24 September 1999 Vol 40 No 19 CONFIDENTIAL ANGOLA ANGOLA 2 Military-minded The UN tries again The government is deliberately downplaying its latest military After its spectacular failure, the UN is back - helped by smarter moves after its disastrous offensive sanctions but facing the same political problems last December. UNITA wants to United Nations’ attempts to keep a presence in Angola are being frustrated by the United States lure government forces into unsustainable attacks and then Congress. Jonas Savimbi’s União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola has for decades trap them. This time it seems the enjoyed special access to some senators and congressmen, notably the veteran isolationist, Senator FAA forces under General De Jesse Helms (Democrat, South Carolina). Now Michael Westfal, one of Helms’s aides, leads a Matos are better prepared. group of four congressional staff members who have blocked progress on a draft UN resolution, drawn up by diplomats of the Angola ‘troika’ (USA, Portugal and Russia) at the UN and circulated 3 on 26 August. Westfal says that the proposed 30-strong UNOA (UN Office in Angola) is not a peacekeeping operation and should not get US funding. Phone sects Another UNITA sympathiser, Malik Chaka, was for years information officer in UNITA’s Washington office; when UN sanctions forced the closure of the office, he was appointed to the staff A major row is brewing over the independence of the regulators of the House of Representatives Africa Sub-Committee. Congressional staffers are also holding up overseeing the privatisation of funding for the UN’s sanctions committee, to the embarrassment of the State Department’s main Kenya's beleaguered telecoms Angola policy-maker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Witney Schneidman. sector. Companies bidding for the UNOA was dreamed up after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had wooed the Luanda country's second cellular licence government for months. He ditched the previous, much larger, UN mission, MONUA, in February. are convinced that the regulators bowed to pressure from senior There followed a series of political manoeuvrings between senior UN officials and Security Council politicians to disqualify several members. Angola’s Foreign Minister, João Bernardo de Miranda, had initially opposed a bids. continued UN operation but in July, he met Annan in Algeria and agreement was reached to start a new mission. It’s intended as a holding operation, to keep Angola on the Security Council’s agenda pending a more favourable climate. /AFRICA 4 UNITA's Washington lobbyists Blow up Subsequent delays have been caused by internal UN wrangling over which department should lead, The opposition fighters who blew a and therefore fund, the new operation. Eleven members of the team are human rights specialists. A hole in the government's pipeline few people from the peacekeeping office were added. There are special budgetary arrangements for on 19 September also blew apart peacekeeping and the pro-UNITA lobby in Washington has seized upon that to delay the whole its campaign to convince the world thing. that it has security under control The plan is that UNOA’s human rights specialists, led by an Australian, Nicholas Howen, would and that serious talks about ending Sudan's war are now possible. investigate and report to the Security Council, with Issa Diallo, the UN Special Envoy to Angola, remaining in Geneva for service ‘as required’. Disillusioned with the failed Lusaka ‘peace process’, Annan had hoped to replace the Angolan troika with a UN ‘committee of friends’, comprising China, SOMALIA 6 Côte d’Ivoire, France, Gabon, Russia, Morocco, Namibia, , United Kingdom, USA and . The committee is chaired by Gabon’s ambassador, who has done little; there are Building blocks suspicions that Luanda has leant on him. Lisbon and Moscow see the committee as an erosion of their Countless peace conferences have special relationship with Angola. failed to pacify Somalia. Yet lately Since Canada’s Ambassador, Robert Fowler, took over the Angola Sanctions Committee in it seems that some warlords are January, Annan thinks the UN has regained some credibility in Angola. The Security Council wants losing power and that new local administrations can offer internal Angolan sanctions to be effective, if it is to enforce sanctions elsewhere. Fowler commended a four- peace, some economic success year study of the subject by Human Rights Watch when it was launched in New York last week (1). and incentives for others to follow. The record is feeble. The UN Sanctions Committee (under Kenya’s Njungana Mahugu) failed to deal with UNITA’s sanctions-busting during the Lusaka peace process and turned a blind eye to POINTERS 8 violations of a 1993 UN oil and weapons embargo. In October 1997, the UN imposed extra restrictions on UNITA, blocking foreign travel by its officials and closing its offices abroad, and in Africa/Europe, June 1998 it targeted the export of diamonds from UNITA’s areas and froze its bank accounts (AC Vol 40 No 13). Zimbabwe, France/ Diamonds paid for rebuilding UNITA’s army; most were smuggled to Europe via the Congos or Africa through Namibia, South Africa, Rwanda and Zambia. Officials in Togo, Burkina Faso and Busting the busters; unmoved Central African Republic are paid to turn a blind eye to staging flights. Human Rights Watch movers; and another Euroland. thinks diamond exports during the Lusaka process netted the rebels some US$1.72 billion. By 1998, 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19

Military-minded

