The Secret of the African Dictator - Inspired by real-life events.


Book Description

The United States falls head over heels in love with dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and lavishes him with millions of dollars. He finds happiness in his "defining relationship" until the Soviet Union fades into history and Washington's affection fades to indifference, then abandonment. Washington dumps Mobutu like a hot potato, only to discover that he has a covert survival strategy that will sting like a thousand wasps and leave a lasting mark on US's interests. This book explores the dictator's survival strategy and is based on actual events. **** The Secret of the African Dictator is a thrilling tale that unravels the State Department's hidden biases and takes us on a journey where individuals from different nations fight to stay afloat amidst crumbling fortresses and tangled webs of deception. They confront their own limitations, histories, and desires, all while navigating the unpredictable intentions of both allies and enemies. ****y In The Secret of the African Dictator, the sword of rebellion dangles over Mobutu's head. In his hour of need, he seeks solace in the arms of his merciless chief of security and enforcer. Together, they point fingers at the minority Tutsi tribes and their Banyamulenge kin, setting ablaze a fiery storm of genocidal fury towards their chosen sacrificial lambs. The chief of security's heart tangled with a woman linked to one of Mobutu's top rivals, making things more intricate. The security chief wants to knock off his rival, but that puts him between a rock and a hard place with the dictator's power grab. Love and jealousy are on a collision course with loyalty and self-interest, walking a tightrope with potentially catastrophic outcomes. The Secret of the African Dictator spills the beans, drawing inspiration from real-life happenings. **** Before fleeing Zaire for Togo, Mobutu Sese Seko began dictating a final letter to French President Jacques Chirac on May 11, 1997. It took him nine days to finish the message: "Please accept my heartfelt greetings to you and your wife." I do so out of gratitude for our long friendship. Given the gravity of the situation, the situation is painful for me today. First, at my current level of power, I have no control over the population. At the military level, there is no stopping the rebel advance on Kinshasa, which they can reach at any time. Let me remind you that I am in the midst of an unjust war. I am the latest Cold War victim, no longer required by the United States. Today, the United States, Uganda, and Rwanda are using the gang leader Laurence Kabila to stab me in the back, taking advantage of my illness. Not long ago, the United States shared my bed. Trusting them turned out to be my graveyard. Let it be noted before the people of the world that fairness, fairness, is all I ever asked for. I reserve the right to have my memoirs published. Then the entire world will know the real truth and how much fairness I was denied.” .... An international political tale, The Secret of the African Dictator, explores the lives of people in several countries struggling to survive webs of crumbling castles and intrigues as they entangle themselves in their own limitations, histories, yearnings, and what friends and foes have in store for them. Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you liked this book, it would mean a lot if you could take a moment to leave an honest review on your favorite online store. Thanks so much!




The Secret of the African Dictator


Book Description

Based in part on actual events. The United States falls head over heels in love with Mobutu Sese Seko and lavishes him with millions of dollars. He finds happiness in his "defining relationship," until the Soviet Union fades into history and Washington's affection fades to indifference, then abandonment. Washington dumps Mobutu, only to discover that he has a covert survival strategy that will harm the US. The Secret of the African Dictator is a global political thriller that follows the State Department's internal racism as well as the lives of people from various countries as they struggle to survive webs of crumbling castles and intrigues, becoming entangled in their own limitations, history, and yearnings, as well as what friends and foes have in store for them. Before fleeing Zaire for Togo, Mobutu Sese Seko began dictating a final letter to French President Jacques Chirac on May 11, 1997. It took him nine days to finish the message: "Please accept my heartfelt greetings to you and your wife." I do so out of gratitude for our long friendship. Given the gravity of the situation, the situation is painful for me today. First, at my current level of power, I have no control over the population. At the military level, there is no stopping the rebel advance on Kinshasa, which they can reach at any time. Let me remind you that I am in the midst of an unjust war. I am the latest Cold War victim, no longer required by the United States. Today, the United States, Uganda, and Rwanda are using the gang leader Laurence Kabila to stab me in the back, taking advantage of my illness. Not long ago, the United States shared my bed. Trusting them turned out to be my graveyard. Let it be noted before the people of the world that fairness, fairness, is all I ever asked for. I reserve the right to have my memoirs published. Then the entire world will know the real truth and how much fairness I was denied." Mobutu of Zaire gloried in Washington's affection. As long as the Soviet Union was interested in the Congolese nation, the dictator enjoyed complete American support. The USSR is no longer extant, having been lost to history. With the Soviet Bear no longer present, Washington's long-held affection shifts to rejection-and even outright abandonment. The threat of rebellion is close at hand for Mobutu. In desperation, he turns to his brutal security chief. Together, they blame the minority Tutsi tribes and their Banyamulenge kin, igniting a genocidal rage against their scapegoats. The chief of security's love for a woman involved with one of Mobutu's main challengers complicates matters. The security chief wants his rival dead, but doing so puts him in direct conflict with the dictator's plan to reclaim power. Love and jealousy are about to collide with loyalty and self-interest, potentially with disastrous consequences. The Secret of the African Dictator is based in part on actual events. It is a clever, twisting story of political intrigue and one African dictator's desperate, violent attempt to survive the end of the Cold War and Washington's rejection.




