Parliamentary head Dioncounda Traore is sworn in as interim president at a ceremony in Bamako, Mali, Thursday. (Harouna Traore/AP)
Mali gets interim president. What's on his agenda?
• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, www.sahelblog.wordpress.com. The views expressed are the author's own.
Today, former president of the national assembly and one-time (and future?) presidential candidate Dioncounda Traore will be sworn in as president of Mali’s interim civilian government. This marks the official end of a military coup that took place on March 22, although many administrative details – namely who controls what and how – remain to be worked out. Before the coup, Mali had scheduled elections for this month. One of Mr. Traore’s main tasks is to organize new elections. He has been given forty days to do so.
Traore takes the reins of a country facing many interlocking problems. In addition to the challenge of post-coup reorganization, there is the separatist war in the north, where a proliferation of rival armed groups is making the situation murkier by the day. Then there are overlapping humanitarian issues, especially refugee flows and food insecurity.
Much coverage of the transition is focusing on Traore’s biography and how he is perceived as an individual by Malians. This is appropriate and relevant, but attention to his character should not obscure the structural challenges inherent in his position. Anyone stepping into this post now would struggle to fulfill the almost impossible expectations connected with it, especially the goal of organizing elections in less than six weeks.
France24 writes that holding the elections on that timeline is “a mission most experts believe is almost impossible.” I would qualify that by saying that the 40-day window gives a choice: either the interim government holds a severely flawed election that fails to include a number of areas in the country (potentially including, given the short timeline, some rural areas in southern Mali) or the government fails to meet the deadline. Either outcome looks bad. If, alternatively, the “forty days” refers to setting a date further in the future and laying out a plan to reach that goal, there is more hope for a credible election taking place.
Analysts also doubt the chances of any swift resolution to the war in northern Mali. This does not mean that the newly declared state of “Azawad” will achieve international recognition, but it does suggest that the capital will not regain control in the medium term, allowing the fragmentation and power struggles in the north to continue.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which played a key role in forcing the coup leaders in southern Mali to return official power to civilians, meets today in Abidjan to discuss the crisis in northern Mali. There has been much talk of ECOWAS intervening militarily in northern Mali, but such an intervention would be fraught with complexities – from where would the troops come? where would they enter Mali? how long would they stay? what would their precise mission be? These complexities cast doubt on whether ECOWAS will actually intervene, though it remains within the realm of possibility.
Assuming no intervention takes place, though, or at least not within the short term, Traore’s forty days may expire with Mali’s core problems unsolved. That in turn raises serious questions about public perceptions of leaders – by the summer, Malians will have seen no less than three governments in 2012 attempt to deal with the rebels and reorganize national politics, and stumble. The fourth government, the product of the upcoming elections, could therefore enter office in an atmosphere of even greater nervousness in the south and abroad regarding the ability of anyone in the capital to control the country. The current transition, intended as a measure to restore stability, could itself become a further source of instability if it goes poorly.
– Alex Thurston is a PhD student studying Islam in Africa at Northwestern University and blogs at Sahel Blog.
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In this January file photo, a child walks away carrying a bowl of food after receiving it at a food distribution center, in the Hodan area of Mogadishu, Somalia. (Ben Curtis/AP/File)
Famine relief in Somalia: a view from Mogadishu
The Famine Early Warning Network warned last week that the current rainy season in the eastern Horn of Africa will not be adequate to prevent food insecurity in the region still recovering for last year’s devastating famine. Learning lessons from what did and did not work in the 2011 famine relief efforts in Somalia is thus a matter of urgent and immediate concern. A new field dispatch by the Enough Project illustrates how, on the most local level, deficiencies of the relief effort played out, based on research conducted in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
Communities across Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya suffered severely from the 2011 drought and famine; tens of thousands of people died. Somalia was the epicenter of this human tragedy, largely because conflict and the severe policies of the militant group al-Shabaab undercut the traditional coping strategies Somalis use to deal with extreme weather and also cut off these vulnerable communities from humanitarian aid.
The relief effort in Mogadishu suffered from lack of access and ongoing insecurity, but unlike in most other parts of the country, Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, or TFG, had unparalleled control there. And yet the city was mired in some of the most acute suffering, and famine was persistent, even as the United Nations rolled back the famine classification for other Somali regions.
Through interviews conducted primarily in settlements of displaced people who fled to Mogadishu from the surrounding regions at the height of the famine, Enough found:
"[I]nsecurity, inadequate oversight for distribution of humanitarian assistance, and wholesale criminality combined to create a situation where beneficiaries often didn’t see the relief intended for them, security services involved in distribution committed abuses with impunity, and aid flowed instead into the pockets of corrupt Somali officials—all issues that primarily fall to the TFG to address."
