Reflections on sunday: Events in Africa: Leaders in control!

When they are trying to forget the horror of 1994, Rwandans can do without this uncalled-for death and destruction from Mother Nature. Fortunately, we can take heart in the swift and effective response with which the concerned officials acted. This is a clear sign of a leadership in control, and it is laudable. In Africa, regimes that are not in control, or actually out of control, are a dime a dozen and those that are, should not be taken for granted. In fact, some leaders are unaware of their functions! A typical example are the unfolding events in our sister African countries; they are pathetic. Imagine a convoy of pick-ups, full of rebel soldiers, driving hundreds of kilometres from the border point, to go and shell the presidential residence in the capital!! Chad – for that is the selfsame country that we are talking about – surely deserves our pity. By the time this story is printed, maybe we shall have known better, but for now, no one seems to know exactly what is happening. President Idris Deby, seems to be holed up in his ‘Palais Présidentiel’ (Presidential Palace), hoping that a handful of his soldiers will fend off the rebel offence. In fact, to his credit, he has even rejected the offer of the French paratroopers to evacuate him with their citizens. Of course, President Deby should not be necessarily counted out. After all, if you remember, these insurgents are not first-time visitors to the capital. Two years ago, the same rebels took the same uninterrupted route from the Chad-Sudan border, bound for the same mission of toppling the Deby government. After capturing parliament, their celebrations were interrupted by gun fire from government troops, and few made it back to their border rebel-hiding-nooks! I am sure that President Deby is praying that the same twist of fate. I know similar leaders who did not dare to attempt such a fate, and who did not have a French hand for the necessary courage; one of them being the late Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada. As president of Uganda in the late 1970s, when Amin Dada heard that a combined force of Tanzanian army and Ugandan rebels were 120 kilometres away and bearing down on the capital City of Kampala, he never dug in his heels. He packed a mobile radio station onto his Land Rover, and hurriedly moved an equal number of kilometres away, to the Eastern town of Jinja. There, he broadcast to the world that he was firmly in charge, and that his gallant soldiers were winning the war! Seeing different on the ground, his soldiers beat an equally hasty retreat. They painted their vehicles with ochre mud, to show the ‘scars’ of the frontline and raided Kampala shops in a looting binge. When the first ‘Saba-saba’ (bombs) of the invading forces hit Kampala, the racing soldiers in a convoy of looted cars were in flight to the Sudan, through the northern Ugandan town of Gulu. Meanwhile, as he retreated further north towards Sudan, Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada continued to proclaim his unshaken control and to sing praises to the courage of his soldiers, on the mobile radio station. He must have crossed the border soon after, however, because the radio suddenly went off. And with it, our entertainment! Of course, the Amin case is an extreme one to quote, comparable only to the antics of ‘Comical Ali’ of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. However, there are many leaders whose pre-occupation is to pump up their miniscule egos, and to then bury their heads in the sand (or mud, if they have no sand!). Even close to us, we know many who have pumped their chests and have sworn to end an internal rebellion which, nevertheless, turned out to be endless. We know many who have been ‘duly’ elected and yet failed to convince their electorate. In all cases, the poor populace proved to be like the grass under two fighting bull-elephants. In Rwanda, a peasant in the remotest part of Umutara can summon the topmost leader to come and answer to his land requirements. An earthquake in far-flung Rusizi can galvanise all the concerned national institutions within the hour. This is a reflection of leadership in charge. If anybody assumes it is everywhere, they should put their thinking cap on! Contact: ingina2@yahoo.co.uk