8 January 1999 Vol 40 No 1 CONFIDENTIAL EMERGING MAPS AFRICA 2 Map for 1999 Africa scrambles for Africa The conflict in Central Africa epitomises the nationalism, fluidity In the wars engulfing Central Africa, soldiers and business people and, often, conflict, which marks are redrawing Africa's state system at terrible human cost this New Year's map. Uncertainty reigns in the north-east, in the two At the heart of Africa, the Congo-Kinshasa war has dragged more than a dozen states into its vortex Congos and, as we go to press, in and dealt a powerful blow to the tottering state system established on the continent over the past 40 a that is under attack. years. Historians with a taste for symmetry suggest that Africa’s post-colonial state system may In Algeria, a new candidate is prove to have begun and finished with crises in the Congo. The differences at each end of the process emerging as the army's and FLN's presidential favourite. In , are striking. Gen. Obasanjo's comeback means In the 1960s’ Congo crisis, Western capitalist nations vied with the Soviet Union and China for he's still the favourite for February's influence, while the United Nations tried vainly to hold the ring. In the 1990s’ Congo crisis, the scheduled presidential election - military, diplomatic and commercial running is dominated by Africans, while foreigners take, at though a month is a long time in most, a backseat role in mediation and business; UN officials readily concede that their leverage with politics. South Africa also expects a new both sides in Congo is ‘strictly limited’. In Congo 1960, the state system’s roadmap seemed pretty President, , when clear: Africa was going to have a grid of some 50 independent states recognised and, to varying Nelson Mandela 'semi-retires' after degrees, buttressed, by the world’s great powers. In Congo 1999, only the bluffest politicians claim the mid-year general elections. to know where the crisis is leading. Both warring sides agree that the status quo cannot hold. Somalia's leadership remains Central to making sense of Congo is the health of Africa’s nation-states. The unmaking of Congo uncertain and multiple but some progress towards reconciliation points to several trends reshaping Africa and its component states: the privatisation of diplomacy and new structures is taking place. alongside the growth of informal business networks; the irrelevance of the Organisation of African remains isolated and Unity’s strictures on interfering in the affairs of sovereign states and the inviolability of colonial war-torn. Opposition divisions help borders; the primacy of personal (often criminal) enrichment over nation-state strategy; the the government but don't win it reorientation of Africa from Europe and North America towards Asia and the Middle East (key support. financiers and arms suppliers in the Congo war); and the dashing of Africa’s democratic aspirations, which had flowered again at the start of the 1990s. NAMIBIA 6 Awkward marriage, awkward divorce Out on a limb Three years ago, Africa Confidential wrote that ‘the awkward marriage of the nation in the sense Secessionist sentiment is growing of an ethnic coalition and the state as the principal source of political authority is coming under in the small but strategic strip of pressure from above and below’. Those pressures have intensified yet imply not a generalised land called Caprivi. It's still on a collapse of Africa’s nation-states and the end of its borders, but rather a massive restructuring of the very small scale but has already continent’s international system, which will strengthen some states and maybe obliterate others. produced a stream of refugees into neighbouring Botswana. And it is The redrawing of the state system from above is gaining momentum along two routes. Firstly,there worrying the government in is the agglomeration of states and economic systems into regional blocs where there is some pooling Windhoek, where President of political and economic sovereignty. The pace of these (initially economic) unions varies across Nujoma seems set for yet another the continent. Among the five member states of the Southern African Customs Union, there is a high term in power. degree of economic convergence and mutual commercial interest. After the face-off with in the Southern African Development Community over the Congo war, South African diplomats POINTERS 8 now expect SACU to set the pace for economic integration, while SADC struggles with its regional rivalries. For a time, SACU and SADC may compete within the region but South Africa’s economic Sudan, , weight - more than 75 per cent of gross domestic product in the region - will tilt the balance towards Eritrea/Ethiopia and SACU. Most importantly, all states in the region back transnational economic unions of some kind: Angola and Zimbabwe’s oil and mineral-fired link-up with Congo-K, or Pretoria’s more conventional Tunisia and formalised trade and customs union with its neighbours. In East Africa, the regional imperative holds among the three states of the East African Doctor on trial and security chief Community - , Tanzania and Uganda - despite their domestic and foreign policy differences. investigated; a President speaks Kenya, with the strongest economy, stands to benefit most, and its businessmen have been to the nation despite his malaria; energetically buying into the state companies sold off by Uganda and Tanzania, which welcome warring neighbours buy planes foreign capital, whatever its source. It might also suit President that some of from the same place; and some of the elite are convicted of drug Kenya’s wealthy Kikuyu entrepreneurs have switched their attention to neighbouring states and may trafficking. pose less of a challenge to the increasing grip on Kenya’s national economy of business people from Moi’s own Kalenjin group. 8 January 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 1

MAURITANIA MOROCCOTUNISIA ALGERIA TUNISIA LIBYA EGYPT Pop: 2.4m, GDP: $1,263m, Debt:MOROCCO $2,363m Pop: 27.5m, GDP: $25,382m, Debt: $21,767m Pop: 29.3m, GDP: $68,458m, Debt: $33,259m Pop: 9.3m, GDP: $15,367m, Debt: $9,886m Pop: 5.3m, GDP: $23,452m**, Debt: $7,000m* Pop: 60.3m, GDP: $61,660m, Debt: $31,407m Pres. Ould Taya stresses Undermined by securocrats such Foreign Minister Bouteflika Pres. Ben Ali and his ruling RCD Prompted by Mandela, Gaddafi Pres. Mubarak (70) will seek fourth ‘ouverture’ but little has changed as Driss Basri, opposition-led emerging as military and FLN will sweep early 1999 elections but may release the two Lockerbie 6-year term and is near certain to since November reshuffle government is drifting and failing favourite for presidential poll, will co-opt favoured opposition suspects in the hope of ending get it; with no clear successor, he toALGERIA implement economic and social maybe in April; military dominance politicians into National Assembly; sanctions but his 30th year in claims he’s winning a (brutal) war reforms; growing Islamist LIBYAin governmentEGYPT and elite faction- crackdown on Islamists will power will be plagued by Islamist with Islamists while insulated SENEGALWESTERN assertiveness and chance of fighting will continue but there continue insurgents, his ill-health and what economy has strengthened despite Pop: 8.8m, GDP:SAHARA $5,925m, Debt: $3,663m Sahara referendum in Dec. make may be attempt to co-opt regime- he calls “Arab treachery” wider emerging markets crisis Easy and relatively quiet victory in King Hassan nervous friendly Islamists into gov’t role May general elections gave Pres. BURKINA FASO Diouf room ahead of the Pop: 11.0m, GDP: $3,035m, Debt: $1,294m NIGER SUDAN presidential poll in Feb. 2000; he is WESTERN SAHARA MALI November’s rigged presidential Pop: 9.7m, GDP: $2,639m, Debt: $1,557m Pop: 27.9m, GDP: $10,107m†, Debt: $16,326m CAPEexpected to win butMAURITANIA retire early if Pop: na, GDP: na, Debt: na Pop: 10.3m, GDP: $2,784m, Debt: $3,020m poll, an opposition journalist’s After death of his friend