alas, times have changed and in the tragedy that is called Libya Allah Akbar now means NATO Akbar, an exultation of the murderous machine called NATO that reduced Libya to rubbles and killed thousands of innocent people (all photos edited/censored-- circulate, nothing to see, thank you!). As Hilary Clinton so stupidly said: wow!

The illegal and grotesque execution of Khadafy is within the realms of a war crime. There was from the outset the decision to execute him if he were ever to be captured alive. The dictator knew too many secrets, just like Ben Laden, and an open public trial was not to be envisaged. One confidential newspaper in London has asserted that the decision to kill Khadafy was endorsed and called for by none other than Obama and Sarkozy. Imagine Khadafy enlightening us on his deals with Condoleezza Rice and the CIA, with that Tony Blair fellow (who has now become a political consultant to the tyrant of Kazakhstan at a yearly price of 8 million British pounds), with Berlusconi and France’s Sarkozy who had hosted him at the the Elysee palace and begged for more oil concessions for TOTAL. Obama has become the father of all disappointments. The man has been given an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize (but then again this prize has been given to criminals like Kissinger and De Klerk too!). He has failed to keep his promises (Guantanamo is still open for example), waged wars, interfered in other people’s affairs using force, approved and enjoyed murders and selective assassinations (Ben Laden/Khadafy) and went on to say with insensitivity that the war has been won in Libya with no casualty and “only” two billion dollars spent. This is Bush talk par excellence—it is apparent that for Obama too the lives of thousands of Libyans are of no consequence whatsoever. Obama hobnobs with dictators and arms and supports tyrants. Meles Zenawi is one example. I am sure Ugandans can point to their own despot, Equatorial Guineans and Djiboutians to theirs and Chadians to American backed Deby. Sarkozy is also obsessed with winning the coming 2012 presidency and has even had a programmed birth to project the “ papa poule” image (it has not stuck) and has resorted to force against other countries (Cote d’Ivoire and Libya) to present himself defender of the imperial and shredded macho image of France.

The destruction of Libya and the commandeered execution of Khadafy is a disgrace to Washington and Europe. Despite the trumpeted claim that the removal of Khadafy has heralded a new era, the reality is bleak. Libya has been taken one step back and there is no sign of a two steps leap foreword other than the adoption of Sharia law, the reintroduction of polygamy and the denial of divorce rights for women. Some forever naïve souls in Africa have hailed the execution of the Libyan dictator and some live tyrants may be shaking in their expensive loafers imagining such a fate being theirs. Outside of this, the murder of Khadafy does not augur well for Libya and Libyans. Reactionary Arab regimes aided the rebels, Qatar sent troops and Sudan sent arms and ammunition. It was a free for all that showed the features of the new scramble for Africa. The old devils are there, hungrier and better armed than ever before. New predators have come from the East with China leading the way. Forget the hollow talk of solidarity and concern for the welfare of Africans. In all this, the African Union has been demonstrated to be in a state of comatose that was the lot of the previous OAU, the puppets of the West dominate the so called Union and it was not long before all these who were beholden to Khadafy ( and enjoyed his gifts and aid) abandoned him in frenzy.

The NATO military fury against Libya has nothing to do with democracy or with helping a people “hungry for democracy”. The composition of the rebel leaders and their religious zeal do not promise any democratic commitments. Compared to Khadafy, they have emerged as more backward, their proclamation of Sharia law affirming the fact. Their tribal or ethnic division has hampered them up to now from forming a sort of government however wobbly. The dictator, like most tyrants, had mauled institutions worthy of the name and so allegiances and loyalties are basic—“tribal”, family, region and religious. Much as Khadafy and his folks antagonized others, the brutal and violent action against Khadafy loyalists (and the Khadafa group) is bound to undermine a trouble free future. Wow! Khadafy is gone and hail the new Libya is thus a hollow and overly optimistic cry unsupported by the facts on the ground and by our experience of “mission accomplished” and continued havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan. If truth be told, Khadafy was attacked for Libya’s oil, for his anti imperialist rhetoric and call for African unity, for his stand against the daylight robbery of the resources of Africa by foreign monsters. Otherwise, the double standard has been laid bare, only fools believe that the war against Libya was a war for democracy and the human rights of the people? What human rights? The rebels killed as many African workers and migrants as the Khadafy who was hailed by Europe for promising “I will serve as a wall to stop the famished hordes coming to your shores and lands”.

