Dr. Wolassa Kumo
Introduction

Fixed capital has long been considered as an engine of growth both as a factor of production and as an embodiment of technological progress. Countries that had made sustained accumulation of fixed capital were able to achieve higher and sustained economic growth and development while those who had not lagged behind. For instance, economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa has been severely constrained by inadequate saving and investment, among other things. The average annual gross domestic saving rate by 41 sub Saharan African countries during the period 1980-2010 was as little as 14.3% of GDP while the average fixed investment was 20% of GDP for the same period. Therefore, sub-Saharan Africa’s burgeoning debt was not primarily meant to finance investment as the saving- investment gap was only about 6% of GDP during the past three decades.

Sub Saharan Africa’s dismal average economic growth of about 3.8% during the past three decades was therefore a direct consequence of low saving and low investment. The Sub Saharan Africa average saving and investment rates pale in comparison to the saving and investment rates of the newly industrialized and emerging Asian economies, such as China, whose saving and investment rates of over 40% of GDP ensured real economic growth rates of over 10% during the same period, i.e. 1980-2010.

Average annual growth in Africa reached above 5% during the past decade following the commodity price boom since the early 2000s but was dampened by the global economic and financial crises during 2008-2009. Growth rebounded in 2010 and is projected to reach 5.5% in 2011 making sub Saharan Africa the second fastest growing region in the world following Asia.

However, heavy dependence on growth driven by improved commodity terms of trade subjects the sub continent to vagaries of global demand uncertainty. Unless improved commodity terms of trade translates into higher saving and investment, the sustainability of the current improved growth performance will be at stake. Equally important is the continuation of economic and political reforms that are required to enhance the participation of the private sector in economic development, and also improve productivity and investment efficiency.

This brief paper presents an overview of investment efficiency, savings and economic growth in 41 sub Saharan African countries for the past three decades using data from the IMF, World Economic Outlook Data Base, April 2011. Six countries have been excluded from the analysis for lack of consistent time series data. These are Djibouti, Liberia, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Investment Efficiency in Sub Saharan Africa

There are two broad concepts of efficiency: allocative efficiency and technical or production efficiency usually measured by total factor productivity. Some empirical analysts use these broad concepts of efficiency to assess inefficiency in aggregate investment in terms of excess investment demand that captures the deviations of actual investment from the desired investment. These approaches usually use nonparametric methods, such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), as well as, parametric methods including multiple linear or non- linear regression models.

In this brief article, we use a simple approach based on marginal productivity of capital, known commonly as the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) to measure investment efficiency in 41 sub Saharan African countries for the period 1980-2010. ICOR is the ratio of investments in some previous period or periods and growth in output in subsequent period or periods measured at constant prices.

Growth in output is not attributed only to investment in fixed capital. It could be due to growth in productivity (partial or total factor productivity), increased use of labour input or improvement in the level of education of the labour force (growth in human capital), and/or improvements in productive capacity utilization. However, changes in fixed investment still explain a significant portion of growth in output particularly in developing countries with limited fixed capital stock and therefore the efficiency with which this input is utilized provides a useful clue about the correlation between the later and economic growth.

The higher the ICOR, the lower is the implied investment efficiency. That is fixed investment is more efficient if fewer dollars are required to generate a unit growth in output. The average ICOR for sub Saharan Africa for the period 1980-2010 was 5.23 and was comparable with the ICOR for of about 5 during the 1980-2003 period. This implies that fixed investment in sub Saharan Africa is pretty efficient and the level of investment efficiency in the sub region is comparable with that of China during the early two decades of its rapid industrialization. This is not only because the sub region is capital scarce but also because there have been marked improvements in business climate and political environment during the past two decades. Therefore, no wonder that foreign direct investment surged in Africa from less than US$15 billion in early 2000s to over US$80 billion in 2007 before the inflow was hit by the global financial and economic crises of 2008-2009.

While average investment efficiency in sub Saharan Africa is high, performance varies from country to country. The 41 countries in sub Saharan Africa can be classified into three groups based on their ICOR performance for the period 1980-2010: (a) those with ICOR value of 1-5, (b) those with 6-9, and (c)) those with ICOR values of above 10.

The majority of the 41 counties (i.e. 25 countries) in the sub region recorded higher investment efficiency during the past three decades. These countries include both the least developed countries with very low fixed capital stock base, as well as, some middle income economies with higher level of capital stock. These best performing countries with ICOR value of 1-5 are: Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, DRC, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinean Bissau, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. Most of these countries are not only face extreme capital scarcity but have also shown some progress in opening up their economies during the past 3 decades.

The countries with medium investment efficiency level of ICOR 6-9 include: Benin, Burundi, Cape Verde, Eritrea, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, and Swaziland. Mauritius is among the Upper Middle income countries and top reformers in the sub region. Lower investment efficiency may imply an over investment in the economy where marginal investment needed to generate a unit output was greater during the past three decades than during the earlier years of its economic expansion.

Investment efficiency was the lowest in the following countries during the past three decades: Angola, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa and Tanzania. All of these four countries have experienced some form of economic and political upheavals during the past three decades. Preliminary data analyses showed that South Africa’s ICOR was comparable with that of China for the post-Apartheid period, but the number was very high for the pre 1994 period, i.e. 1980-1994 pulling the country’s overall performance significantly down. Investment efficiency was very low during the Apartheid rule in South Africa, due to global isolation and heavy state control over the economy. Thus if we exclude the pre 1994 period South Africa’s investment efficiency will fall within the first group of best performers. Poor performance by Angola, Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania reflects the continued impacts of civil war and socialist mode of production in the case of the later which contributed to wasteful investment.