Gen. August US attack has divided heated succession questions in Polisario believes mounting Factional intrigues beset ruling mysterious death and evidence Abacha in Nigeria, Pres. opposition but apparent VERDEthe PS are resolved international pressure should Adema coalition and opposition that the government is training Maïnassara looks isolated; growing strengthening of the ruling NIF MALI NIGER impel Morocco to accept CHADbut Pres. Konaré shows signs of and arming Sierra Leonean rebels economic and political problems regime is deceptive referendum this year; King Hassan recovery after a rough 18 months ERITREAhave further tarnished Pres. may herald more state repression THE GAMBIASENEGAL hopes for collapse of voter SUDAN Compaoré’s image ERITREA THEPop: GAMBIA 1.2m, GDP: $302m, Debt: $422m BURKINAregistration and UN withdrawal Regional focus on conflicts in DJIBOUTI CHAD Pop: 3.8m, GDP: $650m, Debt: $76m neighbouring Casamance and FASO Pop: 6.8m, GDP: $1,853m, Debt: $816m Border dispute with Ethiopia may -BISSAU Guinea-Bissau divert attention from BENIN TUNISIA Postponement and probable produce more clashes but Pres. Pres. Jammeh’sGUINEA regime’s corruption cancellation of oil pipeline with Issayas will continue to shun OAU and authoritarianism but civil and GHANA NIGERIA MOROCCOCENTRAL Cameroon, and disastrous or US mediation; his fence- mending military opposition is growing TOGO ETHIOPIA intervention in Dem. Rep. of with Arab regimes (except Sudan) COTE AFRICAN Congo dealt a double blow to Pres. will do little to help economy D'IVOIRE REP. Déby’s ‘civilianisation’ CAPE VERDELIBERIA CAMEROON ALGERIA Pop: 0.4m, GDP: $344m, Debt: $263m LIBYASOMALIA EGYPT ETHIOPIA After involvement in Angola peace WESTERN CENTRAL AFRICAN REP. Pop: 60.1m, GDP: $9,848m, Debt: $10,077m EQUAT. GUINEASAHARA Pop: 3.4m, GDP: $1,323m, Debt: $928m process, Pres. Monteiro and UGANDA Internal pressures encourage Premier Veiga continue to SAO TOME After November’s 23-party Premier Meles to take hard line in establish an international role by KENYA elections, the UN maintains its dispute with Eritrea, as does hosting Guinea-Bissau peace talks & PRINCIPE Minurca deployment to pre-empt a regional arms build-up; good GABON RWANDA military response to ensuing harvest will boost economy CAPE MAURITANIA political disputes despite diplomatic and local GUINEA-BISSAU DEMOCRATIC BURUNDI political problems and the Pop: 1.1m, GDP: $263m, Debt: $937m VERDE CONGO REPUBLIC SEYCHELLES government’s human rights record December’s surprise power- OF CONGOMALI NIGER sharing deal between Pres. Vieira TANZANIA CHAD ERITREA and Gen. Mane’s supporters has SENEGAL SUDAN DJIBOUTI Pop: 0.6m, GDP: $500m, Debt: $243m opened the way to March THE GAMBIA BURKINA elections; their success depends DJIBOUTI Relations with Ethiopia will on willingness of regional FASO improve as French military peacekeepers to provide security; GUINEA-BISSAU BENIN COMOROS presence reduces and Djibouti Mane’s group could do well GUINEA ANGOLA replaces Assab as Ethiopia’s main GHANA NIGERIA port; this will exacerbate tension MALAWI CENTRAL TOGO ETHIOPIA with Eritrea, which may now back GUINEA SIERRA LEONE COTE ZAMBIA AFRICAN opposition FRUD Pop: 6.9m, GDP: $3,091m, Debt: $3,240m D'IVOIRE REP. December’s blatantly rigged polls CAMEROON kept Pres. Conte in power; leading MADAGASCAR SOMALIA SOMALIA oppositionist Alpha Conde’s arrest MOZAMBIQUE Pop: 10.1m, GDP: $879m†, Debt: $2,561m for ‘coup-plotting’ raises stakes in EQUAT. GUINEA ZIMBABWE MAURITIUSUGANDA Slow progress towards national increasingly violent battle for power NAMIBIA reconciliation despite hopes for SAO TOME KENYA donor-backed Puntland regional SIERRA LEONE & PRINCIPE REUNION administration; new police force EQUATORIAL GUINEA BOTSWANA RWANDA(Fr.) can do little against conflict among Pop: 4.7m, GDP: $940m, Debt: $1,167m GABON 5 warlords without a political deal; Massive Ecomog deployment to Pop: 0.4m, GDP: $398m, Debt: $246m DEMOCRATIC BURUNDI hopes for de facto recognition of shore up Pres. Kabbah’s govern- Maritime boundary disputes with CONGO REPUBLIC SEYCHELLES Somaliland include granting of ment besieged by RUF and Liberian- Nigeria and Cameroon and low oil SWAZILAND OF CONGO observer status by UN and similar backed rebels may be followed by a prices sour benefits of rapid TANZANIA moves by OAU and Arab League change in strategy by Nigeria’s new petroleum sector growth for Pres. civilian gov’t after May Obiang; he will keep a wary eye on SOUTH LESOTHO opposition in Libreville AFRICA KENYA Pop: 28.0m, GDP: $10,623m, Debt: $6,893m LIBERIA COMOROS Three major issues await Pres. Pop: 2.9m, GDP: $2,800m*, Debt: $2,012m SAO TOME & PRINCIPE ANGOLA Moi: appointing a Vice-President, Arbitrary arrests of political Pop: 0.1m, GDP: $63m, Debt: $250m clarifying his succession strategy, opponents and his complicity in As the ruling party was winning MALAWI & bringing enough Kikuyu into the rebel attacks in Sierra Leone raise November polls, news emerged of ZAMBIA ruling KANU to dilute opposition more doubts about Pres. Taylor’s Mobil-Shell’s interest in oil in the capacity to consolidate post-war Gulf of Guinea; oil revenue should agreement between armed factions help ease relations with creditors MADAGASCAR UGANDA MOZAMBIQUE Pop: 20.3m, GDP: $12,435m, Debt: $3,674m COTE D’IVOIRE GABON ZIMBABWE MAURITIUS Two years before referendum on NAMIBIA multi-party politics, Pres. Museveni Pop: 14.7m, GDP: $12,781m, Debt: $19,713m Pop: 1.2m, GDP: $5,313m, Debt: $4,213m is campaigning (though he should Ahead of presidential poll next year After December’s disputed REUNION win easily); doubts about tactics with serious challenge from ex- election win, Pres. Bongo will try BOTSWANA (Fr.) against Sudanese-backed rebels, Premier Ouattara, Pres. Bédié seeks to edge out old guard led by corruption and military overstretch to co-opt opposition with jobs in Construction Minister Myboto and expanded cabinet; economy faces bring in ‘rénovateurs’ such as growing pressure due to CFA’s Aubame and Moussavou; Bongo’s SWAZILAND TANZANIA uncompetitive exchange rate hopes of political restructuring are Pop: 31.3m, GDP: $4,723m, Debt: $7,412m based on optimistic oil projections CAMEROON Worries that new investment pro- GHANA Pop: 14.1m, GDP: $10,491m, Debt: $9,515m SOUTH LESOTHO jects could mean failure to qualify Labelled the world’s most corrupt AFRICA for debt relief highlight limitations Pop: 18.0m, GDP: $7,852m, Debt: $6,202m CONGO state by Transparency of HIPC debt facility; Pres. Mkapa Ruling NDC weakened by internal Pop: 2.8m, GDP: $2,561m, Debt: $5,240m International; Pres. Biya called on RWANDA still popular but has been unable schisms ahead of 2000 Security of Pres. Sassou- police and judiciary to fight graft Pop: 7.9m, GDP: $1,783m, Debt: $1,034m to resolve Zanzibar impasse presidential and assembly Nguesso’s military regime is but predicts 5% growth and a Continuing Interahamwe attacks in elections; but it’s relying on better seriously weakened by his strong economic recovery BURUNDI the NW, the protracted military economic news and incumbency Angolan backers’ preoccupation Pop: 6.6m, GDP: $1,022, Debt: $1,127m campaign against Kabila and SEYCHELLES to trounce opposition NPP which with events back home and in Sanctions against Maj. Buyoya’s strategic differences with Kampala Pop: 0.1m, GDP: $393m, Debt: $139m looks confident Dem. Rep. of Congo. This has DEM. REP. OF CONGO regime will be ended in exchange put pressure on Gen. Kagame’s Boosted by a visit from UK emboldened oppositionist Bernard Pop: 46.7m, GDP: $4,550, Debt: $12,826m for power-sharing deal bringing gov’t but he cannot afford to Premier Blair in Dec./Jan., Pres. Kolelas’ Ninja militias Pres. Kabila’s position becomes Hutu oppositionists into withdraw from Dem. Rep. of Congo René continues campaign to pull TOGO the key issue in the war pitting his government but major reforms will in foreign investors to rejuvinate Pop: 4.3m, GDP: $1,571m, Debt: $1,463m Angolan and Zimbabwean allies