Worried about a re-run of its disastrous December offensive, the a surface-to-air missile near the west-central town of Ganda. Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola government is Savimbi works hard on the psychological war-front, at which deliberately downplaying its latest military moves. Meanwhile, he excels. He emerged from a long period of isolation in hoping to ridicule the government, officials of the União August to give some well publicised interviews and call for Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola are playing new negotiations. Above all, he wants to freeze the military them up, claiming that Luanda forces are advancing on four position; this, he believes, would put UNITA on a stronger fronts against Jonas Savimbi’s headquarters in the central negotiating foot than at the 1994 Lusaka talks. Things are highlands. going against UNITA financially but the government has had This is only partly true. We hear that some battalions of the a windfall: rising oil prices, huge oil signature bonus payments Forças Armadas Angolanas are about 15 kilometres from this year and a large new loan organised by Union des Banques UNITA’s headquarters at Bailundo, south of its main airstrip in Suisse enable the FAA to build up their armoury. the central highlands at Andulo. The FAA’s strategy, it seems, Savimbi hopes that if he calls loudly for talks while the is to hammer UNITA’s bases before the rains set in and weaken MPLA continues its military campaign, he can win back some Savimbi’s position before any negotiations start. The government international sympathy and maybe help put pressure on still insists it will never negotiate with Savimbi, so it wants to government for a ceasefire. Most importantly, he hopes this put enough military pressure on UNITA to provoke a serious might goad the Luanda politicians into telling the FAA to split. That still looks a long shot. launch an offensive before the generals are ready. The FAA There has also been some fighting recently, especially in the would then risk repeating the mistakes of the first two failed north, but UNITA’s claims are exaggerated. The government is offensives. De Matos, we hear, is insisting on military control concentrating on bombing UNITA positions to soften up its of the war strategy. opponents, rather than moving armoured and infantry brigades Savimbi’s other tactic is try to split the MPLA by pressuring towards their strongholds immediately. FAA Chief of Staff the towns. UNITA has been pushing people out of the General João de Matos is determined to avoid more routs by countryside, aiming to cause a social explosion. The biggest UNITA’s defensive forces. towns on the coastal belt surrounded by shanty cities and are at In August the FAA pushed towards the northern towns of breaking point. By offering to ease pressure on them now, Damba and Maquela do Zombo, important points in UNITA’s Savimbi hopes to split the MPLA. President José Eduardo dos supply lines. The FAA were not immediately successful and the Santos has ‘ceased to embody national unity’, he said, in an fighting continues. UNITA attacks near Uige have displaced open letter to the MPLA at the end of August. But there are thousands more people recently, though the army has managed unlikely to be many takers. to reinforce its defences around shattered towns such as Huambo, Angola’s long suffering povo and some MPLA members are Kuito and Malanje. disgruntled with the social and economic breakdown and the The UN and other aid agencies are struggling to find the corruption of Luanda’s nomenklatura. Prior to last December's money for food and high cost transport. Most food must be return to war, dissidents in both parties were gaining ground. delivered by air and the charter companies incorporate high But Savimbi’s hopes of a party split or revolt against Dos surcharges: Angola is near the top of the world league. In July, Santos are self-delusion. In a choice between the two, most a UN World Food Programme plane was fired on (but not hit) by Angolans regard Dos Santos as by far a lesser evil than Savimbi.

sanctions-busting flights to UNITA had grown fewer, partly because Regulation of the diamond trade has been heavily discussed, of tighter controls in the region but mainly because UNITA’s cash notably between the UK and USA. The UN intends to focus on flow became tighter. sanctions-breaking flights to places such as Andulo and UNITA’s Many flights into UNITA areas are made by Russians, Ukrainians new airstrip in Malanje Province. The Angolan government has and South Africans. Fowler was told in Kiev in July that the just bought a Russian mobile radar system. Fowler is unlikely to Ukrainian government had lucrative arms contracts with the Luanda get an early-warning aircraft from the USA, though several European government and that reports of sanctions-busting came from jealous diplomats would like to see such equipment, plus a few interceptor competitors trying to undermine its good name. A month later, a aeroplanes. The USA has shared detailed intelligence reports, sanctions-busting flight operated by Ukrainians was impounded in including one from the Central Intelligence Agency on diamonds Zambia. The Ukrainians now face trial in Lusaka. and conflict in Africa. Fowler toured Southern Africa in May and Europe in July, The UN and the Luanda government hope that intercepting, making 19 preliminary recommendations. At the end of July, two forcing down or even shooting down sanctions-busting aircraft ten-person expert panels were convened, chaired by Anders will frighten away other fliers and raise the price of future flights. Mollander, Sweden’s former envoy to Angola; Botswana’s This would deny UNITA essential supplies, especially fuel, and tie Colonel Otisitswe Broza Tiroyamodimo is the Vice-Chairperson. down its army. Yet if UNITA is squeezed, the diamond smugglers The panels have an initial mandate for six months; so far, they have could probably bring out their gems through government-controlled not started fact-finding but are sorting out logistics and trying to areas, which are even harder to police. open a small office in Zimbabwe. Senior Angolan officials have helped UNITA with the diamonds- 2 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19 for-fuel business. Truck drivers reported to Human Rights Watch down, arguing that improprieties over the cellular licence will be that in 1998, Malanje Province Governor Flavio Fernandes ordered another obstacle to unblocking a $175 mn. structural adjustment lorries from state oil company Sonangol to drive through Malanje, credit from the International Monetary Fund. where their contents were siphoned off by UNITA. This continued Yet the Bank, whose President Jim Wolfensohn helped to even after diplomats in Luanda made official complaints. Fuel has persuade Moi to appoint reformer Richard Leakey as head of the been bought from Sonangol’s facilities in Lobito port and transported Civil Service (AC Vol 40 No 16), has much at stake. Leakey has to rebel areas through intermediaries. a narrow political base now and the hard-line ‘B’ faction of the UNITA also acquired large amounts of fuel and weapons after ruling Kenya African National Union is trying to undermine his the government’s two disastrous offensives last March, when it reform efforts (AC Vol 40 No 14). A senior businessman in captured new Russian and Ukrainian equipment, including some Nairobi said the cellular licence issue was important but should not heavy weapons that the government says UNITA had