6 August 1999 Vol 40 No 16 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL SIERRA LEONE 3 MOROCCO Problematic peace The ceasefire is just about holding Our friend, the new king a month after the 7 July peace deal. The next stage - the Young King Mohammed VI faces a tide of economic and social demobilisation and disarming of problems bequeathed by his father Hassan II the rebel RUF - looks much shakier. The mass outpouring of grief after the death of King Hassan II, one of Africa’s most ruthless and And it's being made worse by the canniest rulers, is fast being overtaken by worries about the future, particularly the shaky economy. lack of foreign funds for rehabilitation. A week after his father’s sudden death from a heart attack on 23 July, King Mohammed VI went to Fez to lead Friday prayers. This was a critical signal of political and religious continuity. Surrounded by the Makhzen (the Palace-run political establishment) Mohammed VI took over as Al KENYA 4 Amir al Mouminin (Commander of the Faithful), Morocco’s spiritual head. Mohammed had accepted the Ba’ya (oath of allegiance) from his subjects immediately after Hassan II’s death. Leakey's big game King Mohammed’s assumption of the spiritual leadership told Moroccans that it would be Once more President Moi has business as usual for the Chérifien monarchy (which, as the title indicates, claims descent from the confounded his critics. After Prophet, as well as legitimacy through the role in the Independence movement played by the late meeting World Bank President King Hassan’s father, King Mohammed V). It was also a message to Islamists, whose best known Wolfensohn in London, Moi has appointed ex-oppositionist Richard leader, Abdessalam Yassine, remains under house arrest in Sale, that the regime does not envisage Leakey as head of the civil service. a shift in the ruling, anti-radical ideology. Leakey has just three months to Moroccans expect and want change. The diverse political class agrees that the new monarch push through a reform and budget- should quietly drop Hassan’s absolutist tendencies, already diminished in the 1990s. They also want cutting programme before Nairobi to slacken the royal grip on business; any inquiry into the monarch’s finances is prohibited by law. takes its case to the IMF and the Bank again. The late monarch built up a personal fortune of more than US$30 billion, consisting of about a fifth of the country’s arable land, total control of phosphate mining (Morocco is the world’s biggest exporter), the expropriated holdings of French settlers and a discreetly managed investment portfolio in the United States and Europe. ZIMBABWE 5 U-turns, screw turns Diplomatic polygamy Even while mourning Hassan, the feisty Moroccan press stepped up its attacks on the gross The latest international plan for inequalities that his reign had perpetuated. The Casablanca daily Le Journal excoriated the turning the economy around looks sound, in narrow economic terms. Kingdom’s ‘semi-feudal’ ruling class and called for a war on poverty and corruption and for radical In narrow political terms it ignores reform of the justice system and social sector. Close up, Hassan’s legacy is very mixed: his regime reality, including next year's was one of the worst abusers of human rights until the tentative political ouverture started a decade elections and the unpopularity of ago; some 12 million of the country’s 28 mn. people live below the poverty line; officially, about President Mugabe's government. 55 per cent of Moroccans are illiterate although non-governmental organisations say the figure is over 70 per cent; projected economic growth of 0.2 per cent this year will do little to cut C.A.R. 6 unemployment running at around 20 per cent; and Moroccans are saddled with a $20 bn. debt on top of a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy. More than ever, there are two economies: the dynamic Too close to call liberalising one of the Casablanca Bourse and the desperate poverty of the countryside. Whoever wins the presidential poll What made Hassan different from Africa’s other absolutists (such as his pupils and friends, starting on 29 August faces a huge former Zaïre’s Mobutu Sese Seko and Togo’s Gnassingbé Eyadéma) was his enduring ability to task in keeping order: the UN manage change and make himself useful to countries more powerful than his own. He was dismissed peacekeeping force is due to leave by diplomats when on assuming power in 1961, he said he wanted good relations with both the West soon afterwards. Incumbent and the Soviet Union because ‘in a Muslim country, bigamy is permitted’. In diplomacy, though, President Patassé is favourite to win, but not in the first round. Hassan was more of a polygamist, deftly running a Middle East policy that allowed him to have the highest level contacts, from Hamas, through the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel to Washington. His handling of the Africa dossier (he was one of Angola’s Jonas Savimbi’s strongest POINTERS 8 supporters and the backbone of the continent’s Francophone réseau) remained obscure to even the keenest Palace-watchers. Senegal, Liberia, For the West, Hassan’s great contribution was keeping the lid on Morocco and message-passing Britain/Africa & between Israel and the Arab world. That alone explains the appearance of US President Bill Clinton, /Africa French President Jacques Chirac, Spain’s King Juan Carlos, Israeli Premier Ehud Barak, Presidential field; Gerald's jeep; Britain's Prince Charles at Hassan’s funeral in Rabat on 25 July. At the obsequies, much of the talk out of Africa; Jacques' jaunt was of Moroccan and Western fears for the future. 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16

Desert kingdom or desert republic?