be needed to sustain an agreement the country’s entrepôt economy After a spectacularly stolen ANGOLA against Rwandan and Ugandan- MALAWI election victory in June, Pres. Pop: 11.4m, GDP: $7,714m, Debt: $10,612m backed rebels Pop: 10.3m, GDP: $1,701m, Debt: $2,312m Eyadema is desperately trying to The government’s intervention in ZIMBABWE 1999 presidential and assembly COMOROS get EU trade embargo lifted but both Congos leaves it badly Pop: 11.5m, GDP: $9,446m, Debt: $5,005m polls put pressure on Pres. Muluzi Pop: 0.5m, GDP: $197m, Debt: $249m friends unwilling to help stretched against UNITA since the ZAMBIA Undaunted by growing opposition, to boost economy as MCP regains Pres. Taki’s death in November Lusaka peace deal collapsed Pop: 9.4m, GDP: $2,396m, Debt: $7,113m crashing economy and unpopular ground; donors’ concerns about may open way for political Failed privatisation of ZCCM intervention in Dem. Rep. of Congo, corruption force Muluzi to sack at settlement on Grande Comore but BENIN copper mines is wrecking Pres. Mugabe seems set to hold on least one minister will do nothing to dampen Pop: 5.8‡m, GDP: $2,149m, Debt: $1,594m NAMIBIA economic prospects and delaying till 2002; should he go early, Anjouan’s seccessionism A weakened opposition gives Pres. Pop: 1.6m, GDP: $2,796m, Debt: $177m donor funds but Pres. Chiluba favoured successors would be Kerekou some space to consolidate Growing authoritarianism and believes that with factionalising Sekeramayi as Pres. and Dabengwa MOZAMBIQUE while he awaits the end of military personalisation of Pres. Nujoma’s opposition, he could win enough as Deputy Pres. Pop: 18.5m, GDP: $3,121m, Debt: $5,842m MADAGASCAR rule in neighbouring Nigeria rule, but he’s almost certain to win support (and a constitutional Frelimo heading for comfortable Pop: 14.1m, GDP: $2,966m, Debt: $4,175m elections at the end of 1999 amendment) to stand for a third win in 1999 polls, having negotiated Sense of déjà vu as former and term in 2001 LESOTHO some $5bn of investment; main current Pres. Ratsiraka NIGERIA Pop: 2.1m, GDP: $796, Debt: $654m worry is Renamo boycott constitutionally reinforces powers Pop: 117.9m, GDP: $37,116m, Debt: $31,407m SOUTH AFRICA Picking up the pieces after Gen. Obasanjo still favourite to Pop: 38.3m, GDP: $94,960m, Debt: $23,590m BOTSWANA Pretoria’s bungled intervention, win Feb. presidential poll before Nelson Mandela goes into semi- Pop: 1.5m, GDP: $3,216‡m, Debt: $576m Premier Mosisili faces a hostile SWAZILAND MAURITIUS May’s scheduled handover to retirement with diplomatic role as The ruling BDP and Pres. Mogae capital which regards him as Pop: 1.0m, GDP: $898m, Debt: $268m Pop: 1.1m, GDP: $3,168m, Debt: $1,818m civilian rule; economic and Mbeki takes over presidency after should easily win 1999 elections, South Africa’s catspaw. It has also Africa’s last absolute monarch, Asian economic crisis and political constitutional restructuring mid-year elections; ANC set to win helped by new Vice-Pres. Gen. Ian pushed back possible incorpor- King Mswati III, continues to hold and commercial rivalries in SADC dominate the agenda over 60% of vote Khama, son of the first President ation into a federal South Africa out against reformers will put new pressure on gov’t

* Estimate or pre-1990 figures ** 1994 figures † 1995 figures ‡ 1997 figures na: Not available Main statistical source: World Development Report 1998 (World Bank)

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Big business and the chief economist smaller states such as Rwanda and Uganda. The obvious targets in All three East African states vociferously endorse the World Bank the next decade are Lesotho and Swaziland, where many see and International Monetary Fund theology of market economics. benefits in exchanging some national autonomy for further A former Bank representative in Nairobi once enthusiastically integration into an economic and political federation dominated by related that the cabinet referred to Moi as ‘chief economist’, using Pretoria. The Maputo corridor from north-eastern South Africa this as evidence of the government’s new commitment to economic lays the ground for closer economic, and later political, integration reform. A senior civil servant later explained that the appellation between Mozambique and South Africa. referred not to the President’s macro-economic enthusiasm but to Such mergers are more likely to be pacific than Nigeria’s relations the first family’s fast growing business empire (AC Vol 39 No 25). with Liberia and Sierra Leone after almost a decade of civil war. There is little to choose between the three states on economic Beneath Nigeria’s pro-consular role as the leader of Ecomog and policy. self-appointed political arbiter, Nigerian strategists watch the Questions of corruption and accountability dog all three. In network of pay-back mechanisms involving Sierra Leone’s Kenya, the failure of the government to prosecute the key officials diamonds and Liberia’s rubber, timber and ore. Nigerian officers involved in the Goldenberg ‘gold export’ scam has cut the country and their business friends have, like South African, Lebanese and off from IMF funds. Tanzania and Uganda still pull in aid but French traders (not to mention successive governments in Freetown donors grow increasingly critical of their record on corruption. and ) profited from these flows. Yet people in Abuja The three differ on the Congo war. Kenya backs Laurent-Désiré reckon that Nigeria has received too small a return on its costly Kabila’s regime in Kinshasa but has sent no troops. Uganda, with security commitment. At the least, they will seek a more favourable Rwanda, backs and tries to orchestrate the rebellion against Kabila. distribution of the spoils as the price of a planned Pax Nigeriana. Tanzania maintains a healthy suspicion of both sides, partly because The greatest fear of Taylor and the RUF is that an aggressively its own cabinet is split on the issue. Yet the three share common nationalist Nigerian government might try to force Liberia and economic interests in the Congo. If the current east-west split Sierra Leone into a West African Anglophone federation, which a prevails there, much more of eastern Congo’s trade and traffic will pro-Nigerian regime in Gambia might also be interested in joining, be directed through EAC states into Indian Ocean and Asian trade to escape Senegal’s Francophone embrace. routes. In , as in the south, there are alternative regionalisation Across the continent projects. The over-arching group is the 16-member Economic On the other side of Africa, the forcible redrawing of de facto Community of West African States, established in 1975. Ecowas boundaries has been in train since the late 1970s. It began when has moved slowly towards its goal of regional free movement of Tanzania helped Ugandan dissidents to overthrow Dada’s labour, capital and goods, and a common currency. Much of the regime. The next stage was the alliance of ‘Banyarwanda’ and problem is Francophone fear of Nigeria, whose economy and Ugandan dissidents in ’s National Resistance population dominate the region. Headquartered in Lagos, then Movement which, in 1986, became the first guerrilla movement to Abuja, Ecowas was always seen by Francophone states as a Nigerian force out an African (rather than white colonial) regime. The pay- show, despite the Francophile diplomacy of President Shehu back was that Museveni’s NRM would help the Banyarwanda - Shagari, General and latterly, Gen. Sani transformed into the Front Patriotique Rwandais - to win power Abacha’s regime. Francophone fears were reinforced when Ecowas in Kigali. After a false start in 1990, the FPR finally seized power took on a military role as the monitoring group, Ecomog, in after the genocide perpetrated by Hutu extremists grouped behind Liberia, then in Sierra Leone. Again the Anglophone-Francophone the late President Juvénal Habyarimana’s regime. fault line was tested: Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone backed the Since 1994, Uganda and Rwanda have focussed on eastern Ecomog intervention, while Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso Congo, which harboured hundreds of thousands of their opponents covertly supported the fight against Ecomog forces by Charles while holding out prospects of enormous riches if pacified and Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia. These tensions are restructured. The Rwanda-Uganda alliance was the motor which tightened by Taylor’s links to the Revolutionary United Front chased from power in May 1997 and installed rebels in Sierra Leone. Kabila as President. The relationship with Kabila soured within Francophone states are as concerned with Nigeria’s economic as months; by August 1998, the Rwandan-Ugandan alliance actively with its military power. The smuggling of millions of gallons of supported, if not inspired, a rebellion aganst Kabila by dissident cheap Nigerian gasoline has boosted neighbouring Francophone troops of the Forces Armées Congolaises. economies (while further debilitating Nigeria’s) but Nigeria’s Their troops have more than matched those of Kabila and his decision a decade ago to float the naira has severely strained the Angolan and Zimbabwean allies. But the Rwanda-Uganda alliance fixed parity of the CFA franc with the French franc. That could is divided, largely because Kigali and Kampala favour different happen again if the CFA is pegged at an uncompetitively high rate factions among Kabila’s opponents. Both know that it could spell against a ‘hard’ Euro. The Francophone response has been to catastrophe for them if Kabila (and his allies, the Interahamwé, the bolster its own linguistic-economic grouping, the Union génocidaires and the Sudanese National Islamic Front) could turn Economique et Monétaire Ouest-Africaine (UEMOA, with the the tables in the Great Lakes. CFA as its common currency) whose plans for economic and Such top-down reordering of state systems has touched many of commercial integration far outstrip Ecowas economic convergence Africa’s 53 states. Equally significant pressures on the nation-state plans. come from below: the impact of ethnic, regional and religious Alongside the formal diplomacy and committees of regional identities as mobilising forces for reform and, tragically, for war. economic groupings, another route towards regionalisation involves There is a grim landscape of conflicts where ethnic and religious more Bismarckian plans of state merger and acquisition by single factors play a key role, from Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Liberia and powers such as South Africa and Nigeria, and by alliances between Sierra Leone in the west across the two Congos to Burundi,

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Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda in the centre and east. hundreds of secessionist and irredentist groups have been trying to break free - with a notable lack of success. Only breakaway Cultural ghosts Eritrea has won international recognition, while breakaway It has become much harder for regimes to stifle ethnic and religious Somaliland (northern Somalia) sits in relative peace and prosperity consciousness in the name of national solidarity. Views of ethnic (compared to its southern sister), almost ignored by the international and religious structures are being revised across Africa. For years, community. according to historian Leroy Vail, ethnicity has been treated as a African regimes which sponsor ethnic and religious violence as ‘cultural ghost... an atavistic residue deriving from the distant past survival strategies are having to pay a higher price, locally and of rural Africa... [which] continues to refuse to obey the laws of internationally. Regime-sponsored violence has sharpened national social and political change.’ In the blunt words of Mozambique’s political conflicts and led donors and investors to block funds. late President Samora Machel, ‘For the nation to live, the tribe Kenya’s President Moi warned his Western critics that their must die.’ insistence on multi-party politics would worsen ethnic competition; Ethnicity has steadfastly refused to die, although ethnic identities soon there followed state-sponsored attacks on Kikuyu farmers in have mutated according to economic and political circumstances. the Rift Valley. The disputed 1997 national elections were both Much of Africa’s ethnic map was established under colonial rule, preceded and followed by attacks against so-called ‘non-indigenes’ in line with the European obsession with demarcating and classifying (predominantly opposition supporters) in the Coastal Province. African and Asian populations. Ethnic classifications were Kenya’s biggest and most prosperous ethnic group, the Kikuyu, sometimes as arbitrary as the state boundaries that contained them, mainly supports parties which oppose Moi’s Kalenjin-led alliance, owing more to European notions of culturally homogeneous ‘tribes’ the ruling Kenya African National Union. Many people are sure than to the more complex and fluid African social reality. It was that the top echelons of KANU orchestrated the Rift Valley and also convenient for the imperial powers to forge relations with the Coastal attacks. ‘Big Men’ (AC Vol 39 No 1) and their ethnically based Sudan’s National Islamic Front regime under the leadership of constituencies. Hassan Abdullah el Turabi marketed its Islamist credentials after The local Big Man provided the European administrators with seizing power in 1989; it depicted the long-running war with control of a (usually) ethnically defined administrative unit. The southern oppositionists as a battle against infidels. This won Big Man delivered material and political goods to his ethnic substantial commercial and diplomatic returns from Saudi Arabia constituency in return for its loyalty (the ‘patron-client relationship') but the tap was turned off when El Turabi and the NIF took the side and became bigger still by using that role for personal accumulation of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against Saudi and the United - in other words, the commercial relationship which was central to States-led alliance in the 1990 Gulf War. Since then, the NIF colonial rule and has thrived in post-colonial times. At regime has operated a pariah’s alliance with Baghdad and the Independence, many African politicians rejected such political Sudanese opposition and foreign governments have long accused tribalism. Yet over the past century, the Big Men and their ethnic it of involvement in Iraq’s chemical weapons programme (AC Vol constituencies have proved suprisingly resilient. Their pervasive 39 No 17). As the only Islamist government of a Sunni Muslim roots prompted the French political scientist, Jean-François country, Sudan's NIF keeps close ties with Shia Iran. Skilful play Bayart, to write of the ‘rhizome state’, a subterranean network that with the Muslim solidarity card enables the NIF regime to maintain informs most of Africa’s political and business relations, official commercial and diplomatic ties with a wide range of conservative and unofficial. and radical states in the Middle East and Asia. Many of Africa’s growing band of conflict resolution specialists now argue that ethnic organisations, and their participation in Islam versus Islamism politics, are critical to social cohesion. They say that people faced The NIF’s association with Baghdad and Tehran, and its role as with economic and social change and decay will naturally seek facilitator, trainer and sanctuary for terrorist operations, resulted in security in ethnic identities and communities. After almost 40 United States-backed sanctions, then bombing raids. Even in years of lop-sided military and unitary states, few people accept Sudan’s mainly Muslim north, the NIF’s Islamism doesn’t win it that ethnic identities should be sublimated for the greater good of loyalty. Despite (or because of) the battles between the