obtained by obscure the ‘bigger game’ of backing Leakey and his technocrats sanctions-busting. Africa Confidential has seen UNITA documents in the civil service. purporting to show weapons being gleaned from the battlefield. Bidding for the second cellular phone licence attracted major Angolan officers agree that they reluctantly ‘shared’ a lot of international companies because it was seen as a big contract free equipment with the enemy in March. UNITA’s worst shortage is from political favouritism. Bidders said they believed the of fuel, though. It failed to pursue government troops back to Kuito government saw it as a test case for its commercial neutrality. So in January because its vehicles ran out of fuel. they were surprised when the KANU hierarchy homed in on the UNITA’s army isn’t as strong as it was in 1993 and the contract: ‘I didn’t see the Field Marshal (the local name for Trade government’s isn’t as weak. UNITA is overstretched and with a Minister Biwott) coming,’ one executive told Africa Confidential. serious recruitment problem and divisions in the leadership over Kenya is the biggest market for mobile phones in the region and Savimbi’s strategy. Any setback for him will produce more splits an efficient new operator would have been helped both by the poor (AC Vol 40 No 14). At the very least, this might open up quality of regular service and by the uncompetitiveness of the first opportunities for ONUA, the Catholic Church and others who want cellular phone company, Safaricom, whose charges were the highest to break the cycle of violence and bring the parties back to the in the region. Apart from ordinary telephone calls, the cellular negotiating table. (1) Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace licence would also cover the highly profitable data transmission Process (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999) 205pp. over digital cellular equipment made by companies such as Barclays Bank and Coca-Cola. As the row over the second licence rages, Safaricom (in which presidential son Gideon has a 30 per cent KENYA stake) has cut its charges to carve out a bigger part of the business. The longer the dispute over the licence goes on, the better for Safaricom. The second cellular licence was meant to have been Phone sects awarded by March 2000 but this latest twist may delay things further. The row, which is likely to bring out all the political in- Powerful politicians are making sure the fighting skills of Biwott and his allies, has plenty of life in it yet. wrong people don't pick up the phones Six consortia were prequalified to bid, of which two - GTE A major row is brewing over the political independence of the Orascom and Millicom International Cellular - are strongly backed Communications Commission of Kenya, the regulatory body meant by KANU apparatchiks. Four consortia (Telecel Kenya Limited, to oversee the privatisation of Kenya's beleaguered Mobilcom Africa Ltd., Airtel Ltd. and Kenya Cellular Network) telecommunications sector. Companies bidding for the country’s were disqualified by the CCK regulators and appealed. Initially, second cellular telephone operating licence, a business worth over the CCK board found that at least two of the appeals, by Telecel and US$50 million a year, are convinced that the Commission bowed Mobilcom, had merit. to pressure from senior politicians by approving the disqualification Then other forces got to work. The East African Standard, whose of four serious contenders on spurious grounds. We hear that a chairman is presidential confidant Mark arap Too, published a former British cabinet minister has telephoned President Daniel front-page lead alleging malpractice by the four disqualified arap Moi to complain about abuses of procedure in the tender companies. It suggested that the four had used improper means to qualification process. get the CCK to hear their appeals. It said CCK procedures didn’t The affair also embarrasses the World Bank, which is lending the allow for appeals, so the hearing was illegal. The Standard should Moi government $23 mn. under a Parastatal Reform programme, be taken seriously. After Lonrho sold it in 1995, a company called part of which goes to pay a Bank-approved consultant who is meant Aifco bought it: Moi, son Gideon and personal assistant to the to monitor the privatisation process. Trade Minister Nicholas President, Joshua Kulei, each own a 20 per cent stake in Aifco, Biwott, whose activities as Energy Minister were sharply criticised though now we hear the title is being moved under the umbrella of in official World Bank reports about the ill-fated Turkwel Gorge another company with a similar ownership structure. project, is taking a keen interest in the award of the lucrative second The Standard followed up with fresh (but unproven) allegations cellular licence. Biwott’s daughter Mrs. Esther Koimett is deputy about corporation and value-added tax irregularities committed by coordinator at the Executive Secretariat of the Parastatal Reform some of the disgruntled bidders. At about the same time, one of the Committee, which also draws funds from the World Bank. The companies in a disqualified consortium was visited by a band of government’s handling of the telecommunications privatisation armed robbers, which bore the hallmarks of a covert operation by and the bidding round for the second cellular licence will be on the the notorious ‘Recce Company’, a unit attached to the Presidential agenda when Finance Minister Chris Okemo meets with bilateral Guard at State House. Sugar was poured into the petrol tanks of and multilateral donors in Washington next week. Some industry another bidding company’s vehicles. insiders believe the Bank will push the Kenyan government to back All this warned the disqualified companies not to push their luck 3 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19