The field dispatch, “Somalia Famine Relief: A View from Mogadishu,” presents individual testimonies from displaced people, highlights some important details about the scope of the suffering in Mogadishu, and features the Somali prime minister’s startling denial of famine in the city, just a day before the UN announced a massive new appeal for funds.
“Recent attention to Somalia generated by the high-level conference in London in February and by the reported successes of joint military operations targeting al-Shabaab leaves the impression that important changes are afoot. There are,” the field dispatch states. “But without some dramatic changes in the way the country is governed and humanitarian issues are handled, Somalia remains prone to the next iteration of al-Shabaab, coming in to fill the void, and donors’ contributions to assist Somalis most in need continue to risk falling into the hands of those who benefit from Somalia’s chaos.”
– Laura Heaton blogs for the Enough Project at Enough Said.
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Attempted rebellion in Congo curtailed by specially trained troops
• A version of this post appeared on the blog "Congo Siasa." The views expressed are the author's own.
As President Kabila arrived in Goma yesterday, it appears that [military commander, Bosco Ntaganda] may have misplayed his hand. After asking troops loyal to him to defect from the Army and to reinforce his personal guard last week, Bosco himself is reported to have to flee Goma on Friday night as Kinshasa deployed a battalion of Belgian-trained special forces in town.
Most reports place Bosco in central Masisi at the moment, between Kilolirwe and Mushaki.
At the same time, Col. Innocent Kaina (aka India Queen), a close Bosco ally, briefly took control of the border town of Bunagana (located close to the junction of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda) on Sunday before being pushed out by Congolese troops under the command of Col. Philemon Yav. Kaina was reportedly forced to flee to Uganda.
Tellingly, Yav was collaborating with Capt. Kennedy, formerly one of Bosco's closest supporters. As Kinshasa spends considerable efforts – and, allegedly, money – on rallying Bosco loyalists to its side, others have defected, as well, including Col. Ndayisaba in Rutshuru. Col. Innocent Zimurinda, who commands troops in Bosco's heartland of Masisi, is reported to be "stuck" in Goma with a small bodyguard.
The situation, however, is still volatile, with a considerable number of de facto defectors outside of government control in South and North Kivu. But Bosco's strategy of grandstanding in order to prevent his arrest seems to have backfired for now.
– Jason Stearns is the author of the book, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, and the blog,Congo Siasa.
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New censorship strategy in Sudan
• A version of this post ran on the Committee to Protect Journalists blog. The views expressed are the author's own.
Sudanese authorities have a long history of closing newspapers and silencing journalists. But the government security agents who carry out official censorship have launched a new strategy this year that focuses on economic impoverishment--leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.
Agents of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) now raid printing presses and confiscate newspapers on grounds that publications are covering topics barred by the NISS. The agency's red lines are numerous, changeable, and ungoverned by law or judicial order. The NISS demands, for example, that newspapers abstain from covering the International Criminal Court, government corruption, human rights violations, Darfur, the war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, armed movements, and many other subjects.
In the past, the NISS would censor publications in advance by dispatching agents to newsrooms. Officers would read the newspaper in full and order articles be taken out and replaced. In many cases, they would reject the replacement articles too, and halt the printing of the newspaper entirely. The officers would oblige editors to sign a pledge not to publish the censored articles elsewhere, notably online.
The new goal: Censor newspapers and force them to incur heavy financial losses. Agents, for example, have confiscated copies of the newspaper Al-Maidan on several occasions, among them February 21, and March 13, 15, 17 and 18. The newspaper said it lost thousands in revenue each time the printed copies were confiscated. Al-Maidan Editor-in-Chief Madiha Abdullah said the newspaper pays for printing in advance with the expectation it will cover the expense through sales. But copies on these five dates never made it to newsstands and were instead hoarded at security offices.
On February 20, copies of Al-Ahdath and Al-Tayar were confiscated at their respective printing presses. Both publications incurred significant losses. On March 27 and 29, the NISS confiscated Al-Jarida copies at the printing press after the publication refused to suspend journalist Zuhair al-Siraj. In a statement, the management of the newspaper said it had received a phone call from the NISS conveying the agency's wishes regarding al-Siraj, who had criticized the Sudanese government in an article. When Al-Jarida management requested the NISS put its wishes in writing, the agency refused.
The agency has taken direct action as well. On February 22, the NISS director general suspended publication of Al-Tayar indefinitely. A writer from Al-Tayar was arrested the same day. The newspaper resumed publication only after it had accepted NISS conditions.
It's worth noting that the president of the National Council for Press and Publications, the government body officially charged with overseeing newspapers, said in an interview with a local news outlet that the NISS exercises full control over the press. Even his agency is powerless due to NISS encroachment.
This all comes at a time when government officials feel free to accuse journalists of treason and espionage, with pro-regime newspapers amplifying the accusations. With such attacks taking place and with security agents controlling what can be published, independent journalism in Sudan remains in great peril.