Whether Rabat cooperates with the United Nations’ planned referendum independent observers believe it would win a referendum and Rabat, on Western Sahara next July will be a key test of King Mohammed because of the high number of voters registered in territory it controls. VI’s political muscle. His father, King Hassan II, marched troops into The next stage, assessing a further 65,000 names (from the ‘contested the territory shortly after Spain pulled out in 1976, a move condemned tribes’) which Rabat wants on the list, is due to end in November. by both the UN and the Organisation of African Unity. Hassan made Mohammed’s accession probably boosts the chances of a free the occupation of the Sahara a national cause and persuaded Westerners referendum. He may be less wedded to the idea of a Moroccan that if his troops were pushed out, the kingdom would collapse. Western Sahara than his father and the ubiquitous Interior Minister, That secured plenty of Western help for him in his war against the Driss Basri. Mohammed might be more responsive if there were Polisario Front. Based in camps near Tindouf, southern Algeria, the serious Western and UN pressure to stop Morocco's obstruction of Polisario badly damaged Morocco at first. Rabat now spends some referendum preparations. US$3 million a day on its occupation force, for comparatively little Mohammed doesn’t like Basri much and is improving relations economic return. Never good, relations with Algiers crashed in the late with Algeria’s diplomatically savvy President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. 1970s and fears persist that it might go to war over the Sahara. Both After a warm exchange at Hassan’s funeral, the two are to meet this Rabat and Polisario have tried to obstruct UN attempts to hold a month to reopen their common border. Born in Morocco, Bouteflika referendum on the territory which they thought they would lose. strongly backed Polisario when Foreign Minister in the 1970s: he told Now preparations to vote, begun in 1988, are nearing an end. Last the 1999 OAU summit he hoped the UN would expedite the referendum. month, the UN gave lists of identified and eligible voters to both sides. In his first speech as King, Mohammed said: ‘ We shall renew our The lists have 84,251 names, of which 40 per cent were registered in commitment to perfect our territorial integrity, of which the issue of Polisario camps, 55 per cent in Morocco and the area of Western our Saharan provinces constitutes a central concern.' Mohammed is Sahara its troops currently occupy, and 5 per cent in Mauritania. no keener than his father to countenance losing Western Sahara. But Both sides have welcomed this, Polisario because it and many he may be more flexible if it comes to a negotiated settlement

Mohammed, 36, comes to a taxing job underprepared. The long years serving in the disputed Sahara. Some believe Mohammed diffident new ruler says he wants to emulate his close friend, will cultivate the army as a counter-balance to the Gendarmerie Mediterranean neighbour and very constitutional monarch, Juan Nationale and civilian gubernatorial administration, which remain Carlos. Press profiles all dip into his curriculum vitae to note that tightly controlled by Basri. In the immediate wake of Hassan’s Crown Prince Sidi Mohammed is a four-star general and death, the line of army officers who professed their allegiance to ‘coordinator’ of the 200,000-strong Force Armée Royale (FAR), Mohammed by kissing the royal hand or royal shoulder ranged and that he spent a period in Brussels working in the office of the from senior generals to more lowly captains. The range of officers, then European Commission President, Jacques Delors. Hassan much broader than usual in expressions of loyalty at the annual was reluctant to groom his son to replace him until Mohammed was ‘Throne Day’ celebration, seemed to show the new monarch’s in his 30s, as was reflected in persistent but ill informed rumours determination to build a power base in the military. that his younger son, Moulay Rachid, or even the ambitious US- Rumours of a rift between Mohammed and Basri were rife as based Moulay Hicham, son of Hassan’s late elder brother Moulay foreign dignitaries arrived for the funeral. Yet Basri was prominent Abdallah, might eventually succeed. as one of the three key officials to greet foreign heads of state and government as they arrived at Rabat airport, standing alongside the Windsors and the World Cup new crown prince, Moulay Rachid, and André Azoulay, the most In recent years, Mohammed was finally given more grooming, robust remaining senior royal counsellor, to greet Clinton. ranging from bonding with another long-standing heir apparent, To date, Mohammed has shown little taste for day-to-day Britain’s Charles Windsor, to representing his father at formal politics. But until Mohammed V’s death in 1961, the far more occasions. Most encouraging, a group of advisors gathered around politicised Crown Prince Hassan was best known abroad as a free- him: the ‘G-14’ comprises some of the best respected administrators, spending playboy whose exploits peopled the pages of Paris including Mourad Cherif, the new head of the ONA Group, the Match. A measure of how opaque Palace politics remain was a country’s largest private company and formerly the near exclusive report carried by news agencies on the day after Hassan’s death that domain of the Palace, and his brother-in-law Driss Benhima, state the unmarried Mohammed, in line with ‘Moroccan tradition’, had electricity company chief and spearhead of Morocco’s campaign to been married to an unnamed bride. This report, quoting Palace win the bid for the 2006 soccer World Cup. offices, was subsequently denied and the seraglio returned behind Whether Mohammed has the will to push for change and can closed doors. avoid being manipulated by more conservative elements remains Barring a radical initiative from the Palace (such as retiring the to be seen. Hassan was isolated in his last years as Ahmed Redha Interior Minister), politics will be dominated by the contest between Guedira and other key aides died of old age and others, such as the opposition-led government of Abderrahmane Youssoufi and Moulay Ahmed Alaoui, grew infirm. Mohammed must promote Basri, trying to consolidate his waning power. After the military, new faces within the Palace power structure and outside it. the political parties lined up to offer condolences; they still see His relationship with the powerful Minister of State for the their political role as dependent upon royal whim. The main parties Interior, Driss Basri, will be critical. Basri had positioned himself in the government coalition - Youssoufi’s Union Socialiste des as de facto regent for the next decade (AC Vol 39 Nos 9 & 23). Forces Populaires and Istiqlal - are internally divided over Hassan kept the FAR isolated from domestic politics while ideology and officials admit they lack young talent. Hence the burdening state coffers by rewarding officers and men for their lacklustre ministerial performances since the gouvernement