on the cellular licence. Said to be fuming in private about the disqualification of Deutsche Telekom’s partner company, outgoing SUDAN/AFRICA German Ambassador Michael Gerdts assumed a more philosophical stance. In his next posting to the United Nations, Gerdts will be a regular visitor to Nairobi. Meanwhile, the CCK board started to wobble. It sent its Blow up recommendations to its legal consultants, Booze Allen and to the As the opposition attacks Khartoum's new CCK technical committee that had evaluated the bids. Within pipeline, Colonel Gadaffi tries to mediate days, the CCK changed its stance, not by majority vote, insiders say, and confirmed the disqualification of Telecel, Mobilcom, The opposition fighters who blew a hole in the government’s new Airtel and Kenya Cellular. oil pipeline on 19 September also blew apart its campaign to The Director General of CCK, Samuel Chepkong’a, insisted convince the world that it has security under control and that serious there was ‘no wrongdoing’ in the commission, a view talks about ending Sudan’s war are now possible. That seems to be enthusiastically echoed by former Communications Minister and wrong on both counts. The National Islamic Front regime’s elaborate now Minister in the President’s Office William ole Ntimama. charm campaign, which has spawned a flurry of peace and business Chepkong’a said that the evaluation process had been conducted initiatives by outsiders, will be harder to fix than the pipeline. with the ‘close participation’ of the government-appointed For the government, the pipeline symbolises its purported consultants. However, after some high-powered and irate overseas openness and seriousness about democratic reform. That message calls to the offices of CCK and the President, another change of is for Western and Arab business and diplomatic consumption; for direction was announced. most Sudanese, the NIF continues to preside over a regime of war, politically created famine, religious persecution and torture. For Hard lines for bidders the opposition, the pipeline from the South is a weapon of war. In In late August, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport its apparently unsuccessful efforts to secure the pipeline from and Communications, Titus T. Naikuni, said his Minister (former attack, the NIF has rounded up, expelled or massacred civilians Finance Minister Wycliffe Musalia Mudavadi) would be living around the southern oil fields. Few doubt that the NIF will appointing a three-member tribunal to consider appeals on CCK use most of its hoped-for oil revenues to finance the war against its decisions. Few of the disqualified bidders have much faith in the opponents (see Box). tribunal: they consider that the licence award has become a matter This puts the latest diplomatic initiatives into sharp relief. for ‘high politics’ and they have got the message. Regional developments were going the NIF’s way: Eritrea and If the politicians prevail on CCK over the cellular licence, more Ethiopia were concentrating their fire on each other. Egypt and questions will be raised about the sell-off of the state’s land-based Libya are trying to grab a mediating role in Sudan, which is telephone network, Telkom Kenya. Continuing delays in its sale welcomed by the NIF as yet another diversion from substantive due to political interference have lost the government over $300 negotiations. The Tripoli-Cairo efforts are seen as suspect by the mn. in revenues, according to industry sources. Kenya's NIF’s opponents in Addis Ababa, Asmara, Kampala and especially telecommunications sector was valued at some $1.2 billion in Washington - and the Sudanese opposition itself. 1997 by Rothschilds, the government’s then financial advisors on There are fears the ‘Libyan-Egyptian Initiative’ will damage the privatisation, but would be unlikely to fetch much more than relations between North and East Africa and consolidate the NIF $800 mn. at current market values because of the Asian slump and while failing to tackle the critical issues in Sudan: the relationship mergers in European telecommunications, the Nairobi weekly between North and South and between state and people. Southerners EastAfrican reported. and Northern secularists do not want the Sudan question removed The parastatal Kenya Post & Telecommunications Corporation, from its ‘African’ dimension (the Inter-Governmental Authority on like all the other state-owned enterprises, had long been the Development, IGAD) and placed in an ‘Arab/Middle Eastern’ preserve of the ruling KANU which closely controlled its dimension (Libya and Egypt, AC Vol 40 No 13). Sudan’s northern management and policy. Political favourites such as Kipng’eno neighbours (as well as Sudan’s traditional parties) appear to want arap Ng’eny, now Water Resources Minister, were appointed as just that. managing director. During Arap Ng’eny’s tenure, KP & TC built Over the past few months, the opposition umbrella, the National up corporation tax debts of more than $60 mn. although its Democratic Alliance, together with African and Western telephone tariffs are among the highest in the world. governments (in IGAD and the IGAD Partners’ Forum, IPF) have KANU’s state security apparatchiks have ready access to KP & been discussing expanding the IGAD process to include the NDA. TC facilities and have been known to intercept telephones, faxes The component groups of the NDA include the Sudan People’s and even electronic mail through Telkom Kenya’s monopoly Liberation Army under Colonel John Garang de Mabior, Sudan internet service provider, Jambonet. State security surveillance Alliance Forces under Brigadier General Abdel Aziz Khalid Osman, teams often use KP & TC vehicles, ostensibly engaged in Beja Congress, Sudan Federal Party, Communist Party and the two engineering works, to monitor opposition politicians and their big Northern parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Umma allies. Because of its political ties and its role in KANU’s Party. The NDA’s great significance is that, divisions patronage machine, KP & TC is one of Africa’s most inefficient notwithstanding, it is a credible alliance of Northern and Southern telecommunications companies. Currently more than 120,000 oppositionists against the NIF government. people are waiting for a phone line. There will be no problem with Since 1994, peace talks between SPLA and NIF have been irate foreign bidders for Telkom Kenya, according to a popular sponsored by a committee of IGAD members: Ethiopia, Eritrea, joke in Nairobi bars: They simply won’t be able to get a line to Kenya and Uganda. Talks began long before that, after the NDA complain. was formed in October 1989 as, then, an exclusively Northern 4 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19 alliance. The talks have sporadically continued, enabling both NIF Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, and SPLA to claim they’re serious about peace. They’ve helped the Egypt claims it’s already a member, which it isn’t. NIF to recruit defectors from the SPLA: Riek Machar Teny IGAD’s Western partners can’t tell Egypt or Libya to keep their Dhurgon, Lam Akol Ajawin and, sometimes, the late William noses out, especially since some are investing heavily in the oil- Nyuon Bany. (Major