Moatassem Gaddafi, meeting Hillary Clinton, 21 April 2009. A murderous criminal who personally executed soldiers who refused to shoot at the protesters, Gaddafi's fifth son and the National Security Advisor, was also killed in Sirte.


The extrajudicial murder or rather the lynching of Khadafy was ordered by those with extensive past experience in the matter. Obama may have forgotten it but black Africans were lynched by white racists in America, the British hanged too many Kenyan and Yemeni patriots and French colonialists murdered thousands in Algeria and many other places. Yet, the “lynchers” hailed and feted Khadafy when it suited them.






Khadafy was kosher, halal, their friend and ally, before they turned against him and planned his ouster and assured his execution. The double standard is so plain to see it needs no detailed comment. The Tunisian uprising was seen in bad light by France and the West. The French interior minister even offered to provide French repressive means and experience to quash the people’s revolt. Hilary Clinton assured us that, Tunisia notwithstanding, the regime of Mubarak was stable. Assad of Syria and Salah of Yemen have murdered thousands with no NATO plane hovering over their skies or no drone bombing their strategic arms depots. Take also the African dictators allied with America (like Meles Zenawi for one) who are enjoying full Western support and no sanctions though they are labeled horrible human rights violators and guilty of genocide (Gambella, Ogaden). Tony Blair is consultant to one of the worst dictators in the world. France backs most tyrants in the so called Francophone Africa. The Libyan tragedy highlights the Western drive to re colonize Africa and plunder its resources. More than 5 million Congolese have died in a war sponsored by Western companies greedily vying to control the gold, diamond, coltan and other precious minerals of this hapless country. Not much hue and cry has been raised, at least not as much as the cry over Darfur. While comparing one tyranny from another and declaring this one is relatively benign is not a good exercise, there is for example no doubt that any comparison between say Khadafy and Meles Zenawi shows the latter crueler and more monstrous. Beshir and Mugabe are softies compared to the West’s darling called Meles Zenawi. American military bases and presence in the Horn of Africa and in Uganda augur disaster for the peoples of the region who may rise up against their western backed tormentors. This is why those Africans who wax lyrical in condemning Khadafy and praising the NATO operation are dupes of the worst kind, alas.

History teaches for those willing to learn. Not all revolutions or popular uprisings lead to democratic change. Not all transitions are for good. In Tunisia the Islamist Ennahda has won the election. This party was financed and bankrolled by Middle Eastern and Gulf countries. The west is clamoring about “moderate Islamists” though such a creature has been extinct for many many years. Ennahda is playing along trying to project a reformist image and declaring itself a Tunisian version of the Turkish regime though situations of Turkey and Tunisia are not all the same and the so called reformist wing within Ennhada is a tiny minority. The Tunisian revolution is more or less hijacked and short circuited as is the Egyptian one. The West can live with hard line Islamists and anti democrats (Saudi Arabia is an example) so long as they are pro west and hand over their oil resources. The financial supporter of Ennahda, the fiery Sheikh Youssef Al Quadrawi who lives in Qatar, did declare that any Moslem who does not vote for Ennahda commits a grave sin. The Libyan sharia will sneak into Tunisia too. France which cuddles the Burmese junta hated Khadafy because of economic interests and not because it was affected by the plight of Libyans. One of the military leaders of the Libyan rebels is none other than an Al Qaeda operative who was captured by the Americans and then handed over to Libya for torture and interrogation by Khadafy’s security. One remembers the time when diverse forces (left, right and center) saw in Khomeini a liberator!

A wanted man has been killed in Mogadishu—wow! Bin Laden has been murdered-wow! Khadafy has been summarily executed—wow! The Obama administration has no shame at all and maybe as the late Steve Jobs had said Obama may be a one term president like Sarkozy. Good riddance is in order. Ivory Coast, Libya, drones flying out of their Ethiopian and Seychelles bases to kill and destroy, American troops in Djibouti, Ethiopia and Uganda, Africa’s land being handed out to foreigners, dictators being supported by the West, NATO being used to bomb African aspirations to smithereens—the reality is frightening. The execution of Khadafy and the destruction of Libya is a clear warning for all Africans who are entering a very dangerous time that makes their struggle for emancipation and freedom even more difficult.
Wow indeed! Just look at Hilary Clinton reveling in the cruel death of Khadafy.

