23 February 2017

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Populism and the police.

by Neil Tidmarsh

Much has been written and said about populism recently, but one of its most interesting and important aspects has provoked little comment so far – the fact that, under a populist leader, a country’s police force often ends up going to the dogs.

Why should this happen?  Well, if I was a populist leader, I wouldn’t hesitate to play the “will of the people” card to trump my opponents whenever they played the “rule of law” card to keep me in line (and I’d accompany it with howls of outrage similar to those recently heard issuing from the White House and from this country’s populist press).  But with the judiciary out to frustrate me, what then?  Logically, I’d have to take law and order into my own hands – and I’d do that by cultivating the police force as the instrument and executor of my will (sorry, I mean, of course, the people’s will).  The only problem then is that the police will inevitably come to feel themselves above the law, and sooner or later they’ll be capable of anything.

It’s a theory.

Of course, nothing has happened in the USA to support it (but it will be interesting to test it against further developments there).  More significant was the news from South Africa this week that a fraud investigator conducting an inquiry with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (the country’s independent watchdog) into accusations against corruption among senior police officers has himself been arrested.  Former policeman Paul O’Sullivan, who has lived in South Africa for 30 years, was pursuing police chief Khomotso Phahlane when he found himself arrested and dragged into court to face charges of fraud, extortion and impersonation.  Lieutenant-General Phahlane accuses him of pursuing a vendetta against him, but Mr O’Sullivan is already well-known in South Africa for bringing down the big beasts – ten years ago, his work resulted in police commissioner and president of Interpol Jackie Selebi being found guilty of accepting bribes from a drug lord, and being given a fifteen year jail sentence.

Interestingly, Mr O’Sullivan thinks that time is running out for corrupt elements in the country’s populist ANC government; he claims that the corruption which began with President Thabo Mbeki has peaked under President Zuma and will be bought to justice and eradicated once Zuma, and perhaps even the ANC itself, begin to lose their populist appeal, something which their defeats in recent local elections suggest is already happening.

Even more significant, however, is this week’s news from the Philippines. (President Duterte has been mysteriously absent from the media’s recent discussion of populism and populist leaders, but surely Duterte Harry is the Big Daddy of them all?)

A second witness has claimed that President Duterte personally authorised and organised extra-judicial killings while mayor of Davao.  The witness, Arthur Lascañas, is a former police officer who confessed that he played a leading part in the death squad, which killed as many as 1400 people, according to human rights groups.  At a press conference in the Senate in Manila, he gave details about the killings of suspected kidnappers, drug dealers and journalists, and accused the President of ordering them.

This testimony must be a problem for Duterte; 7000 people have been killed (2000 of them during official police operations) since he became President and declared a war on drugs.  But, believe it or not, it isn’t his biggest problem; that is the fact that he can’t even rely on the police any more to do his will in that war.  Having been placed above the law, it seems that they are now only too willing to take the law into their own hands for their own gains.  Earlier this month Duterte announced that the police were “corrupt to the core” and out of control, and that he would have to suspend the war on drugs until the force had been purged of the rogue self-seeking elements who have apparently been indulging in bribery, blackmail, coercion and kidnapping for personal profit.  The discovery of the body of a South Korean businessman in the grounds of police headquarters at Camp Crame – he had been kidnapped and murdered by rogue police officers – was the last straw.

But hang on a moment, you say.  President Duterte might be the world’s most blatant populist, but he isn’t the world’s most powerful populist.  That honour must go to President Putin, surely.  So, if your theory is to hold water, where are the reports that elements in the Russian police are indulging in some really extreme behaviour?

Which brings me to my final story from the news this week.

The trial of Arsen Bairambekov, who was a policeman in Dagestan, southern Russia, began this week.  He is accused of the illegal circulation of firearms and of the contract killings of two businessmen.  Oh, and of the creation of zombie slaves through occult ritual murder.

Eight years ago, the interior ministry announced that Satanism was a greater threat to Russia than Islamist extremism; six years ago, police in the central Russian city of Saransk claimed that a cult of devil-worshippers was infiltrating the police force.  Mr Bairambekov is facing allegations of luring homeless people into a forest in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, almost one thousand miles east of Moscow, at night, with the promise of alcohol, and then murdering them on a stone altar, by firelight.  He allegedly buried the bodies but dug them up later, to perform further rituals which he believed would endow him with supernatural powers.  The prosecution says that he tried to bring them back to life as zombie slaves.

Now, whatever could be the connection between zombies and populism?

 

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