www.africa-confidential.com 30 May 2003 Vol 44 No 11 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL USA/LIBYA 2 USA/AFRICA Getting to know the Colonel again Spinning the continent Washington’s political managers believe their Africa policy can win Chester Crocker and oil companies Occidental Oil and ConocoPhillips votes at home and undermine France at the G-8 summit are urging President Bush to start a A standing ovation greeted President George W. Bush as he marched into the State Department rapprochement with Libya. This flies auditorium on 28 May to sign a new bill providing US$15 billion for HIV/AIDS, to be spent mainly in against the tougher line on Tripoli Africa. In a bid for US leadership of the international campaign against HIV/AIDS, Bush called the held by administration hawks. initiative ‘a great mission of rescue’ and urged Europe, Japan and Canada to ‘match their good intentions with real resources.’ With the HIV/AIDS law rushed through Congress, Bush will be able to admonish ZIMBABWE 3 his rich-country counterparts to do more on HIV/AIDS when France hosts the G-8 summit in Evian on 8 June and some of them will hit back with accusations of US unilateralism and hypocrisy on free trade. What’s next? The State Department was packed with well-wishers – foreign policy enthusiasts from the Democrats Opposition MDC leader Morgan and the governing Republicans, former Zambian President and HIV/AIDS campaigner Kenneth Tsvangirai has told Zimbabweans Kaunda, evangelical Christians, health campaigners and Africa advocacy groups which see HIV/AIDS to prepare for a general strike in the as the central issue facing the continent. There are doubts about the new law. Only twelve African first week of June. After three years countries will benefit initially. It merely authorises spending up to $15 bn. over five years. It doesn’t on the defensive, the MDC is resurgent but the response from guarantee that figure will be paid out. Although the act is called an emergency measure to fight HIV/ ZANU is almost certain to be violent. AIDS, there will be no disbursements until 2004, when some $2 bn. in payments are planned rising to $3.8 bn. in 2008 when Bush could be out of power. ZIMBABWE 4 ‘A check without enough money in the bank’ Many believe the funding could be cut when the appropriation bill is debated in Congress as the Pius and power Republicans have imposed a tight ceiling on all foreign aid budgets. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy Achbishop Ncube is a vocal critic of compared the HIV/AIDS law to ‘writing a check without enough money in the bank’. Leahy added that corruption by government and of its the HIV/AIDS programme was promoted at the cost of cuts in other healthcare and food relief political manipulation of the famine. After many death threats, the programmes. Battles rage on about how to implement the World Trade Organisation’s waiver on patent Vatican has asked President laws to allow poor countries to buy cheaper generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. The European Union Mugabe to ensure his safety. proposed that the World Health Organisation should oversee the waiver, allowing African and other poor countries an automatic right to buy the drugs they need at lower prices. But US negotiators at the WTO 5 insist all applications be assessed on a drug-by-drug and case-by-case basis, so slowing down treatment. Bush’s Africa policy, however ad hoc and spin-doctored, seems to hold up well with domestic voters. NARCotic Polling organisations say that many housewives, evangelical Christians and even African-Americans are sympathetic to his policies on HIV/AIDS and foreign assistance. In its strategy for the next presidential Two sub-groups have emerged in election, the Republican Party aims to boost its share of the African-American vote from 9 per cent in 2000 the Rainbow Coalition: the all party ‘Mount Kenya Mafia’ and a Western to 15 per cent in 2004. A tall order, say Washington commentators, given that meddling with African- Alliance that backs Raila Odinga. American voter registration helped Bush to win vital votes in the disputed election in Florida as well as One wants a strong president, the the strong opposition to the Iraq war among African-Americans. other an executive prime minister. Undaunted, Bush’s team is pushing ahead on Africa. According to one DC analyst, ‘The Africa initiatives are cheap, easy to do and please [Secretary of State] Colin Powell.’ Bush is planning to make 6 his postponed trip to Africa in mid-July, to Nigeria (where the US business-backed Leon Sullivan Summit is being held on 14-18 July), to South Africa, which is Washington’s most important partner in Five-yearly farce Africa even if the relationship has turned tetchy, and two other states: a Francophone country (most likely Senegal) and perhaps Kenya or Ethiopia, depending on security conditions. June’s presidential election will be no better than the last two, which were Bush’s Africa trip will provide another chance to showcase the HIV/AIDS programme and the new blatantly rigged. And Eyadéma is free Millennium Challenge Account foreign aid initiative. Like the HIV/AIDS initiative (launched for Bush’s to be President for life. planned visit to Africa in January), the MCA was criticised as an ad hoc response to the US need to produce a development finance proposal in time for the development summit in Monterrey, Mexico, in POINTERS 8 March 2002. Unabashedly about picking winners in Africa and other developing regions, money from the MCA will only go to countries Washington judges to be successfully reforming their economies (AC Sierra Leone, Vol 44 No 6). Battles about who will control the MCA funds continue but the basic structure has been agreed: the MCA will be a private company headed by a chief executive from business who will be Congo-Kinshasa & answerable to a board of trustees headed by Colin Powell. Countries receiving funds will have to sign Morocco an MCA contract stating the policy obligations undertaken by the creditor that will be commercially 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11

USA/Libya: Getting to know the Colonel again One-time Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker In an argument that mirrors neo-conservative proposals to boost US and two American oil companies are urging President George W. Bush imports from West Africa, the report argues that access to Libyan crude to start a cautious rapprochement with Libya. Although Crocker remains would enhance US energy security by reducing dependence on Gulf oil. influential on Africa policy, this advice flies against the tougher line on It adds that Tripoli continues to honour previous lease agreements with US Tripoli advocated by Bush government hawks. oil producers despite offers from European and Asian competitors: ‘...at Crocker chaired a group including a former Central Intelligence Agency some point, Libya will probably decide it no longer wants to hold the door analyst, C. Richard Nelson, and representatives from Occidental Oil and open for sanctions-bound US firms.’ That time is fast approaching as ConocoPhillips which produced a report released on 22 May by the Libya’s deadline looms for US companies to return or give up their claim. Atlantic Council, an establishment foreign policy think-tank in Washington, Better US-Libya relations have been blocked by unresolved negotiations calling for an end to the US policy of isolating Libya. over Pan Am flight 103, blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, and Although Libya remains on the State Department’s list of terrorist continuing distrust of Gadaffi in Washington. The Atlantic report argues states, it has not been implicated in a terrorist attack for a decade, Crocker that both sides should take calibrated measures aimed at countering said. According to Crocker, Libyan security is fighting its own war terrorism and ensuring that Tripoli has no stocks of biological, chemical against Islamist terror groups: there is now ‘head-to-head competition or nuclear weapons. The starting point would be an agreement on between the Libyan (intelligence) services and the bad guys,’ he said. The compensation for the families of the Lockerbie victims. Bush government recognised this soon after 11 September 2001, when The report recommends that Washington help negotiate a Libyan Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi shared intelligence, Washington proscribed statement that would satisfy the UN Security Council, prior to a final the Islamist Armed Fighting Group and Libyan activist Anas al Liby was settlement. Once UN sanctions are lifted permanently, the report says that linked to Al Qaida. the State Department should remove Libya from the terrorism list, a step Crocker’s endorsement of a rapprochement is significant. Under that would automatically end several unilateral sanctions against Tripoli. President Ronald Reagan, he presided over a collapse of US-Libya According to the report, this would encourage other states to ‘graduate’ relations; El Gadaffi’s regime sponsored terror attacks on US and other from the US terrorist list. targets and in 1986, Washington bombed one of his houses in Tripoli, Although the report urges Washington to engage Tripoli in a ‘direct killing his daughter. Relations stayed bad under Crocker’s successor as security dialogue’ and to use multilateral agreements on chemical and Assistant Secretary for Africa and current Africa lobbyist, Herman biological weapons to constrain Libya’s military ambitions, it says that Cohen, who has been seeking better relations with Libya for some time. Tripoli has been trying to acquire new weapons technology from Russia Four US oil companies – Conoco, Marathon and Amerada Hess since UN sanctions were suspended in 1999. Tripoli denies that it has any (forming the ‘Oasis Group’), and Oxy – have wanted to reclaim their weapons of mass destruction, a claim viewed with scepticism by some interests in Libya since Reagan forced them out in the 1980s under US Bush officials, notably the hawkish Assistant Secretary of State for Non- sanctions. And El Gadaffi says that he would welcome their return. Proliferation, John Bolton (AC Vol 43 No 23).

enforceable and legally binding. world cotton price down by 25 per cent. Accordingly, Mali’s cotton It now seems that USAID (which had hoped to control the MCA) and farmers lost an estimated $43 mn. share of the market and Benin lost its much criticised director Andrew S. Natsios will be sidelined and $33 mn. In principle, US officials oppose this but reforming it would pushed further down the bureaucratic hierarchy. Crudely put, the be politically sensitive. Washington would be prepared partly to go MCA will be for Africa’s ‘winners’, where private companies can along with French President Jacques Chirac’s plans to widen market operate profitably on the back of aid programmes while USAID will access for African exporters and to stop temporarily all subsidies on be for the ‘losers’, wracked by civil war and famine. As one DC exports to Africa. analyst told Africa Confidential: ‘USAID is a paranoid institution with At Evian, Bush may try to bargain on subsidies and market access good reason to be paranoid’. against EU strictures on genetically modified (GM) food. Last week, In the State Department, where policy is run by the Assistant Bush accused the USA’s European partners (meaning France and Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner III, backed Germany) of blocking the use of ‘high yield bio-crops’ that he said up by his special advisor James Dunlap, the MCA is pushed as a could help prevent famine in Africa. Earlier, US Trade representative breakthrough for Africa with projected funding increasing from $1 bn. Robert Zoellick pointed at the EU and charged that African countries in 2004 to $5 bn. in 2006, effectively doubling US aid to Africa if all were refusing US food aid because of ‘fabricated fears – stoked by other current allocations hold up. This fits well with Kansteiner’s irresponsible rhetoric – about food safety.’ economic plans for Africa, which have dominated policy in the past Breaking with Europe on these issues will reinforce criticism of US two years. He wants to extend the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, unilateralism, which will not greatly trouble the Bush White House, introduced under President Bill Clinton, which served as a template particularly if some guarded support is forthcoming from British for the MCA principle: aid finance and tariff cuts will be offered to Prime Minister Tony Blair. The US initiatives on HIV/AIDS, AGOA those countries which, for example, accept US law on intellectual and and the MCA leave little room for US support of the African Union’s commercial property rights. Reciprocity seen through Washington’s own recovery programme, the New Partnership for Africa’s eyes is key: those countries wanting more access to the US market have Development (NePAD) which looks increasingly marooned along to sign up to US business rules. with the G-8’s own Africa action plan agreed last year in Canada. That trade-off is more difficult when US domestic economic interests The Department of Defense has wound down much of its support for are at stake: for example in 2002, the USA produced some $3 bn. of US training and logistics under the African Crisis Response Initiative cotton which attracted government subsidies of $4 bn. pushing the started under Clinton but US officials are thinking more about their 2 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11 own security in Africa following the September 2001 attacks. The reforms before fresh elections are held. Two obstacles arise: firstly, State Department is expanding its staff in Africa, cut by some 470 or Mugabe doesn’t want to go soon and insists on appointing his own more than 10 per cent in the mid-1990s. It is also increasing its successor when he does go (AC Vol 44 No 10); secondly, Tsvangirai intelligence capacity by 25-30 per cent in response to growing terrorist insists the MDC won’t join any transitional government: instead he worries. Bush officials confirm that the US deployment in Djibouti wants Mugabe to step down and be replaced by an acting president who with good access across the Horn of Africa and Red Sea has become would organise fresh elections within three months. key to its new regional security strategy. Neither party is united on strategy. Economic breakdown is prompting