Algerian, nation building. The new orthodoxy maintains that, instead of Tunisian, Egyptian and Syrian regimes and their Islamist being suppressed, ethnic identities should be accommodated. This opponents, Arab politicians still speak of Islam and Arab identity is to be done through administrative and political decentralisation. as unifying factors in North Africa and the Middle East. Where African political scientists such as Mwayila Tshiyembe argue that mainly Muslim and Christian populations meet, though, struggles as most African states are multi-ethnic, any legitimate and are sharpening, often amid provocation by radical organisations. accountable political framework must be grounded in this reality. Ranged against Islamist groups in South Africa, Nigeria, It must devolve power from the centre to ethnic and minority-based Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda are growing Christian representatives. fundamentalist groups. With funds coming principally from Germany and the USA, their politics owe much to America’s Big Men in Europe and Africa religious right and their evangelical zeal is often as fervent as that Looking north for confirmation, adherents of the new ethnic of the Islamist jihadists. So far, no fundamentalist Christian constitutionalism point to the revival of minority identities in groups have formed rebel militias like their Islamist opponents Europe, firing up old conflicts in former Yugoslavia and Albania, (such as Somalia’s Al Itahad al Islami), although several ethnic and once one-party rule started crumbling in the late 1980s. Opportunist regional militias claim adherence to Christianity, including Ugandan politicians can spark ethnic conflict as readily in Europe as in Joseph Kony's Lord’s Resistance Army - which is backed by the Africa, where colonial state structures were superimposed on the Islamist government in Khartoum. continent’s ethnic map. Against the arbitrariness of that map Across sub-Saharan Africa, fast-growing fundamentalist

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Christian groups preach spiritual redemption from Africa’s advising African governments to cut public spending, sack civil economic and political decay. Their conservative message is the servants and rein in state power, by the mid-1990s Bank strategists mirror opposite to the liberation theology that swept Latin America conceded that the process had gone too far. In Bankspeak, in the 1970s and 1980s (and backed the anti-apartheid movement ‘qualitative’ not ‘quantative’ became the critical word. Some years in South Africa). Increasingly, the Christian fundamentalists’ earlier, Edward ‘Kim’ Jaycox, then Vice-President of the World . endorsement is sought by governments such as ’s Bank’s Africa region, had told a small group of journalists that the (himself a born-again Christian) in Zambia and Benjamin Mkapa’s Bank’s biggest mistake in Ghana, its economic reform star of the in Tanzania. In post-apartheid South Africa, the conservative 1980s, was its insistence on retrenching half of the civil service Zionist Christian Church is courted assidously by politicians in when the private sector was incapable of absorbing them or utilising both the African National Congress and Inkatha. their skills. Aside from the human costs, the policy alienated a The power of religious affiliations, like ethnic identities, to major constituency for economic reform in the country. Jaycox was transcend other identities such as family, age, gender and occupation, one of the first Bank officials to argue that adjustment and reform makes them increasingly important. Ethnic and religious policies can’t work as a diktat from Washington. Almost a decade mobilisation has risen as the idea of a nation-state has weakened - later, the Fund and Bank are still trying to develop economic in eastern and central Europe, as much as in Africa. For Africa, a policies whose support extends beyond bureaucrats in Washington critical factor was the turning of the nationalist anti-colonial or African capitals. political organisations, which enjoyed huge popular support, into top-down state-controlled monoliths. Those at the heads of these Big men, big favourites monoliths decided to tackle poor administrative capacity, weak If Bank and Fund have found it problematic to impose economic and dependent economies (and, sometimes, dangerous local conditions on African governments, Western governments have dissidents) by using the full force of the state to coopt or suppress found the imposition of political conditions doubly problematic. centres of opposition. Political parties, even ruling ones, became Few African monopoly states had real economic autonomy but for redundant. So rose the monopoly state, which became an odd their leaders, political control was a fact. The older generation of bundle of contradictions: authoritarian yet fragile; highly centralised Big Men politicians and most of their successors have found it yet dispersed; overdeveloped in size yet undeveloped in function; intolerable that Western governments claim the right to dictate trumpeting national unity yet controlled by narrow personal cliques; clauses in a country’s constitution (such as eligibility to stand for nationalistically resistant to outside political pressures but weakly office in Zambia) or how its elections should be run. Western subordinate to economic ones. attempts to impose political conditions were another symptom of Vulnerability to external economic forces has done most to the weakening of African state sovereignty but in practice, the undermine Africa’s monopoly states. The material and social attempts were riven with ambivalence and inconsistency. While benefits that post-colonial governments delivered - health-care, Moi was castigated for his dictatorial style, regimes favoured by the education, employment and housing - have been cut away by West in Ethiopia and Uganda were left to build up party monoliths economic failure. The relationship between Africa’s monopoly in ways that Moi could only dream of after multi-party politics states and economic failure seems to have been mutually reinforcing: returned to Kenya in 1992. top-down, unaccountable, personalised leadership crippled Election monitoring became the great game for governments economic policy and its implementation, while the inherited seeking to qualify for aid funds; foreign monitors therefore became structure of Africa’s involvement in global production and trade extremely reluctant to dismiss any election as fraudulent. Code- encouraged political alienation and institutional collapse. Enter words such as ‘difficulties’ or ‘irregularities’ became the currency the World Bank and the IMF, which from the early 1980s onwards of innumerable bland election reports which judged successive have taken over more and more of Africa’s economic management polls as ‘basically free if not totally fair’. Organisations such as the or at least the management of Africa’s formal relations with the Commonwealth acted both as technical advisors for the organisation world economy, through exchange rates, tariffs and debt payment. of elections and as monitors and observers of the outcome. In most cases, African regimes have seen off externally-imposed political Outside the IMF's grasp conditions even more effectively than economic ones, yet even Yet escaping the Bank and Fund’s grasp is Africa’s burgeoning thwarted attempts have helped change the political climate. The informal and unrecorded economy, which includes everything panoply of civil society, weak and coopted as it may be, has been from presidential slush funds, through the bribes that smallholders brought into the process of elections and constitution-making. A and traders must pay to take their produce across borders, to most real debate about citizenship, economic and political rights has operations by the continent’s local food, commodity and mineral started in many countries. And the experience of the past five years