– Abdelgadir Mohammed Abdelgadir is a Sudanese freelance journalist and press freedom advocate based in Khartoum. He recently authored a book on press freedom in Sudan called, “Walls of Silence: Systematic Practices to Repress Press Freedoms, Freedom of Opinion and Expression in Sudan.”
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Weapons seized from the Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group, last month. (Salisu Rabiu/AP)
How to respond to Boko Haram’s evolving threat to Nigeria
• A version of this post appeared on the blog "Africa Works." The views expressed are the author's own.
J. Peter Pham released a timely paper this week on Boko Haram, tracing the history of the insurgent Nigerian movement in useful detail. Pham, who directs an Africa studies program at the Atlantic Council, concludes that the Nigerian government should “deal forthrightly with the threat” of violent Islamic extremism.
Pham is right. At the very least, Nigeria should, and the US government should help. The question is how. What objectives should the Nigerian government have in addressing Boko Haram? Pham offers few clues on specific policy options open to a Nigerian government that, to put it politely, has badly handled the Islamicist threat over the past decade. Pham provides a few disturbing reasons why. First, elements in the Nigerian state may be covertly helping Boko Haram, which of course would make reducing acts of terror sponsored and carried out by the group more difficult. And Pham cites the emergence of critical leaders of Boko Haram who possess non-Nigerian roots. He singles out Chadian-born Mamman Nur, who is believed to have trained with al-Shabab in Somalia and, according to Pham, returned to Nigeria in 2011 — in time to direct a deadly attack on a United Nations building in Abuja.
While Pham’s account is important, policymakers still lack a clearer sense of how Boko Haram fits into the longstanding regional differences in Nigeria, especially between the Muslim North and the largely Christian “South South,” the Delta region, home to Goodluck Jonathan’s Ijo people and the larger Igbo grouping that my wife, Chizo, claims allegiance to. Boko Haram as a movement may ultimately be shown to be a foreign import, a formation alien to the political culture of Nigeria. Such is the suggestion by Pham and others, motivated in part by the need to find a justification for “internationalizing” the problem (i.e., calling on the U.S., the African Union and others to help reduce and, ultimately, end terrorism in Nigeria).
Nigeria does need outside help in responding to Boko Haram. But we can support security aid to Nigeria without working overtime to create imagined enemies of the Nigerian state. But what is equally possible, and probably more disturbing than anything Pham identifies, is that Boko Haram may represent a destructive and dysfunctional, but authentic, movement of resistance, homegrown in Nigeria, and fueled by 50 years of festering, simmering and ultimately unaddressed regional differences, which are made more complicated because these regional differences often masquerade as religious ones.
G. Pascal Zachary is a professor of practice at Arizona State University, in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism who blogs at Africa Works.
Congo's Bosco, wanted by the ICC, launching rebellion
• A version of this post appeared on the blog "Congo Siasa." The views expressed are the author's own.
The situation in the Kivus remains tense as the personal future of one military commander, Bosco Ntaganda, has escalated latent tensions within the poorly integrated Congolese army.
The stand-off appears to have begun last week, with Bosco Ntaganda publishing a memorandum and mobilizing civilian members of the local Tutsi community in Goma to meet with the United Nations, the Rwandan government. They also read a statement condemning Bosco's indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on various local radio stations. All of this, in turn, appears to have been triggered by sabre-rattling by the ICC and donors regarding Bosco, as well as by the departure of five ex-National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) officers to a seminar in Kinshasa.
Bosco felt under pressure and took the offensive, telling Col. Felix Mugabo, the deputy commander (and his former chief bodyguard) of the 804th regiment based just to the north of Goma to reinforce his protection unit in Goma, and to send the rest of his troops further north to Katale. At the same time, ex-CNDP troops far to the west in the forests of Pinga withdrew to the highlands of Masisi, consolidating their strong position in ex-CNDP heartland.
This escalation in turn seems to have triggered a strong reaction from Kinshasa, although more so in South Kivu than around Goma. On Sunday, Congolese army troops confronted several ex-PARECO (a former majority Hutu armed group that integrated at the same time as the CNDP in 2009) commanders who are suspected to be close to Bosco. While circumstances are still murky, Congolese army troops appear to have attacked Col. Burimasu in Lulimba (Fizi territory) and Col. Kifaru in Kabamba (Kalehe). There are reports that Col. Saddam and Col. Bernard Byamungu, who are also suspected to be close to Bosco, were attacked around Uvira yesterday and fled.
Other defections (as comments in the previous post suggest) have taken place from ex-CNDP units in Baraka and Uvira.
In Kinshasa, some security officials appear to be chomping at the bit and feel that "enough is enough." Today, part of a battalion of special forces arrived in Goma from their training camp in Kindu (where the Belgian army had been training them). No one suggests, however, that Bosco is to be arrested, and the army spokesman in the East keep insisting that the troubles are over. The commander of the land force, Gen. Amisi, has been on a tour of the East, but it is unclear whether he is there to escalate or defuse tensions.
