Africa sees irony in US violence
CAPITOL CHAOS: TRUMP SUPPORTERS CONDEMNED
Others across the continent advise Washington on how to run a democracy.
As they watched a violent mob smash into the US Capitol, some in Africa could not help but see a little irony in the chaos incited by President Donald Trump, who once famously called African nations “shi*holes”.
Others across the continent offered Washington some tips on how to run a democracy – advice that has so often gone in the other direction.
“It’s time for the African Union to send in peacekeepers to protect American citizens,” a Rwandan Twitter user joked.
“Imagine the headlines on RFI, France 24, CNN, VOA Afrique, Reuters: four killed with live bullets in the Capitol,” tweeted Gastonfi ls Lonzo, a PhD student in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The lesson-givers would already be sending investigators.”
But some in Africa, which has seen a wave of political crises over the past year, including a coup in Mali and numerous ageing leaders trying to stay in power via constitutional trickery, saw something in Trump that reminded them of problems at home.
French-Burkinabe satirist and cartoonist Damien Glez compared Trump to Gambia’s former dictator Yahya Jammeh, who refused to relinquish power after losing 2016’s election.
“We often look like those we snub,” he said in an editorial on the Jeune Afrique magazine’s website. “What happened at the Capitol shows that Americans are finally recognising the value of Africa and are copying its post-election practices,” wrote a Twitter user in Madagascar.
Images of one of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday – a bare-chested rioter wearing face paint and a horned animal fur hat – were particularly popular in West Africa.
Fahad Ag Almahmoud, the secretary- general of a Malian armed group, tweeted that his pro-government militia solemnly “condemned the presence of dozos in the Capitol”.
Dozos are traditional hunters in the Sahel who have been accused of myriad abuses and wear outfits strikingly similar to the rioter, even down to the talisman hanging from his neck.
In the West, the rioter – identified by US media as Jake Angeli, a prominent follower of the far-right QAnon conspiracy – reminded many of Jamiroquai singer Jay Kay, who tweeted saying it wasn’t him.
While European leaders were quick to condemn the shocking scenes in Washington, African heads of state were in no hurry.
But Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa used the opportunity to call for the US to lift sanctions that Washington imposed in 2002 over rights abuses under former dictator Robert Mugabe.
“Yesterday’s events showed that the US has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy,” Mnangagwa tweeted.
As the chaos was unfolding, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide Bashir Ahmad simply tweeted “The Beauty of Democracy?”
Bienvenu Matumo of DR Congo’s Struggle for Change pro-democracy movement said that “we must stop saying that it’s only Africans who don’t want democracy”.
“We have proof that the refusal to leave power after an electoral defeat is not only the prerogative of Africans.”
Floribert Anzuluni, the coordinator of fellow Congolese opposition movement Filimbi, agreed.
“What happened reminds us that human nature, regardless of colour or origin, needs safeguards – education, strong institutions, responsible leadership – to restrain its basic instincts,” he said.
Journalist Boubacar Sanso Barry wrote in the Guinean newspaper Le Djely that “we should break with all these hasty and somewhat racist judgements” of African countries.
We often look like those we snub
US President Donald Trump has isolated himself in the White House, relying on a small group of loyalists and lashing out at those who dare to cross him, including Vice-President Mike Pence, said four sources close to him.
Some long-time advisors are steering clear of talking to Trump after he fired up hundreds of supporters who swarmed the US Capitol in what even fellow Republicans called a deep stain on Trump’s legacy.
The unprecedented breach of the Capitol building on Wednesday forced Pence and members of Congress to be evacuated just as they had convened to certify the 2020 election victory of president-elect Joe Biden over Trump. Four people died in the mayhem, including a woman shot by police.
“Don’t want to,” said one advisor, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked if there had been any contact with Trump.
The president has repeatedly lambasted Pence, publicly and privately, for refusing to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s win, and has been seething at Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, for stating that Pence would perform his constitutional duty, the sources said.
This week, Trump berated Pence to his face, one source said. The vice-president’s office declined to comment.
But Republican Senator Jim Inhofe told the Tulsa World newspaper he spoke to Pence on Wednesday night. “I’ve known Mike Pence forever. I’ve never seen him as angry as he was today.”
A former senior administration official said the rift between the men was deep and they may never speak to each other again.
Pence, a former Indiana governor and former Republican lawmaker who harbours presidential ambitions, has been loyal to Trump throughout the president’s four years in office.
A Pence advisor said “everyone around him is very proud of him” for how he performed and that he had told Trump ahead of time what he planned to do.
“Pence does not surprise the president. He was honest about what he was going to do,” said the advisor.
Trump has surrounded himself with an ever smaller group of loyalists who cater to his whims, including digital director Dan Scavino, personal aide John McEntee, trade advisor Peter Navarro, speechwriter Stephen Miller and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, one source said. “It’s sad. These are the people around him and egging him on,” said the source.
The White House declined to comment.
Another source said it took an intervention by Trump’s daughter Ivanka to persuade him to change his tune a day after the president told supporters who ransacked the Capitol to “go home, we love you, you’re very special”.
Trump had initially been reluctant to criticise his supporters, the source said, but under pressure he released a new video on Thursday night, criticising those who defi led the Capitol, and calling for calm. He also came closer than he ever has to a formal concession, vowing to ensure a “smooth transition” to a new administration on 20 January.
“Serving as your president has been the honour of my lifetime,” he said in the video.
Earlier on Thursday, it was Scavino who, after Congress certified Biden’s victory, tweeted out a statement from Trump to say the president would go along with an orderly transition of power to Biden. Trump himself was suspended from Twitter at the time.
Trump clung to the notion that the election was rigged against him but acknowledged he would be leaving the White House on Biden’s inauguration day.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition,” he said.
One former Trump White House official said the president had shown a failure of leadership for not immediately going on television to tell his supporters at the Capitol to stand down and leave.
“He has blood on his hands from yesterday. A woman died,” he said. –
He has blood on his hands. A woman died