Investment required to achieve a minimum growth threshold of 7 percent

While Africa’s growth performance is the second best in the world at present, the continent still lags behind other regions in terms of socioeconomic development. Over 380 million people in Africa today live below poverty line, while youth unemployment is as high as 70% in some countries. Most economies are still heavily dependent on rain fed subsistence agriculture with extremely limited investment on irrigation. Weak economic structure reinforces poverty and poses a major risk to the sustainability of the current growth fuelled by commodity price boom.

African countries will not be able to address this fundamental economic challenge with current growth rates of 5% or less. They should achieve a minimum of 7% annual growth rate individually or collectively for the coming two decades to make a dent on poverty and unemployment. With an average ICOR of 5.23, the sub Saharan Africa region therefore requires a minimum fixed investment of 35% of GDP over the coming two decades collectively or by each country. Given the current actual average regional fixed investment rate of 20% of GDP, the desired investment rate of 35% over the coming two decades seems insurmountable, but not unrealistic. China’s economic growth during the past three decades was fuelled by fixed investment of over 40% of GDP. China’s massive investment was financed by extraordinarily high household and public savings which at times reached 50% of GDP. The major challenge for Africa, in this respect, is a culture of low savings, which we expound in the following section.

Saving-investment gap in Sub Saharan Africa

When domestic household and public savings fall short of the fixed investment needs of a country, this leads to a saving-investment gap. This gap is exacerbated when export earnings of a country fall short of import demand leading to a second, foreign exchange gap. Most developing countries in Sub Saharan Africa are often characterized by both gaps. Except five countries, i.e. Botswana, DRC, Gabon, The Gambia, Namibia, and South Africa, the rest of 41 sub Saharan African countries had an average saving -investment gap ranging from 1% to nearly 30% of GDP during the past three decades.

The saving-investment gap, however, significantly varies across the countries in the sub region. Countries that faced relatively lower saving-investment gaps ranging between 1-5% in the sub region during the period under review include Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Comoros, Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Swaziland and Uganda. The lower gap by some countries reflects increased savings from oil revenues, while lower gap by others simply mean lower level of investment.

Countries in the sub region with the average saving investment-gap of 6-10% during the stated period include Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African republic, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius. Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia, while those with average saving-investment gap of above 11% include Cape Verde, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Mozambique, Seychelles and Togo.

The poor performance of the sub region in terms of the saving-investment gap reflects two major challenges: First, most countries are characterized by low saving and low investment and hence are at the risk of being trapped in vicious circle of poverty if the they do not raise their saving and investment rates immediately; and second if they raise their investment levels without a concomitant increase in domestic savings they may be trapped in vicious cycle of debt which could undermine the value of their investments, provided money borrowed is invested in economic development. Since the recent economic crisis proved that most of the aid pledged by non-African donors is unlikely to be delivered, the only sustainable solution to Africa’s development challenge is aggressive domestic resource mobilization for development. This could be supplemented by foreign direct investments, if the countries in the sub region speed up the current economic and political reforms.

Concluding remarks

Africa is rising. After 5 decades of civil strife and economic stagnation, the first decade of the 21st century shone a new light on the continent. Africa is no more a hopeless dark continent. Like its diamonds in the West, South and at the center, the continent is shining.

It is also shining as a second fastest growing continent in the world. However, there is no time for complacence as Africa is still the least developed continent in the world plagued with high level of poverty, unemployment, political instability and corruption. To sustainably address these fundamental socio economic challenges the region should at least grow by 7% per annum for the coming two decades. However, this is unlikely to be achieved with the current investment rate of 20% and the saving rate of 14% of GDP.

While the return to investment in Africa is high, it is such low levels of investment and saving that are holding the continent back. Given higher returns to investment, Africa’s economic transformation will depend on radical shift in the saving culture of its people, further economic and political reforms, and accelerated fixed investment.

   Dr. Wolassa Kumo
Introduction

A Report by the United Nations Development Programme released in May 2011 revealed that the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) of which 33 are in sub Saharan Africa, 14 in Asia and 1 in Latin America and the Caribbean, illegally transferred a net capital of about US$197 billion mainly to the developed world between 1990-2008. During this period, all the 48 LDCs received about US$118 in remittances and about US$94 billion in new loans, Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) and other related capital inflows while they paid back US$162 billion in debt services leaving them with net capital inflows of US$50 billion. However, this was sharply offset by a gross massive illicit capital flight estimated to be about US$246 billion for the period stated. This could have wiped out the entire LDC debt of about US$155 billion in 2009 with over US$91 billion being saved for investment in economic development.

These illicit financial flows involve the cross boarder transfer of the proceeds of corruption mainly by local kleptocracies; trade in contraband goods and criminal activities by local households and businesses; and tax evasion mainly by multinational corporations.

The Report identifies three major drivers of illicit capital flows from LDCs. Macroeconomic drivers, structural challenges and overall governance. Macroeconomic factors such as high fiscal deficit, high and volatile inflation rates, overvalued real effective exchange rates, negative real interest rates, low real GDP growth and high indebtedness are believed to positively contribute to higher illicit capital flows. So do structural weaknesses such as growing income inequality, increasing trade openness without adequate regulatory oversight, as well as, poor overall governance including corruption, inimical business climate, prevalence of the shadow economy and political instability.

The Report emphasizes further that the illicit capital flows from the LDCs vary both by region and structural characteristics. The following section describes the regional pattern of such flows.

The Regional Pattern of Illicit Capital Flows

Regionally, about 69% of the total illicit capital flows originates from the 33 LDCs in sub Saharan Africa while about 29% originates from the 14 Asian LDCs. Latin America and the Caribbean contribute the remaining 2%. Among the top ten exporters of illicit capital, 6 countries belong to Africa while 4 belong to Asia. One of the poorest countries in Asia, Bangladesh is the world’s top exporter of the illicit capital with the cumulative outflow of US$ 34.8 billion followed closely by Angola, Africa’s second largest oil reducer, with a cumulative outflow of US$34 billion during 1990-2008. This accounted for about 11% and 3.4% of Angola’s and Bangladesh’s GDP during the period respectively.

