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| Literature the tyrants would prefer you not to read |
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| In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz |
Michela Wrong |
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Recently Desmond Tutu described Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe as embodying all that was bad about African leaders. He may have had a point. But when it comes to theft and corruption in Africa there was, and will only ever be, one master...Zaire's Mobuto Sese Seko.
The book was penned during the military advance of recently departed Laurent Kabila, the man that would eventually put an end to the 30 odd year rule of Mobuto, and in its pages Reuters and Financial Times correspondent Michela Wrong explores the history of the country's transformation into a textbook kleptocracy - a rule by thieves - while Zaire collapses around her. The reader can only feel utter revulsion at the tales of outright larceny carried out by those in power while the rest of the population were left to scrape whatever living they could. Littered throughout the book are anecdotes of breathtaking chutzpah from the Mouvanciers, or fat cats, of the Mobuto regime. From newly appointed government ministers arriving at their offices to find the place stripped bare and the two official cars mysteriously vanished, to the diamond mine manager allotting himself $30,000 a month travel allowance, to Mobuto's own son claiming he had been robbed of the $600,000 given to him to close a deal and then being wired replacement funds immediately.
Of course at the top of the pile is Mobuto himself. Wrong describes the President as a man with untold riches put in front of him who cannot steal fast enough. In one telling moment, towards the end of his rule, Mobuto is negotiating his monthly stipend. When offered $2 million a month Mobuto responds incredulously, "You're pulling my leg. It's out of the question. I need $10 million." He eventually settled for $3 million.
Despite the pain Wrong uncovers she clearly loves the country, be it the crumbling anachronism that is the Hotel Intercontinental, the handicappé merchants who ply their trade on both banks of the River Zaire or the fashion victim sapeurs who strut the capital's dancefloors peacock-like, outfitted in the latest haute couture. She is both distressed at the rule meted out to the citizens of the Congo - first by the harsh Belgian colonizers and then by Mobuto - and at the same time elated that they have managed to find ways around the hardships, to survive and in many cases thrive.
Her last thoughts in the tome are that the Congolese must now learn to look after themselves. Now that the Belgians are out of the picture, and the Americans are done with Cold War meddling and now that Mobuto has taken his millstone from their necks. Though in a country where the Mouvanciers still refuse any mea culpa, and in many cases have been pardoned by the Kabila regime this, she acknowledges, seems a long way off. |
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| The Commissar Vanishes |
David King |
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This magnificent volume of pictures doctored, airbrushed and butchered during the grim years of Stalin's rule in the Soviet Union is a true labour of love by David King. A Professor resident in Oxford, Dr King has spent years trawling through both state and private archives in the former USSR to try to get to the bottom of the cult of personality around Stalin that was so intense there
could be no other competition for the people's affection.
In time Stalin, a johnny-come-lately to the Russian Communist movement, would wipe out the vast majority of the founding members of the Soviet Union, replacing them with stooges loyal only to him. This lead to many problems for the photo editors as more and more volumes of work had to be withdrawn and changed as the purges cut deeper into Soviet society.
While the overall tone of the book is depressing there are moments to that invoke both amazement - the images of Stalin inserted into key moments of Soviet history, never more than a step from Lenin's side, even when all other evidence points to him being hundreds of miles from the scene - and mirth - the new pencilled in suit an Uzbeck politburo member received when the guy in front of him was wiped out. An engrossing and always fascinating piece of work.
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Where the hell did...? This photo, taken at the Second anniversary celebrations of the October
Revolution in 1919, was dramatically altered to remove those spectators who had since become undesirables. Khalatov (bottom right), Kamenev (top left) and most obviously Trotsky all disappear to leave Lenin looking somewhat lonely. |
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Suits you, Sir. One of the many stills taken from Ten Years of Uzbekistan. Between editions Abel Yenukidze had been expelled from the party. This meant two things, him out of the photo and
a new (pencilled in) suit for the guy behind him. |
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| Thank God The're On Our Side |
David Schmitz |
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This work reads more like a reference book than a narrative. It has at its heart a very detailed polemic against the preferred foreign policy of the United States government throughout the 20th century. Beginning with the aggression of the (Teddy) Roosevelt Presidency, through to present day David Schmitz looks behind the argument that the US would support any foriegn leader as long as they opposed Communism - and if that meant giving support to a bloodthirsty tyrant then so be it.
The book offers very detailed examinations of the regimes themselves - from the Samozas in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile right up to the thirty year courtship with the Mobuto regime in Zaire - as well as the US administrations that, despite their political colours, played the same foreign policy tune.
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| A Nation of Enemies |
Pamela Constable, Arturo Valenzuela |
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That rarest of beasts - a book about the Chilean revolution and its aftermath that is tainted with neither right or left wing vitriol. Pamela Constable, Arturo Valenzuela have managed to come up with a remarkable balanced account of the years from late 1972 when Chilean and CIA plotters schemed to rid the nation of
the Marxist President Salvatore Allende up to the 1988 election that saw the (center) left back in power. Balanced it may be but that does not mean it lacks passion. The authors remain appalled at the excesses of the state secret police and saddened by the perpetual stream of liberals forced to flee their own country for exile in Europe, and at the same time they salute the achievements of the 'Chicago Boys',
those cleanliving free market idealists who turned Chile from an also ran into the economic powerhouse of South America. The book also challenges the conventional view of the man at the center of the coup, Augusto Pinochet, painting him as a man more led than leading.
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