White Malice


Book Description

Accra, 1958. Africa’s liberation leaders have gathered for a conference, full of strength, purpose and vision. Newly independent Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Congo’s Patrice Lumumba strike up a close partnership. Everything seems possible. But, within a few years, both men will have been targeted by the CIA, and their dream of true African autonomy undermined. The United States, watching the Europeans withdraw from Africa, was determined to take control. Pan-Africanism was inspiring African Americans fighting for civil rights; the threat of Soviet influence over new African governments loomed; and the idea of an atomic reactor in black hands was unacceptable. The conclusion was simple: the US had to ‘recapture’ Africa, in the shadows, by any means necessary. Renowned historian Susan Williams dives into the archives, revealing new, shocking details of America’s covert programme in Africa. The CIA crawled over the continent, poisoning the hopes of 1958 with secret agents and informants; surreptitious UN lobbying; cultural infiltration and bribery; assassinations and coups. As the colonisers moved out, the Americans swept in—with bitter consequences that reverberate in Africa to this day




American Kleptocracy


Book Description

A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, Casey Michel's American Kleptocracy offers an explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known. "An indefatigable young American journalist who has virtually cornered the international kleptocracy beat on the US end of the black aquifer." —The Los Angeles Review of Books For years, one country has acted as the greatest offshore haven in the world, attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in illicit finance tied directly to corrupt regimes, extremist networks, and the worst the world has to offer. But it hasn’t been the sand-splattered Caribbean islands, or even traditional financial secrecy havens like Switzerland or Panama, that have come to dominate the offshoring world. Instead, the country profiting the most also happens to be the one that still claims to be the moral leader of the free world, and the one that claims to be leading the fight against the crooked and the corrupt: the USA. American Kleptocracy examines just how the United States’ implosion into a center of global offshoring took place: how states like Delaware and Nevada perfected the art of the anonymous shell company, and how post-9/11 reformers watched their success usher in a new flood of illicit finance directly into the U.S.; how African despots and post-Soviet oligarchs came to dominate American coastlines, American industries, and entire cities and small towns across the American Midwest; how Nazi-era lobbyists birthed an entire industry of spin-men whitewashing trans-national crooks and despots, and how dirty money has now begun infiltrating America's universities and think tanks and cultural centers; and how those on the front-line are trying to restore America's legacy of anti-corruption leadership—and finally end this reign of American kleptocracy.




The Ages of the Black Panther


Book Description

Black Panther was the first black superhero in mainstream comic books, and his most iconic adventures are analyzed here. This collection of new essays explores Black Panther's place in the Marvel universe, focusing on the comic books. With topics ranging from the impact apartheid and the Black Panther Party had on the comic to theories of gender and animist imagery, these essays analyze individual storylines and situate them within the socio-cultural framework of the time periods in which they were created, drawing connections that deepen understanding of both popular culture and the movements of society. Supporting characters such as Everett K. Ross and T'Challa's sister Shuri are also considered. From his creation in 1966 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee up through the character's recent adventures by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, more than fifty years of the Black Panther's history are addressed.




Long Walk to Freedom


Book Description

"Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand history – and then go out and change it." –President Barack Obama Nelson Mandela was one of the great moral and political leaders of his time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. After his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela was at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is still revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality. Long Walk to Freedom is his moving and exhilarating autobiography, destined to take its place among the finest memoirs of history's greatest figures. Here for the first time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela told the extraordinary story of his life -- an epic of struggle, setback, renewed hope, and ultimate triumph. The book that inspired the major motion picture Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.




African Literatures in English


Book Description

Here is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.







The Great Escape That Changed Africa's Future


Book Description

This is the story of the dramatic clandestine escape, in June of 1961, of sixty African students from Portugal across Spain and into France. Most were Angolan intellectuals. Some were from Mozambique and others from Guinea-Bissau, the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé-and-Principe. Soon after the first anti-colonial armed rebellions broke out in Angola (March 1961), the student community in Portugal suffered increasing harassment by the Portuguese political police. Passports were confiscated and some arrests of suspected student leaders occurred. Many students - men and women - decided to flee Portugal illegally. It was risky business. False passports from friendly African countries had to be found, contacts set up for night border crossings into Franco's Spain, and then overland transportation to France. Some of the students, graduates of North American and British missionary schools in Africa, appealed to the World Council of Churches in Geneva to help them escape. The challenge was accepted by the French Protestant service agency CIMADE. The successful operation makes for exciting reading. This updated edition includes recollections of African heads of government who participated in the Great Escape.