2 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16 d’alternance was appointed in March 1998. the names of 20 ministerial nominees for his consideration. Youssoufi has been widely praised but a ‘minor brain More critical are the arguments in United Nations Headquarters haemorrhage’ in June underlined his vulnerability. He was taken about the size, composition and funding of the peacekeeping force. ill during an angry meeting of USFP cadres and was raced to The UN will need at least 15,000 peacekeepers, with good logistics hospital by senior party officials, including leftist icon Noubir and communications. They must be convincingly international, Amaoui. Youssoufi lived; the meeting apparently carried on. His too; the RUF insists it won’t hand its guns in to a solely Nigerian doctors have told him he will live for several more years, provided force. he rests. This is problematic for a former exile with a hands-on The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Francis style of government and it puts more pressure on General Affairs G. Okelo, called for a major funding boost after the Sierra Leone Minister Ahmed Lahlimi, who effectively runs a government Contact Group, chaired by Britain’s outgoing Africa Minister strapped for new ideas and cash. Its budget balances have been Tony Lloyd, met in London on 28 July. Britain offered about bailed out only by a group led by Spain’s Telefónica bidding $1 US$17 million for military restructuring and demobilisation but billion for the kingdom’s second global system for mobiles (GSM) other donors were conspicuously quiet about money. On the telephone licence. previous day, a donors’ meeting in Brussels had raised $2.1 billion Government and Palace face a daunting task which may force for regional reconstruction after the latest round of the Balkan war. them to make common cause - if Mohammed and Youssoufi are sufficiently strong to unite feuding factions. Can Hassan’s lifestyle, Diamond-driven rooted in luxurious palaces and golf courses dotted around the The agreement calculates that RUF leaders such as Sankoh and kingdom, be maintained by a young king with a professed and Sam Bockarie and their sponsors - Liberia’s President Charles occasionally practised wish to alleviate poverty? Taylor and Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaoré - have Waiting in the wings are Islamist opponents but probably the more to gain by cooperating with regional power Nigeria and the greater risk comes from civil strife triggered by economic hardship UN than by continuing their war against the Kabbah government - which Islamists could exploit. Scenes of mass public mourning and Sierra Leone’s civilians. Given that the RUF controls most of for Hassan surprised many Moroccans who respected their king - the diamond fields in the eastern centres of Kono and Koidu, and especially in his later years, as arbiter of political disputes at home has forces operating across about two-thirds of the country, that is and abroad - but did not love him as they did his father. Mohammed a questionable assumption. can utilise this to build his own, new-style, power base and win Taylor’s role is central. Kabbah’s ministers, UN officials and time for the economy to strengthen. However, radical measures are Western diplomats all agree that without Taylor’s support the needed, led by land reform and other agricultural reforms (including peace deal won’t hold. We hear that diamond income going to taxing farmers), which Hassan refused to countenance. Taylor’s and Compaoré’s offices from RUF-held areas has been largely dissipated in keeping the fractious rebel movement together, SIERRA LEONE paying for its South African trainers (AC Vol 40 No 2) and funding arms and ammunition supplies. While Compaoré was protected from censure by France, Taylor was getting the full brunt of foreign opprobrium, with an almost total donor boycott of Problematic peace Liberia. Since United States’ officials (together with their Nigerian Charles Taylor's support is critical to end the and Ghanaian counterparts) accused Taylor of arming and training war - the other problem is lack of finance the RUF in January, pressure on him has been mounting. Two years after coming to power in disputed elections, Taylor As battle-hardened rebels saunter into Freetown, guns slung over presides over a shambolic state and a collapsed economy. He is their shoulders, Sierra Leoneans are arguing about the price of their increasingly unpopular at home as living standards fall. Incomes hoped for peace. A month after the 7 July peace agreement in are much lower than they were under the detested but Washington- Lome, the ceasefire is more or less holding. Many are sceptical, supported regime of Samuel Doe in the 1980s and only a handful though, about the next stage. This is when the Revolutionary of the war-damaged schools, clinics and roads have been rebuilt. United Front leader, Corporal Foday Sankoh, and his allies are to So Western and Nigerian officials offered Taylor a trade-off: stop arrive in Freetown to take up government jobs alongside President backing the RUF, bring it to the conference table and Monrovia Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the RUF soldiers have to hand over will be back on the foreign aid circuit. their guns to the international peacekeepers. Without a properly Taylor signed up and has delivered (so far) with some panache. financed rehabilitation programme for the ex-fighters or a He turned up at the Lome signing with friends Compaoré and reconstruction fund for the beleaguered civilians, the chances of Togo’s President Gnassingbé Eyadéma and was praised as a force the peace holding in the longer term look slim. So far, international for regional stability by his new UN and Western friends. Then on support is only trickling through. Liberia’s National Day, 26 July, Taylor organised a grand burning Sankoh and his men are refusing to come to Freetown until they of all weapons captured by peacekeepers form the Economic are given ‘decent accommodation’; the RUF set ablaze some Community of West African States Monitoring Group (Ecomog) 10,000 houses and many of their occupants during their January during the 1990-97 civil war. Guests included Kabbah and his invasion of the capital. RUF supporters are fuming over Kabbah’s Finance Minister, James Jonah; Nigeria’s new President, Olusegun appointment of an executive director to the National Resources Obasanjo, and the Director of Washington’s West Africa Commission, which Sankoh is supposed to chair: the peace deal department, Ambassador Howard Jater. Stretching the symbolism says this appointment gives Sankoh the status of Vice-President even further, Taylor then pinned medals on two Nigerian former and that he shall be answerable only to President Kabbah. They are Ecomog commanders, Major Generals Joshua Dogonyaro and also accusing Kabbah of arrogance in demanding the RUF submit Tunji Olurin - who were Taylor’s most formidable military 3 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16