markets. A substantial part of African economic activity remains has stripped most African opposition movements of illusions about outside the scope of the Bank and Fund; several new studies seem the profitability of petitioning foreign embassies about a regime’s to show that many of Africa’s monopoly state leaders have skilfully political abuses unless they can (in Stalin’s phrase) put some avoided complying with most of the institutions’ reform imperatives divisions on the street. and have in some cases distorted them to serve local and personal Such gains, though, seem inconsequential when set against much political ends. For example, the alacrity with which some leaders broader changes in Africa’s nation-states and state system. have adopted privatisation programmes from the US Agency for Following the general failure to impose external economic and International Development and World Bank can often be explained political conditions, the West’s relations with Africa have become when the new owners of former state companies turn out to come increasingly privatised or ‘de-stated’. Civic associations and private from the presidential circle. companies are again the vanguard of Western involvement in Just as important is the World Bank’s own revisionist insistence Africa. Their motives run the same range, from murderously on cutting the state down to size. Having spent much of the 1980s malign to bountifully benign, as in the 19th century. The primacy

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of intervention by private corporations and non-government Caprivians to Botswana since October. Two years ago, the government organisations was spurred on by the prior privatisation and set up the Special Field Force to absorb some of the 10,000 unemployed personalisation of the African state. ex-combatants from the former People’s Liberation Army of Namibia Yet reports of the death of the African state are exaggerated. The (PLAN). Now SFF security sweeps of Caprivi villages are exacerbating extent to which the state represents more than the personal interests tensions and most of those seeking refuge in Botswana claim to be of the dominant political faction varies enormously. There are the fleeing intimidation. The issue threatens to become another bone of so-called shadow states, identified by an American political contention between the two countries, which are already disputing the scientist, William Reno, in countries such as Siaka Stevens’ sovereignty of Kasikili island in the Chobe River: the first hearings Sierra Leone, where a leader may consolidate his power by on this are due to begin next month at the International Court of Justice deliberately undermining the state’s formal institutions. Former in the Hague, Netherlands. Botswana’s President Festus Mogae has Zaïre's Marshal Mobutu and Nigeria’s Gen. Abacha both pledged that no Caprivians will be forced to return to Namibia and undermined the national armed forces in favour of their own security organisations, financed through their private networks. For a while, some states have ceased to exist altogether but there Small but strategic are signs, for example, in Somalia, that efforts to build a new administration may work out this year - albeit only, so far, in the The Caprivi Zipfel (Strip) is a 500-kilometre-long finger of land north-eastern Puntland region. which connects north-eastern Namibia to Botswana, Zambia and In most countries, almost everyone wants to believe that the state Zimbabwe. It is named after a German Chancellor, General still exists, whether or not they also hope to reform it. The state still Count Georg Leo von Caprivi, who negotiated its transfer from provides the most convenient mechanism for economic and other British control to become German South West Africa at th diplomacy, even if sometimes as a cover for activities which have Conference of Berlin in 1890. After the First World War, from nothing to do with formal state functions. Even smugglers need 1918 to 1929, it was part of British-ruled Bechuanaland (now borders. The state remains the prime focus of attention for political Botswana). It was then handed back to South West Africa under and civil society activists. In Africa’s conflict zones, which have, its new colonial master, South Africa. This is where the English- sadly, increased over the past five years, different rules apply: language influence stems from. foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs), sometimes Caprivi comprises two distinct areas. Western Caprivi, which guarded by armed private agents, bring in medical and food aid, is only 30 km. wide, was a military zone before Independence and while the combatants and their political allies build up local mainly comprises the Caprivi Game Reserve, with only scattered, fiefdoms over which they claim sovereignty. This is still part of the mainly San, communities. Eastern Caprivi begins at Kongola on bigger battle for state power, the control of the (or maybe a) capital the Kwando River, and the Strip widens to 100 km. before narrowing city and a ‘national’ constituency. The 19th century idea that a to a point on the Zambezi. With abundant wildlife, fish and group of people in a given territory must belong to a state is proving Namibia’s most extensive forests, East Caprivi is encircled by stubbornly enduring. rivers and much of it is frequently flooded: then mokoros (dug- What’s happening in Central Africa, in Congo-Kinshasa and the out canoes) become the main means of transport. related conflicts in Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Sudan, is not about ending the state. It is about how most are expected to be granted asylum as refugees. This also raises many and what kinds of state there should be in Africa. Dauntingly the prospect of similar fissiparous tendencies in western Zambia’s and tragically, those questions look like being decided on the Barotseland, whose Lozi inhabitants are kinspeople of the Lozi- battlefield, not at the conference table. speaking majority of Caprivians. Bibliography: Challenges to the Nation-state in Africa, Eds: Adebayo At least a proportion of Caprivi’s 50,000 inhabitants are evidently Olukoshi & Liisa Laakso; Nordiska Afrikainstutet, Uppsala, Sweden. disaffected from the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation. The Criminalisation of the State in Africa, by Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Béatrice Hibou; James Currey, Oxford, UK. Africa This calls into question the main justification which the party leadership Works, by Patrick Chabal & Jean-Pascal Daloz; James Currey, Oxford. advanced for revising the constitution to provide a third five-year term Africa and the International System, by Christopher Clapham; Cambridge of office for President Sam Nujoma (AC Vol 39 No 19). Both houses University Press, Cambridge, UK. of parliament approved the amendment with the required two-thirds majority at the end of last year. One member of parliament has already called for Nujoma to become life president. Prime Minister Hage Geingob, one of the front-runners to succeed Nujoma, claimed the NAMIBIA continued presence of Namibia’s ‘Founding Father’ at the helm of state affairs was essential to preserve national unity. But Nujoma’s reluctance to heed Caprivian resentment at the appointment of non- Out on a limb local officials to run the local regional government is just one factor in the present discontent. Remote Caprivi is the route to Zambia and The immediate crisis followed the exposure of alleged secessionist Zimbabwe and secessionism is growing plotting by Mishake Muyongo, the former leader of the main opposition The first real test of post-Independence national unity looms with the party, the DTA, in his home district of Linyanti in the south of Caprivi emergence of a secessionist movement in Caprivi, the north-eastern near the border with Botswana. Echoing government accusations of region which provides the country’s only direct connection to Zambia separatism, the DTA expelled Muyongo as President last July after he and Zimbabwe. had reportedly held talks in South Africa with undisclosed supporters. Namibia’s success in largely avoiding the ethnic tensions that have However, there has been no independent evidence to support the plagued most of Africa is challenged by an exodus of almost 2,000 government’s charge that Muyongo and the hitherto unknown Caprivi 6 8 January 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 1

