Suffering masses in poorly-run countries may not be aware that what they call governments are actually organised crime syndicates. The Free Dictionary defines a crime syndicate “as a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organised criminal activities”. These coalitions of gangsters masquerade as governments in order to loot the countries’ resources.
Kamurai Mudzingwa
Such criminals embark on organised crime. The Wikipedia defines organised crime as “a category of transnational, national or local groupings of highly centralised enterprises run by criminals and dominant minority who intend to engage in illegal activities most commonly for money or profit”. Being in government offers the opportunity to use organised crime methods to conduct their illegal activities using power derived from institutions such as the military, the police, the judiciary and Parliament among others, that they control.
By masquerading as governments, these crime syndicates embark on what is known as “Mafiocracy” where political, social, and economic institutions are controlled by a few families and business oligarchs. It is not surprising that in these crime syndicates that hoodwink people to think that they are governments, power is invested in families and clansmen and women. The leaders of such syndicates love creating dynasties.
Typical of crime gangs, these syndicates do not hesitate to use violence to suppress those who want to expose them or those who fail to toe the line. Thus, to achieve this they personalise security institutions to work for their cause. They also recruit local thugs to deal with dissent in local communities and to be their watchdogs. If there is a threat to their profiteering, these syndicates can go to great lengths that may involve genocide. If the threat comes from some of their members, they use elimination methods that include assassinations. There can be mysterious accidents, mysterious fires, mysterious suicides and mysterious poisonings that result in fatalities for those targeted, just as we see in gangster movies. The punishment for the targeted may not result in death but in imprisonment and asset stripping.
The syndicates do not follow the good governance principles of separation of powers. The judiciary, the executive and parliament all become part of the syndicate and no-one from the outside will ever be appointed to run those institutions. People can’t turn to the justice system for redress; their “representatives” in parliament craft or pass policies and legislation against them and the judiciary systems work in favour of the syndicates. Security arms of these fake governments concentrate not on state security but on sniffing out and punishing anyone suspected of trying to thwart or expose the syndicates’ profiteering. There is literally nowhere to run when one is targeted.
What the masses see on the surface are things like corruption, increasing poverty, increasing unemployment, increasing repression etc. juxtaposed with the syndicate members’ increasingly lavish lifestyles, arrogance and contemptuous attitudes.
The syndicates may also want a veneer of legitimacy and they may do this by declaring a one party state claiming that it is the people’s choice to have that state of affairs. They may conduct sham elections where they force people to vote for them or they may simply rig the elections. Individuals from the syndicate also try to appear genuine through money laundering. The Online Dictionary defines money laundering as the generic term used to describe the process by which criminals disguise the original ownership and control of the proceeds of criminal conduct by making such proceeds appear to have derived from a legitimate source. So these criminals will have “legitimate” businesses to front their illegal criminal activities to give the illusion that their vast wealth comes from such legitimate businesses.
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Syndicates protect their members unless the members are targeted for elimination or punishment. They hardly cause members’ arrests for corruption, abuse of office, rent seeking or bribe seeking. They may target small fish here and there to cover up for the big fish.
Like all crime gangs, such syndicates breed fear and not respect from citizens. And it is fallacious to assume that such criminals will ever repent for the benefit of society. They remain what they are — hardcore criminals bent on profiteering.