opponents when he was a rebel commander in the Liberian war. remaining 20 per cent by the Kamajors and Ecomog). However, Kabbah’s position was much weaker than Taylor’s. The RUF’s legal advisor, Omrie Golley, says his organisation Though UK Prime Minister Tony Blair presented him as a beacon will ‘bring to book’ any soldiers committing atrocities and Sankoh of democracy only two years ago, Kabbah’s credibility has long has admitted to the New York Times that the RUF committed since ebbed away. He is under fire from his own cabinet for atrocities while he was gaoled in Nigeria. Investigators have spinelessness and deviousness, and from non-politicians for his already gathered detailed accounts of the RUF’s mass arm-cutting failure to rein in corruption. Many in Freetown believe that he will campaign, which has left some 10,000 amputees, many of them follow the fate of the former Guinea Bissau President, Commander children, according to UN figures - an appalling legacy of one of João Bernardo Vieira, who fled into exile weeks after signing a Africa’s worst wars in one of the world’s poorest countries. peace deal with Gen. Ansumane Mane’s rebels. Sensing Kabbah’s weakness perhaps, the RUF’s Sankoh now refers to him affectionately as ‘my President.’ KENYA

The Nigerians go home There was no sign that the Kabbah government, Ecomog or Leakey's big game successive groups of mercenaries had the will or the ability to convincingly defeat the RUF and its allies. New Nigerian President Unexpectedly, President Moi has appointed Obasanjo made clear he had no interest in fighting a guerrilla war an old adversary to run the civil service against the RUF and would be prepared to keep Nigerian troops in Once more, President Daniel arap Moi has confounded his critics Sierra Leone as peacekeepers only for a limited time. and surprised everyone else. On 23 July, he appointed his political So the Lomé agreement was more surrender than peace treaty. adversary, palaeontologist and wildlife enthusiast Richard Leakey, Kabbah’s government has struck a relatively good deal for itself, to head the Civil Service. Leakey’s appointment follows, we hear, given its political and military weakness. Kabbah persuaded direct discussions between Moi and World Bank President James parliament to pass the peace deal into law within a week of signing. Wolfensohn. Moi was told that the only way to end the stand-off His team fended off RUF demands for eight ministries, a four-year with donors and the country’s economic free-fall was to appoint a transitional power-sharing arrangement and a postponement of credible economic and civil service reform team. elections now scheduled for 2001 (the RUF had wanted a longer From 11 to 14 May, Moi visited London privately, met run-up to the next elections to build a stronger support base). Wolfensohn and other senior Bank officials and convinced them Instead, Finance Minister Jonah insists there is no power-sharing (not for the first time) that he was serious about fighting corruption - just a government of ‘inclusion’ in which Kabbah has agreed to (AC Vol 40 No 5). He was prepared to overhaul the top ranks of consider RUF nominees for four ministerial and three deputy- the civil service and kick out the political jobbers, he said. The ministerial posts. World Bank said it was prepared to second some of its Kenyan staff The deal is not so good for the majority of Sierra Leoneans to Kenya, provided there was a new, uncorrupt and professional caught between power politicians in Freetown and Sankoh’s fighters head of the civil service, plus new leadership at the key ministries in the hinterland. Most seem relieved that this appalling conflict of Finance, Agriculture, Health, Transport and Communications, might at last be ending and outraged that the hackers of limbs, and Energy. rapists and child murderers have been given a blanket amnesty Moi’s response was to appoint the brave but abrasive Leakey, under the deal. Their anger over the atrocities is directed as much who until last year was Secretary General and member of parliament at the government for its security failures as at the RUF for its for the opposition Safina party. Leakey (a third-generation white brutality. Kenyan) and Moi are old sparring partners: Leakey was head of the government’s Kenya Wildlife Service until he had a colourful row Of the few who might actively oppose the Lome deal’s provisions with Moi in 1994 over the Service’s jurisdiction. Leakey doesn’t on amnesties and ministerial jobs for the RUF, the most important suffer from low self-esteem. He gave Moi an ultimatum, according are the Civil Society Movement (includes trades unionists, to presidential biographer Andrew Morton: he demanded to be professional associations and women’s groups) and the Avundohs, made head of the civil service or else he would join opposition a breakaway faction of Deputy Defence Minister Sam Hinga politics. Once in the opposition, he was accused of racism by the Norman’s Kamajor militia. Internationally, the amnesty deal has Maasai hard-man and minister, William ole Ntimama. been much criticised by New York-based Human Rights Watch Leakey’s subsequent and brief excursion into opposition politics and by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former was just as lively. He and Paul Muite formed the Safina coalition, President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, who said the Sierra Leone which looked able to loosen the ruling Kenya African National atrocities were worse than those in Kosovo. Union’s grip on power. So the government refused to register Robinson is also to advise the Freetown government on setting Safina - until the last minute before the December 1997 elections, up a ‘quasi-judicial’ human rights commission and a truth and causing maximum chaos in opposition ranks. In 1995 Leakey, who reconciliation commission. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had lost both legs in a plane crash, was bull-whipped at an opposition said the amnesty provisions were ‘difficult to reconcile with the rally in Nakuru. None of the police at the rally tried to stop the goal of ending the culture of impunity’. Civil society activists in attack; the man then in charge of police in Rift Valley Province, Freetown hope much can be done with what they call the ‘creative Francis Sang, is now National Director of the Criminal ambiguities’ in the Lome deal. They hope the truth and reconciliation Investigation Department. It wasn’t until last month that a KANU commission could be used like the South African model to nail Youth Winger, John Kuria arap Kosgei, was found guilty of the offenders on both sides (local human rights monitors say that about assault on Leakey and gaoled for three years. 