Kerubino Kwanyin Bol, who was killed on fields of Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi’s newly respectable Great 10 September, took a different road to the NIF.) Jamahiriya. Cairo and Tripoli play to the Arab audience by Members of the IGAD committee (except Kenya) were indirectly implying that IGAD favours Southern secession; Kenya and Norway at war with Khartoum from 1995-96 and the talks were on the back- incline that way, as do Southerners. The USA, Britain and burner pending the NIF’s expected overthrow. Yet the talks did Canada would prefer Sudan to stay united; their policy, though, is produce a Declaration of Principles which agreed that Sudan also to tackle national issues (meaning the NIF) before the North- should be a secular state and should hold a referendum in the South South issues. Washington is openly hostile to the NIF: it argues on ‘self-determination’. The NIF still regrets that precedent, that if everyone reinforces IGAD’s role, the NIF government will which is one reason why it wants to include in its ‘dialogue be forced to comply or reveal its true intentions. process’ the Umma and DUP. Both are ambivalent about the For months, Libya has been receiving Sudanese opposition NDA’s policy stand. About 70 per cent of Sudanese are Muslim politicians party-by-party. NDA leaders can’t afford to upset the though only a tiny fraction support the NIF’s hardline Islamist wealthy Brother Leader and, having mixed results as a peacemaker policies. The Umma and DUP are traditional, religious-based in Congo-Kinshasa and Ethiopia-Eritrea, Gadaffi works hard on parties; they call for multi-party democracy but support an Islamic Sudan. In the past, he signed at least two Libya-Sudan unity constitution and oppose Southern self-determination. agreements and in the early 1970s, he backed the NIF, Umma and DUP in a joint bid to overthrow President Jaafar Mohamed Secularism and self-determination Nimeiri, which gives many folk useful connections. But he still Yet both parties agreed to the principle of a secular constitution and complains that 20 years later the NIF tried to assassinate him. a referendum on self-determination for the South in the NDA’s Gadaffi’s peacemaking enthusiasms are valuable diplomatically: Asmara Declaration of June 1995. That declaration also called for they help rebuild his country’s power and influence after sanctions. armed struggle, and the big two parties wish they had not agreed to He also worries about water: the Great Man-Made River Project is that either. They did so when the armed overthrow of the NIF said to have only twelve more years to flow, which means that if looked easier than now, before Eritrea and Ethiopia went to war. Libya is, one day, to buy Nile water from Egypt, it doesn’t want an That war has enabled those in Umma and DUP ranks who independent Southern Sudan astride the White Nile. Yet Gadaffi oppose IGAD’s secular emphasis to parry with the Libyan-Egyptian also has old ties to the SPLA, which got its first gift of weapons in Initiative. The Umma held a Workshop in Cairo on 16-19 September 1983, when he told delegates to help themselves to Kalashnikovs to discuss the ‘comprehensive political settlement’ (a catch-all and they filled three planeloads. We hear Gadaffi has now offered term now used equally by the NIF and the United States). Its final the SPLA money to get the Jonglei Canal project going again. report made no mention of secularism. It did, though, call for By April, people began to talk about a ‘Libyan Initiative’ on IGAD (a pre-existing East African development body) to be Sudan. The Egyptian press then started mentioning an ‘Egyptian expanded - to include Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe, plus Initiative’, which nobody had heard of. When challenged, Egyptian

Pipe bombs

The 19 September attack on the brand new, 1,600-kilometre export Forces and consisted, we understand, of a few engineers protected by pipeline proves two points: firstly, the falsehood of the claim by the commandos, in two four-by-four vehicles. Official reports of the National Islamic Front government that the armed opposition operates damage and time needed to remedy it were contradictory but it’s clear only in a limited area; and secondly, the idea that the National such attacks may continue, as NDA leaders have repeatedly warned. Democratic Alliance is too weak, divided and compliant to attack the ‘The oil belongs to the Sudanese people and I advise the oil oil project. It also embarrasses Talisman (formerly Canada’s branch companies to come to negotiate with the NDA; we’re ready to of British Petroleum) whose assets are heavily dependent on the negotiate’, Brigadier Gen. Abdel Aziz Khalid Osman, head of the Sudan project and has been telling investors Sudan is safe. Talisman, Sudan Alliance Forces told Africa Confidential. which has grown largely through acquisition, has just used its shares The NIF has touted the oil as harbinger of economic growth and to buy Rigel, once Total Canada. Meanwhile, Britain’s Department Talisman says it will help develop the South. Earlier this year, of Trade and Industry has only just withdrawn a report which vaunted though, Hassan el Turabi said that oil revenues would be used ‘to buy the business opportunities the oil provided. The pipeline provided tanks’. Ministers quickly denied this but then in August, it emerged Weir Pumps of Glasgow with its biggest ever contract and Weir has that 20 Polish-built T-55s had arrived from Gdynia via Yemen. since trained Sudanese electricity and water board officials. Warsaw sources say Yemen was listed as end-user and further The attack occurred some 30 km. north-east of Atbara, a name that shipments of the tanks (‘at least 30 years old’) were apparently resonates as the historic railway capital and home of Sudanese trades scuppered by discreet Western intervention. unionism. It’s far from opposition-held areas, as is most of the A few months back, a Sudanese delegation went military shopping pipeline route, which was shifted far to the west of that originally in China, we hear: China holds 30 per cent of shares in Sudan’s oil and planned by General Jaafar Nimeiri’s government and Chevron in the Chinese labour largely built the pipeline. The China National Oil early 1980s. Corporation is now being floated on the New York Stock Exchange, The attack, described by an opposition military source as ‘not hi- provoking human rights protests in the United States over CNOC’s tech, just tech,’ (i.e. easy to replicate) was mounted by the NDA Joint role in Sudan.