The Report indicates that trade mispricing accounts for about 65-70% of the illicit capital flows from all LDCs while unrecorded leakages from the balance of payment accounts for the remainder. The Report stresses further that in countries with weak overall governance, i.e. high corruption, and low transparency and accountability, trade mispricing increases with increasing trade volume exacerbating further the illicit capital outflows.

Structural characteristics such as being landlocked or small island nation LDC does not necessary imply higher illicit capital outflows.

Illicit Capital outflows from sub Saharan Africa

The 33 LDCs from the world’s least developed continent, Africa, exported a net illicit capital of US$135 billion to the developed world during 1990-2008 alone. And previous estimates suggest that the African continent as a whole had exported roughly about US$1.8 trillion in illicit capital outflows during the past 50 years while it received roughly about US$ 1 trillion in all forms of international capital inflows. Africa therefore was a net exporter of roughly US$ 0.8 trillion during the past half century. This massive loss of capital to the rest of the world explains why the continent remained the poorest and the least developed region in the world. After over 50 years of decolonization Africa’s resources continue to fuel development in advanced economies, while the owners of the resources on the continent, the broad masses, continue to languish under perpetual poverty.

The six countries in Africa which are among the top ten exporters of illicit capital include: Angola (US$34 billion), Lesotho (US$16.8 billion), Chad (US$15.4 billion), Uganda (US$8.8 billion), Ethiopia (US$8.4 billion), Zambia (US$6.8 billion) and Sudan (US$6.7 billion). It is saddening to observe that a small, land locked country of Lesotho with a total population of about 2 million lost a staggering amount of capital totaling US$16.8 billion in illicit capital outflows during the past 19 years. Equally astonishing is the size of the illegal capital flight from Ethiopia, the country often regarded as one of the poorest countries in the world in terms of per capita income, although the size of its GDP ranks it as the 86th biggest economy in the word.

Ethiopia cannot afford to export US$8.4 billion illegally aboard while the country is unable to feed close to 5 million of its citizens every year bad weather befalls on it.

Angola, Chad, Zambia and Sudan’s size of illicit capital flight is a symptomatic of the natural resource curse and reflect the need for the governments to take urgent actions to improve transparency in their extractive industries.

Other net exporters of illicit capital from sub Saharan Africa include Equatorial Guinea (US$6.5 billion), Liberia (US$5.8 billion), Guinea (US$4.9 billion), Malawi (US$4.2 billion), Djibouti (US$3.9 billion), Mozambique (US$3.8 billion), Madagascar (US$3.7 billion), Congo Democratic Republic (US$3.5 billion), Burkina Faso (US$ 2.9 billion), Tanzania (US$2.3 billion), Sierra Leone (US$2.1 billion), Mali (US$1.7 billion), Gambia (US$1.6 billion), Rwanda (US$1.6 billion), Central African Republic (US$ 1 billion), Niger (US$1 billion), Burundi (US$ 969 million), Guinea Bissau (US$847 million), Togo (US$ 678 million), Mauritania (US$ 428 million), Senegal (US$ 334 million), Benin (US$264 million), Comoros (US$ 154 million), Sao Tome and Principe (US$142 million), and Eritrea (US$118 million).

Equatorial Guinea, one of the largest oil producers in Africa, is in fact not a least developed country in terms of the size of its GDP per capita. With GDP per capita of over US$ 16000, it is the only non-OECD high income country in Africa. However, due to weak overall governance that resulted in illicit capital outflows of over US$6.5 billion over the past 19 years, among other things, nearly 77% of its citizens live under abject poverty. Equatorial Guinea is not even a member of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative while other countries such as Liberia and Mozambique are making necessary efforts to improve transparency and accountability in the use of revenues from natural resources.

The preceding figures of net illicit capital outflows from the world’s least developed countries partly explain why these countries remained poor. The constant rhetoric of aid and FDI to Africa is nothing more than a cheap political propaganda. Poor countries like Ethiopia and Lesotho have been subsidizing economies of the developed nations for the past 50 years at the expense of millions of their own citizens who go to bed every day without a single meal.

It is now abundantly clear that the west not only cannot save Africa, to use the wise words of Professor William Easterly, but in fact is helping the kleptocraceis to kill the continent’s people by facilitating the robbery of its meager resources.

Concluding remarks

In spite of continued inflows of aid, foreign direct investments and remittances, the least developed countries of the world continue to be the net exporters of capital to the developed world which denies them crucial resources needed to provide jobs, alleviate poverty and enhance economic development. Cross border illicit outflows of proceeds of corruption by African kleptocracies, contraband trade and criminal economic activities by households and businesses and tax evasion by multinational corporations fueled by structural weaknesses, macroeconomic instability and poor overall governance by the least developed countries led to loss of nearly US$ 200 billion in net capital during the past 19 years. This could have wiped out the entire LDC debt stock of about US$155 billion estimated in 2009 leaving billions of net resources for further investment.

Africa is the hardest hit with nearly 70% of the stated net capital loss originating from the LDCs in sub Saharan Africa.

The UNDP report on illicit capital flows shed new light on challenges of underdevelopment in LDCS and particularly in Africa. The fundamental challenge for the LDCs in Africa and elsewhere is to put effective measures in place to improve overall governance including democratization, fighting corruption and improving transparency and accountability in the generation and use of revenues from natural and other resources, promoting inclusive economic growth, ensuring macroeconomic stability and implementing effective mechanism for trade regulation.