West Africa, too, is becoming more important (it now supplies new divisions within ZANU-PF and its security apparatus. Even some about 15 per cent of US oil imports which could rise to about 25 per ZANU-loyalists question whether their party could win a free election cent within the decade) but US strategy will remain flexible according in the near future and so they favour a two-year transition period. Other to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s Supreme Commander, US ZANU militants want Mugabe to stay on until they can position General James Jones. He said the carrier battle groups – that is, an themselves better for the leadership struggle. Though the MDC is aircraft carrier with some 12,000 personnel on board and several divided over tactics and its leadership is on trumped-up treason charges, support ships – would divide their time between the Mediterranean its great achievement is to have survived two years of battering at the and the West Africa seaboard. Jones described West Africa as hands of ZANU’s securocrats. including ‘large, ungoverned areas... that are clearly the new routes of Emboldened by the worsening crisis and ZANU’s unpopularity, the narco-trafficking, terrorists’ training and hotbeds of instability.’ MDC sounds more militant. More than a thousand people were arrested Jones added that NATO was planning to send a 2,000-3,000 rapid after it organised stayaways in March. Much worse could follow the reaction force to a base in West Africa by October but would not strike in June. Bolder voices in Harare speak of Mugabe’s ‘Milosevic identify the country. Although São Tomé e Príncipe has offered moment’, arguing that his failure to win international recognition after basing rights to Washington, there has been no public response. As his disputed presidential election victory in March 2002 has made him France already has basing rights in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Gabon, an illegitimate leader, presiding over a bankrupt economy. Those close NATO could equally choose one of these. Bush’s government may to Mugabe insist he will go out with guns blazing. have come to power without an Africa policy but events have conspired For now, the ruling clique in ZANU prefers a strategy of violent to develop one – reacting to terrorist threats, changing relations with intimidation of the MDC and other oppositionists. Keeping the opposition Europe and longer term thinking on US trade and business in Africa. at bay while the ruling party resolves its own succession problems Most strikingly, Bush’s Africa policy has begun to get noticed, carries fewer risks than joining negotiations about power-sharing and prompting veteran Africa campaigner Sir Bob Geldof to compare it fresh elections, which would result in ZANU losing its political muscle. favourably with the Clinton era. It’s a safe bet that most of Bush’s Mugabe is in any event instinctively hostile to talk of a retirement counterparts at Evian and Geldof’s fellow Africa activists will not package. The much hoped for ‘dignified and voluntary’ exit strategy agree with that assessment. for him is a mirage. He will not leave without serious pressure: the choice is whether it is private (which might avoid more bloodshed) or public (which would guarantee a bloody showdown). ZIMBABWE ANC and ZANU, old comrades South Africa’s African National Congress, which plays a key role in What’s next? Pretoria’s Zimbabwe policy, sympathises with ZANU as a member of Southern Africa’s liberation party fraternity. Instinctively hostile to a A messy endgame looms unless government trades union-based party such as the MDC, whose ascent to power in and opposition start serious negotiations Zimbabwe could set a precedent for South Africa, ANC theoreticians Zimbabweans have been thronging the banks in Bulawayo and Harare believe that a reformed ZANU could take charge after Mugabe’s exit this week desperate for cash to stock up on necessities before the and re-stabilise the country. Recent research indicates that Zimbabwe’s opposition’s planned general strike. That Morgan Tsvangirai, leader political crisis has reduced South Africa’s gross domestic product by a of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, should advise cumulative 1.3 per cent and cost the Southern African region about Zimbabweans to prepare for an extended general strike in the first US$2.5 billion since 2000 (1). week of June shows the opposition’s new confidence. After three This economic downturn does make the attraction of an externally years on the defensive, the MDC is resurgent; but the response from backed Zimbabwe reconstruction package – including much needed the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is almost certain supplies for the farming and power sectors as well as new credits for fuel to be violent. supplies – more attractive as an incentive for ZANU to start serious Zimbabwe’s tragic crisis is escalating, prompting talk of a ‘failed negotiations. Although official foreign aid wouldn’t resume until the state’ in the making threatening the stability of the region. political transition was regarded as ‘irreversible’, this does offer a Unemployment is galloping at more than 50 per cent, HIV/AIDS chance to halt the economic free-fall which looks increasingly dangerous infection rates are over 30 per cent, more than seven million people – even for the ZANU hierarchy. need food aid. These catastrophes combine with a chronic fuel If Mugabe is denied legal protection when he retires, the implied shortage and frequent power cuts. Mozambique and South Africa threat is that he will declare all-out war on his opponents. That is the are calling in their credit to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority. nightmare that South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian Yet the country’s desperate straits may offer a last chance of a President Olusegun Obasanjo want to avoid. They made clear such negotiated political transition. foreboding, we hear, in meetings with Mugabe and Tsvangirai on 5 Many people, both local and foreign, believe the way forward is for May. They also, along with Malawi’s President Bakili Muluzi, pushed President Robert Gabriel Mugabe to retire soon and for a transitional their plan for substantive three-sided negotiations between the government headed by an acting president to pass constitutional government, MDC and civil society groups, leading to a South African-

3 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11

