“We cannot assure our development on our own,” stated France’s pet dictator and Africa’s longest-serving ruler Omar Bongo. The Gabonese leader was talking about national economic development, but he might just as well have been talking about his own personal economic development. Transparency International’s French chapter singled out Bongo, who died at 73 after ruling his country for 41 years, for a spectacular misappropriation of state funds. The lawsuit, lodged via civil-party petition, charges Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Congo and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea of acquiring vast patrimonies in France including expensive real estate, capital, villas and cars that cannot be justified by official income.
One example is the son of Equatorial Guinea’s dictator, who owns a $1.4 million Bugatti and a $35 million Malibu mansion, all on a $4 000 monthly salary. His father, meanwhile, has siphoned more than $2 billion overseas, half of it housed in Washington’s Riggs Bank under multiple bank accounts. The suit lists Bongo’s assets, and those of his relatives, as 70 bank accounts and 39 luxurious apartments in Paris and Nice. Sassou Nguesso and his family’s asset sheet revealed more than 110 bank accounts.
The investigation, denounced by Sassou Nguesso as “neocolonialism” was given the go-ahead by French magistrate Francois Desset in early May — much to the dismay of France’s public prosecutor. The case could result in the restitution of state wealth as well as initiate mandatory corporate country-by-country reporting, automatic exchange of information and public disclosure as to state revenue.
There is indeed an air of neocolonialism to the investigation, but not for the reasons Sassou Nguesso suggests. Obiang, Bongo, and Sassou Nguesso have benefited enormously from the neocolonial relationships that France and the international financial system have set up with key African countries.
A peak at Francafrique
The portrayal of Africa’s strong-arm leaders as lone rangers obscures the system underpinning the dictatorships and delinks dictators from their primary source of sustenance. The rhetoric of French-controlled development endorsed by Bongo is a subset of France’s postcolonial Africa policy — Francafrique — designed to create structural dependence and domination by reasserting geostrategic control over natural resources through the use of black “governors”. The pulse of the Francafrique ideology — fric is slang for cash — is rooted in shadow economies sustaining respectable corporations, various intersecting shadow networks, secret services, private lobbies, and political and diplomatic relationships between the official and unofficial political elite. These forces are individually and collectively able to mobilise substantial economic, political and military support.
This web of influence is itself dependent on Africa’s ambitious but compliant dictators and their respective armies. The policy of continuity is revealed in the number of French military interventions in Africa. Between 1997 and 2002, for example, France intervened over 34 times, 26 of which were conducted outside of the UN’s umbrella. During the past five years, French military troops in Gabon, Chad, Central African Republic, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire have either increased or remained the same. France’s minister of defence admits to 10 000 specialised soldiers active on the continent (2004-07).
France meticulously devised its decolonisation policy to tie the vested interests of handpicked native governors with French national interest. France drew up secretive defence agreements, which are still active today, that authorised it to legally maintain military bases in Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Togo, Cameroon, Djibouti, the Central African Republic, Senegal and other countries. These bases facilitated direct French military intervention, which dictators feared could be used for them as much as against them.
Clauses contained within the agreements also ensured that France was legally entitled to be informed of and maintain priority access to natural resources including uranium, oil, and gas. African governments were forbidden from engaging in military, trade and other forms of cooperation with nations regarded as a threat to their former colonial overlord. France signed these military cooperation agreements with 27 African countries from 1960s onward.
Insurance policy
The network of agreements with African countries represent France’s de facto insurance policy. Following the example of Félix Houphouët-Boigny — the former French civil servant, first president of Cote d’Ivoire’s from 1960 to1993 and architect of Francafrique — African leaders have shaped and normalised the inherited legacy of colonialism. In doing so, they have also subsequently internalised the economic, cultural and political imperialism and cultivated an atmosphere of compliance concerning French interests in Africa.