Observations

Troy Davis executed. America is to acquire a military base in Ethiopia. Now, we feel safe and secure--this is the America we knew for decades.Old South racism and executions of blacks. America vetoing Palestinians is not also knew. It is History. All this makes Obama's America a myth, a mirage, a page saver, not the real thing. America has joined China,Iran, North Korea and Yemen as the country that executes the most people. Troy Davis's case has many uncleared and unproven aspects. The young man jailed at 22 passed at least twenty years in prison/Death Row/ and this should have been enough punishment. But this was a black man accused of killing a white policeman in Georgia. Unpardonable crime. How long has Mumia Abu Jamal stayed in prison? What does the still open Guantanamo tell us? The central Iraqi prison and the torture? Obviously, America is comfortable with its old and imperialist face and the whole Obama charade of a new deal is just a mask. Talking of China being the top official executioner I recently saw a film on the land grab inside China itself. The eviction of Chinese farmers from their lands, their being beaten by party thugs armed with iron batons.No compensation too. If the Chinese can be this cruel to their people no wonder they are merciless in their land grab in Ethiopia and other African countries. The Chinese have been given permission by the Meles regime to beat up Ethiopian workers when they feel like it. The Chinese are also racist to boot. Ethiopian land has been grabbed by them and by Indians, Arabs and others too.Ethiopia is being ruled by traitors and insatiably corrupt scums.The only solution is a revolution, a removal of the anti people regime. The question of " Is China Imperialist?" is posed. My third point why is that Ethiopian political commentators have started to refer to Meles as Zenawi (his father's name) which is not his name in Ethiopia? In Ethiopia our name is not our father''s name but what the foreigners call our first name/prenom..