The ex-CNDP and ex-PARECO, for their part, insist this has nothing to do with Bosco, but rather with salaries and ranks - they say they are marginalized in the army, an allegation many other officers scoff at, given the prominence of these Rwandophone officers in the current operations.
That is unlikely at the moment. When I spoke with a Congolese colonel in Goma [Wednesday] afternoon he was worried that Bosco's troops in Masisi could attack Goma or Sake "to make a point." In any case, Bosco does not seem to control many of the ex-CNDP commanders, especially those like Col. Gahizi and Col. Kabundi who went to the Kinshasa seminar, and would be unlikely to succeed in a full-fledged rebellion. At the same time, he has been able to stitch together a formidable, if shaky, alliance of ex-PARECO and ex-CNDP commanders through co-option and intimidation over the past years, and he personally has a lot to lose.
– Jason Stearns is the author of the book, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, and the blog,Congo Siasa.
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Ambulances stand outside the Somali National Theater in Mogadishu, Somalia, April 4. An explosion Wednesday at a ceremony at Somalia's national theater killed at least 10 people including two top sports officials in an attack by an Islamist group on a site that symbolized the city's attempt to rise from two decades of war. (Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP)
Bombers coopt the 'symbol' of Mogadishu's National Theater
• A version of this post ran on the author's blog, www.sahelblog.wordpress.com. The views expressed are the author's own.
Maybe Mogadishu is in the early stages of a renaissance. Maybe Somalia is still a very dangerous and unpredictable place, whose would-be government is still a mess mostly propped up by regional and international powers. Maybe both. The point about the theater is, though, that if you – as a government or a news outlet – want to use a symbol in making your political argument, then others might decide to use that same symbol in making their (very different) political argument.
Here is a roundup of references to the theater in the weeks leading up to yesterday's attack:
Tuesday, March 20 (Reuters):
In the roofless, bullet-ridden building that houses Mogadishu’s National Theatre, Somali musicians staged a concert for the first time in 20 years, a sign of a marked improvement in security in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country.
Under pressure from African Union and Somali troops, al Qaeda-linked militants withdrew from Mogadishu in August prompting a return to relative calm in the capital, although the rebels still manage to launch sporadic attacks.
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Wednesday, April 4 (New York Times):
Outside, on Mogadishu’s streets, the thwat-thwat-thwat hammering sound that rings out in the mornings is not the clatter of machine guns but the sound of actual hammers. Construction is going on everywhere — new hospitals, new homes, new shops, a six-story hotel and even sports bars (albeit serving cappuccino and fruit juice instead of beer). Painters are painting again, and Somali singers just held their first concert in more than two decades at the National Theater, which used to be a weapons depot and then a national toilet. Up next: a televised, countrywide talent show, essentially “Somali Idol.”
Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, which had been reduced to rubble during 21 years of civil war, becoming a byword for anarchy, is making a remarkable comeback.
Wednesday, April 4 (AP):
Two weeks ago, Somalia’s National Theater reopened for the first time in 20 years for a concert that drew an audience in festive colors in a city trying to rise above war. A welcoming banner proclaimed: “The country is being rebuilt.”
On Wednesday, the theater was turned into a scene of screams, chaos and blood when a suicide bomber attacked another high-profile event, killing 10 people, wounding dozens and shattering a tentative peace in the capital of Mogadishu.
Only fifteen days elapsed between the re-opening and the bombing [of the National Theater]. What does the theater symbolize now? The fragility of the Somali government’s claims to progress, I would say.
– Alex Thurston is a PhD student studying Islam in Africa at Northwestern University and blogs at Sahel Blog.
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Africa Rising: China steps up production in Ethiopia with drill instructors, investors
On arrival at Ethiopia's Eastern Industry Zone, 36 young African factory workers in red track suits are parading military-style in the car park.
"Welcome to Huajian," they bellow in harmony under the mid-morning sun as they march to the orders of a Chinese drill instructor.
Welcome, indeed, to the world of Huajian Group, a manufacturer of productive, disciplined workers – and shoes.
"They do this in the morning," Vice President Helen Hai, herself a recent recruit, explains about the exercise. "This is how we train to have a military mind set."
Huajian is one of the latest Chinese companies to move into Ethiopia. While the government has long leaned on Western support to feed the needy and provide social services, it is increasingly attracting Asian finance and investment for industry and infrastructure.
"China's presence in Ethiopia is filling a huge gap," says Deborah Brautigam, an expert on the Asian giant's presence on the continent at American University. "The West sees Ethiopia as a country that needs to be saved. The Chinese see multiple business opportunities and a way to 'do well by doing good.' "
But while international actors from China to the World Bank see significant potential for Ethiopia to grow as a manufacturing hub, logistical challenges such as unwieldy customs procedures and costly transportation are preventing the country from realizing its potential.