5 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19

officials began talking of a ‘Libyan-Egyptian Initiative’. We gather that Cairo is happy to let Tripoli run with the ball for now, SOMALIA waiting to jump in at the crucial moment. Egypt, as the possible source of Libya’s future water supply, believes this policy safe. It also believes Libya will try to keep Sudan in the Arab/Muslim/ Middle Eastern dossier. One banner at Gadaffi’s Organisation of Building blocks African Unity jamboree in Sirte this month must have encouraged Reconstructing the state step-by-step is supporters of this view of Africa: ‘We challenge all foreign troops showing results - but outsiders stay sceptical with our great dark Sahara and our dark extensive jungles’. In addition to water, Egypt’s interests are to cut Ethiopia down Countless peace conferences have failed to pacify Somalia, including to size and to ‘regain’ its (mythical) control of Sudanese politics. the latest, in Cairo in December 1997, whose collapse seemed to It assumes an NIF watered-down by the addition of some of the condemn the country to yet more clan wars and freelance banditry. opposition will be both more pliable and less able to indulge in Yet lately, it has seemed that some warlords, at least, are losing international terrorism. Neither Egypt nor the DUP or Umma want their power. Local administrations can offer internal peace, relative to see the NIF overthrown by a secularist, Southern-led opposition. economic success and an incentive for others to follow, as in the Yet the Libyan-Egyptian Initiative offers nothing to counter IGAD’s unrecognised Republic of Somaliland and in Puntland in the north. Declaration of Principles. NDA sources say that until the ‘Tripoli More than half the aid given to Somalia goes to these two northern Declaration’ of 1 July, there was nothing on paper. There still isn’t areas, which have only a third of the total population. There is much. Yet it aims to ‘coordinate with IGAD’. Some supporters money to be made in other parts of Somalia but no one puts it into even argue that IGAD should coordinate with it. houses or hotels, as they do in Hargeisa and Bossaso. The Declaration emerged from a four-day meeting of the NDA Even Somaliland and Puntland are at odds over the Sol and and Libyan government, where the ‘New Sudan Forces’ (the SPLA Sanaag regions, claimed and incorporated by Somaliland since and Northern secularists) hammered out a compromise with an 1991, as part of the former British Somaliland. Puntland, set up Umma and DUP which feel threatened by them. They agreed to last year, claims them because most of their residents belong to meet the government but insisted as a precondition on freezing the Harti/Darod clans, as do most people in Puntland. Earlier this year, articles of the NIF’s 1998 constitution which restrict the normal Puntland sent policemen to the town of Las Anod, which now freedoms of association, speech, and movement (plus the release enjoys two administrators and two police forces. of political prisoners). President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal of Somaliland has been Sudanese enjoy no such freedoms, even outside the war zones careful not to react too violently. He and President Abdullahi where the worst atrocities occur (AC Vol 40 No 17). Foreign Yusuf of Puntland like to pour scorn on each other but know that Minister Mustafa Osman Ismael, agreed to meet the NDA without if they fight, they will lose everything. Other clans try to emulate preconditions, while NIF leader Hassan Abdullah el Turabi their approach. In Bay and Bakool regions the Rahenweyne, who objected that the government had already fulfilled the conditions. recaptured Baidoa from the Habr Gidir in June with Ethiopian President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir, on 30 August, celebrated military support, promise to set up an administration ‘soon’. Hawiye the arrival of oil at the Red Sea via the new pipeline by accusing the clan elders and politicians, after talking for nine months in Belet opposition of ‘drinking beer... in Cairo and Asmara’. They were Weyne, set up a committee but it left out some Hawiye warlords and ‘traitors’ and ‘worshippers of Satan’, he declared: ‘We must failed to form an administration. Yet the Hawadle, a Hawiye clan, cleanse them in these waters before we let them in’. may try to set up their own administration in Hiraan region. This is not how the NIF has been projecting itself to Western governments and businesses. And it challenged those outsiders, Deep distrust especially in Egypt, who seeing Lieutenant General Omer as These moves support the idea of ‘building blocks’, a step-by-step primarily the nationalist soldier, want to prise him and his fellow approach to a future national government which is backed by the officers away from ‘Turabi’s fundamentalists’. The NIF’s decision United Nations and will attract some international help if it works. on 17 September formally to reduce Omer’s power again and put Last month Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, called for Hassan el Turabi officially back on top changes nothing. (The NIF greater UN involvement in Somalia once again. The UN is deeply has also renamed itself the National Congress, a name appropriated distrusted since its disastrous intervention of 1992-95 but its from the secularist Congress Party, a founding component of the present Special Representative, David Stephen, is respected for Sudan Alliance Forces.) his patience. After turning its back on Somalia for nearly five Under the Libyan-Egyptian Initiative, the NIF-NDA years, the United States is contributing to the repair of the Bossaso- preparatory committee was due to meet on 6 September, then on 13 Galkayo road. The European Union supports the ‘building blocks’ September. Nothing happened. Some NDA politicians want to idea and might spend up to 300 million ecus in Somalia under the press ahead but the Alliance long ago agreed that member parties Lomé Convention, if it finds projects to spend it on. should not move on their own; indignation was huge even within In the south, peace is some way off. Most clans line up against the Umma when El Sadig Sadeeg el Mahdi met Turabi in May. the Habr Gidir, a Hawiye sub-clan whose main warlord is Hussein Friendly governments have let the NDA know they want it to hold Mohamed Farah ‘Aydeed’. His father, General Mohamed Farah together. Many NDA members want to make no move until after Aydeed, was instrumental in ousting President Mohamed Siad the Alliance summit meeting in Asmara in October. This is a key Barre in 1991 and died after a shoot-out in 1996. He saw himself meeting and to underline this, it’s timed, like the formation of the as a potential president of Somalia, taking control of large areas NDA in 1989, to coincide with the ‘October Revolution’, the south and west of Mogadishu and so enabling Habr Gidir anniversary of the peaceful civilian overthrow of Gen. Ibrahim businessmen to make money beyond the clan’s territories (AC Vol Abboud in October 1964. 40 No 12). Hussein inherited the claim to national ruler's status but