80 per cent of the atrocities were committed by the RUF and the There’s little affection between Leakey and Moi but there 4 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16 might just be some mutual respect - that of one bruiser for another. Moi also faces growing political pressure: the aftermath of the Now they are good friends again, at least for public consumption. Goldenberg scandal (often estimated to have cost the public $300 When Moi announced the appointment on state radio, he said mn., not $6.9 mn., AC Vol 40 No 14) continues to sully some of Leakey was recognised both ‘at home and internationally as a man KANU’s top names, while the battle for Moi’s succession is of determination and integrity’. The strategy is to get Leakey to heating up. Just days before Leakey was appointed, Dubai-based work with respected technocrats to free more than US$300 million businessman Nasir Ibrahim Ali published documents purporting in credits from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and to link Moi and his son Gideon to the Goldenberg affair. The European Union. As Secretary to the Cabinet (Moi chairs all documents were released during Ali’s business wrangle with cabinet meetings) Leakey will be privy to all formal government Kamlesh Pattni, a key player in Goldenberg. Ali misjudged Moi. decisions. How far he’s allowed into Moi’s kitchen cabinet is He was almost immediately deported, in late July, to Dubai, another matter. United Arab Emirates, where he is wanted on criminal charges. All are on secondment so that they can return to their previous Prior to this, Interpol had made six extradition applications for Ali jobs at the end of their government contracts. This is meant to but the former Director of the Kenya CID, Noah arap Too, had insulate them from political pressure if they upset vested interests. turned them all down. Ali had some powerful local friends in his These were the terms on which Central Bank of Kenya Governor battle to wrest the lucrative ownership of Nairobi Airport’s duty Micah Cheserem was employed although some now claim he, too, free shops from Pattni, who was dumped by senior KANU officials has succumbed to local pressures. Some ten days before the after Goldenberg became a major embarrassment. After Ali’s appointments, Jose Fajgenbaum had led a sceptical IMF team deportation, Moi huffed that Kenya had become a ‘dumping ground’ back to Washington after Finance Minister Francis Masakhalia’s for international criminals. optimistic budgetary arithmetic failed to convince them. Leakey and his team will probably win a resumption of aid but Fajgenbaum gave the government three months to take some ‘prior they will have to work near-miracles if they’re going to push back actions’ before its reform programme would be presented to the corruption. The civil service is highly demoralised. Corruption Fund’s Executive Board. and years of Kalenjin favouritism in appointments has taken their toll. Salaries are so low that bribes are now routinely requested, Crunch, crunch even for minor services. Graft has grown this year as Moi’s At the end of June, Kenya had defaulted on $62 mn. owed to retirement looms in 2002. Trying to stop that will pit Leakey and bilateral creditors. This is part of a much bigger payments crunch his team against KANU’s crony network. Leakey’s reformers will which forced Moi’s hand over the Leakey appointment. Kenya’s not survive long without Moi’s backing. And they won’t have to foreign obligations this year are over $450 mn., compared to $318 wait long to find out how serious Moi is about his new team. mn. in 1998, but the economy has continued to shrink. Growth in gross domestic product fell to 1.6 per cent in 1998, compared to 4.6 per cent in 1996. Nothing was coming in to make up the gap and another default looked likely. The government’s stand-off with the ZIMBABWE IMF choked off the bulk of donor funding. In 1998, Masakhalia had projected that donors would disburse $302 mn. but the final figure was only $164 mn. Most of the burden has fallen on social U-turns, screw turns spending and the country’s fast declining roads, ports and communications. The ruling party dreams the IMF could help it The Leakey team’s reform plan is set to include major public win the next election spending cuts, targeting the public sector payroll specifically. A The latest international plan for turning Zimbabwe’s economy 1997 report by Kenya’s Directorate of Personnel Management around looks sound, in narrow economic terms. In narrow political suggested some 126,000 public sector jobs, almost a third of the terms, though, it ignores reality, including next year’s parliamentary civil service, could be cut by a mixture of voluntary retirements and elections and the rock-bottom unpopularity of President Robert redundancies. Britain, which helped to finance the report, has Mugabe’s government (AC Vol 40 No 14). To make the recovery offered further help on civil service reform and Leakey is due in plan work, Mugabe must junk his most sacred economic and London soon. Such a mass redundancy plan would cost at least political precepts or else resign. Neither is likely. $180 mn. in severance payments alone. The International Monetary Fund offers to rescue the country Kenya still sees itself (and wants others to see it) as an oasis of with a standby credit of US$200 million, to be drawn down over stability in a region of warring states; the World Bank wants to twelve months. To qualify, the government must impose tight avoid collapse, even at the risk of looking over-credulous. If the monetary and fiscal policies which, the IMF hopes, will persuade Leakey and technocrat appointments do some good, it will be a the World Bank, African Development Bank and some rich major boost for the Bank’s Resident Representative, Harold governments to lend some $250 mn. a year over three years. The Wackman, who has been torn between President Wolfensohn’s IMF and Bank insist that these credits, plus sensible budgeting, anti-corruption line and traditional bank diplomacy. Technical aid will quickly persuade new private investors, foreign and domestic, may be unblocked quickly to help the new officials to launch their to put more cash into Zimbabwe. three-month ‘action programme’. Some IMF officials had wanted No one in the Bank or Fund has explained how the government to resume the stalled enhanced structural adjustment facility (ESAF) is to impose tough monetary and fiscal restraint, when the economy as early as mid-March when Moi made his face-saving appointments is already in recession and is paying to keep 10,000 soldiers in to the Anti-Corruption Authority but senior Washington officials Congo-Kinshasa. The targets will probably be missed and the remained sceptical. They also doubted they could persuade the loan programmes eventually lapse. Before that happens, Mugabe’s Board to unblock credits for Kenya. government might just garner enough donor funds to pump up the 5 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16