The proliferation of free trade areas with neighbors or the west will not bring sustainable development if the bulk of locally mobilized resources continue to be lost in illicit outflows due to unregulated open trade.

Neither will tax holidays for few FDIs. Continued provisions of tax holidays for multinationals would result in double loss of capital if there is no effective mechanism to control tax evasion by those who have already graduated from the incentives.

The developed world would help the LDCs escape from the vicious circle of poverty not by promising more aid, and technical assistance but by closing down the offshore capital safe havens most notably the Swiss Banks which have continued to gladly receive stolen funds from the Africa’s hungry people.

And it is only when Africans stop stealing from their own poor and the west stops aiding and abating the kleptocracies and be part of the process that the least developed countries will ever develop.

References

UNDP: Illicit Financial Flows from the Least Developed Countries: 1990-2008. Discussion paper: May 2011

By: Rashid Suleiman

In the days before the Second Liberation, there were African presidents. Then there was the African president. His name was Kamuzu Banda.

Banda confounded both friend and foe. He blew cold and hot, played saviour and the devil all once. He was considered one of Africa’s most influential leaders in the last 50 years. Yet, he was among the last despots of the last century.

In sartorial elegance, he was more steadfast than Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. He was never seen in public without his trademark black three-piece suits, flywhisk, walking stick, homburg hat and handkerchief.

In education, he was as learned as Dr Agostinho Neto of Angola or Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah.

Banda’s penchant for a flashy life saw him construct a sprawling 300-room palace, with a school and a supermarket.

In brutality, he was matched by Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Sekou Toure of Guniea-Conakry, Michel Micombero of Burundi, Macias Nguema of Guinea-Malabo, and Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia.

In effecting a personality cult, he overshadowed accomplished purveyors of the art like Mobutu and Eyadema. He was the personification of eccentricity. He had battalions of women dancers who entertained him wherever he went.

He caused a stir in the early 1980s when he banned American pop group Simon and Garfunkel song Cecilia from the radio. This was at a time when his relationship with his mistress, Cecilia Tamanda Kadzamira, was going through a rocky period, and he clearly did not like the lyrics of the song (“Cecilia/I’m down on my knees/I’m begging you please to come home“).

Because of his conservatism, Malawi was one of the last countries to have television, in the 1990s.

In amassing a personal fortune estimated at $320 million, Banda proved that he was as greedy and fabulously wealthy as Mobutu.

Like Houphouet-Boigny or Mobutu he constructed a sprawling 300-room palace, complete with a school and a supermarket.

He was also a man of unprecedented feats. He is the only African who left his country and stayed out for 42 years but returned to lead it to independence and rule it for 33 years. He refused to return home at one time in fear that his newly found financial resources, earned as a doctor in England, would be wiped out by his extended family.

Man of many feats

Banda is the only first generation African president who remained a ‘bachelor’ till death. His lifelong partner Cecilia Tamanda Kadzamira was just a mere live-in official hostess.

Only Algeria’s Houari Boumedienne shared with Banda the dubious distinction of never having appointed a vice-president.

Banda is one of the few African presidents with multiple birthdays. For long, his official birthday was given as May 14, 1906. But when he died in 1997, his death certificate stated that he was 99 years old, meaning he was born in 1898. Oxford University Press record that he was born in 1902.

Banda was the only African president to establish diplomatic ties with apartheid South Africa. In 1972, he became the first foreign potentate to visit apartheid South Africa since King George VI of England in 1947.

Even by the high African standards, Banda was considered a dictator par excellence. Between 1970 and 1971, he declared himself president for life of both Malawi and the ruling Malawi Congress Party. Like Amin, it is said he murdered his enemies and fed their corpses to crocodiles. In a BBC interview in the early 1990s, he threatened that should Malawian exiles calling for introduction of multipartism return home, he will feed them to crocodiles.

At the height of his power, it is said only one person in Malawi rubbed Banda the wrong way and lived to tell the tale. It is still a mystery how Gwanda Chakuamba survived the bloody purges of the dictator. He was jailed for 22-years for treason and was released at the advent of multipartism in the only presidential pardon granted by Banda in his 33-year-rule.

Banda presided over a police state where any form of dissent brought sudden death, torture, exile or deportation.

The former dictator closely monitored and controlled his peoples’ lives. It was compulsory for all adult Malawians to be card carrying members of MCP. The party cards were to be carried at all times because of random police checks. The cards were sold even to unborn children. No picture, poster or clock was hanged higher than Banda’s official portrait that adorned walls of official buildings. He prescribed a dress code for men and women in Malawi and forced foreigners to conform to it.

Women were not allowed to bare their thighs or wear trousers. Men were banned from growing beards or long hair because it signalled dissent.

Male visitors to Malawi could be seized and forced to have a hair cut. Those wishing to get visas to Malawi in the 1970s were met with the following notice: ‘Female passengers will not be permitted to enter the country if wearing short dresses or trouser suit, except in transit or at lake holiday resorts or national parks. Skirts and dresses must cover the knees to conform with government regulations. The entry of hippies and men with long hair and flared trousers is forbidden‘.

Control Freak

Any foreigner who violated the rules was deported.

Moviegoers had to watch a video of Banda first before the main course. Kissing was not allowed in public and state agents cut out scenes that contained kissing in movies.

Picture – Kamuzu Banda, Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie, Kenya’s Jomo-Kenyatta and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt – In The 60′s

All the movies were first viewed and edited by Banda’s censors before they were shown. The same was done to books. The secret police frequently opened private mail for editing. They tapped phone lines and cut off calls when a speaker said a critical word against the government. During Banda’s reign, TV was banned in Malawi.

His censors ripped out pages of publications like Time and Newsweek that they considered offensive to him. History that pre-dated Banda’s rise to power was discouraged and publications on the era were destroyed.

