This column is this morning in mourning for the great President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, and grief bedecks my brows as tears short-circuit my crackling keyboard, writes Kevin Myers.
The Guide - as he was known to his adoring, and now orphaned, broken people - was the epitome of the true African leader, modest, retiring, and scrupulous at all times. His opponents regularly and devotedly committed suicide in the government cells to which they had besought admission. In the 40 years since this former sergeant took control of his country, it grew mysteriously and catastrophically poorer, and he - inexplicably - proportionately richer. Economists are at a loss to explain it.
But let us rejoice! His son, he liveth! Yes, young Faure Essozimma Gnassingbe has succeeded to the presidency, and properly so. Did his father not appoint him Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts and Telecommunications (and anything else that caught his eye) on merit only? And having nimbly clambered up the slippery pole of Togolese politics purely by talent, he is now at its pinnacle, where he is able to savour the grief and the condolences of President Chirac, who sent the following communication: "My thoughts turn towards the Togolese people. I am sure they will find themselves gathered together democratically in this ordeal."
Quite so. The last time the Togolese people gathered together democratically was seven years ago, when The Guide discovered that his opponent, Gilchrist Olympio - presumably of Gaelic-Greek ancestry - was winning. The Guide promptly called the election off, and very properly became President-for-Life. It will probably be a while before Togo dabbles again in that messy and inconclusive experiment called democracy. In the meantime, we can be sure that the Elysée will continue to give its full support to the boy president, as it did to the da, and as it once did to the neighbouring Emperor Bokassa, who tackled the population problem in his country by eating some of its citizens. Pygmies are delicious when taken young, I'm told, their toes (once washed) in particular.
The question being asked in the chancellories of the world is: how will Bébé Guide conduct his country's relations with President Chirac? You will remember Chirac: he was the man Bono embraced because of his "anti-war" stance. But of course, it all depends on which war. France recently destroyed the Ivory Coast's air force because of some local disagreement. I'm not sure if Togo has an air force; if it has, Bébé had better stay on the right side of Chirac, who himself has many of the sterling qualities of African leaders.
Togo's fellow West African states - Liberia, Sierra Leone and air forceless Ivory Coast are now in anarchy. On the far side of Africa, so too is Somalia. Sudan has just announced that it will not hand over any of its policemen or soldiers for trial by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges resulting from the current and heart-warming genocide in Darfur. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is continuing on its sorry path towards calamity.
And still goody-goodies in the West continue to maintain that Africa's problem is essentially one of debt, and that all we need to do is to wave a magic vanishing wand, and whatever the Congo is named today - which is not the same as last week, nor the same as next Tuesday - will suddenly resemble Zurich.
Now, you can call the latest quick fix for Africa "debt relief", but really, it is simply aid by another name. And Africa knows all about aid. Between 1950 and 1995, it received $1 trillion's worth. One trillion. That's one, followed by twelve zeroes, in 1985 values. A recent study of 30 sub-Saharan African countries showed that between 1970 and 1996, their capital exports amounted to £187 billion. Their ruling élites meanwhile were shown to possess overseas assets that actually exceeded the public debts of the region by nearly 50 per cent. Moreover, the study revealed that roughly 80 per cent of every dollar borrowed by those countries was returned to the West in capital flight within the year. So waiving debts for corrupt regimes will not solve their problems; if anything it will probably intensify their corruption.
Meanwhile, well-meaning Westerners continue to delude themselves with meaningless pieties: witness the idiotic cheers which greeted Nelson Mandela's statement at a recent rally in London: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be overcome and eradicated." Such gibberish is the exact opposite of the truth: poverty is entirely natural. The whole history of civilisation is about mankind's attempt to escape our natural condition, in which we are unclothed and impoverished savages, prey to climate, hunger, wild animals and disease.
The notion that poverty is not "natural" ranks in idiocy with Rousseau's fatuous observation: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Man is born a naked, dependent, mewling, puking, incontinent infant, who without the attentions of his mother or other adults would be dead within hours. And that's freedom? Yet such meaningless aphorisms enter our political lexicons and stay lodged there, to be trotted out whenever we feel the need to expatiate upon the evils of the world, especially the Western world, and the US most of all.
Africa is not poor because of debt repayment to the West, or because it has been confined to an "unnatural" poverty. Africa is poor because it remains close to nature, and because its leaders gorge themselves like thoroughly natural Serengeti predators at a kill. To be sure, despicable wretches like Chirac don't help; but Sudan, Liberia, Somalia and Zimbabwe (for example) are Chirac-free zones. Fortunately, however, happy, happy Togo has Bébé Guide to protect it!