100,000 workers making $4 billion worth of shoes, clothes
Meles Zenawi, a former Marxist rebel and Ethiopia's leader for more than two decades, has long had practice soothing Western diplomats alarmed at a worsening trend of political repression. Now he's proving to be adept at wooing investors as well.
Before Prime Minister Meles headhunted Huajian on a September trip, "We had never thought about Ethiopia," says Hai. Just over three months later, the first pair of shoes from Huajian International Shoe City Plc in Dukem town was boxed and on its way to the US.
Back in China's Guangdong Province, the company produces 20 million pairs of footwear annually from operations that resemble small towns. Huajian Ethiopia plans to relocate to its own industrial zone on the fringes of the capital, Addis Ababa, where it hopes that more than 100,000 workers will be employed producing $4 billion worth of shoes and clothes for export after a decade.
After 15 years, the master plan is for it all to be Ethiopia-run, says Hai. "We want to build a system for Africa to produce [goods] themselves," she says. "That's better than giving them [goods]."
Ethiopia: good potential, but 30 years behind China
Ethiopia's exports totaled just $2.8 billion last year, with coffee making up almost a third of that figure. Imports cost $4.5 billion more than the value of goods sold abroad over the past seven months, local newspaper Capital reported last month. The government hopes that new revenue streams from mining and electricity sales will soon help balance the economy of the landlocked country.
The World Bank's Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin believes that Ethiopia also has the potential for light manufacturing in clothes, leather, metal, wood, and agribusiness, given the low-set up costs and abundance of cheap labor and raw materials such as livestock and land.
"I am sure a low-income country like Ethiopia can also start the industrialization process" if it reduces the cost of doing business, he said at the bank's launch of a book titled "Light Manufacturing in Africa."
Despite wages being half those of Vietnam and a fifth of China's, logistics in Ethiopia are preventing a manufacturing take-off. "Currently it's not competitive because of the cost of production," Lin says.
Hai agrees. The attraction is not the policies, but the government's desire to attract investors, its duty-free access to US and European markets, local leather production, and low wages, explains Hai, who was previously chief actuary in China for Zurich Financial Services Ltd.
It takes up to 60 days from Huajian's receipt of an order to deliver it to the US from China; from Ethiopia it takes more than 100 days. A single-lane road to the nearest port at Djibouti needs improving, customs officials need training, the trucking industry needs to be liberalized, and duties waived for materials imported for export industries, Hai says.
"If the government doesn't do this, Ethiopia can't become a large manufacturer because in today's world you have to make it competitive," she states. "China made that decision 30 years ago."
Ethiopian officials sometimes seem reluctant to accept outside advice, however.
At the World Bank book launch, State Minister of Industry Tadesse Haile took issue with a recommendation to remove taxes on imports of raw materials for leather processing, signaling the prevalence of protectionist attitudes. The inputs "are all produced locally," he explained.
In another example, Ethiopian financial consultants Access Capital recently suggested partially privatizing state-owned behemoths such as Ethiopian Airlines and Ethio Telecom to raise money for ambitious infrastructure projects like railways and dams. But chief government spokesman Bereket Simon dismissed the idea of loosening the state's grip on the economy's "commanding heights."
Chinese-funded infrastructure mitigates risk
One area the government is making great strides in is transport infrastructure. A six-lane highway from the capital to Adama – en route to the neighboring Red Sea country of Djibouti – may be finished next year, and Chinese companies are building a new rail link to the Red Sea port.
Half of the $612 million highway that helps link land-locked Ethiopia to key global shipping lanes was paid for by China in the form of a preferential export buyer's credit. And subsidies from China's economic cooperation fund are helping a private Chinese company build and run the Eastern Industry Zone where Huajian set up shop.
Chinese assistance is also helping to end a patchy power supply that blights Ethiopia's factories. In 2010, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China provided a $459 million loan for the Gibe III hydropower project, primarily for the Dongfang Electric Corporation to construct the electro-mechanical section. Although harshly criticized by environmental groups for its downstream impact on pastoral communities, the half-completed dam will more than double Ethiopia's electricity generating capacity.
"China's expanded presence certainly helped," lure Huajian to Ethiopia, says Prof. Brautigam. "Chinese-financed infrastructure – a six-lane toll road, telecoms projects, power plants – is shrinking the high costs of production in Ethiopia. This helps reinforce Ethiopia's claims that it is a good location for Chinese companies to do business."
But while it awaits these improvements, for now, Huajian relies on the personal assistance of senior officials, such as Tadesse, to get things moving and limit the risks of costly bureaucratic delays and logistical challenges.
"I was in the state minister's office almost every day pushing him," on completing the deal for the new Ethio-China Light Manufacturing Industrial Special Economic Zone, Hai says. Top officials are supportive and work "really hard," according to her. "I appreciate them very much."