Despite his bad side, Banda is respected in some quarters and ranked with such luminaries like the late Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana, Kenyatta, Kaunda AND Houphouet-Boigny for the prestige they brought to their countries through the sheer force of their personalities and character. He has been hailed as a national and African hero though others denounce him as a despot.

It is said that Malawians will never achieve the unity they had under Banda. He is still remembered as a man who loved and cared for his people. He is credited with developing Malawi’s education, health, infrastructure and agriculture. Under his rule, the country became self-sufficient in food.

He has been hailed as a champion of women’s rights at a time when this was not fashionable in Africa. He founded an organisation to cater for women’s rights and needs. The Chitukuko Cha Amai m’Malawi was tasked with encouraging women to excel in government, education, the community, church and other spheres of life.

Though his date of birth is in dispute, there is little doubt that Banda was born in Kasungu in Nyasaland (the colonial name of Malawi) to Mphonogo Banda and his wife Akupingamnyama Phiri of the Chewa tribe.

In 1905, he was baptised by the Church of Scotland and took the name Hastings. Later he would add the Ngwazi (lion) as part of his name. Either in 1916 or 1917 he left with an uncle, Hanock Msokera Phiri, on foot to then Southern Rhodesia — the modern day Zimbabwe.

Young Banda

In 1917, he trekked from Zimbabwe to Johannesburg where he worked in the mines till 1925 when African Methodist Church Bishop WT Vernon offered to pay for his education so long as he made his way to America. He left for New York the same year and did his high school at Wilberforce Institute, the current Central State University in Ohio.

   Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s Mausoleum [Enlarge]
He graduated in 1928 and started earning money through public lectures organised by a Ghanaian educationist he had met in South Africa. During one of the lecturers, he met a Dr Herald who helped him enrol as a premedical student at Indian University. He transferred to University of Chicago and graduated with a B Phil, majoring in history, in 1931.

He studied medicine at Meharry Medical College and qualified as a doctor in 1937. He was forced to get a second medical degree to qualify to practise in the British Empire. He got the degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1941. He practised medicine in Newcastle and London but in 1946, he was prevailed upon to represent Nyasaland African Congress at the 5th Pan Africanist Congress. That marked his entry into politics.

While in England, he was fiercely opposed to the proposed federation of Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) that became a reality in 1953. Two years earlier, he had been expected to return home but he chose to move to Ghana after a scandal in which he was accused of adultery with his receptionist. He moved together with the receptionist to Ghana.

After pleas from prominent Malawi politicians, Banda returned home in 1958 — 42 years after he left — to take up the leadership of the independence struggle and Nyasaland African Congress – the forerunner to Malawi Congress Party.

Strangely, he could not speak his mother tongue Chichewa and needed an interpreter. The job first fell to John Msonthi and later John Tembo, who became his strongman till death.

After stirring trouble in the colony, Banda and several of his colleagues were arrested in 1959 and jailed in Gweru in modern day Zimbabwe. He was released in 1960 and shipped to Britain for talks leading to independence. He became Prime Minister in 1963 and led the country to independence a year later.

Fall from grace

Right from the start of his political career, Banda made no secret that he was dictator. When a number of his ministers presented him with suggestions on how to reduce his powers a month after independence, he responded with tough action. He sacked four of them while two others resigned. All ‘detractors’ fled to exile.

In 1966, a new constitution made the country a one party republic with Banda as first president. He proceeded to rule the country as an unchallenged despot till the wind of change swept him out of power in the 1990s.

First, a special assembly stripped him of his powers in 1993 before Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the country’s first multiparty polls gave him a comprehensive whitewash the following year. He passed away in South Africa in 1997.

In his will, he instructed his long time companion, Cecilia Kadzamira, known throughout his rule as the “official hostess” to turn part of his home in his hometown of Kasungu, into a museum.

History can be at times repeated — as farce; but the farcical has always been an inseparable element of the human condition.

A retrospective view over the Kennedy years and the Cuban Missile Crisis management helps us understand the real challenge the assassinated Democrat President had been for part of the American establishment.

Contrarily to the nightmare of the Johnson and Nixon years, with Vietnam, Angola, Abyssinia, South Yemen, Mozambique turning to communist or pro-communist regimes, the brief period of JFK’s tenure demonstrated the limits of a well propagated myth, the bi-polar world politics and the so-called Cold War.

The Vilification of the ‘Other’

The bipolar world never truly existed; it was a media fabrication based on the traditional political game, the vilification of the ‘other’. This game serves political elites and establishment mainly in inner politics, in shaping popular imagination and the so-called public opinion in a very lucrative way; the vilification of the ‘other’ pays also dividends at the level of foreign policy and exports’ increase.

When a political establishment needs to impose mind and thought control and divert the average people from vital issues, all they need is to portray another state as enemy and to instigate into the public imagination dire images and horrible descriptions. With the outright majority being thus entrapped in an unreal situation, the most vital issues for the establishment can be tackled without criticism, interference or opposition as they go easily unnoticed.

The vilification of the ‘other’ helps pressurizing countries in the periphery about inexistent dangers that are depicted as real and possible to face only by following allied directives, purchasing arms, and re-aligning their foreign policy accordingly.

The true reality of the post-WW II world is that in 1945 there was only one true world power left, namely the United States, and that viewed comparatively with the rest, it could and should definitely be called ‘superpower’.

With Japan, Italy and Germany destroyed, with France liberated from the Nazi occupation, with Britain economically exhausted and drained, and with the USSR’s most important territory totally destroyed during WW II, it is difficult to find out a real counterbalance to the only — omnipotent in 1945 — superpower US.