6 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19 feel threatened, they could unite behind him as they did behind his Raas Gulf of Aden Caseyr DJIBOUTI father. With money from Libya and Qatar, and guns from Bossaso Eritrea, he can still disrupt any peace process. So can outsiders,

AWDAL d d such as Ethiopia with its support for the RRA. Ethiopia wants to D Berbera SANAAG

D Hafun WEST o BARI stop Eritrea from infiltrating Oromo Liberation Front fighters GALBEED N SOMALILAND A i o Hargeisa Burao r L through Somalia into southern Ethiopia; some 1,500 have passed TOGDEER T r a N through the ports of Merka and Fah in the last few months. By SOL U r Las Anod P ETHIOPIA D Garowe taking Merka, the RRA could prevent future landings but would NUGAL a alarm the Habr Gidir. Two brigades of Ethiopian troops are said to Ogaden be at Dinsoor in central Bay region. They are probably aiming for D Galkayo Kismayo, seized in June by allies of Hussein Aydeed from Ethiopia’s MUDUG e S ally, Gen. Mohamed Siad Hirsi ‘Morgan’; they could also support ha be ba lle Ju y RRA attacks on Qorioli and Merka. GALGADUD Ethiopia was mandated to organise Somalia’s peace process by i Fah Belet Weyne the Organisation of African Unity and the regional Inter- n BAKOOL y w Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to which Eritrea Dolo e HIRAAN SOMALIA w a also belongs (as do Djibouti, Sudan and, technically, Somalia). GEDO n Baidoa e Din H MIDDLE so h Members are meant to observe the UN’s long-standing arms d or Balidogle SHABELLE a Indian Bardera BAY R embargo on Somalia but both Ethiopia and Eritrea, pursuing their Ocean o MIDDLE MOGADISHU r BENA conflict by proxy (AC Vol 40 No 4), have taken sides in Somali clan JUBA LOWER SHABELLEM DIR i erka r D Qorioli quarrels. Ethiopia’s long-term interest is, as always, a weak and

KENYA divided Somalia; Eritrea, like Ethiopia’s ancient rival Egypt, a Region boundary LOWER JUBA Equator GEDO Region name would like a united Somalia, as a counterbalance to Ethiopia. Darod Clan family D Kismayo Other candidates for the role of Somalia’s national mediator 0 Kilometres 400 include the new Djiboutian President Ismael Omar Guelleh. He 0Miles 200 is close to Ethiopia, is married to an Ethiopian and was born and brought up in the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. He has offered to cannot emulate his charismatic father, who was known as ‘the host a reconciliation conference but in return wants an international General’. Hussein is known as ‘the Boy’. ‘Marshall Plan’ for the Horn of Africa. President Daniel arap Moi Hard pressed even in Mogadishu, Hussein Aydeed is still more also shows interest in calming Somalia’s chaos, which has spilled vulnerable since he lost Baidoa to the Ethiopian-backed Rahenweyne over into Kenya (also in IGAD) in recent months. Kenya’s border Resistance Army (RRA) in June. Even senior members of his own with Ethiopia is affected when OLF guerrillas take refuge in Saad/Habr Gidir want to pull out of areas their clan did not Kenya, with Ethiopian troops in hot pursuit. traditionally control, including Lower Shabelle. Yet moves to Another possible intermediary is President Egal. He says he sideline or replace Hussein have so far been unsuccessful. The wants international recognition for Somaliland but many believe Habr Gidir clans disagree about possible replacements and some of he would like to be president of a united Somalia. He has criticised their businessmen want to hold on to Balidogle airfield, 100 both Ethiopia and Eritrea over their conflict but is growing closer kilometres north-west of the capital. to Ethiopia since the EU’s rehabilitation project for Berbera port The RRA is aiming at Balidogle, hoping to clear the forces of and the EU's road into Ethiopia will increase trade between Hussein Aydeed and his clansmen out of Bay region. Hussein’s Somaliland and its Ethiopian hinterland. Egal is respected in forces beat the RRA near Balidogle last week but with more southern Somalia and most clan leaders say, in private, that he Ethiopian troops and weapons coming in through Baidoa airfield, would be an acceptable intermediary if he were prepared to bring further RRA attacks can be expected. The RRA and its allies in the Somaliland back into Somalia. He would be lucky to survive, Digil Salvation Front also attacked Qorioli in the third week of though; most people in Somaliland value the stability and the peace September. There, too, Hussein Aydeed’s forces held them off but that de facto independence has brought them. many of the Habr Gidir merchants and farmers who moved in under Gen. Aydeed have already pulled out of Lower Shabelle. In Mogadishu, another warlord is in trouble. Ali Mahdi Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at 73 Mohammed, who formerly opposed Gen. Aydeed, then became Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. Tel: +44 171-831 3511. Fax: +44 171-831 6778. Hussein’s ally, left the capital in April after his house was looted Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. by his own bodyguards; rejected by his own Abgal/Hawiye, he is Administration: Clare Tauben. unlikely to return. The Abgal, however, have not agreed on who might replace him. Three sub-clan leaders, Musse Sudi Yalahow, Annual subscriptions, cheques payable to Africa Confidential in advance: UK: £250 Europe: £250 Hussein Bod and Mohamed Omar Dhere, are possible successors. Africa: £233 US:$628 (including Airmail) After the Benadir administration, set up for Mogadishu in August Rest of the World: £325 l998, collapsed early this year, business people took the lead in Students (with proof): £75 or US$124 All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept removing roadblocks and supporting the creation of Islamic courts American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. to try and stop banditry. Several such courts exist in the city but Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 they too are clan-based and unlikely to work together against the 1FH England. Tel: 44 1865 244083 and Fax: 44 1865 381381 warlords. At least one local Islamic court recently refused to Visit our web site at: http://www.Africa-Confidential.com Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts,UK. cooperate with others because the target was from its own clan. ISSN 0044-6483 Hussein has problems but is far from finished. If the Habr Gidir 7 24 September 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 19