The World Bank's private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation, and the China-Africa Development Fund, have both expressed an interest in investing in the zone – although Hai is keen to stress that so far Huajian has not received any money from the Chinese government.
'Punctuality is integrity'
Ethiopia's leadership is "development-oriented, but not terribly democratic," says Brautigam, adding that it is much like China's in the late 1970s. Currently, Meles's government is more interested in directive authority than unleashing the creative potential of a rapidly growing population of more than 80 million people. The fondness for Huajian's rigorous approach makes sense.
Slogans such as "Absolute Concentration" and "Punctuality is Integrity" bear down from banners on the factory's 500 Ethiopian and Chinese workers stitching and cutting away. One worker is assigned to salute each entering and exiting visitor.
"If they can't discipline themselves, how can they make the perfect shoes for others?" asks the steely yet impeccably polite Hai.
One employee with a grasp of Hai's concept of the "industrial culture" is 21-year-old biology graduate Mastewal Tsegaye, who had been selected to go to China for some Huajian training. "We read and accept the messages" above the production lines, she says. Ethiopia needs factories like Huajian's for its "development future" and Mastewal wants to make the company "more professional and competitive."
And marching up and down in the tropical heat as you're getting shouted at for an hour a day by a foreigner? "It's good exercise," she obediently replies.
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Supporters of Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi hurl stones at Congolese riot police outside their candidate's headquarters in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. (Jerome Delay/AP/File)
UN report on Congo election violence could spur accountability
• A version of this post appeared on the blog "Enough Said." The views expressed are the author's own.
Last November’s controversial Congolese presidential and legislative elections continue to make headlines, further diminishing a sense of legitimacy or credibility in the Congolese electoral process. Last week, the UN released a report documenting acts of serious human rights violations committed during the elections – including killings, disappearances, and arbitrary detentions – by members of the Congolese defense and security forces in the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.
The report, which is based on findings from a UN Joint Human Rights Office special investigation, documents election-related human rights violations that took place between Nov. 26, 2011, two days prior to the November 28 elections, and Dec. 25, 2011.
The report confirms that at least 33 people were killed in Kinshasa, including 22 by gunshot. It notes, however, “The number of deaths could be much higher as the team faced many difficulties in documenting the allegations of violations of the right to life that were reported.”
Furthermore, the report cites that at least 83 people were injured, including 61 by gunshot. At least 265 civilians were detained illegally or arbitrarily, many of whom, according to the report, were targeted due to their affiliation with the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) opposition party of Etienne Tshisekedi. At least 16 individuals remain unaccounted for.
"We have heard multiple accounts of Republican Guards shooting live ammunition into crowds and of the torture of arbitrarily detained individuals," said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. "The authorities must ensure that such grave violations of human rights are investigated, perpetrators brought to justice and that those who remain illegally detained are released without delay."
Colonel Kanyama, a commander with the National Congolese Police (PNC) in Kinshasa’s Lukunga district, known by locals as “death spirit,” was identified in concurring testimonies as a ring leader in the body removal process. According to the report, “[groups arrived in] a PNC vehicle from which officers fired tear gas; the vehicle was followed by a dilapidated vehicle from which marksmen in civilian clothes fired at demonstrators, and then a covered lorry with body collectors.”
These allegations of election violence are not new. In December, the attorney general of Congo and the general prosecutor of the Congolese army opened preliminary investigations, yet little progress has been made. By documenting particular human rights violations, the UN report serves as a foundation for accountability and urges Congolese authorities to follow-up with independent investigations to bring perpetrators to justice.
This path toward accountability, though, seems off to a rocky start. Congolese Justice Minister Luzolo Bambi Lessa called the UN report “lightweight and incoherent.” He claimed that the report is “selective and partisan (and) has chosen to forget or omit the serious acts carried out by armed protesters against the agents and installations of the police.”
The head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), Roger Meece, publicly thanked the Congolese government for opening an initial investigation as a first step toward fighting impunity and offered support to local authorities in efforts to identify and bring perpetrators to justice. Meece said:
Recent prosecutions and trials undertaken with MONUSCO’s support throughout the country have led to the arrest of a significant number of perpetrators of human rights violations. I welcome these recent developments and the positive cooperation between MONUSCO and the DRC military and civilian justice authorities.
Alluding to the seriousness of the human rights violations documented, the report calls for effective and prompt victim reparations. To prevent such violations in the future, it encourages Congolese authorities “to establish democratic institutions respectful of human rights.”
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To begin this process though, the Congolese government must address the underlying issues of oppression and impunity that laid the groundwork for such serious human rights violations. For the 33 dead, 16 missing, 83 injured, and 265 arbitrarily arrested, inaction is unacceptable. Perpetrators must be held accountable, and the Congolese government must make fair and transparent elections a top priority for the future.