The Creators of the Myth of the Bipolar World

What could have been the real objectives of those who diffused through the world media the myth of the bipolar world, and how can we identify them? What world developments did the creators of the myth of the bipolar world try to keep secret and unnoticed by the average Americans?

Average people usually forget; new unreal images and fresh imaginative narratives, diffused through the media, contribute greatly to this situation. Before WW II, there was not any alliance between the United States and the European capitalist countries; there was simply a common rejection of the Soviet regime, but this was a secondary element. Even the Western European opposition to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was not widely shared in 1930s’ America.

If we go back to the end of WW I, we realize that President Wilson’s idealism consisted in a true impediment for the Anglo-French tandem of the Entente Cordiale, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Scrutinizing the American foreign policy of the late 19th and early 20th century, we can certainly identify it as anti-colonial, humanist, and idealist. The American anti-colonial policy was particularly highlighted in the wars against the Spanish colonial empire; but America was not in bad terms with Germany, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. We can however attest an animosity between the United States and the Austrian — Hungarian monarchy, viewed as the representative of a Medieval Order of things and situations to which the rise of America had to put a dead end.

It is undisputedly confirmed that America was largely manipulated in order to enter WW I against Imperial Germany.

What did America get instead?

Nothing!

Not even Iraq!

The dismembered territories of the demised Ottoman Empire were divided to English and French zones of ‘mandate’. The developments that led to America’s entrance into war with Imperial Germany and the final outcome, after the post-WW I treaties had been signed, demonstrate that America had been simply used by the colonial empires of France and England for their exclusive benefit.

Not a real achievement for Washington D.C.!

The same concerns America’s entrance into WW II. Thinking that the United States had any sort of obligation toward England and France in 1940 consists in mere projection of today’s viewpoints into another era. A sizeable part of the American establishment, particularly former President Herbert Hoover, argued that it would be a folly for America to rush to save England. The same person had however not hesitated to send humanitarian help to Central Europe and Communist Russia in 1921! It all relates to a completely different approach than that of conventional Americans presidents of the last 45 years.

How can one summarize the various aforementioned points? In fact, for the entire first half of the 20th century, the colonial powers (England and France) managed to inflect the anti-colonial ideology and policy of America, and use the vast resources of the fast expanding country to their benefit. This enterprise has been carried out by the pro-British part of the American establishment; the best representatives of this circle of power are the Federal Reserve, large part of the Banking sector, the Oil sector and more particularly Standard Oil and the derivative companies. They all viewed America as a mere instrument for their global objectives.

Behind them were hidden the Anti-Christian circles of the Freemasonic European establishment well known at those days for promoting outrageous Anti-Italianism, Anti-Germanism, Anti-Ottomanism, Anti-Russianism, atheism, Anti-Catholicism, demolition of the historical European Code of Ethics, evolutionism, materialism, relativism, and all sorts of corrupt practices. They have however pursued the same policies ever since, and down to our times.

The next step was the invention of the Myth of the Bipolar World whereby the US would be portrayed as the leader of the Free World, the Champion of the Free Market, the Paragon of the Democratic Parliamentary System, and the Beacon of Human Rights, whereas the USSR would be depicted as the focus of evil.

What was the functionality of the Myth of the Bipolar World?

At a moment colonial England and France were totally exhausted and their resources drained, in the aftermath of WW II, the concept of the frontal opposition between the communist and the capitalist worlds would help

1. England and France transform their colonies to independent states and their colonial domination to postcolonial rule (without America or the USSR being involved in the process),

2. the colonial structure of vast part of the world be left intact,

3. the dependence of the former colonies on the respective metropolises be effectuated as part of the entire plan, and

4. America and the USSR pursue an arms race that would be an incredible burden for both economies

5. other countries rise (or rise again) to power status (entirely or partly). China, Japan, Germany, Italy, Brazil and Mexico are some of the examples in this case.

6. perpetuate the world order set up earlier by the colonial powers whereby any other power, namely America, the USSR, China, interfering in a former colony, would not be able to destabilize and/or overthrow the prevailing colonial structure

7. England and France finally recover and, through a criminal plan, impose throughout Western Europe a complex totalitarian system which would enable them to come back as a global superpower (Europe) through the immoral practice of conditioning financial help to smaller countries on deliberately demanded social and foreign policy compromises.

In fact, America has already paid dearly for the takeover of its political life by an illegitimate and unrepresentative gang which disregarded the real national interests of America that are in full accordance with the Declaration of Independence and the Principles of the Founding Fathers.

America had indeed a different socio-economic system than that of the USSR. But this did not necessarily imply geo-strategic differences of primary order. Since the mid-20s, Stalin’s rise to power heralded the consolidation of the ‘dictatorship of proletariat’ in one country (USSR), and the abandonment of the dream of the international revolution.

If we take into consideration Lenin’s position on the various peoples and nations in the USSR, America was certainly closer to the USSR than to the Western European colonial powers. Tyrannical practices carried out in France against the various oppressed ethnic groups would be considered as absolutely inhuman and appalling in America. Minority languages were prohibited in France and the terrorist practice was imposed in a brutish way reminiscent of African tyrannies.

The maltreatment of the Breton minority in France was characteristically illuminated in the sentence “In the streets, it is prohibited to spit and to speak Breton” (http://ouiaubreton.com/spip.php?article4311). America was criminally kept unaware of similar practices carried out in France (against the Bretons, the Alsatians, the Basks, the Occitans, the Catalans and the Corsicans), in England (against the Welch, the Irish and the Scots) and in Spain (against the Catalans, the Basks and the Galicians).

NATO — A Trap for the US

In fact, by engulfing the US politics into the swamp of the myth of the bipolar world, the pro-British Freemasonic part of the American establishment prevented the planning and the deployment of a genuinely American — and therefore anti-colonial — foreign policy emanating from the Declaration of Independence and the chief principles of the Founding Fathers.