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." ~ Ray Bradbury

THE NATO COUP

THE NATO COUP Libya has now another new Ethiopian image—the sad face of the Ethiopian born nanny burnt by boiling water by the wife of Kaddafi’s son (Hannibal), the same one who was accused in Genève of beating his servants and in London of punching his wife (alas, she being the same one who never paid her Ethiopian nanny but burnt her whole body with boiling water). Libya was previously distinguished by its racist and brutal treatment of refugees and foreign workers (Ethiopians included), the rape of foreign worker women (and men) too. An unsavory place, a grotesque regime. And yet, we also remember the tyrant in Tripoli was a close ally of Tony Blair (the British premier who had a penchant for brutal dictators like Meles Zenawi), of Berlusconi, of Washington too. Times change and some are now alleging that the revolt by the people in Benghazi was itself concocted by the secret services of these Western countries. Be that as it may, it was time for the dictator to go (though he is still resisting proving at least he is not an isolated tyrant like some others in Africa) and the big media machine was unleashed against him, his decadent family and his brutal regime. There were even hints of Khadafy being of Jewish origin! His regime was blamed for atrocities against foreigners, especially African workers, though the so called rebels did not spare the lives of the same. In a country that is one third black the declaration that blacks are Khadafy’s mercenaries has led to violent killings in yet another expression of Arab racism against black Africans. Remember the brutal pogrom type attack by Libyans against black Africans in 2000? The Libyan situation has highlighted many points that will continue to be of relevance for the whole of Africa. The first one is the affirmed marginalization of the so called African Union. The marginalization and irrelevance was so total as to make every African who had ever imagined a role for the AU to weep in shame. Instead of a role for the AU, Libya’s fate, as in Cote d’Ivoire, was decided by the West, by NATO specifically. NATO bombed and attacked Libya with a vengeance that brought to mind not any concern for democracy but colonial wrath. The rag tag force generally presented as “rebels” was assisted by French Foreign Legionnaires, British SAS and American SEAL special troops. The rebels complained of shortage of ammunition but spent thousands of rounds shooting into the air as they shouted Allah Akbar. The NTC was set up with urgency and disparate personalities, quite a few of them late hour turncoats, became its ministers or leaders. What exactly is this rebel force, this NATO patchwork? Coming weeks will reveal the inherent weakness of this body and the very possibility of an imploding Libya. For the moment, the whole focus is on getting the nemesis of the West ( the North African Saddam, to be hanged or shot to death), assuring as it is now declared that the NATO countries get the lion’s share of the Libyan oil and reconstruction contracts. The whole event can also be taken as the new version of the perennial African coup except that this time it is a NATO coup. The sovereignty of an African country is trampled upon as the West arms its own rebels or puppets to overthrow a regime in the name of democracy. Sure enough, some perpetually naïve African souls living in Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea and other countries under brutal dictatorships may hope for a NATO coup. Alas they will be waiting for Godot. The pro West dictators like Meles Zenawi do not get bombed but financed and supported by the West. Those who get accused of crimes against humanity by the poodle of the West, Ocampo by name, will not be the masters of genocide and massacres like Meles and Nguema (or Kissinger and Dick Cheney) but the unfortunate ones who have fallen out of favor vis a vis the West. American war mongering in Iraq did not bring democracy. The situation in Afghanistan is worse and the search for a negotiation with the Taliban augurs bad days to come for the Afghan people as a whole and especially women. In Libya, it is not the democrats who head the rebellion but those who are already clamoring for a Constitution based on the Sharia. Egyptians and Tunisians, who had their own revolutions, are still struggling not to be deprived of their full victory by the military (as in 1974 in Ethiopia) or by pseudo democrats with little concern for sovereignty and dignity of their people. It is safe to conclude that not many Libyans, who had to endure 42 years of dictatorship, or peoples of the world will cry for the misfortune of the Khadafy regime. Not now anyway. Khadafy had irked the West by advocating measures that would have affected the West’s desire for hegemony over our continent. Mineral and oil rich countries are now openly at the mercy of NATO. No one will come to the rescue of the Congolese that are being murdered for their minerals. Omar Beshir and Robert Mugabe can shake in their boots. Meles Zenawi, Nguema and others within the Western hegemonic embrace can sigh contented. Even Bashir Assad has been tolerated to no end. The message is clear. The NATO coup is not for democracy but for western hegemony. Is the scramble for Africa back?

LAMENT TIDBITS BY HAMA TUMA

On the window sill
The butterfly, colours-ablaze
The dirty glass has no sparkle
Jealous
of the dazzling wings
It cracks and breaks up
As the butterfly flies away
Undisturbed.


A soul among thousands,nay,
amidst millions
hovering over crumpled bodies,
High above the vultures
sharp beaks ready to pierce
no evil in their hearts, just
the natural law,
the desire to feed on a victim
ordianed by God.
The decomposing flesh is soft, rotten,
and a treat for the hungry,
as always. The rotten is a feast.
The lonely soul, sad, glides away
from the heat and crimes of today,
of Adwa and her sons.

HT


The song in the air
by autumn leaves tuned
falling softly, sad.
The song on the ground
lying quiet, mute
The sun shines above
the prairie is afire
Times have changed.

HT




The empty vase holds my hopes
Brimming, full, overflowing even
The weight breaks the vase
and my hopes mix with the dirt
perhaps, that was when I died
and left the human world.

HT


The eyes of my daughter, innocent,
scan my withered face
Maybe the crevices hide the love
and the wrinkles cover it too, for
she looks away abrupt
with confusion in her heart
facing my cold bottomless eyes.

HT

Over the hills the barren slopes
Up ran the monkey
As the Serpent slithered down
They pass without a greeting
not even a glance
And only the monkey laughs.

HT


Eating an apple is easy
we have strong teeth, African,
No fluoride bath, no,
Nature has favoured us
We can bite.
Cut by gossip and hate
into entrails and names
history and dreams,
Into apples and flesh, cutting sharp.
The panga can rest, the machette too,
we are blessed.
Nature has endowed us
with a strong teeth
and we do the rest.

HT

Every year singes us with pain
the sorrow soaks our soul
drowning our hopes.
The bile of bitterness
forever on our tongues
Our tomorrows stolen
we are robbed of the past
the change is a mirage
and the future a corpse
we celebrate
Every new year that comes.

