Coup in Guinea: Thatcherism plus?
My favourite writer, John Ralson Saul, aptly defines history as “… a seamless web thinking past, the present and future”. What Saul does not say, is whether this seamless web is intriguing, sordid, dastardly as Thatcher’s Family web in Africa. Like mother, like son! The involvement of Sir Mark Thatcher in the reported coup attempt against President Teodore Nguema Mbasogo of Equitorial Guinea once again brought home afresh the notoriety of his mother, Prime Minister (Mrs.) Margaret Thatcher in Africa.
What is however intriguing and intolerable is the ‘blue-velvet’ approach the Western media and the uncritical and slavish manner the African media down-loaded same benign reportage of the coup attempt arrow-headed by Mrs. Thatcher’s son.
The coup attempt reported, on the eve of September 11 anniversary, should have been treated as international terrorism that it is. After all, terrorism has been rightly defined as unlawful pursuit of political goals through systematic violence.
In the ever double-standard of western media, the above definition has been indiscriminately used to describe imagined enemies of “civilisation” which include “terrorist-look alike”, “suspects of Arab origin” or “Islamic fundamentalists”. It is therefore a modern day hypocrisy to treat Sir Mark Thatcher and scores of his terrorist gangsters plotting to overthrow a sovereign African government as common-criminals to appear before a “magistrate court”.
The Zimbabwean government should be commended for foiling the terrorists plot and promptly detaining 70 gangsters. South Africa is also reportedly amending its legislations to change its emerging notorious image as the mercenary capital of the continent. But nothing short of extradition of these terrorists will convince anybody that South Africa is not a haven for those who see the continent as a play-ground for adventurers looking for instant fortunes and continuous exploitation through whimsical regime changes.
Mark Thatcher’s name in the plot to violently depose the President of oil rich Island of Equatorial Guinea evokes the bad nostalgia of the African dimension of his mother.
Mrs. Thatcher did not see the continent as being populated by peoples deserving of democracy, prosperity, dignity and progress. On the contrary, she saw Africa as a huge continent dotted with mineral resources to be pillaged using African slave labour, under the heel of dictatorial regimes the champions of which are Mobutu and Pik Botha of racist regime of apartheid South Africa!
The sudden resignation of Mrs. Thatcher as British Prime Minister, on November 22, 1990 was one big relief for Africa. Her tenure passed for political and economic equivalent of war(s) against a continent. Thanks to the scores of her doctrinaire policies for which the continent lacked the capacity to repel.
Among other things, apartheid in South Africa thrived on Mrs. Thatcher’s ‘no-sanctions policy’. The popular belief was that both the liberation efforts and sanctions by the international community would bring the racist Boers to reason and therefore to negotiation table. For Mrs. Thatcher, sanctions campaign was ‘absurd’ and commonwealth-after-commonwealth, she could not conceal her annoyance about the fact that sanctions would not set out ‘to relieve the poverty and starvation’ in South Africa. Watching Mrs. Thatcher’s leading role in the campaign for ‘sanctions plus force’ against Iraq following the latter’s invasion of Kuwait, it was correct to accuse her of double standards. The ‘no-no-woman’ defied reasoned positions of the Commonwealth’s Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) on apartheid and guaranteed British security for the most inhuman system on the globe. Not surprising, her two official ‘African’ tours as Prime Minister, were marked by significant demonstrations and condemnations too.
Thatcher’s U.K did not promote any decolonisation policy or initiative on Namibia. Cold war perspective beclouded the policy perception of the legitimate efforts of SWAPO to restore the usurped rights of black men and women. The struggle for independence was reduced to a ‘regional ideological conflict’ according to which a ‘linkage’ existed between the withdrawal of the Cuban troops in Angola and the independence of Namibia.
Not by accident Thatcher period coincided with the worst economic crisis in Africa: balance of payment crisis, collapse of primary goods’ prices, poverty and unemployment Mrs. Thatcher was committed to debt collection and the better if the structural ‘adjustment’ programme lacked a human face.
West Africa Weekly summed up Mrs. Thatcher’s tenure thus: ‘Mrs. Thatcher never developed a coherent policy that remotely took account of the genuine interests of African people …’
Mrs. Thatcher was never linked to “coup-d’etat” (read: terrorism) in Africa, even if she was not identified with the struggle for freedom and democracy either. As a matter of fact she visited military dictators as much as she hosted them. Could it then be that her son is desperate to ‘beat’ her record through advancement in negativity in Africa? Thatcherism was bad enough. Thatcherism plus is better imagined!
NEXT... |
|
|