The implementation of such a foreign policy would cost much less to the US, and as it would be in direct opposition to the Anglo-French colonial policy, it would eliminate any eventual Soviet policy of infiltration.

By genuinely siding with the oppressed and tyrannized, destitute and needy nations of Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe and America, the US would become the principal Advocate of the Global Liberation, adroitly shaping a comprehensive political project of anti-colonial education, cultural authenticity, liberal (anti-dirigisme) economics, democratic political structure, and genuine nation building.

An American Anti-Colonial Alliance would contain the USSR more efficiently and would result in complete and comprehensive decolonization, national emancipation for dozens of states, and irreversible decadence for the colonial states England, France, Spain and Portugal.

In the 50s, the rise of a US-led Alliance encompassing Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Kabylia (liberated from the French colony ‘Algeria’), Italy, Denmark (including Greenland), Sweden, Turkey, Iran, India, Thailand, Australia (forcefully proclaimed as Republic), Japan, the Philippines, and Polynesia (liberated from the French tyranny), and the decolonized Congo, Somalia, Angola, Madagascar and Mozambique would serve America’s interests far better than NATO.

In fact, one of the major misconceptions of the American foreign and defense policies was the establishment of NATO. The USSR would not expand beyond the border lines of 1945 — 8, and with America forging an anti-colonial alliance, European unification would prove to be impossible.

Not only Anti-Americanism would never go beyond the limits of England and France (two nations that have spent billions of dollars in anti-American activities and propaganda) but America would not embark on a ruinous arms race that spoiled the country’s chances of sustainable economy without deficits. It was already clear that the Soviet system would fail, due to inner contradictions and inconsistencies, and collapse sooner or later.

The American — Western European alliance triggered Anti-Americanism among Third World countries and many Western Europeans who envisioned a possible political space for themselves between the USA and the USSR. This mistake was detrimental for the US global interests.

Contrarily, an American — Third World alliance would leave no political space for the Europeans to cover, would ostracize the Soviets from the Third World, and would help America materialize the objective of being the world’s champion of Democracy, Equity, Justice, and Human Rights.

However, this would be detrimental for the pro-British Freemasonic part of the American establishment, and for their plans that were geared to target the destruction of the uni-polar political system in which the world entered practically at the end of WW II, with the demise of Nazi Germany.

Long Term Objectives of the Pro-British Freemasonic part of the American establishment

For a myriad of American statesmen, consultations with Europe are essential. Thus, you can automatically understand that they don’t truly care for America’s integrity and prevalence — let alone the long term imposition of a Pax Americana.

For them, Western Europe, evolving around the Anglo-French pseudo-democratic establishment, is the center of the world. It sounds odd how people like Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger, Ford, Clinton, and Cheney, who have admittedly been so eloquent about the America’s destiny to lead the world, may have had this sort of back thoughts.

They may actually have not; not all of them truly ruled the country. But their mentors, the Rockefeller family and their likes, certainly viewed America’s role as a mere instrument of the Old European Freemasonic guard.

With the rise of 27-member Europe, 63 years after the end of WW II, the time has come for some dramatic changes that will affect the entire world.

Their long term objectives encompass the following:

1 – the termination of the American supremacy (this will be completed with a nuclear attack against Iran, and the dire consequences that it will entail),

2 – the return of the US to a sort of reassessed isolationism in the New World,

3 – the rise of Europe as the main power in the West,

4 – the creation of a sizeable periphery of Europe in Africa and the Middle East (the project has just started, Mediterranean Union),

5 – the recognition of Europe’s role to be involved in Jerusalem and to protect Israel,

6 – the provocation of a terrible war in the Middle East,

7 – the subsequent turmoil in Europe with clashes between indigenous nationalists and Muslim immigrants,

8 – the White Terror (following the imposition of indigenous nationalists) and the rise of a totalitarian European Empire that will cancel Christianity, introduce another religion, and typically annex the Middle East (involving new mass transportations to a new — different — “Israel”),

9 – the departure of few selected top elite people (along with their clones and relevant technological infrastructure) to the space, and

10 – the ensuing clash of the European Empire with Russia and China and a nuclear hecatomb.

Nothing of all this can be materialized as long as the United States remains the world’s only superpower. American supremacy started indeed being shaken with the demise of the Soviet Block and the USSR (1989 — 1991).

The narratives of tele-guided media forgery have it that America was catapulted to supremacy as the world’s only superpower only in 1991. This is a preposterous interpretation. There is nothing falser than this.

In fact, the Soviet Union was never a counterweight, except in myth, in mythical and forged narratives of masterminded media, in the shameful lies in which the entire world had been plunged for four (4) entire decades (1950 — 1990).

Soviet Union was financially insignificant, and without its fixed currency (which demonstrated nothing more than the economic policy of a tyranny), the country could have been bought up many times by a few leading US corporations. In the early 70s, Japan and Germany were economically and financially far more significant than the Soviet Union with its anachronistic system of production and distribution.

JFK and the Revelation of the Uni-polar World

Militarily, the USSR certainly expanded and at a certain moment possessed higher number of otherwise useless conventional weapons that were not employed — except in Iraq, Syria, Abyssinia, Afghanistan and some other peripheral and insignificant territories. But does it truly matter for a supposedly influential country to produce loads of anachronistic weapons that can ensure only a spectacular defeat (like the notorious Soviet tanks of Saddam Hussein)?

Beyond the conventional weapons, the Soviet Union reached up to the point of possessing more nuclear heads than the US. But the Soviet regime — contrarily to today’s rulers of Kremlin — was irremovable from its policy of nuclear balance. This system of international politics was then much safer than ours, because it entailed the guarantee of non use of the nuclear weapons that simply drained the resources of the two countries. With the now rising nationalistic and imperialistic policies, this guarantee does not exist anymore.