“The cause of poverty is very simple,” said François-Xavier Verschave, former president of the French NGO Survie. “We have illegitimate governments which represent external interests. A number of these presidents are paid by Elf [the former French oil company later merged with TotalFina], for example. They serve Elf and France but not their own country. They get their medical treatment in France, their children study in France: they therefore don’t concern themselves with health and education at home.”
Dictator Gnassingbé Eyadéma, for instance, ruled Togo for nearly 40 years until his death in 2005. But the country was really run by telephone, as Jacques Foccart, France’s chief adviser for Africa and the mastermind behind the Francafrique system, made all the key decisions. “They knew my telephone numbers and I knew theirs,” Foccart stated coyly. Houphouët-Boigny, another crucial instrument, was allegedly in the habit of conversing weekly with his close friend Foccart. When asked what Foccart’s role was in French policy, De Gaulle’s deputy prime minister Louis Joxe stated, “nursemaiding presidents and making sure that African civil servants were paid at the end of the month”.
Known as Monsieur Africa, Foccart also handpicked, interviewed and found satisfactory the future leader of Gabon, Omar Bongo. “Bongo has been protected by hundreds of French troops in Libreville, who sit (still today) in barracks connected to one of his palaces by underground tunnels,” says Nicholas Shaxson, author of Poisoned Wells. Gabon, the focal point of the system, is also known as Foccartland. The Elf Affair, Europe’s biggest corruption scandal since World War II, was centred in Gabon.
“Gabon’s oil industry served as a source of secret offshore financing that was made available to sections of the French élites, and for the furtherance of French interests abroad,” says Shaxson. “Congo’s oil industry was treated as an appendage of Gabon’s.”
The corruption connection
Resource-rich nations such as Gabon, dependent on payments from multinationals, are particularly vulnerable to corruption. Through contracts, often negotiated in secret, regimes deliver huge concessions to corporations in exchange for generous gifts. These concessions include tax holidays, low royalty rates, exemption from environmental and human rights regulations, and control of national infrastructure. As 80% of Africa’s exports are primary commodities exploited by multinationals, Africa’s political economy — largely shaped by lopsided contracts — renders states accountable only to corporations. Each year, more than $148 billion leaves Africa in capital flight, routed through offshore financial centres before ending up in secrecy jurisdictions such as Switzerland.
“At the root of it all was this strange intercontinental relationship which — of course — snaked through a whole menagerie of tax havens. This offshore source of slush funds was used notably for the secret financing of French political parties,” said Shaxson. “French companies were able to get access to the Elf System in order to source huge bribes to win overseas contracts in a range of countries from Germany to Spain to Venezuela to Taiwan.”
France doesn’t deny the existence of Francafrique. Indeed, by publicly acknowledging the system, France has neutralised, sanitised and interpreted the nature of its reality. In 2008, for example, France’s foreign aid minister Jean-Marie Bockel’s speech recognised the active state of the network’s political machinery when he said that he wanted “to sign the death warrant for Francafrique”.
But it doesn’t seem like Francafrique will be buried any time soon. In the early 1990s, President Chirac, who would call on Foccart to serve as his Africa hand at the age of 81, said of Africa, “(the continent) is not yet ready for democracy”.
Now fast-forward to 2008. Last year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent in troops from Gabon to defend the throne of Chad’s brutal dictator Idriss Deby, a repeat of 2004′s intervention. Since the year 2000, France has stealthily engaged with Mozambique, Madagascar, Senegal, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, Liberia, and the Gulf of Guinea. Unlike the United States, though, France treads lightly, attracts little or no attention, and leaves few footprints behind.
© 2009 Foreign Policy In Focus
Not only ex French Africa but most of Africa is run by politicians who are corrupt, so developed nations play the game or lose out. The answer is simple get/elect honest people who have THEIR nations interest at heart. One of the ways also would be to do away with all money laundering/tax haven countries.
Brent
A small correction to the author of this excellent article : Houphouët-Boigny was not only a former French civil servant. He also was a French Member of Parliament in the 1950′s, as well as Leopold Senghor for instance, at a time when African colonies had to elect their own representant to the Assemblée Nationale.