economy sufficiently to win the parliamentary elections. If the Z$10 bn. to cover all debt-servicing. much vilified IMF and World Bank can be persuaded to help fund Government debt of over Z$200 bn. now exceeds GDP. another election victory by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Domestic debt totals Z$60 bn., which bankers do not regard as a Union-Patriotic Front, there will be merriment in the party’s senior major problem. The World Bank’s planned structural adjustment ranks. credit would allow Zimbabwe to retire half of the government’s The plan pays scant attention to the wider region. The short-term domestic borrowings. Rocketing inflation is cutting the region’s investment rules have been transformed by a new free- cost of the rest but threatening pension funds, which carry massive trade pact between South Africa and the European Union, and the paper losses. proposed Southern African Development Community (SADC) Business people, especially the National Economic free-trade protocol, starting in January. Consultative Forum, believe that backing from the IMF and other Increasingly, Zimbabwe’s attraction to investors is confined donors marks a turning point. The deal, says one enthusiast, will to agriculture - horticulture, coffee, tea, cotton, sugar and livestock unlock ‘billions’. Yet these optimists, like the Bank and Fund, - and some minerals. Interest in tobacco is waning, as the underestimate the depth of political and social discontent. Trades multinationals look at smallholder production in Tanzania and unions are pushing not just to set up a political party but to recoup Mozambique. Manufacturing has been sidelined; its share of gross earlier declines in real wages, which will be some 15 per cent below domestic product was down to 14 per cent last year from over 25 their 1990 levels, even after this year’s estimated 45 per cent wage per cent in the early 1990s. Industrial investors in the area are award. Employers forecast pay increases averaging 40 per cent a targeting South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, which may all year over the next two years, undermining Finance Minister Herbert benefit from the EU trade deal. Murerwa’s hopes of reining in the public sector deficit. For once, ZANU-PF could face serious electoral pressure, if Battles continue over land. Corralled onto overcrowded a new labour party is launched into the parliamentary race by communal lands, smallholders have been waiting for some Morgan Tsvangirai, President of the Zimbabwe Congress of productive farmland since Independence in 1980. The donors Trade Unions. ZANU might well lose a free vote in urban areas refused to support the large-scale take-over which Mugabe and even in some of its rural heartland, bringing at least a substantial demanded in 1997-98 and resettlement goes on far too slowly for opposition presence (even opposition control) in parliament, while the small farmers, who are again threatening to move onto white- Mugabe sits out the last two years of his presidential mandate. owned land. Ministers say they will use the army to evict squatters, Few new investors will go in till the politics look a bit clearer, thus deepening the government’s unpopularity in the countryside. perhaps after the 2002 presidential election. The nation cannot Zimbabwe’s hopes in the 1980s as the lead player in Southern afford to wait that long for recovery. The economic collapse is Africa have been overtaken by a freed South Africa, by post-war breaking up the health and education services, while rising recovery in Mozambique and by steady growth in Botswana, whose unemployment sharpens political tensions. With or without the wealth has almost caught up with its neighbour’s. Hopes by the IMF, the economy will get worse before it gets better. Inflation, IMF and local business for a rapid donor-funded turnaround look currently at 55 per cent, will reach 65 or even 70 per cent in unrealistic. There is little they can do about the wider issues of September-October. That will force bank lending rates above the policy and governance that block real economic change. Mugabe current 45 per cent, reached after last month’s belated tightening and the old guard who lead ZANU-PF are set to hold on at least until of monetary policy and despite warnings to the banks from Reserve 2002. A quick fix is not on the cards. (central) Bank Governor Leonard Tsumba against raising rates. There will be little if any GDP growth in 1999; it was 2 per cent last year. Output is falling in both mining and manufacturing; cotton and tobacco volumes are sharply lower. Tobacco prices have fallen by 5 per cent this year and earnings will be down by 20 per cent at US$300 mn. Though imports have crashed (because of Too close to call last year’s slump in the Zimbabwe dollar and the economic slowdown) the balance-of-payments deficit is still around Z$400 Incumbent President Patassé is favourite to mn. a year - twice the support offered by the IMF. win the elections as the UN prepares to leave Exports, forecast at US$1.75 billion for 1999, are down by 28 Whoever wins the presidential election starting on 29 August faces per cent from their 1996 peak. Foreign investors are net sellers on a huge task in keeping order. Incumbent President Ange-Félix the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. The IMF’s high interest rates, cuts Patassé is the favourite, though probably not in the first round. The in public spending - except education and health - and faster winner will be helped for a time by the Mission des Nations Unies privatisation will deepen the recession, while reducing inflation to en République Centrafricaine (Minurca) which is to supervise the 35 per cent next year and 20 per cent by 2001. Bankers say the poll and is already overseeing the restructuring of the army. So far, Zimbabwe dollar, pegged on instructions from the Reserve Bank, election preparations - ten candidates have registered - are going is overvalued at Z$38 to the US dollar; it is expected to be about better than the military reforms. Minurca cannot afford to fail on Z$45 by year-end and Z$75 over the next two years. either count. It is one of the United Nations’ first attempts at The budget deficit is now probably over 12 per cent of GDP. ‘preventive peace-keeping’; it has also been run by Europe The plan would cut it to 4 per cent by 2001, partly by privatising (particularly France), without United States’ cash or logistics. It state companies to raise some Z$5 bn. (US$130 mn.) over three will face its toughest test this month: the danger is that political years. In the last year, the government’s short-term borrowing, to rivals will resort to violence again if they don’t like the election cover its growing deficit, has almost doubled the issue of Treasury result, especially if they smell fraud. Bills to Z$42 bn., on which interest is payable at almost 50 per cent. Control of the army remains a key political issue and it seems This costs Z$20 bn. a year in charges; the budget included only that the military reforms won’t be completed before Minurca’s