Liberation Movement (CLM) were actively planning an armed military students, mainly from Linyanti. This suggests that resentment among rebellion. In late October, Muyongo with a group of 100 Caprivians, a significant minority may run deep. including the regional Governor John Mabuku, the Mafwe Chief, In 1991, there were local protests when the new SWAPO government Boniface Mamili, and two of the DTA’s regional councillors, fled drafted in officials from outside the area; an official inquiry into the across the border to Botswana where they were arrested for possessing dispute remains unpublished. Although Caprivi is Namibia’s potentially firearms and initially detained in Mahalapye gaol. The Namibian most productive area, producing the only significant subsistence maize press at first reported that they were heavily armed but the Botswanan harvest, the development of other crops, including rice, tobacco and authorities confiscated mainly hand-guns and ammunition. sugar, has been neglected. Several pilot schemes started before Yet a week after Muyongo fled, the Chief of Staff of the Namibian Independence by the then First National Development Corporation, Defence Force, Major General Martin Shali, accused him of being now the National Development Corporation (NDC), have still to part of a ‘terrorist organisation’ which had been conducting military proceed beyond the pilot stage. As a result, Caprivi has one of the training of secessionists at a bush camp in Linyanti. Shali said the highest unemployment rates among qualified school-leaver: some main evidence came from a police informant, Victor Falali, whose 5,000-6,000 matriculants are without jobs or further education. Yet brother had been shot dead by Muyongo’s supporters as he tried to it has one of Namibia’s highest pass-rates under the British General escape from the camp. He said training there was carried out by Certificate of Secondary Education system introduced five years ago. former members of South Africa’s colonial forces, the South West In contrast to the rest of the country, where Afrikaans was the pre- Africa Territorial Force and the ‘Koevoet’ counter-insurgency unit. Independence medium of instruction in black schools, English was Falali remains in police detention - perhaps to be produced as a state widely used in Caprivi. This meant that local teachers were far better witness in any trial of Muyongo - and so far there has been no equipped to teach GCSE courses than the bulk of teachers elsewhere. independent corroboration of Shali’s claims. In November, a South Muyongo may well now be finished as a credible national political African television crew attempting to interview Caprivian villagers figure yet the government’s hopes of securing his return for a show was detained by police in the regional capital, Katima Mulilo, before trial look unrealistic. At first, the United Nations High Commissioner being expelled. for Refugees’ regional representative in Pretoria stated that Muyongo’s In a nationwide broadcast early that month, Nujoma charged initial group of escapees would not qualify for refugee status because Muyongo with organising an ‘armed rebellion’ with the aim of securing of their membership of CLM. Most of the Caprivians (many of them Caprivi’s secession. He warned that he and his supporters would be women and children) who subsequently sought refuge in Botswana, made to pay for ‘a serious act of treason’ and ‘cold-blooded murder’. including several hundred Kxoe, have been housed at the Dukwe However, though he promised to explain ‘the roots and purpose’ of refugee camp near Gaborone and have already been granted refugee the alleged armed rebellion, the brunt of Nujoma’s address was an status. The Botswana Refugee Advisory Committee will soon consider invective against Muyongo, whom he described as having a history the case of Muyongo and his colleagues, who have applied for asylum. of dubious alliances based on wild dreams and miscalculations’. They were released on bail shortly before Christmas and although Notably absent from the address was any reference to Muyongo’s they could still face prison if found guilty of illegal entry and possession original political incarnation as SWAPO Vice-President from 1964 to of weapons, are unlikely to be returned to Namibia against their will. 1980, as leader of the Caprivi African National Union. From CANU’s Geingob and Botswanan Vice-President Seretse Khama Ian Khama ranks in the 1960s were recruited the first guerrilla fighters against (AC Vol 39 No 25) met in Gaborone in November. Both sides agreed South Africa’s occupation of Namibia. Muyongo’s role in the politics that local laws would determine the Caprivians’ fate and the issue of SWAPO’s exiled leadership was always far from smooth and he would not be allowed to cause any deterioration in their ‘excellent’ was expelled from SWAPO in 1980 on the grounds that he had bilateral relations. However, this policy could be seriously strained advocated secession for Caprivi (under the name ‘Ipilenge’) although if Botswana does grant Muyongo political asylum and continues to the party never made public any evidence. refuse Nujoma’s demand for his extradition. The danger to Namibian Among the factors providing fertile ground for secessionism is the national unity is that, as elsewhere, heavy-handed attempts by the resentment of many Caprivians at being marginalised from the main central government to suppress a small separatist organisation might government development programmes in the rest of the north. Apart end up by alienating the majority of local inhabitants and increasing from the promise of a sugar refinery, to have been built in Chief support for the secessionists. Mamili’s area by Pidico, a firm owned by an Egyptian which has not Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at 73 carried out any of its announced investments in Namibia, there is little Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. to show in Caprivi for nine years of Independence. Even the much Tel: +44 171-831 3511. Fax: +44 171-831 6778. vaunted Trans-Caprivi Highway, now nearing completion, will do Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. little yet to improve communications with central Africa, as a bridge Administration: Clare Tauben. across the Zambezi will have to be built to give lorries direct access Annual subscriptions, cheques payable to Africa Confidential in advance: to Zambia. This is the responsibility of the Zambian government, to UK: £222 Europe: £276 which the World Bank has refused further loans until it has paid Africa: £214 US:$576 (including airmail) Rest of the World: £298 outstanding arrears. Students (with proof): £67 or US$107 In a tactic straight out of the colonial recipe book, SWAPO has All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept selectively supported pro-government tribal groupings thereby fanning American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. ethnic tension. In Caprivi, the pro-government Masubia tribal leadership Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 1FH England. Tel: 44 1865 244083 and Fax: 44 1865 381381 has benefitted at the expense of the Mafwe, while Chief Kippe Visit our web site at: http://www.Africa-Confidential.com George of the Kxoe, a minority San (Bushman) community in western Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts,UK. Caprivi, was among those ignored in the list of officially recognised ISSN 0044-6483 tribal authorities announced early last year. Secessionist supporters reportedly include education officials and police officers, as well as A Happy New Year to our Readers

