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Sunday 31 May 2015

[AfricaRealities.com] AUTHORITARIAN AFRICAN LEADERS WITH A THIN VENEER OF DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY

 

AUTHORITARIAN AFRICAN LEADERS WITH A THIN VENEER OF DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY

ANN GARRISONMAY 30,2015
Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza is seeking a third five-year term in office, despite violent street protest, and a failed coup détat. Nkurunziza was elected by Burundi's Parliament in 2005, and he now claims that the Burundian constitution allows him to run for election twice by voters enjoying "universal suffrage," and the Burundian constitutional court has upheld his claim. The US, EU, and Western media have, nevertheless, relentlessly decried Nkurunziza's decision.
 
Western powers and press fail to note that neighboring DR Congo's President, Joseph Kabila, was appointed in 2001, not elected by universal suffrage, that Kabila then ran and claimed victory in 2006 and 2011, and that many were killed in election violence both times. They also fail to note that neighboring Rwanda's President Paul Kagame was appointed in 2000, not elected by universal suffrage, and that he then ran and claimed victory in 2003 and 2010, after imprisoning or terrorizing all other viable candidates. Nkurunziza is claiming the same right that Kabila and Kagame claimed, but Western powers and press who didn't blink at their third terms have relentlessly demanded that he step down. This doesn't make Nkurunziza's decision right or wrong or politically wise or unwise. It simply puts his barrage of bad press in perspective. 
 
Why is the US demanding that Nkurunziza step down, after so graciously tolerating both Kabila and Kagame's claims to the constitutional right to be elected twice by universal suffrage?  Why has the US made no comment on Kagame's faux people's campaign to have the Rwandan Constitution amended so that he can run for a fourth term, or more likely, for life?  
 
And why hasn't Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's announcement that he will run again in 2016, his thirtieth year in power, alarmed the West?  Museveni, the really big "big man" in the region, is already jailing anyone trying to hold a public meeting about electoral reform or boycotting next year's election. In 2011, Museveni had so much money printed to buy the election that it caused drastic inflation in Uganda and inspired the Walk-to-Work protests, during which Human Rights Watch accused security forces of "firing randomly into crowded areas and throwing tear gas at people or into houses."  

In an essay published in Global Research, Gearóid Ó Colmáin writes that Nkurunziza has fallen out of favor with the West by striking a deal with a Russian corporation to mine Burundi's nickel reserves, and that the US has engaged in a low intensity campaign to destabilize Burundi and the surrounding region. He blamed foreign funded media, especially private radio stations, for frightening the population to destabilize the country.  And, he wrote that Nkurunziza might not be the USA's choice to manage Burundians' memory of their own suffering. "The US government is acutely aware that if the people of Burundi are to know the truth about the US-backed genocide of the Hutus in Rwanda and Burundi, it could jeopardize their foreign policy objectives in the region."

John Bugnacki, writing for the webite of the American Security Project and International Policy Digest, accuses Nkurunziza of following in the footsteps of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang, whom he calls "personalistic, authoritarian leaders with a thin veneer of democratic legitimacy. "

No mention of Rwanda's Kagame or Uganda's Museveni, Nkurunziza's immediate neighbors to the north, both longstanding US allies and "military partners."

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Posted by: Alfred Nganzo <alfrednganzo@yahoo.com>
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The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.
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[AfricaRealities.com] Thank you BBC for your accurate, neutral, unbiased and measured reporting in this difficult times Burundi is facing.

 

Thank you  BBC for your accurate, neutral, unbiased  and measured reporting in this difficult times Burundi is facing.
 
BBC is not encouraging violence like  RFI which seems to support the opposition in Burundi. RFI is reporting Burundi's events in the same way as they did during  the  Rwanda war which triggered massacres of both Hutus and Tutsi. RFI was  supporting one side of the war:  Kagame's mass killings and guerrilla war.
 
Burundi elections: EU withdraws poll observers
 
 

__._,_.___

Posted by: Alfred Nganzo <alfrednganzo@yahoo.com>
Reply via web post Reply to sender Reply to group Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Voice of the Poor, the Weak and Powerless.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Post message:  AfricaRealities@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: AfricaRealities-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: AfricaRealities-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
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-http://www.africarealities.com/

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-New International Scholarships opportunities: http://www.scholarshipsgate.com
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Find  Friends in Africa:
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Friday 29 May 2015

Votre sélection quotidienne d'articles de IRIN, 5/29/2015

 
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Des cadavres « piégés » par l'État islamique à Kobané

LONDRES, 29 mai 2015 (IRIN) - Un nouveau rapport vient confirmer les horribles allégations faisant état de cadavres « piégés » par les militants de l'État islamique (EI) avant leur départ de la ville syrienne de Kobané en janvier.
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“The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.”

“I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.”