HT




Demons dance in the red night
amid the fire lit
By sinners roasting on the grill
of their crimes
(of their daring to ask?)
frying like pork on Life's barbecue.
The smile on their faces
belying the pain
the opaque faces covering up
the truth
now buried underground.

HT




Words fly out, soaring
to touch the clouds, far,
The heavens are unreachable
When legs are chained, by hopes
and visions withered, narrow,
In each kilil/bantustan
prisons line the streets, full,
the sewers are clogged in the Palace
and the whole country stinks.

HT

The scorching sun has no pity
it has burnt its heart eons ago.
The soft moon has no warmth
fed up of selfish lovers
using it to suck and lick
their pleasure-ways to hell.
Dawn holds no surprises
it had run out of promises ages ago.
Day and night are all the same
the rainbow has aborted in our brain.

HT

The naked child
on the hot tarmac
asleep, dazed by the sniffed glue
Forgetting hunger, and
oblivious to pain
The policeman's boot strikes
The blow makes a noise
the naked child whimpers
refusing to wake
and acknowledge the pain,
the Nation's shame.
HT



Th sufi man twirled
a thousand times, nay
a million rounds
the dust covered all
The Sufi man was in a trance,
luckily
he did not see his sins exposed.

HT









Decompose,oh yes
Perish.
What thought sublime,
magnanimous,
ever saved a lost black soul.
Wither away, disappear
like prisoners in Africa's dungeons.
Who needs to know,
to remember
the victims silenced by arrogant power?


Out out brief candle,
how do you put off the sun
end the Drought,
the Famine,
The Hopelessness in our souls?



The dark lonely night
wanted an eternal embrace
I was the only one ready,
And I obliged.




Simmer, simmer, simmer low
the bile is gushing forth
Bitter. Life is an elephant
sitting on your face
Crushing, final.


The Man, stamped by fate
wears his destiny in his tears
as an albatross.
Forever weighed by sorrow
and travails
By the sins of the dead
Eternally condemned.

OF CRIMINAL WALKS—UGANDA STYLE



Back in 2006, I wrote a short story called The Case of the Criminal Walk in which I lampooned the Meles Zenawi regime’s ridiculous ethnic bantustanization of Ethiopia. In the story, a man who had walked outside of “his region” was accused of being a criminal and a saboteur. And the prosecutor was interested in the type of walk the man had engaged in. Here is how that prosecutor in the story asked his question:
“Was he strolling arrogantly? Walking briskly? Were his lips curled in disgust as he walked? Were his eyes narrow like a chauvinist? Was he pounding at the pavement or moving surreptitiously like a spy? Did he dodder, falter, lumber, stagger, totter, trudge, hobble or plod? When you saw him walk did you see an innocent man like say someone rushing to church not to miss Mass? Or did you see a suspicious man with a saintly smile like all criminals, puffed up with arrogance, happy at the mere thought of having trampled on yet another sacred law, angrily pounding on our poor road? Did he prowl, tiptoe, slink away or stalk? Was he shuffling, slouching off or creeping? Did he march, surge or meander? A lot depends on that walk…Was it leisurely like a stroll, the pastime of a lazy man propagating unemployment? Was he moving briskly like a criminal trying to distance himself from the scene of his foul crime? Was he lifting his legs up like the parading soldiers of the former regime and pounding hard on our pavement to dig potholes? Or was he trying to be smaller than his shadow and walking stealthily?”
In the end the prosecutor in the story gives his own definition of the criminal walk:
“The criminal walk as we all know combines the rush and the prowl with the swoop and stomp, the trudge and the swagger, and all this accompanied by a maniacal chuckle.”

Did Ugandan opposition leader Dr. Kizza Beisgye wear a maniacal chuckle as he walked to work in opposition to the Museveni regime? Did he just walk or did he trudge and swoop on downtown Kampala? How did the authorities determine his walk was criminal and then resort to arresting and beating him up? By the way did the good doctor, who was Museveni’s personal physician in the past, get the idea of turning a walk into a political protest action from my short story? Seriously though, the intriguing question to most Africans, who are fortunate enough to have a job in the first place, is how come walking to work becomes a protest as more often than not they all walk to work? Early morning Nairobi, a stream of humanity trudges out of the notorious Kibera slum to go to or to search for work. With price of petrol skyrocketing and the price of transport too expensive to ponder many have been forced to walk not as a protest (heaven forbid) but as a necessity. Have Ugandans turned as rich as Museveni claims and are driving to work or take public transport in their thousands every day? Who cares if Besigye walks to work? For all we know, as a doctor, he may be doing it for health reasons? If walk to work is a protest Ethiopians have been protesting for decades without even knowing it.

But Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a frightened man, haunted by the specter of a popular revolt against his dictatorial rule and his tearing up of the Constitution to be “elected” as fourth time president of Uganda. An Ethiopian proverb says no one dies looking as good as he was. Alas, things and human beings change and in most cases in Africa for the worst. Yoweri Museveni was a progressive militant, a better and promising breed than the Obotes and Amins that Uganda had to bear. In the first years, his rule was not also that bad (in Africa we do not easily say good knowing what we know) despite creeping corruption, ethnic favoritism and alarming demagogy on his part. Museveni’s declared “modernization” drive and his penchant for power clashed with tradition and customs (the place of kings in Uganda for example) and the call for a better deal by Ugandans suffering from economic hardships. Museveni wrote a book in which he identified one of the major malaise of governance in Africa as being the tendency of the rulers to stay in power for long and went on right away to cling to power for 25 years now even by changing the Constitution to run as a presidential candidate for the fourth time. Over the years, Museveni turned into a run of the mill African dictator, relying on his control of the repression apparatus and family circles and engaging in repression of any dissent. Besigye’s call for walk to work as a protest could have been taken as a patriotic gesture to save on fuel but Museveni had to rile and rant against it and turn it into a big cause and thus spurred the opposition leader to come up with walk to prayer calls.

The Museveni clan, much like the Meles Zenawi clan in Ethiopia, is controlling Uganda like their private property. None of them walks to work by the way. Museveni holds absolute power and is involved big time in the economic sector. His wife Janet Museveni, admired for not wearing western wigs ever, is a minister for Karamoja region and the owner of the Gemtel mobile telephone service that has extended its activities into Juba too. His half brother General Caleb Akandwanaho (also known as Salim Saleh) is presidential advisor on defence and a man accused of gross corruption including the plunder of gold and minerals from Eastern Congo. His brother in law, Sam Kutea, is Foreign Affairs Minister while his daughter Natasha Karugire is his private secretary. Janet’s nephew Justus Karuhanga is Museveni’s secretary for legal affairs while his son Lt. Colonel Kainerugaba Muhoozi is commander of the Special Forces guarding the newly discovered oil fields. The colonel also leads the elite presidential guard. As one Kenyan journalist recently commented-- Ugandans are not all amused by the “familiarization of the State” as much as Museveni says he is not pleased with walking to work as a sign of protest.

Museveni is bound to be history, the past—perhaps sooner than he may expect. Yet, he owes his ongoing survival, as much as Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, to the fact that he has slavishly bowed to the superpower and became cannon fodder in the so called war against terror. His regime is a minority one and his claim to be a messiah from the Munyankole/Bahima unconvincing to the majority of Bagandans. The LRA still roams murderously uncontrolled filling the pockets of the general who are the real beneficiaries of the ongoing war. Museveni has opened up Uganda for American special troops, has rushed into Somalia to fulfill America’s order (much like Meles Zenawi before him) and proved an ally of the West. That has assured him financial help and security protection and overall backing and support against a Revolution that may turn nationalist/Ugandan and throw out the foreign agenda and diktat. After all, Idi Amin was also an Israeli and British baby before he grew a shark’s teeth and became a nuisance. But will Washington’s backing save Museveni from impending doom? Judging from Egypt and what is happening elsewhere it does not seem likely and Museveni, who has outlived four US presidents, may not outlive Obama. Still, his rule and his ministers have given other tyrants very many valuable lessons. For those tyrants who kill their people and suffer their blame Museveni’s Internal Affairs State Minister, Kirunda Kivejinja, has come out with a gem of a self defense. Admitting that people were killed and hundreds wounded or arrested in the protest demonstrations he, however, said the government is not taking responsibility for those killed and he advised Ugandans to blame the deaths “ on the British and the Americans who manufacture bullets”.
Now we know the real culprits!