style transitional power-sharing government. South Africa’s position as a regional trouble-shooter has strengthened Pius and power in recent weeks since Mbeki met the United States Assistant Secretary Archbishop Pius Ncube is emerging as the most important and convincing of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner III, and British opponent of President Robert Mugabe’s government. Ncube, the Roman Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary Jack Straw to better coordinate Catholic prelate for Bulawayo, criticises corruption by the government policy on South Africa. Kansteiner and Straw, however sceptical, and its failure to provide food aid to hungry Zimbabweans – especially to agreed to turn down the volume on Western policy while Mbeki those areas which voted for the opposition in his archdiocese. With other presses harder to get negotiations started. church groups, Ncube ran a food distribution network although it That will demand much diplomatic skill from Mbeki. Both ZANU contravened government efforts to control food aid. and MDC say they will talk without preconditions – although each has Representing a third force outside party politics, Ncube has been thrown a list of pre-negotiation demands at the other. Talks began in critical of the failures of opposition politicians: ‘I am not a supporter of the April 2002 but ZANU cut them short in protest at the MDC’s legal opposition and I will never campaign for a particular opposition party.’ challenge to Mugabe’s election. Since then, little work has been done Government securocrats see things differently and Ncube is under constant on the basic issues: what compromise might be possible over surveillance. Central Intelligence Organisation operatives have been preconditions? Who should be represented at the talks? implanted in Catholic organisations. Born and raised in Gweru in the Midlands, between Mashonaland and ‘Road-map’ for political reform? Matebeleland, Ncube (54) was ordained in 1973 and studied advanced Once the preliminaries are dealt with, there is a list of substantive theology at the Vatican in 1983-85. His activism on social issues has issues that could keep the fractious parties negotiating for months. earned him respect in Rome. Catholics have been strongly critical of ● How long will the transition be and when will polls be held? The human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The Catholic Commission for Justice MDC wants a three-month transition leading to elections once Mugabe and Peace compiled a detailed record of the political killings in steps down; ZANU wants to spin it out until 2008; others suggest a Matebeleland in the early 1980s which the government tried to suppress. year’s transition would be enough to pass agreed constitutional and The Jesuit-educated Mugabe finds Ncube’s criticism embarrassing and electoral reforms, and to begin to stabilise the economy. the state-controlled media lambast the Archbishop as a national traitor. ● What will the transitional government be like? Pretoria’s facilitators Harare’s Financial Gazette recounted last month how Joshua Nkomo’s favour a power-sharing arrangement of the type they established in family had invited Ncube to officiate at the late Vice-President’s memorial 1990-94; ZANU would trade some power-sharing for international mass in 2000. Mugabe refused to attend unless another priest was found. legitimacy and a resumption of foreign aid; Tsvangirai rules out any Ncube has received so many death threats that the Vatican has asked participation in a ZANU-dominated arrangement (though that might Mugabe to ensure the Archbishop’s safety. Although Ncube is given change if several non-partisan technocrats could be persuaded to join security on foreign trips, friends are concerned about arrangements back a transitional government). home in Matebeleland, where he is most at risk. ● What reforms are needed before elections? The MDC wants an After a whirlwind tour of Europe and the United States in mid-May, independent electoral commission, and the depoliticisation of the Ncube’s international status has grown sharply. In meetings with British, security forces and state media; South Africa would endorse many European Union and US officials, such as Secretary of State Colin such reforms, which were the basis of its own political transition; Powell, Ncube stressed the gravity of the food and health crises, and the ZANU remains wary of losing the advantages of incumbency. need to resolve the political crisis peacefully. ● Will Mugabe and senior ZANU officials get legal immunity? As political negotiations get underway, Archbishop Ncube may be a ZANU is demanding guarantees for the post-Mugabe era; the MDC is key representative for civil society. Church groups are to have a bigger ambivalent, speaking of the need to recognise Mugabe’s contribution role as South African officials try to bring a wider range of civic groups to the anti-colonial struggle but offering no guarantees; South Africa’s and trades unions into the talks, which have so far been limited to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted immunity to those ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and the opposition politicians and security officers who gave a full account of their Movement for Democratic Change. involvement in human rights abuses and no senior politicians or military officers were prosecuted; whatever immunity Mugabe and that implies some degree of dual control (by MDC and ZANU) or at his colleagues were granted at home would not protect them against least some monitoring by a third party (South Africa or Britain?); private prosecution abroad. ZANU doesn’t want to surrender its grip on the security sector and old- ● What’s the status of land resettlement? ZANU says the process guard securocrats have said they wouldn’t recognise a President (such should be inviolable although its own investigations have uncovered as Tsvangirai) who hadn’t fought in the liberation war. serious irregularities committed by party officials; the MDC supports ● What will be the publicly agreed timetable and plan for the the principle of land redistribution but wants a thorough investigation negotiations? The MDC and ZANU are far from agreement on even of the resettlement and a national land audit; SA says the key issue is a negotiating framework; without a consensus on the agenda and return to the rule of law. timetable, little progress can be expected; the road-map must emerge ● Who should be included in the negotiations? The MDC wants direct from discussion between the Zimbabwean parties, mediated by South negotiations with ZANU; ZANU favours any mechanism that will Africa: Pretoria will block anything else. draw out negotiations, such as involving more organisations; SA wants to include other political and civic groups in the same way as Security agenda former President Frederik Willem de Klerk widened the range of Along with the failing economy, security issues will dominate a negotiating parties in South Africa’s transition: this would downgrade transitional government’s agenda. Formerly one of Africa’s best the MDC’s position and lengthen the transition. equipped and most professional militiaries, the Zimbabwe Defence ● How should the security sector be reformed? The MDC calls for Force has been damaged both by the intervention in Congo-Kinshasa de-politicisation and re-professionalisation of the security forces but (in which several officers have undertaken criminal operations such as