Thought provoking article and well written.
You’ve hit the heart of the problem – the REAL corruption of African countries aided and abetted by the ex-colonial powers. The problem is that its hard to trace since banking systems like the Swiss with their unnamed bank accounts make it harder to hunt down these corrupt politicians. I think SA can learn a few tricks from our American friends on how to at least catch the subset that evades taxes. We need to arrest these Swiss banking execs in the same way the Americans did – arrest them at the airports and introduce them to the inside of a South African jail! The recent shakedown of the Swiss banking system is a wakeup call to the rest of the world that abuse of this banking system is the root of most of Africa’s genocides and misery. Thank you for focusing on this evil propagated by the ex-colonialists. One wonders why this kind of white collar crime is not persecuted by some international body?
Sometimes I think Africa needs popular revolutions to get rid of its “kings” because thats what they are, claiming almost divine right through liberation credentials. And as for the French, “cheese eating surrender monkeys” and thats all I’m going to say about them.
And how many of the people are also payrolled by AREVA? Niger is exploited for its Uranium by this company and the mining of it doesn’t appear to be a bed of roses
Brilliant article,I am somehow shocked that you can mention France without stating their involvement in the Rwandan Genocide.The heads of the Hutus who maimed 800 000 Tutsis were airlifted from Rwanda and given homes in France and Belgium together with their families.They were also absolved from prosecution.
Mobutu of the Congo remains the worst leader Africa has ever had,his value was way more than that country’s annual fiscus.He was aided and encouraged by the likes of France and the US.
france’s foreign policy is entirely related to keeping the number of legal immigrants to france as low as possible. in order to do that, you need strong dictators who will minimise the number of passports given out.
i was hoping that sarkozy would have lost the election — segolene royal was born the french military base less than 5km from my old house in dakar. [i miss senegal, if you can't tell.]
i wonder if wade would have claimed royal as a senegalese citizen [she can have a passport if she wants it].
Fine writing, great post. I’m sure Sarkozy would, reading your comments on his actions departing in form from Bush, simply say “c’est la guerre, chacun pour soi” (That’s war, everyone for him/herself). Expect a euro/dollar/yen twist (an inter-imperialist rivalry) in the areas now characterised by France’s fine footwork.
Kadija
Omar Bongo died in a Spanish hospital and not a French one because all his assets in France had been frozen in a corruption investigation by the French. France, not that long ago, was spending $400 a year per French household on aid to Africa. Half the world’s aid has gone to Africa – and it is a bottomless pit.
Africa’s problem is LEADERS WHO WON’T GIVE UP POWER, and who rig elections and change constitutions to stay in power, and steal the country’s wealth.
The ONLY way for the opposition to get them out is coups. Then the KLEPTOCRATS CLUB call the opposition “rebels” and accuse them of genocide!!!
There are 4 cases of African genocide before the International Criminal Court.
3 of them were referred BY THE AFRICAN DICTATOR IN POWER (i.e. they are his opposition)
The ONLY one referred by the UN and the International Community is Al Bashir of the Sudan- and look how the KLEPTOCRATS CLUB is protecting him!!!
While I have no respect for Bongo, I will point out that Transparency International is itself a very corrupt organization, that takes funds from e.g. the American company Enron, the US and other western states (as do most “NGOs”), and has published known lies.
A Haitian joke about corruption goes, “What is it called when a politician skims 15% of foreign aid? Answer: Corruption. What is it called when an NGO skims 50% of foreign aid? Answer: Overhead.”
Sneaky, aren’t they?
Nice article.
@Brent
Your point is theoretically correct, but the reality is not that simple. It is a fact that given temptation on the scale that applies here, few people can resist. This is amplified by the fact that the temptation is “officially backed” by the administration of countries such as France, and that the loot is so easily hidden.