The Congolese provincial elections, which have been delayed but could take place by the end of the year, provide an opportunity for the Congolese government, in partnership with regional and international partners, to restore integrity in the country’s electoral process. The Enough Project urged the Congolese National Electoral Commission, or CENI, to resign and reconvene with new members equitably representing the country’s different political parties, including representation from Congolese civil society. Furthermore, the international community should pressure Congolese leadership to ensure increased transparency and accountability in the political process, and demonstrate respect for the rights of its citizens to speak, gather, and organize without illegal or violent oppression.
– Tracy Fehr blogs for the Enough Project at Enough Said.
South Africa's report card on democracy gets worse
• A version of this post appeared on the blog "Freedom at Issue." The views expressed are the author's own.
After a smooth start in the early post-apartheid period, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is increasingly afflicted by contradictions between its idealistic principles and the baser behaviors of many of its officeholders. These behaviors currently include threats to institute tighter controls over the judiciary and the ANC’s civil society critics, especially the independent media. A discernable trend toward intolerance of judicial brakes on executive power, and also toward a general aversion to any criticism of executive policies and actions, raises troubling questions about the future of democratic governance in South Africa.
The South Africa chapter of Human Rights Watch’s 2012 World Report states that the country “continues to grapple with corruption, growing social and economic inequalities, and the weakening of state institutions by partisan appointments and one-party dominance.” The 2011 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance shows that although South Africa ranks fifth overall among African governments, its scores have consistently declined over the past five years, with a significant reduction in scores for rule of law, accountability, and participation. Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press report downgraded South Africa from Free to Partly Free status in 2010. With the recent passage in the National Assembly of a bill aimed at prohibiting public access to information about many decisions and acts of government officials, the downward trajectory appears set to continue. In South Africa and elsewhere, many people who were inspired by the liberation of the country from apartheid are asking with concern, “What’s happening?”
Unfortunately, nearly two decades after the end of apartheid, South Africans’ racial differences continue to define their politics. In terms of high political philosophy and statements directed to foreign audiences, the ANC represents itself as multiracial and committed to the “Rainbow Nation.” However, party leaders demand unwavering support from black South Africans, routinely reminding such voters who liberated them from white domination. Indeed, the sufferings of the liberators in apartheid-era jails and foreign refugee camps have been likened to the Crucifixion, and President Jacob Zuma is fond of saying that the ANC will govern “until Jesus comes.” The ANC’s sense of historical entitlement to perpetual rule, and acquiescence to this conceit by a majority of the 80 percent of South Africans who are black, keep the ANC in power and constitute major obstacles to the development of a mature South African democracy. With no real chance of losing power, elected and appointed officeholders too often ignore the obligations of public service and accountability. Regrettably, many ANC leaders seem to view the operation of get-rich-quick schemes for themselves and their allies as the key role of successful politicians.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition in the National Assembly and the only opposition party that can effectively challenge the ANC in at least a few provincial and local elections, enjoys majority support among South Africa’s nonblack minorities—the mixed-race “coloreds,” whites, and Indians. The DA serves an important purpose in exposing the ANC’s mistakes and crimes, but, absent the advent of genuine nonracialism in South African society, the DA’s 20 percent racial base of support offers scant promise that it might someday rule South Africa.
During the lengthy struggle for South Africa’s liberation, the ANC was supported by the Soviet Union, and many ANC leaders were educated in Soviet universities. The central position of the Communist Party in Soviet governance became a model for the ANC’s consolidation of power in South Africa. The supreme body in South African politics is the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which when fully constituted has 88 members, elected every five years by local ANC chapters. Starting with the first universal suffrage elections in 1994, direct election of local and provincial government officeholders and National Assembly members was replaced with a proportional rolls or party-list system that gives party leaders strong powers of promotion and control over elected officials. The rolls system has effectively made the members of the ANC NEC the real rulers of South Africa. As the ANC Youth League president told an audience of South African business leaders, “The South African government is only a subcommittee of the ANC.”
Entitlement has spawned arrogance among some ANC leaders who were once fighters for justice and human rights. When 79 members of the National Assembly were exposed in the media for cashing in airline tickets that had been purchased for official travel and pocketing the reimbursements from a travel agency, the ANC’s majority in the assembly allocated public funds to purchase the travel agency’s account ledgers and sequestered the evidence. This action blocked further public scrutiny and any chance that the culprits could be held accountable in a court of law. It is unfortunately only one example of the ANC’s accustomed practice of giving its wrongdoers official protection as long as they remain in good standing with the party leadership. A number of ANC leaders have been implicated in the misappropriation of government funds, and some have reportedly been involved in crimes including influence peddling, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and murder. Yet prosecutions are rare. When asked to estimate the number of corrupt officials now serving jail sentences, prominent attorney George Bizos replied, “Fewer than the number of my fingers.”