4 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11 diamond smuggling) and by the creation of parallel security delegates are doing now. organisations such as the ‘war veterans’ (most of whom were too The main rivalry in the National Alliance Rainbow Coalition young to have fought in the anti-colonial war) and the youth militias. (NARC) pits a sub-group led by the shadowy ‘Mount Kenya Mafia’ The police and military resent these informal security forces and there (comprising some Kikuyu, Meru, Embu and Kamba from all parties) have been clashes, suggesting that command and control at the centre against a ‘Western Alliance’ that backs Raila Odinga and is based on is weakening. Luo and Luhya parliamentarians plus some members of ex-President An umbilical cord, formed during the anti-colonial war, joins the Daniel arap Moi’s ousted Kenya African National Union (KANU). ZDF and ZANU. The military organisations that fought against Ian The 14 parties in NARC fall loosely into these two sub-alliances, Smith’s regime – the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army roughly corresponding to the central and western groups. The old (ZANLA) and Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) – National Alliance of Kenya is led by President , Vice- won the guerrilla war and forced the regime to give up power. President Michael Kijana Wamalwa and the effective new Health However, they were integrated into the structure of the old Rhodesian Minister, Charity K. Ngilu; the Liberal Democratic Party is led by Defence Force, which retained several senior white Rhodesian Raila Odinga, Joseph Kamotho and Arap Moi’s old Vice-President, officers and some of their military doctrine. As the political crisis George Saitoti. worsened, senior ZDF officers have benefitted from ZANU’s system. Raila’s group wants the new constitution to provide for an executive Increasingly, political allegiance has become a determinant of prime minister with real powers – ‘like in France’, he says. His promotion, a development which has frustrated junior and middle- opponents want to keep a strong presidency in case Kibaki, a Kikuyu, ranking officers. The MDC has some support among more junior runs again in 2007 (when he will be 76). Raila’s westerners want to officers and the ranks but almost none among senior officers. Moreover, put an age limit of 71 on presidential candidates; one Mount Kenya there is serious in-fighting among the senior ranks of the serving leader called that a prospective ‘constitutional coup’. The Mount (General Vitalis Zvinavashe) and retired (Gen. Solomon Mujuru) Kenya team (to which no one admits they belong) wants a weaker military over the succession race. premier, answerable to an executive president, as in neighbouring Tanzania or Uganda; it fears losing power in the 2007 elections to a Congo vets and civil servants vie for rewards premier called Raila. The return home of 12,000 ZDF soldiers from Congo last year has increased the competition for resources: for example, the returnees Why not Wanjiku? were promised land, which has brought them into competition with Raila’s group ambushed its rivals in the elections for the conference civil servants also promised land for their ‘loyalty’ during the elections. committees, bagging the chairs of all the powerful committees. Both Resources and rewards for the security services are a growing problem groups have held secret night-time meetings to decide on strategy, as the government struggles to keep their pay ahead of inflation, with Kibaki and the leader of the opposition, KANU’s Uhuru Kenyatta running at over 200 per cent. As the privileges of soldiers and police (the man Moi had hoped would replace him), staying clear. diminish, so might their loyalty to ZANU. Kibaki’s opening speech was, characteristically, a rousing Perhaps the biggest threat to Zimbabwe is the slow unravelling of commitment to a new dawn. In contrast, Moi’s defeated government the political system and economy which will continue without had attacked the head of the Constitutional Review Commission, substantive negotiations between the two parties. The USA and UK Professor Yash Pal Ghai, as a foreigner (he showed the press his now favour more discreet tactics and will stand by while South Africa Kenyan passport), for not consulting him personally and for daring to mediates between the MDC and ZANU. Britain and the USA will think that ordinary citizens ‘like the market-woman Wanjiku’ could increase their support and training for civil society and opposition debate the constitution intelligently. KANU invented Wanjiku to groupings and strengthen sanctions targeted against the ZANU elite typify the common citizen. and their financial backers. All this turns up the heat on the ZANU President Kibaki, however, paid tribute to Ghai and to the poor government but without a strong lead from South Africa to restart Kenyan voters who had demanded an end to corruption and ‘a new negotiations, it’s likely that the political rivalry between the MDC and political culture’ by voting for NARC. ‘In the last few decades, the ZANU will get bloodier. (1) Zimbabwe Research Initiative study. freedom which Kenyans had fought and died for had been snatched from them’, he asserted and it was the conference’s duty to produce a constitution that would never allow abuse of power. The speech was KENYA praised, even by journalists; British High Commissioner Edward Clay, who in 2001-02 wrangled with Moi over election-rigging and NARCotic official indifference to violence, called it ‘a collector’s item’. Blame it on the Ms The governing coalition is quarrelsome but Kibaki’s popularity has grown since his election in December, amid greedy MPs help prevent a split sympathy during his long convalescence after his December car Divisions in the governing coalition have grown sharper during the accident. The public is nevertheless growing impatient with his constitutional review conference, which opened on 30 April in the government and this lengthy jamboree, with its petty political Bomas of Kenya park and promises to continue half-way through preoccupations, will not help (AC Vol 44 No 7). NARC’s cleavage June. Taking part are all 223 members of parliament and 406 delegates is hardly surprising in a 14-party alliance. The Kikuyu, Meru, Embu representing Kenya’s 71 districts. Critics noted the irony of drafting and Kamba MPs in the Mount Kenya group have brought trouble on a new constitution in, as one put it, ‘a theme park where Africans dance themselves and the ‘six Ms’, as the press likes to call them, are widely for tourists’. They also note that the United Nations Development being blamed. Programme has just spent eight million Kenya shillings (US$110,000) The Ms are State House Comptroller Matere Keriri, Security on three seminars reviewing the draft constitution – exactly as the Minister Chris Murungaru, Justice Minister , 5 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11