The fact is that being able to hide one’s crimes (and being encouraged in those crimes by official authorities) makes committing them far more attractive. Add that to the probability that resisting such international pressure may pose a real threat to one’s position…
Hectic…eye opening article…
It is the responsibility of African leaders to build democracy and fight corruption. Without strong civil society, free media and democractic institutions it is easy for these leaders to get away with stealing from their own. These leaders and their patronage networks benefit from the status qou and that is how the game is played in many African countries. It is not surprising then that many leaders are perfectly happy to maintain this relationship and actively participate in creating/maintaining legislation that curbs the powers of the media, civil society and democractic institutions.
France knows how this game works and even if they are completely to blame for sustaining it (which I don’t think is the case), their political leadership, frankly speaking, is only responsible for maintaining french influence in the region and securing their national interest (economic and political).
It certainly makes you think about the legacy of French and Belgian colonialism vs that of British Colonialism…
After the French president visited Ruanda last month, the wife of the former Hutu president (who’s aeroplane was shot down) has been arrested in France for conspiring to kill her own husband. The plot thickens.
Africa is all about destroying anything that civilisation brought to it, other than the luxury benefits and the ability of politicians to get their hands on the treasury. We are now told that 9 out of 10 farms that were given to BEE”s are non productive. This is a very bad record in African terms because Mugabe has a record of 99.99% of the handed over farms being destroyed. South Africa has some catching up to do and no matter that soon we will not be able to feed ourselves, the begging basket will be held out to the West as they will be blamed for the mess. What once was good is now bad and it is all the fault of Bush, Blair, De Klerk and whoever else can be blamed for the mess made by the new African governments.
Malema says (and he is not the only one) that Mugabe is Africa’s greatest son. If you level to judge is destruction and looting then he is right and the ANC is following suit. Mugabe has to be supported because he ‘kicked’ whites man’s butt. The fact that he destroyed his country in the process is the height of stupidity. Heiti is no different as their leaders have plundered the country for centuries but the ANC thinks that they too are Kings to be worshipped.
@ mundundu
“France’s foreign policy is entirely related to keeping the number of legal immigrants to france as low as possible. in order to do that, you need strong dictators who will minimise the number of passports given out.”
Actually, to do that, you should rather have democracies that work for the development of their countries and the better living of their people. The only cause of massive emigration to Europe is poverty, underdevelopment, and dictatorship, the three being closely related as demonstrated in the article.
To everyone : it is fair to stress the role of former colonial powers in African dictatorships, but there is as much responsibility from european governments as from corporates. on the other hand, the peoples of Africa and their leaders are the first responsibles : nepotism, tribalism, clientelism are the main ways to keep power in an African country. No one could change this apart from African people themselves.
About Rwanda, France probably has some responsibilities, though their not clear. But it is Rwandan people who killed each other, and they weren’t forced to do so. And as a matter of fact, genocide trials occured in Belgium, in Germany, but not in Rwanda ! — Regarding the arrest of Agathe Habyarimana yesterday, she was freed the same day, and she won’t face a court soon. France is a shelter to many genociders, and yet there are procedures going on.
Forget the scapegoats, causes are complex !
Babalaas, writing from France.
Excellent article, despite small errors. Methinks Chirac was, and still is, right.
as always, brilliant
Africa is all about destroying anything that civilisation brought to it, other than the luxury benefits and the ability of politicians to get their hands on the treasury.
are you sure? when are going to wreck christianity, homophobia, and the belief that white people are superior? i’m getting impatient.
“civilisation” as you call it, largely destroyed the functional extended family here, brought lots of diseases, and jacked up the ecosystem as well.
what idiocy.
Alan in Botswana
ALL Rwanda’s Genocides (1959, 1963, 1965, 1972, 1994 ) have been caused by Overpopulation.