6 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16 mandate ends on 15 November. The government is dragging its After four months in France, Kolingba returns home in the feet. Though the National Assembly has adopted four bills on the hope of winning back power, like his old friend Denis Sassou- restructuring, they have yet to become law. There are also Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville in 1997. Kolingba leads the difficulties with the Presidential Guard, we hear, which continues southern ‘Riverains’ (riverside peoples) as opposed to the northern to intervene in tasks, such as riot control, beyond its official duties. ‘Savaniers’ (people of the plains) who now rule the country, and All this, plus a huge influx of refugees this last week from the his own Yakoma people regard him as their saviour. He is thought fighting in Congo-Kinshasa, raises doubts about Minurca’s future. to have 20-25 per cent of the national vote, which would place him Having invested so much in trying to stabilise CAR, the UN isn’t second in the first round; in 1993 he won only 15 per cent and came likely to withdraw completely in November. More probable is a fourth. Today, he’s seen as the second force in the country. Since scaled down presence - a Minurca II - to help keep the post-election 1993, his once monolithic Rassemblement Démocratique peace. Centrafricain has been second to the governing Mouvement pour Voters are faced with a familiar array of front-runners: la Libération du Peuple Centrafricain. If Patassé fails to win incumbent President Patassé, his predecessor, General André outright on the first round, Kolingba is likely to pick up substantial Kolingba, and , who served twice as head of state. opposition votes in the second. He is also backed by thousands of The mood is for reconciliation and re-establishing confidence in Ngbandi ‘électeurs ambulants’ (travelling electors) from Congo-K CAR. Whether these veterans can convince electors to vote for arriving to counter Patassé’s own électeurs ambulants from Chad. them is another matter. Many worry about a repeat of the widespread fraud seen in the last elections despite the UN’s efforts. The also-rans Patassé’s best but probably forlorn hope is to win over half the New faces are enlivening the proceedings but none of the other votes in the first round, avoiding a run-off. Some claim that voting candidates is seen as seriously in the race. However, they could cards have been selectively distributed by the Commission affect the final result, both by taking first-round votes away from Electorale Mixte Indépendante (CEMI). Its director is Michel Patassé and forcing a run-off, and by advising their supporters to Adama Tamboux, under the supervision of the President’s men, unite behind another candidate in an eventual second round. Martin Dogo Nendjé Bhé and Marcel Loudégué. Prime Minister Henri Pouzère, a leading lawyer, has no political record as he Anicet Dologuélé (from Ouham Pendé, like Patassé) is trying to has spent three decades abroad. From the majority Banda ethnic cheer up the civil service by paying out two months’ worth of group, Pouzère hopes to build an electoral base from what remains salaries (reportedly with money from the International Monetary of the ageing Professor Goumba’s following in the centre-east. Fund) which are now 13 months in arrears. Some officials in Paris Goumba’s preferred heir is probably Barthélemy Yangongo consider Ambassador Jean-Marc Simon as too keen on Patassé Boganda, a nephew of Barthélemy Boganda, who is often known but he is off to a new post in Libya straight after the poll. as the ‘Father of Independence’. Another candidate is Joseph Aboussolo, a businessman and ‘baron’ of Kolingba’s dictatorship. The heavyweights Also standing is Jean-Paul Ngoupandé, now a philosophy David Dacko is 70 and has been ill for some time. Support among lecturer in Paris. As Patassé’s former Prime Minister, he was the Gbaka people of and the south won him 20 per cent of considered a good manager. His contacts in Paris include Dupuch, the vote in 1993, when he came third, despite the support of the who was French Ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire when Ngoupandé Elysée Palace’s late power-broker Jacques Foccart and part of the represented the CAR there in 1990-92. French right-wing. Dacko’s Mouvement pour le Développement et Once one of Patassé’s closest confidants and his Mines Minister la Démocratie also came third in last December’s legislative in 1993-96, Charles Massi is also a candidate. The candidate of elections (AC Vol 40 No 2). The MDD belongs to the opposition the Parti pour la Social-Démocratie is Enoch Derant Lakoué, alliance in the Assembly, the Union des Forces Acquises à la Paix Kolingba’s last Premier in 1993. Perhaps the most colourful but et au Changement, but the other opposition parties note that least likely candidate is an independent karate teacher, Fidèle Dacko’s son-in-law, Armand Sama, is Minister of Town Planning Ngouandika. He’s popular among young people in Bangui’s Boy- in Patassé’s government; they suspect that, in the event of a Rabe district, usually one of Patassé’s strongholds. second-round run-off vote, Dacko might recommend his supporters to back whichever candidate looks to be the most favourable to his interests. His old rival , who came second in 1993, this Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at 73 time declared himself a candidate without consulting senior party Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. colleagues in the Front Patriotique pour le Progrès. He then took Tel: +44 171-831 3511. Fax: +44 171-831 6778. some French officials by surprise by going off to Paris to try to Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. Administration: Clare Tauben. exploit his old contacts with Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a fellow Socialist. Meanwhile on the right, President Jacques Annual subscriptions, cheques payable to Africa Confidential in advance: Chirac’s advisors Fernand Wibaux and Michel Dupuch UK: £250 Europe: £250 Africa: £233 US:$628 (including Airmail) apparently reckoned he’d be better occupied at home running a Rest of the World: £325 non-governmental organisation campaigning against AIDS. Students (with proof): £75 or US$124 Goumba’s supporters maintain that he really won the 1993 poll All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept but that French officials (especially the security officials so powerful American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 in CAR’s affairs) regarding him as ‘an anti-French Communist 1FH England. Tel: 44 1865 244083 and Fax: 44 1865 381381 doctor’, decided to put Patassé in instead. Some observers believe Visit our web site at: http://www.Africa-Confidential.com that, badly advised and badly informed, Goumba today would be Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts,UK. lucky to get 8-10 per cent of the first-round vote. ISSN 0044-6483 7 6 August 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 16