Transport and Communications Minister John N. Michuki, Finance Ouko in February 1990, saying his Luo colleagues mistrusted him. A Minister and economic consultant Harris Mule few days earlier, Kariuki had gone to court seeking to close the Bomas (once Moi’s Treasury Permanent Secretary). All were once close to meeting on the grounds that it contravened the current constitution; he Kibaki. Now, faced with the pro-Raila majority at Bomas, they fear failed, amid accusations by western MPs that he was fronting a Kikuyu being sidelined as in the bad days under Moi. They have not really attempt to sabotage the constitutional review. tried, though, to build bridges with leaders from outside central Barring a big blunder by Kibaki, the NARC government is likely to Kenya, the country’s economic and political hub. They vigorously survive until the 2007 elections, retaining a comfortable parliamentary deny belonging to the Mount Kenya Mafia, an insult they say was majority even if one or two parties cross the floor. A major force invented by their western rivals. (Persecution complexes abound in sustaining it is the greed its elected representatives have shown since western Kenya, where people remember Kikuyu dominance during the Coalition took office in January. The first appropriation bill, the era of the late President Jomo Kenyatta, father of Uhuru.) unanimously approved in March, allocated each member $40,000 to During Kibaki’s long recovery, the central Kenya group announced purchase a personal car (Mercedes 180 was the runaway favourite) and some controversial moves, ignoring complaints that ministries had a doubling of parliamentary salaries to KSh450,000 ($6,000) per not been allocated as the coalition parties had agreed in their pre- month, only KSh175,000 ($2,500) of which is taxable. The cost will electoral Memorandum of Understanding. They then refused to be $10 mn. yearly. Members said they needed the perks to serve the reconvene what is known as the ‘NARC summit’ – Kibaki (Kikuyu), people better. Most Kenyans live on less than one dollar a day. Neither Odinga (Luo), (Luhya), Najib Balala (Coast and side of the House wants to defeat the government on a motion of Muslims), Kipruto Kirwa (Kalenjin) and Ngilu (Kamba) – which confidence, since that could trigger elections before 2007 and most had ironed out ethnic differences over the allocation of constituencies. seats are at risk. Even NARC ultra-loyalists were disappointed when the first batch Both western and central MPs at Bomas oppose the civil society of permanent secretaries was appointed in February. The Coalition representatives, who want a clause in the constitution under which had promised to recruit the most competent people to the civil service constituents can recall MPs between elections for neglect of duty. and it wanted a purge. However, to everyone’s surprise, most of the Money and Mercedes encourage political opposition to this idea, permanent secretaries had originally been appointed by Moi and his notably from old-style populists such as Koigi wa Wamwere, NARC public service chief, Sally Kosgey (AC Vol 44 No 4). MP for Subukia. Unless the clause is dropped, MPs threaten to oppose They include the civil service head, Francis Muthaura, whom the entire constitution when it reaches parliament. Moi had chosen to head the East African Community in Arusha, plus Kibaki plays the statesman, remaining above party squabbles. In the permanent secretaries in key ministries, notably Peter Nkuraiya his April radio and television address, he told his audience to get used (Foreign Affairs), Rebecca Nabutola (Tourism), Karega Mutahi to inter-party debates as part of democracy. Given his personal (Education), Dave Mwangi (Office of the President). Most, as it popularity and the self-seeking nature of many politicians, this strategy happens, are from central Kenya. may work. Yet to deliver the benefits he promised Kenyans, President Similar indignation followed March’s reshuffle of jobs in parastatal Kibaki needs a new cohort of competent executives. Thanks to his organisations. George Muhoho (a brother of KANU’s Mama Ngina close friends, he has not yet passed the test. Kenyatta, Jomo’s widow and Uhuru’s mother) who has stood by Kibaki, was asked to run the Kenya Airports Authority even though he is past retirement age. Professor Nick Gatheru Wanjohi, a senior TOGO KANU official in the 1980s who only recently joined NARC, was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture; the students soon went out on strike. The next round of Five-yearly farce top public service appointments is eagerly awaited. Togo’s presidential election will be no better than the last two Ouko not forgotton An attempt to reconcile Raila’s supporters and their rivals took place President Gnassingbé Eyadéma will secure a third presidential term in February at the posh Mount Kenya Safari Club, at the foot of Mount on 1 June but this time, hardly anyone is taking the process seriously. Kenya. Raila graciously forgave Murungi and his allies for scuttling The European Union’s decision not to send observers because the his campaign for the chair of the Parliamentary Constitutional basic preconditions for a free and fair election have not been met is a Committee, in favour of Paul Muite, the Safina (‘Ark’) party leader clear signal that EU aid, suspended for over a decade, will not be and Kabete MP, who is not even a member of NARC. Murungi resumed soon (AC Vol 44 No 9). admitted that he had supported Muite after suspecting that Raila was After the blatant fixing of the last presidential poll in June 1998, both behind the defeat of two NARC bills in parliament, which he had now the EU and France extracted a commitment from Eyadéma not to learnt was not the case. There is obviously little consultation between stand for re-election in 2003. Nonetheless, after resisting pressure to NARC ministers from the rival camps. hold democratic legislative elections in October 2002, he secured 72 In Mombasa in April, NARC MPs seemed to have agreed on the of parliament’s 81 seats for his Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais new constitution’s most divisive issues. These are the powers of the (RPT). Then on 30 December, he pushed through an amendment to the prime minister (to be like Uganda’s); constitutional guarantees for the 1993 constitution abolishing the limit of two terms on the president. rights of Islamic Kadhi courts (not needed, since these Sharia courts This is interpreted as meaning that he could go on standing indefinitely. for family and property law are already secured in law); and the The same clause also stipulated that all candidates must have resided maximum age of presidential candidates (those over 71 would also be in the country for twelve months, a measure designed to exclude eligible). Now all the bets are off. On 13 May, Mirugi Kariuki, a , son of Togo’s first President, , Kikuyu representing Nakuru town, resigned from the parliamentary who was assassinated by the then Sergeant Eyadéma in 1963. Gilchrist commission investigating the murder of Foreign Minister Robert lives in Paris, fearful for his safety in Togo since an Eyadéma hit squad