Did you think Rwanda has had only one genocide? Well, you were wrong! Of course overpopulation only became a problem with colonialism, modern medicine and the Catholic Church. To quote the futurist and author Jared Diamond from his book “Collapse: How Societies CHOOSE to Fail or Succeed”:
“Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi…are the two most densely populated countries in Africa, and among the most densely populated in the world: Rwanda’s average population density is triple even that of Africa’s third most densely populated country (Nigeria),and 10 times that of neigbouring Tanzania. Genocides in Rwanda produced the third largest body count among the world’s genocides since 1950,topped only by…Cambodia…and Bangladesh.”
(Part 1)
Rwanda’s Genocides (Part 2)
I am going to skip boring you with all the previous genocides and move on to the last. To continue quoting:
”…in 1973 the Hutu general Habayarimana staged a coup…Rwanda prospered for 15 years…(until) Habayarimana took yet another attempted Tutsi attempted invasion…in October 1990 as the pretext for rounding up or killing Hutu dissidents and Tutsi all over Rwanda, in order to strengthen his own faction’s hold on the country. The civil wars displaced a million Rwandans into settlement camps….businessmen close to Habyarimana imported 581,000 machetes for distribution to Hutu for killing Tutsi, because machetes were cheaper than guns…they began training their militias, importing weapons and preparing to exterminate Tutsis…Matters came to a head ..when the Rwandan presidential jet plane…was shot down by two missiles….Hutu extremists within an hour of the plane’s downing began carrying out plans evidently already prepared in detail to kill the Hutu prime minister and other moderate..members…and Tutsi….the extremists took over the government and radio and set out to exterminate Rwanda’s Tutsi, who still numbered about a million even after all the previous killings…As summed up in the book “Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda”, published by the organization Human Rights Watch….this genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power”
Rwanda’s Genocides (Part 3)
The author Ryszard Kapuscinski, who was a journalist in Africa for over 40 years, in his book “The Shadow of the Sun”, writes:
”As a rule, the populations of African States are multitribal…whereas only one group inhabits Rwanda, the Banyarwanda, a single nation divided into three castes: the Tutsi cattle owners (14% of the population), the Hutu farmers(85%) and the Tswa labourers and servants (1%). This caste system (bearing certain analogies to India’s) took shape centuries ago…there is ongoing disagreement as to whether this occurred in the twelve century, or as late as the fifteenth…a kingdom has existed here for hundreds of years….conflict arises…the object of the dispute is land. Rwanda is small, circumscribed, and densely populated…a battle erupts between those who make their living raising cattle and those who cultivate the land…..their numbers have been swelling rapidly for years…the lands they farm are poor…There is no room, there is no land. Someone must leave or perish.”
That was not what you were told either, was it? “Democracy” and colonialism upset the social order and set the peasants above the ruling class, introduced modern medicine, and Catholism …..and there was not enough land!
Jared Diamond writes that the collapse of Haiti was caused by exactly the same factors as in Rwanda.
Please try not to accept every bit of Pan Africanist rhetoric fed to you, and check facts for yourselves.
Fair article. But don’t forget that the odious Omar Bongo was the first African leader whose death was lamented by President Obama. French imperialism is bad, but the U.S. is doing what it can to kick them out and step into their jackboots. What else is their new Africa Command all about?
Now that you have dealt with France, how about a similar article on Africa’s new colonial master – China?
@Peter Joffe, the article has purported certain issues why don’t you stick to arguing their factualness instead of trying to insult all Africans?
Great article. Very necessary topic. I often discuss what exactly is wrong with Africa with refugees/South Africans in my area, being lucky enough to live in a non-homophobic area where the palest amongst us would soon get my but kicked if I started acting superior. (Mundundu I think you will feel it is happening already if you care to visit.) the conclusion we have come to by piecing all the various situations together is that Africa’s problems lies in three things:
- Free access to cheap western arms and ammunition.
Solution: Zero tolerance to arms salesmen and smugglers. To be strung up and displayed as a warning to others.
- Little or no access to technology education.