began flying out of Manzini airport with its Shangwa Chifamba and Ena Chitsa, vice- Pointers sister company, Air Cess. After a clamp down at presidents, and Isidore Zindoga, Deputy Manzini over the liberal issuing of operating Secretary General. Chifamba is ill, so Chitsa licences and after a freight company was found could become the first woman to head a labour AFRICA/EUROPE to be transporting military equipment in June, movement. Her small hotel and catering Air Pass decided to remove its operational workers’ union paralysed its employers on 10- headquarters from southern Africa and make its 17 September, striking for wage rises of up to Busting the busters base at Bangui in the Central African Republic. 68 per cent. Zindoga, potentially the new ZCTU Secretary General, is unpopular because he was A combination of new surveillance technology against turning the labour movement into a ZIMBABWE and pressure on the United Nations to do more political party. Union leaders who do not hold to clamp down on weapons flows to rebel top jobs on the MDC’s executive may carry on movements in Africa is making life more their union work, so Mudzengerere could difficult for arms dealers. Western governments Unmoved movers become secretary general and Matongo, are more prepared to share surveillance reports president. on illicit arms transfers with African Although dominated by trades unionists, the governments such as Angola, Rwanda and Movement for Democratic Change, launched Uganda. Western-based private intelligence on 11 September, is a formidable coalition: FRANCE/AFRICA agencies are now able to monitor rebel lawyers, war veterans, students and activists movements’ money trails much more accurately from the women’s movement and residents’ than previously. associations (AC Vol 40 No 18). Its Secretary Another Euroland Now the three key areas of interest are: General, Morgan Tsvangirai, is also Secretary Angola (see Feature) where the UN has sharply General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Prospects for economic union in West Africa, at improved its sanctions implementation; officials Unions; ZCTU President Gibson Sibanda is least among the CFA Franc Zone countries, are in the Liberian and Burkina Faso governments also President of the MDC. Tsvangirai says that looking up. The Union Economique et who have been training and arming an executive committee will be elected in Monétaire Ouest-Africaine is pushing ahead Revolutionary United Front fighters; and arms December, when he’s back from a six-country with plans to abolish internal tariffs by 1 January. suppliers to former Interahamwé fighters in the trip to Europe to drum up support. He’ll have to Dahuku Pere, who chairs the UEMOA Democratic Republic of Congo. be careful: ministers are already accusing foreign assembly’s planning committee, claims plans Recent investigations have uncovered clear powers, notably Denmark, of financing the are complete for a regional legislature. Despite links between suppliers in these three zones. new party. worries that the CFA franc’s ties to the hard Many of President Charles Taylor’s arms Twelve of the 34 members of the interim Euro will make the Franc Zones uncompetitive, suppliers (a UN arms embargo is still in force executive are unionists. Tsvangirai’s deputy is the Banque de France’s latest annual review against Liberia) also supply União Nacional Gift Chimanikire, a militant who leads the reports strong growth in both west and central para a Independência Total de Angola and the posts and telecommunications workers’ union sub-regions. Interahamwé. Currently under close observation and has several times been gaoled for organising ‘Real’ gross domestic product was up 5.1 per by Western intelligence agencies and the UN strikes in essential services. Pauline cent in the western area, UEMOA, and 4.3 per are Andrei Kossalopov and Victor Budd ( Gwanyanywa of the commercial workers’ union cent in the oil-dominated central African known also as ‘Victor Bout’ in Belgium), is in charge of women’s affairs and is one of the Communauté Economique et Monétaire de formerly of the Soviet Union and now using a MDC’s top seven. Other senior trades unionists l’Afrique Centrale. Tight monetary policies range of different travel documents. are Isaac Matongo (a ZCTU vice-president), have kept inflation low. They are linked through ownerships to a Nicholas Mudzengerere (one of Tsvangirai’s To boost trade, French businesses are pressing series of air charter companies, including Air deputies in the ZCTU), Kumbirai Makore, for harmonisation of commercial laws Pass and the United Arab Emirates registered Thokozani Khupe, Edward Muchena, Esaph throughout the Zone (and Guinea) and the Air Cess. According to United States military Mdlongwa, Remus Makuwaza and Wellington Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique intelligence, these two companies have been Chibhebhe. du Droit des Affaires, launched to do just this in providing services to UNITA in exchange for The Deputy President, Tichawona 1996 (AC Vol 40 No 6), comes into effect this diamonds. Also, according to US military Mudzingwa, is a doctor at Harare Hospital and month under its Cameroon-based Permanent intelligence, Air Pass has been flying this year an ex-combatant; other ex-combatants are Secretary, Aregba Polo. Insiders say OHADA between Central African Republic, Kisangani Hapson Nenji Gwauya, Ngoni Chitauro (an has massive problems. Too few judges are in Congo-Kinshasa and Kigali in Rwanda accountant) and Fletcher Dulini. Paul Themba qualified to implement the new legal codes; carrying weapons, timber and precious stones. Nyathi of the Zimbabwe Project, a non- French consultants at OHADA’s training school, It’s not only the USA that has moved against governmental organisation mainly caring for the Ecole Régionale Supérieure de la Budd and his activities. South Africa, where ex-fighters, was offered the job of party treasurer Magistrature, say it’s struggling; the law the company used Gateway International airport but said the Project took all his time, so the post associations of Mali, Senegal and several in Pietersburg, has clamped down. South remains vacant. The one former political CEMAC countries say their judiciaries are in Africa’s Civil Aviation authorities visited Air detainee is Lovemore Moyo. crisis anyway. Neither in the Fédération des Pass in April 1998 and, after assessing its The MDC’s powerful lawyers include Tendai Associations Professionelles des Banques documentation, issued 200 charges for violations Biti, who successfully challenged the Law and (under Côte d’Ivoire’s Ange Koffi) nor the of the Civil Aviation Act, including working Order (Maintenance) Act on behalf of the ZCTU Réseau des Opérateurs Economiques Ouest- without a foreign operator's permit. According and is a member of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Africains do members see much chance of a to the South African police, Air Pass had been Lawyers’ Association; David Coltart from banking and investment boom. transporting ‘fuel tanks, tow trucks, boots, Bulawayo, once singled out by President Robert Opinion is divided about UEMOA's chances ponchos, food and mining equipment’ to Mugabe as among the 'rabble-rousers' who must of implementing its single market in 2000 as UNITA-held areas without permission from the decide whether to remain in Zimbabwe or not. planned. The main immediate worry is that a UN Security Council. If Sibanda, Tsvangirai and Mudzengerere single market whose currency is fixed to the Having come under scrutiny Air Pass, quit the union movement for the new party, the Euro may not be competitive with and moved its operations to Swaziland, where it ZCTU’s only surviving top leaders would be Nigeria, both free to adjust their exchange rates. 8