6 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11 nearly killed him in 1992. Eyadéma is determined he should not stand, Premier during the 1990-91 transition to especially after his performance in 1998, when bodies assumed to be multi-party politics, then returned to business, is standing as an of opposition supporters were found on beaches in neighbouring independent. Benin. Eyadéma had allowed Olympio to stand because of intense ● Veteran opposition politician Léopold Gnininvi withdrew from international pressure and he almost certainly won by a handsome the race on 26 May and his Convention Démocratique des Peuples majority. Yet Eyadéma declared himself winner before the votes were Africains urged its supporters to vote for Akitani, who it said even counted (AC Vol 39 No 14). commanded most opposition support. Olympio’s opponents say he’s not really Togolese, contrasting him with Eyadéma’s ruling clan of northern Kabye people. Although Dictator at home, doyen abroad Sylvanus Olympio was the father of nationalist politics in Togo and his Eyadéma is counting on his long friendship with French President party massively won pro-Independence elections in 1958, he was of Jacques Chirac and believes problems of democracy in Africa attract Brazilian descent. For Eyadéma, this made him an alien. His little attention in the present international climate. Whatever his supporters compare him to Côte d’Ivoire’s opposition politician record on democracy and human rights, Eyadéma enjoys considerable Alassane Dramane Ouattara, who also lives in exile, excluded from respect in Africa as its longest serving leader. To French embarrassment, elections and accused of being foreign. he has played an important role in mediating peace talks on Côte Returning to Togo for the day on 26 April, Olympio was held up for d’Ivoire and he hosted a meeting between Ivorian President Laurent three hours at the Ghanaian frontier by Togolese border police Gbagbo and Liberian leader Charles Taylor on 26 April. concerned that he had a Ghanaian passport. He said Lomé had refused Nigerian leaders recall his role as a founder of the Economic to renew his Togolese passport but he was able to get a Ghanaian one Community of West African States in the 1970s, while traditionally as his mother was Ghanaian. State media, seeking any means to good relations with Ghana survived the change of government in discredit him, subsequently made this into a big issue. 2001, despite President John Kufuor’s lauded democratic credentials. A rally of thousands of supporters in Lomé proved that he still had Relations with President Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso are substantial support, but on 13 May, the Electoral Commission rejected pragmatic. his candidacy, saying he had not submitted residence or tax certificates. Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, who is senior in age and has His Union des Forces du Changement was obliged to put up Emmanuel rather better democratic credentials than Eyadéma, covets his role as Bob Akitani, a retired engineer and party loyalist in his 70s who lacks a regional mediator. He attracted the Togolese leader’s wrath in Olympio’s charisma. After protests at his disqualification, UFC October when Agboyibo visited him in Dakar to thank him for helping number two Jean-Pierre Fabré and 35 of his party militants were to secure his release from gaol. detained by security forces who came into the party headquarters and took computers and money. Sons of Eyadéma There are six approved candidates. The RPT formally nominated Olympio is now said to be totally disillusioned and talks of giving up Eyadéma only at the end of April (one of his lieutenants called this act the struggle. Eyadéma is thought to be grooming one of his four sons the leader’s ‘sacrifice’). Under the 2002 electoral law, there is now to for the succession and has lowered the minimum age for presidential be a first-past-the-post system, where previously there had always candidates. Ernest Gnassingbé and Rock are senior military officers, been the possibility of two rounds. This means Eyadéma no longer has while Faure is RPT member for Sokodé in the centre-north. The to get over 50 per cent of the vote, which would require some heavy fourth, Kpatcha, runs the free zone at Lomé port, which has seen an rigging. It also deprives the opposition of the chance to unite in a upturn in trade diverted from Abidjan because of the Ivorian crisis. second round behind whoever comes second in the first. The climate is scarcely conducive to investment, which only adds to Togo’s isolation. The World Bank suspended disbursements in Apart from Akitani, Eyadéma’s opponents are: January 2002 because of the accumulation of arrears. Eyadéma’s ● , President of the Convergence Patriotique status in West Africa is in some ways comparable to Southern Panafricaine, which groups four opposition parties. A founder Africans’ attitude to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe but member of the RPT, he was Secretary General of the Organisation of Mugabe at least had a record as a nationalist, while Eyadéma came to African Unity in 1978-1983 and Prime Minister from 1994 to 1996. power only after the assassination of a genuine nationalist by a gang His dalliances with the government before returning to the opposition of French army conscripts annoyed at being jobless. have tended to sully his reputation but he is still one of the best known names in politics. Visit our website at: www.africa-confidential.com ● Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at Yaovi Agboyibo, a radical lawyer who has been active in opposition 73 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. since the 1991 national conference that drew the outlines of a nominal Tel: +44 20-7831 3511. Fax: +44 20-7831 6778. multi-party system. The leader of the Comité d’Action pour le Copyright reserved. Editor: Patrick Smith. Deputy Editors: Gillian Lusk Renouveau was released in March 2002 after spending six months in and Thalia Griffiths. Administration: Clare Tauben and Juliet Amissah. Annual subscriptions including postage, cheques payable to Africa gaol for defaming the then Premier, Agbéyomé Kodjo, who was Confidential in advance: sacked in June. Olympio quit the opposition coalition after Agboyibo Institutions: Africa £328 – UK/Europe £385 – USA $970 – ROW £502 agreed to work with the RPT-controlled electoral commission, splitting Corporates: Africa £424 – UK/Europe £472 – USA $1093 – ROW £589 the opposition, which might otherwise have put up a single candidate Students (with proof): Africa/UK/Europe/ROW £91 or USA $131 African Studies Assoc. members: UK/Europe £70 – Americas $102 – ROW £70 against Eyadéma. All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept ● Maurice Dahuku Péré, an RPT defector and the only northerner American Express, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. standing apart from the President. A former President of parliament, Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 1354, 9600 he wrote an open letter to the party leadership in March 2002 blaming Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2XG England. Tel: 44 (0)1865 778315 and Fax: 44 (0)1865 471775 the RPT for the country’s economic plight. Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts, UK. ● Nicolas Lawson, a businessman of 50 who served as advisor to ISSN 0044-6483

7 30 May 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 11

Pointers CONGO-KINSHASA MOROCCO