Solution: Spent all the money that is currently being wasted on other “aids” like GM seed on internet based education. Come on, we can only call it fair competition if the playing field is level, otherwise it is bullying.
- The worst dictators in Africa were educated in the West and lived there for a while.
Solution: Be suspicious of and do not vote for anyone who spend time living/studying “overseas” Remember the Trojan Horse?
There is actually a fourth point, which we are still discussing and refining but is loosely based on the concept: Don’t accept candy from strangers. Many other thinking Africans would like to see African leaders say no thank you to these “gifts” they are receiving from the west. We never actually benefit from them, only the “leaders”.
Wonderful stuff. I’m sure a lot of us who haven’t said so are amazed, shocked, and enlightened by these revelations. I studied development studies in university and, while I was aware of this stuff in broad strokes, it’s a lot more infuriating when the details are on display.
Lyndall Beddy makes sure that the reputation of people who write in ALL CAPS on the internet stays intact. The article lays down the *mechanism* behind the maintenance of corrupt dictatorships in Africa, but it flies right over her head. Once again you seem to want to blame the inherent evil of Africans – with Peter Joffe alongside you – despite having a clearly more plausible, factually supported, explanation shoved under your nose.
The story’s analogous to the absolute corruption of our leadership by the international arms trade. We’re only lucky in being a middle-income country with many internal interests and a constitution that limits the extent of foreign manipulation.
I finally understand why Gabon’s per capita income – the highest in Africa – coincides with an impoverished population with tattered infrastructure.
It make it all the more essential that South Africa’s constitution is supported until such time as our political society is robust enough to resist the overwhelming temptations put before them by big money.
When you think of the misery that France, a so-called champion of democracy, has inflicted since decolonisation…
The two words: “underdeveloped” and “civilised” have different meanings in actuality than popularly accepted.
Underdeveloped = ready for plunder
civilised = able and ready to plunder
Go figure…
Alan
Why blame the people if their leaders are a corrupt club?
How are the people supposed to get rid of them when almost all elections are rigged?
What Africa needs in a UN (not AU) monitoring body for ALL elections – which ensures no rigging, and no intimidation.
One very effective means of reducing theft and corruption by African leaders was vividly revealed during Kenya’s 2008 troubles. The warring parties refused all efforts to make peace UNTIL the Swiss government announced that they would deny visas to leaders of both side unless peace was agreed. Howzit go ” Follow the Money”.
Lyndall-I doubt that any UN monitoring body will achieve “no rigging and no intimidation”. Kofi Annan, himself from Africa, tried to bring peace and justice to the continent-travelling from Somalia to Sudan, from Ethiopia to Rwanda, from Kenya to Burundi,from Eritrea to the Congo,from Angola to Nigeria, but all he saw was “the worst cases of man’s inhumanity to man.” (read “Deliver us from Evil” by William Shawcross, who travelled through Africa with Kofi Annan, in which he describes the frustration of not getting the necessary resources and back-up from UN members to follow through and accomplish what needed to be done).
I believe that Jacques Chirac was right, even now 10 years later- most of Africa is not yet ready for the Western version of democracy, including “free and fair” elections and “good governance”.
Furthermore, corrupt governments are not the sole preserve of Africa and other developing nations, the Western countries are just more adept at hiding it. What is the remedy for human greed? Find that and we may start something….worldwide.
And the leaders of African nations are not motivated to change their ways as long as they can get what they want-from China-with no strings attached, no interferance in how they run the country, no compliance to “good governance”, why change?
And why should African leaders change their ways when they can stay in power and get all they want from China-no questions asked, no interferance,no compliance with “good governance” and all those Western demands?
Hi Alice37 – if interested, see Economist link concerning an article on china in africa. not sure if they will allow for me to post the article here as they retain rights over material.
http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/466
Alice 37
Have you read “The Trouble With Africa” by Robert Calderisi?
It is one of the few which intelligently analyses the problems, and gives SOLUTIONS!
He had to wait 2 years to get permission from the World Bank even to publish it.