Meanwhile, national development and the delivery of services to citizens have lagged despite ANC leaders’ earnest campaign promises. Health and education systems have especially suffered from government neglect, and widespread dysfunction in local governments has prompted public demonstrations, which in some places have been countered with police violence. These problems have been compounded by the ANC’s policy of “deployment,” whereby the selection of candidates for government jobs at all levels is inordinately influenced by the candidates’ perceived loyalty to the ANC rather than by the possession of requisite professional qualifications.
With the National Assembly and most national, provincial, and local government bodies largely under ANC control, the Zuma government is presently targeting private media and the independent judiciary as elements that allegedly require increased executive supervision. It is worth noting that not long after the wife of the minister of state security (intelligence) was convicted, amid extensive media coverage, of drug smuggling, the same minister was leading the ANC’s effort in the National Assembly to muzzle the media through passage of secrecy legislation. Many South Africans are asking whether the secrecy bill is primarily intended to shield government leaders and their families from public scrutiny and prevent detection of their wrongdoing. Separately, President Zuma and other ANC leaders are promoting the initiation of an as-yet-undefined mechanism to officially “review” Constitutional Court judgments. Zuma has complained publicly that Constitutional Court judges place themselves above the National Assembly, whose members, according to his logic, must be supreme because they have been “freely elected by the people.” Both initiatives are assaults on South Africa’s status as a constitutional democracy.
A further cause for concern is the effort by “traditionalists” within the ANC to vest judicial powers in hereditary chiefs and transform assemblies of chiefs, together with tribal elders, into courts of first instance for 14 million rural South Africans. Such traditional courts would operate under procedures and customs that in most tribal groups preclude authority roles for women and would involve practices that conflict with South Africa’s liberal constitution. One glaring example is the precept in tribal domestic law that a woman is a minor in the custody of her husband and his family. In some tribal groups, women are even prohibited from entering the place in a village where the chief sits with elders. If a woman seeks to address the chief, she must shout her statement from a distance or send a man to make the statement on her behalf. Another concern relating to the allocation of judicial powers to chiefs is the influence they would have over the legal status of persons residing in their areas of jurisdiction. Those out of favor with a chief could be denied identity documentation, and their rights as citizens, even the right to vote, could be abridged. A similar system has been used in Zimbabwe by the ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe to limit the number of registered voters.
In the ANC, closing ranks against outsiders is considered an imperative, but in fact there is declining comity among members. Prominent ANC provincial leaders and extraordinarily rich party power brokers jockey for advantage, and some of their methods are quite brutal, with incidents of physical assault on the increase. In December 2012, the ANC will hold a conference to elect the party president and ultimately the next South African president. Zuma, still in his first terms as party and state president, is facing a revolt by powerful factions that want to displace him and his allies so as to gain greater access to positions and resources for themselves.
Zuma’s future could also hinge on a March 20 ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal, which ordered the national prosecutor to show the DA documents related to the prosecutor’s 2009 decision not to pursue 783 corruption charges against Zuma. The Supreme Court found that the DA has standing to demand the documents in the public interest. The charges involved an arms deal during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, when Zuma was vice president, in which foreign suppliers of weapons, ships, and airplanes had bribed senior South African officials. The man who served as Zuma’s go-between with the arms dealers has already been convicted for facilitating the bribery of Zuma. However, shortly before he became president, Zuma succeeded in having the legal proceedings stopped, citing evidence that the prosecutor had manipulated the timing of his case to improve the political prospects of Mbeki, then Zuma’s principal rival. But the charges against Zuma have not been judged on their merits, and if the Supreme Court decision eventually opens the door for a trial, Zuma’s position as president might become untenable. Within days of the March 20 judgment, the justice minister, an ardent Zuma ally, moved to add the Supreme Court to the executive branch’s review of judicial decisions, which had initially targeted only the Constitutional Court. This response has been viewed by most commentators as a raw expression of pique.
At present, South Africa risks entering an antidemocratic spiral from which it would be difficult to escape. The Southern Africa region, of which South Africa is the wealthiest and most powerful country, includes seven states whose ruling parties have been in power without interruption since independence. During 2012, these parties’ cumulative years of incumbency will reach 237. The South African contribution is the smallest at 18 years. Although the region includes regimes ranging from dictatorships to democracies, there is a perceptible drift in even the more liberal states toward authoritarianism and impatience with the messy inconveniences of political pluralism and a free society.
South Africa is widely viewed as the flagship of both Southern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. The present incremental weakening of representative and accountable government in the country therefore has both national and continental implications for human rights, the rule of law, and the quality of governance. Corruption, which is both an agent and a beneficiary of the erosion of democracy, is a potent threat to economic development and the alleviation of poverty. A South African government that continues to accommodate corruption while hacking away at independent institutions will serve neither the legitimate interests of South Africans nor the hopes of millions of others that South Africa might lead the continent toward a better future.
– Karl Beck is Southern Africa Projects Director at Freedom House.
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