SIERRA LEONE Un-rapid reaction Democracy at stake Fighting is worsening in the north-eastern Ituri Long before the suicide bombings ripped through Province but plans for a 2,000-strong rapid reaction Casablanca’s heart on 16 May, Morocco’s political No cash, no court force are embroiled in United Nations and class was debating the extent to which political The Special Court set up to try those ‘who bear European Union bureaucracy. The proposed Islam should be allowed to thrive in a democracy most responsibility’ for the decade-long civil war French-led force with a tough peace-enforcement under pressure. The bombers killed 29 bystanders faces a cash crisis which may delay trials and mandate faces diplomatic opposition from and battered the crucial tourist industry. When scupper plans for a new court building and Rwanda, which says the French role would ‘not Prime Minister Driss Jettou postponed local detention centre in Freetown. Government efforts be appropriate’. elections from June till September due to the Iraq to rebuild the battered criminal justice system Tens of thousands of lives have for months war (AC Vol 44 No 6), many thought it was would be set back again. been threatened by gun-battles and machete- because the ‘moderate Islamist’ Parti de la Justice Set up under the joint authority of the Sierra wielding militias. If the UN Security Council et du Développement (PJD) might exploit the Leonean government and the United Nations, the falters now, this could be its biggest failure since protest vote to sweep urban town halls, just as the Special Court budgeted US$56 million for three it withdrew UN peacekeepers from Rwanda as the Front Islamique du Salut did in Algeria during the years of operations, a fraction of the cost of the génocidaires began killing in April 1994. last Gulf war (1990-91). UN tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and French soldiers are less enthusiastic about After the suicide bombings on five targets in half that of the Lockerbie trial. Just $31 mn. has intervening than their political masters, even for Casablanca, Islamists fear a crackdown on their been pledged for the Court in Freetown; several the two months France proposes. A French military organisations, including the PJD (with 42 seats in donors, including Britain and the Netherlands, reconnaissance mission of nine last week found parliament) and the biggest ‘tolerated’ group, are yet to pay their share of this year’s operations. huge logistical problems. Equally daunting are Sheikh Abdessalam’s Yacine’s Al Adl wal Ihsane The Court’s work is at a critical point. It has the political and diplomatic obstacles. Paris accepts (Justice and Charity). Politicians complain that issued the first set of indictments, which include it must assemble a multi-national force, with some legal and underground Islamist groups have been the Sierra Leonean Minister for Internal Affairs, British troops at least, and win agreement from working to radicalise Moroccan youth. Sam Hinga Norman, and rebel Revolutionary neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. EU Foreign Parties and civil society groups blocked Al Adl United Front Commander, Sam ‘Mosquito’ Policy and Security chief Javier Solana has and PJD members from joining them on protest Bockarie, a long-standing ally of Liberian suggested the intervention force be sent under an marches against the attacks, which had hit President Charles Taylor. Within days of EU flag; this might meet regional objections. ‘international’ targets, including the Kuwaiti- Bockarie’s indictment, the Monrovia government Ituri is symptomatic of Congo’s national crisis, owned Farah Safir Hotel, a Spanish club, the announced that he had been killed in a shoot-out worsened this week by the rebel Rassemblement Belgian consulate and a Jewish centre. with its forces (AC Vol 44 No 10). Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma withdrawing Ahead of local elections, PJD parliamentary Sceptical, the Special Court demanded to see from Kinshasa talks on a power-sharing transitional group leader Mustapha Ramid says ‘radical Bockarie’s corpse. The body of an obese African government. Most of Congo’s factions are secularists’ are trying to demonise Islamist-leaning male in his mid-40s was duly delivered to jockeying for power in this mineral-rich region. groups, who are politically far from the ultra- Freetown; it didn’t match Bockarie, a lithe man in Mbusa Nyamwisi, head of RCD-Mouvement radical splinter groups Salafiya al Jihadiya and his 30s, who had once earned a living as a limbo- de Libération, is heading towards Bunia from his Assirat al Moustakim (the Right Path) believed to dancer. After a proposal to match Bockarie’s Beni base, backed by troops from Kinshasa’s have organised the attacks. Assirat al Moustakim, DNA to the corpse, several of Bockarie’s relatives Forces Armées Congolaises. He wants to wrest a splinter from Youssef Fikri’s Al Hijra wal have disappeared and are feared dead. control of Bunia from Thomas Lubanga, Hema Takfir, has been linked to Al Qaida but is basically The Special Court plans to indict a maximum of leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais, which home-grown. Its gaoled leader, Miloudi Zakaria, 30 individuals and is confident it can complete the won control of Bunia in mid-May after the has also been linked to Salafiya al Jihadiya. trials by 2005. Its remit to indict those who bear departure of Ugandan troops and a pitched battle Justice Minister Mohamed Bouzoubaa has ‘most responsibility’ means it can target political with Lendu militias (AC Vol 44 No 10). Even if called for a rethink on religion in politics, noting leaders, their business associates and arms dealers the intervention force ‘pacifies’ Ituri, it’s unclear that legislation bans overt religious, ethnic or alleged to have prolonged the war and supported to whom it will hand over two months later. regionalist parties. Others argue that by clamping the RUF. The most high-profile target is likely to Bangladeshi peacekeepers are due there soon but down on the PJD, the authorities would only make be Liberia’s Taylor, along with businessmen such lack the muscle to hold back local militias. a bad situation worse, driving moderate Islamists as Leonid Minin, named as arms suppliers to Another candidate is the Ituri Pacification with a popular mandate underground – like the Liberia in successive UN reports. Commission: with representatives from all militias FIS, they say, whose 1992 banning marked the So far, the Special Court has no extra-territorial except Lubanga’s UPC, it is trying to set up a local bginning of a decade of conflict. powers. It needs a UN Chapter 7 mandate to have administration. With resources and military Meanwhile, liberals fear a security backlash indicted individuals arrested outside Sierra Leone. protection, it could establish some authority. It and tighter constraints on freedom of expression Currently it hasn’t even got the authority to take would help if the intervention force could under the guise of the ‘war on terrorism’, with a those arrested abroad for medical treatment. The demobilise local militias. An imaginative proposal new anti-terrorism law passing through parliament. Court’s modest indictment list and its relations is for planes bringing equipment for the Some Israeli politicians are encouraging the with the troubled Truth and Reconciliation intervention force to ferry out Ituri’s militiamen, estimated 5,000 Jewish population to consider Commission (which has no judicial powers) have who would be encouraged on board by promises leaving – a blow to Morocco’s self-image of sparked criticism in Freetown and beyond. of food, job training and cash. tolerance.

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