7 8 January 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 1

In an emotional two-hour speech which even fly its latest warplanes. Freelance pilots, many ex- Pointers the government-owned ‘Daily Graphic’ called military, are plentiful in the Horn (as they were in ‘unfocused’ and ‘repetitive’, Rawlings ranged over Europe post-World War II) but how many of these topics such as his lack of regret at the execution (mainly ex-East Bloc) might want to go to war is SUDAN of two former heads of state in 1979 to his steward’s another matter. propensity to water down liquor. He emphatically Ethiopian pilots are training in Russia but on refuted continuing allegations that the late General MiG-23s (and on the Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters The long arm Sani Abacha’s security advisor, Ismaila Gwarzo, which were acquired in a US$160 million deal in The Pinochet effect persists in Britain with the gave him US$5 million for election campaign December). Both Addis Ababa’s SU-27s and trial, now expected this March, of a Sudanese funds in 1996: ‘I have not collected five bloody Asmara’s MiG-29s are serviced and flown by doctor who is charged with committing torture and million foolish dollars,’ he told the crowd. Russian or East European ‘advisers’. Eritrea’s omitting to prevent it in Sudan (AC Vol 38 No 19). Three weeks earlier in Sekondi, the ruling MiG-29s, acquired in an apparently private deal The trial had been due to open this coming week National Democratic Congress held its conference worth at least $150 mn., were delivered by officials but on 6 January, defence lawyers asked for more which set up a Consultative Committee as the from Moscow’s Ministry of Aviation Production. time. party’s top decision-making body. Conference The MiG-29s and SU-27s have never been tested The Crown is prosecuting Mohamed Ahmed made Rawlings NDC leader for life and therefore, against each other and some see supplying both Mahjoub ‘El Fil’ under the United Nations by passing amendments to the party's constitution, protagonists as a ‘no loser’ bid for wider export Convention against Torture, which is incorporated automatic chairman of the Consultative Committee. markets. into the Criminal Justice Act, 1988. This is the This gives Rawlings a key role in politics, and first such case in the UK. The hearing has been probably in government, after his retirement as moved from Dundee, where Dr. Mohamed Ahmed national President, which is scheduled to take TUNISIA works, to the High Court sitting in the Scottish place in 2000. capital, Edinburgh. If convicted of the charges, Only five of 2,000 NDC members at Sekondi the defendant could face a maximum sentence of publicly voiced opinions on Rawlings’ new role. More couscous? life imprisonment. Privately, though, many said the changes seemed Also under the Convention against Torture, as meant to undercut the NDC reform lobby, which Many of the country's elite were among those incorporated in Canada’s criminal code, Ottawa’s is led by grassroots organisers Sam Garba and sentenced on 23 December after Tunisia’s largest Department of Justice and the Royal Canadian Augustus ‘Goosie’ Tanoh (AC Vol 39 No 23). ever drugs trial. This was held amid deep secrecy Mounted Police are investigating the boss of Others worried about friction between Rawlings and intense security and under a blanket reporting Sudan’s external security organisation, Qutbi el and his likely successor as NDC presidential ban. Of the 139 defendants, the five judges Mahdi. He has Canadian nationality from his candidate, Vice-President John Atta-Mills, who acquitted 13, gaoled ‘dozens’ for a year or two and student days in the early 1980s. The Canadian would remain subject to Rawlings’ authority, even gave a couple the maximum of 35 years for media say he once worked for the Islamic African if he won the 2000 election. trafficking in cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, for local Relief Agency in Montreal. Later, he was the consumption. Appeals to the Cour de Cassation are pending. National Islamic Front government’s Ambassador ERITREA/ETHIOPIA to Iran. Some defence lawyers say their clients claim In October, Africa Confidential understands, confessions were extracted under torture, including Qutbi told Ottawa he wanted to visit, and to meet Who dares, loses beating, sleep deprivation and ducking heads in ministers. Officials reminded him of the small soapy water. They also claim police intimidation in court to prevent the naming of the real problem of the 1996 UN sanctions. Qutbi The moratorium on air attacks agreed after June’s ringleaders. astonished them by replying that there was no raids on Asmara and Makelle (and after phone Five convicted were drugs squad officers from problem, since he would use his Canadian passport calls by President Bill Clinton to Premier Meles the Brigade des Stupéfiants. Thirteen people were for the trip. Zenawi and President Issayas Afewerki) still tried in absentia, including Khalid Bei, a relation The Justice Department and RCMP set to work, holds. And internal and international pressures for of the last king, whom Tunis wants to extradite hoping to arrest Qutbi in Canada. But in late peace (including ultra-discreet mediation, we hear) from Morocco. November, his impending visit was suddenly show signs of overcoming internal pressures for The case began back in December 1997 after announced by a hitherto unknown group, Free war. Nevertheless, deliveries last month greatly a bust by the Amn el Doula, the political police. South Sudan. It was uncertain who had leaked the increased both Eritrea’s and Ethiopia’s air-strike In the ensuing secrecy, unsubstantiated rumours news: Canadian officials avoiding embarrassment, capacity. thrived, especially among those who oppose the NIF or even the Sudanese opposition. Eritrea had only a few airworthy MiG-21s, corruption or who dislike the nouveaux riches We understand officials are now ‘actively’ plus twelve Italian-manufactured MB-339Bs and born of the current privatisation process. Some investigating him; an eventual arrest warrant could Finnish-made Rodigo trainers, both converted into defence lawyers claim that their clients implicated seriously restrict his travel options. light attack planes. A Rodigo crashed in December, a close relative of President Zein el Abidine Ben killing its Eritrean and Rwandan pilots. Now Ali’s. Asmara has acquired 8 or 10 MiG-29 ‘Fulcrum’ GHANA In 1992, in the case known as the ‘Couscous fighters, interceptors with the range to reach Addis Connection’, the President’s older brother Mouncef Ababa and some variants carry air-to-surface was convicted of drug trafficking in France (AC missiles. Medical advice Vol 33 No 20). Sentenced in absentia to ten Ethiopia has acquired eight Sukhoi SU-27 years, he died two years later in Tunisia of (said ‘Flanker’ aircraft - long-range, high-payload Suffering from one of his recurrent bouts of malaria the local press) a heart attack. ground-attack fighter-bombers. The Israeli and against medical advice, President Jerry John Some relatives of the President, who comes government is still reluctant to allow the previously Rawlings insisted on personally addressing, inter from a poor southern family, now rank among agreed sale to Addis Ababa of ten upgraded MiG- alia, the armed forces, the security services and Tunisia’s richest citizens. Business rivals accuse 21 ‘Lancers’ (AC Vol 39 No 17) by the Elbit foreign diplomats on the 17th anniversary of the some presidential relatives of overriding regulations company, which would later upgrade 50 MiG-21s 31st December revolution which brought the and building on archaeological sites. Such rumours and 23s. military Provisional National Defence Council to and the drugs case have further weakened faith in Neither country, though, has pilots trained to power. the regime’s probity. 8