US source said this was an armoured off-road Eyadéma, whose regime has one of the worst Pointers vehicle with gun-mounts, contravening UN human rights records in Africa. sanctions. Cooper said the arms embargo wasn’t Chirac asserted France’s diplomatic and being enforced. ‘We are a sovereign state... commercial roles in Africa, particularly in when the embargo was imposed we were in the competition with ‘Anglo-Saxon’ interests. SENEGAL middle of a war. Now we have an elected France has always done much better president and government; we’ve got peace so commercially in Anglophone Africa than the the embargo shouldn’t apply,’ he said. 'Anglo-Saxons' have done in Francophone states. Presidential field In Nigeria, a key country for Britain and the United States (source of 6 per cent of America’s The arrival of a contingent of Legionnaires in BRITAIN/AFRICA the latest French troop rotation raised eyebrows oil), he upset some of his own officials by in Dakar. A presidential election is due next saying Abuja should have a permanent seat on February and the country has a history of election Out of Africa the Security Council. After its role in Ecomog violence. The campaign will be hard fought and in Liberia, some in Paris envisage Nigeria as among those preparing to challenge President Peter Hain’s appointment as Britain’s Minister the ‘gendarme of the Gulf of Guinea’. Defence Abdou Diouf are the old bruiser Abdoulaye of State for Africa is likely to push African Minister Alain Richard will visit Abuja next Wade (freshened up after a long break in concerns a few notches higher up the Whitehall month with a team of officials and arms dealers. Versailles with his French wife Viviane) who is totem pole. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Some Paris officials and many French Secretary General of the Parti Démocratique Secretary Robin Cook and Queen Elizabeth II journalists worried that the trip to , Sénégalais, and two rebels from the ruling Parti are all due in South Africa for the Guinea and especially Togo signalled that Socialiste: Djibo Kâ of the Union pour le Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting France cared little about human rights, Renouveau Démocratique and former Foreign in November and are planning stopover visits governance and democracy. Presidents Paul Minister Moustapha Niasse of the Alliance des en route. Hain is energetic and radical, and Biya, Lansana Conté and Gnassingbé Eyadéma Forces du Progrès, one of Senegal’s more plays the media far better than his predecessor, all enjoyed dubious presidential victories (1997, charismatic politicians. Kâ is popular with the Tony Lloyd. 1998, 1998). Eyadéma’s win was so radicals but has said he will stand down for To the left of Blair, Hain’s street credibility unconvincing that the European Union even Niasse if the elections go to a second round. dates from his organisation of protest campaigns suspended Lome from the Lome Convention. Now UN Special Representative for the against visiting South African sports teams In May, Amnesty International accused Great Lakes, Niasse was expelled from the PS during the apartheid era. He so irritated P.W. the Togolese government of having killed in June after criticising Diouf and saying the Botha’s government that it sent agents (one of hundreds of people washed up on the shores of presidency should be limited to two five-year them a Hain look-alike) to rob a London bank to neighbouring . Eyadéma is suing AI’s terms. He has already attracted several PS discredit him. Hain’s first official meeting as Senegalese head, Pierre Sané, a move Chirac notables to his and the AFP’s cause; the URD Minister was with SA High Commissioner publicly supported in Togo. Lome’s chief lawyer won eleven of parliament’s 140 seats in the May Cheryl Carolus on 3 August. on the case is France’s Jacques Vergès, whose 1998 elections, just weeks after its formation. Kenyan-born, Hain has also been a human past clients include Klaus Barbie (the Nazi Another candidate is populist union leader rights campaigner and sharply critical of ‘Butcher of Lyon’) and Illich Ramírez Sánchez Mademba Sock, who was jailed for sabotage in President Daniel arap Moi’s record. A worried (‘Carlos the Jackal’); he offended many by the run-up to the privatisation of electricity Nairobi government quickly scheduled a describing Togo as ‘the victim’ in the affair. utility Sénélec and is making more enemies meeting, described as ‘useful’ by both sides, The Benin Human Rights Defence League with claims of corruption and personal attacks with Hain for Vice-President George Saitoti, backed Amnesty’s accusations (made in its report ‘Togo: State of Terror’, AC Vol 40 No on Diouf. who was in London this week. Hain’s appointment may also boost the morale of the 11), as did some media. Sané formally requested Foreign and Commonwealth’s under-staffed Chirac to ask Eyadéma to allow a UN LIBERIA ‘Africa Command’, though he will be one of the investigation - but Chirac publicly described busier ministers: in a revamp, his job description AI’s report as ‘an attempt at manipulation’, includes Africa (now joined to North Africa), which raised suspicions about his own agenda. Gerald's jeep the Middle East, South Asia, the In Guinea, also active in Ecomog and the Commonwealth, plus environmental, non- world’s second bauxite producer, Chirac failed Britain’s 23 July expulsion of senior Liberian proliferation and human rights issues. to get General Conté to free oppositionist Alpha diplomat Gerald Cooper is an early blow to Condé, head of the Rassemblement du Peuple President Charles Taylor’s efforts to improve Guinéen, who has been in Kaloum gaol since he relations with the West (see Sierra Leone FRANCE/AFRICA lost another controversial presidential election Feature). Cooper told Africa Confidential that in December. He’s accused of trying to cross a UK Customs had asked him to cooperate with closed border, with Côte d’Ivoire, and of an investigation into arms shipments to Liberia Jacques' jaunt wanting to recruit mercenaries, and is due for but that his lawyer had advised him to claim trial in September. diplomatic immunity. President Jacques Chirac’s four-country hurtle One of Chirac’s circle told Africa Three months after that, Whitehall declared round West Africa (21-24 July) was a damp Confidential that France must consolidate her Cooper, Liberia’s representative at the squib. He lacks the verve of his more cerebral position with her African friends ‘to come first International Maritime Organisation, persona predecessor François Mitterrand who had set in business matters’. The socialist government non grata. Cooper had lived in Britain for over much store by his own pro-democracy with which Chirac uncomfortably cohabits sees 30 years and was regarded as one of Taylor’s pronouncements at the La Baule Francophone things through the same prism: ‘The Americans more credible representatives. summit in 1991. Chirac’s view of democracy in and the English don’t make any effort to help Any military shipments to Liberia break Africa is even more pragmatic than Mitterrand’s. Africa develop’, Cooperation Minister Charles the UN arms embargo, imposed at the start of ‘France didn’t become a democracy overnight... Josselin told us, ‘but they deploy in strength in the civil war in 1991. Cooper said the problems There is an African rhythm; it must be respected’, useful countries’. Britain and the USA, he were over a four-wheel-drive vehicle he was he told a group of African journalists before complained, get the lion’s share of South shipping from the United States to Taylor. A going to meet Togo’s President Gnassingbé Africa’s arms purchases. 8