In fact, with the implementation of one interpretation of the Marxism – Leninism in Soviet Union, the country ceased to exist at the political level; it became a non — topos, a Utopia self-condemned in barter trade, unrepresentative currency exchange rates, and utter isolation. The Soviet Union and its East European satellites were in fact a neutral territory, a no-man’s-land impossible to be integrated into the world political system.

This became very clear at the times of the Cuban Missile Crisis; despite the apparent interaction and the political game (mostly played by Tovarich Andrei Gromyko theatrically saying ‘Net’ in every session of the UN Security Council), the Soviet Union would never risk to be turned from political no-man’s-land to physically annihilated territory.

President J. F. Kennedy’s public denunciation of secret societies and commitment to making visible the hidden reality of the uni-polar system were the real reason of his assassination. If he had been ‘allowed’ to pursue his policy further, the world would have soon been very different, and the Soviet Union would have collapsed much earlier. Following these developments, the then 6-member European Community would have never been able to form a large Union of states.

It was a mere customary act for JFK’s opponents to carry out the assassination, but there was a critical corroboration of the need for such an assassination; there was Lyndon Johnson available to replace an assassinated President Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson was a person controlled — only too well — by the Pro-British Freemasonic part of the American establishment, and beforehand placed in the correct position: that of the Vice President.

At this point, it would be necessary to quote the following insightful details: “Lyndon B. Johnson was initiated on October 30, 1937 in Johnson City Lodge No. 561, at Johnson City, Texas, but completed only the Entered Apprentice, or first, of the three Masonic degrees. For this reason, he is not included in the gallery”.
(http://www.pagrandlodge.org/mlam/presidents/index.html)

The Democratic Nomination — Denver 25 – 28 / 8/ 08

There are policies that can consolidate the already shaken American supremacy; and there are policies that can trigger the final demise of the American supremacy and our entrance into a multi-polar world.

The few words of criticism uttered by Barack Obama with respect to the Oil cartel suggest that he belongs to the world of JFK. This means that he can have the same destiny as the 35th President of the United States, if he intends to pursue a policy that would guarantee American supremacy and world peace. The Pro-British Freemasonic part of the American establishment, and behind them the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group, and above all the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge would do all that it takes to prevent a development that would avert the aforementioned, well planned world clash.

If Barack Obama has a chance to save America and let the world survive, he should avoid the lethal mistake of entrusting the position of the Vice President to either Al Gore (with slim chances) or Hillary Clinton (with stronger chances).

With any of these two persons nominated in Denver as Vice President, Barack Obama, even if he manages to win the November 2008 presidential elections, prevailing over the Republican nominee, the notorious Free Mason John McCain (http://www.radaronline.com/features/2008/05/secret_societies_bohemian_grove_masons_trilateral_commission-print.php), will have to either obey rules that are given by invisible masters in striking contrast with the American national interests or wait the moment of his premature and undeserved death.

Note: Hillary Clinton with the face turned to the right side, and with the right hand elbow based on something (in this case the chair’s arm) and the right hand palm covering the left hand palm; the right hand index and little fingers are slightly extended to help shape the symbol the two horns. These are typical freemasonic posture and gestures showing details about Hillary Clinton’s grade.

Writes: James N. Kariuki

Obama, nuclear weapons and the race factor — Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.

In early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The indiscriminate damage of life and property was immeasurable. It was a massive collective punishment, a classic case of the power of modern civilisation without its mercy.

Ever since, the world has been haunted by two questions. Was the use of nuclear devices necessary? Would the US have used nuclear weapons against white Germany? Critics remain deeply divided.

President Harry Truman’s sympathisers however, support his logic that the bombs were vital to shortening the war in the Pacific and saving American lives.

Doubters insist that by mid-1945, Japan was virtually a crippled enemy. Nazi Germany had already surrendered in May 1945.

Combined bombardment

How much longer could Japan have endured under the combined ‘conventional’ bombardment of the Allies and, possibly, Russia?

In short, the American use of atomic weapons was unnecessary, prompted and made easier by the fact that the victims were non-white. Indeed innuendoes abound that America used the Japanese as guinea pigs to demonstrate the ravaging power of its new, barbarous weapon.

Twenty years later, the same US was bogged down in the protracted Vietnam War, and language of nuclear weapons resurfaced in American politics. The 1964 Republican presidential contender, Barry Goldwater, openly recommended using low-yield nuclear weapons for defoliation of Vietnamese woodlands.

Goldwater’s ‘nuclear reckless talk’ ultimately cost him the presidency. But in the hunt for it, he had arrogated to himself the right to entertain nuclear language that could have resulted in annihilation of a Southeast Asian nation.

Again, the collective victims would have been non-whites — men, women and children alike.

Castro’s autobiography

In a 2007 autobiography, Fidel Castro: My Life, the Cuban icon narrates the story that for Angola’s freedom, Cuban and Angolan troops fought against an apartheid army and government that had eight Hiroshima/Nagasaki-size atomic bombs secretly “provided by the US through … Israel.” Were those weapons developed during the South African-Israeli nuclear collaboration or were they US-made? In either case, the targets were black people.

As SA approached freedom, the West became increasingly nervous over the prospects of blacks inheriting a nuclear state.

Accordingly, Nelson Mandela and his associates were vigorously coaxed into dismantling the bombs and signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Racist SA could be nuclear; democratic one could not.

Given the history of nuclear weapons relative to the non-white world, and noting the ongoing ‘loose talk about nukes’ in the US regarding Iran, it is fitting that Barack Obama should aspire to eliminate all nuclear weapons, American and otherwise. Perhaps, he owes it most to his ancestral Diaspora.