Anarchy - Tyranny - Anarchy

"Many suppose that tyranny and anarchy are at opposite ends of a linear spectrum. But often they are side by side on what might better be described as a circle: the one is a product of the other, and vice versa. The law of the jungle does obtain in parts of Africa, but the jungle is inhabited by men. Anarchy is a vacuum that brings out the worst in men and selects for the worst among them. The persuit of power is a life-and-death struggle. Those who excel distinguish themselves through nothing more exotic than boundless cunning and ruthlessness. The most successful of all become tyrants, and the anarchy in which they thrive is called tyranny.
Even the most rigidly institutionalized tyrannies-Rwanda was one, South Africa another- rely above all on the total absence of lawful accountability for the criminal abuse of power. They harness the forces of anarchy to their own ends, the forces of lawlessness and terror, murder and rape, arson and theft. For them, anarchy is an instrument of tyranny.
In south Africa, where "black on black" violence killed 20,000 between 1985 and 1994 and nearly derailed the transition to majority rule, they called it "informal repression." The Afrikaner police who feuled the fighting called it the "kleur teen kleur beinsel" -the "colour against colour principle."
In Sudan, where northern Arabs through the ages have dominated the state and decimated the south by pitting one black African tribe against another, they say "Aktul all-abid bil abid"-"Kill the slave throught the slave."
It is a phenomenon that runs like poison through all Africa's seemingly senseless wars: Big men using little men, cynically maneuvering for power and booty while thousands perish. Harnessing proxies, arming ethnically based militias, cultivating warlords, propagating hate and fear, preying on ignorance, manufactoring rumours and myths, stacking the police and army with ethnic kinsmen, demonizing dissidents as traitors to the tribe, or faith, or "volk" -these are the tactics of the crafty despot with his back against the wall.
Call it tribalism, call it nationalism, call it fundementalism- the role of political leaders in fomenting civil conflicts has been the paramount human rights issue in post-Cold War era. Africa is merely that part of the world where it has been most destructive by far.
Inflamed ethnic passions are not the cause of political conflict, but its consequence. In a lawless world, ethnicity is a badge of legitimacy and protection- and justice. It is the bond by which men high and low adhere to a vigilante code."
"Ethnic conflict in Africa is a form of organized crime. The "culture" driving Africa's conflicts is akin to that of the Sicilian Mafia, or the Crips and bloods in Los Angeles, with the same imperatives of blood and family that bind such gangs together. Africa's warring factions are best understood not as tribes but as racketeering enterprises, their leaders calculating strategy after the time honoured logic of Don Vito Corleone.
It is the stakes in Africa that are different- multiplied exponentially in circumstances where the state itself is a gang and the law doesn't exist. It is as if men like Don Corleone seized control of not just "turf" on the margins of society, but of the state itself and all of its organs: police and army, secret police,the courts, the central bank, the civil service, the press and the tv and radio.
A widespread misconception of the post cold war era is that ethnic conflict is a by product of failed states. Rwanda represented the oppisite: a state- albeit criminal- that was all to successfulin mobolizing along rigidly hierarchical lines from top down, from the head of state and his ruling clique down to the last village mayor, making possible the slaughter, mostly with clubs and machetes, of hundreds of thousands in barely 3 monthes."
(Quoted from "The graves are not yet full" by Bill Berkeley.)
Chester A. Crocker, assistant secretary of state for african affairs is quoted as saying to Bill Berkeley,"I would never in a million years tell you I was seeking what was in the best interests of Liberia. I was protecting the interests of Washington."
Monrovia, Liberia, April 1996.( a picture is above this quote with one older teenager lieing dead rocket launcher as if fallen from his limp shoulder with another maybe 17 year old with an Ak47 firing in retaliation.) Many of these boys are orphans of the war" the liberian rebel leader Charles Taylor told Bill Berkeley."Some of them saw their mothers wrapped in blankets , tied up, poured with kerosene and burned alive. We keep them armed as a means of keeping them out of trouble. It's a means of control."