AMERICA'S LEADING MAGAZINE ON AFRICA

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1995

74470 81632 u RAIN FOREST RESCUE: TM To HELP SAVE HALF OF THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS ON EARTH In the rain forest, the sounds of fires and bulldozers are replacing the sounds of nature. Recent studies show that the destruction of the rain forests wipes out 17.000 plant and animal species each year. That's ahout 48 extinctions per day, two per hour. These are plants and animals that will simply cease to exist, gone forever from the planet. And the toll mounts every day. Even though they occupy less than 2% of the earth's surface, rain forests are home to over half the world's plant and animal species. When we destroy the rain forest we are endangering our planet's % future. The chain of life depends on a variety of plants and animals that are being Bf destroyed by the day... from the smallest f tree frog to the largest tropical tree. Join The National Arbor Day Foundation and support Rain Forest Rescue to help put a stop to the destruction. When you join, the Foundation will preserve threatened rain forest in your name. An area of rain forest the size of 10 city blocks is burned every minute. Help stop the destruction. Before the sounds of nature are replaced by the sounds of silence. To contribute to Rain Forest Rescue, call 1-8OO-222-5312

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Copyright © 1994 by the Afncan-Amencan Institute, Inc. IN THE NEWS The United States and Africa: Tough Times Ahead n June 1994. the Clinton administration convened a gest ending U.S. aid lo Africa completely, he will White House conference on U.S. policy toward require African countries "to compete with other coun- i Africa. It was hoped that this unique event would tries" for aid dollars. How must an impoverished prioritize African issues in Washington, and provide a African country win assistance? Be of strategic interest much-needed impetus for the administration to devise and "advance America's security and economic inter- new solutions to Africa's crises. Neither President Clin- ests," according to The Times. ton nor the conference participants could have predicted Other items in McConnell's foreign aid bill which that their discussions and recommendations would be will have a direct impacl on Africa are proposed cuts to made moot by the election of a predominantly conser- international population programs, dismantling the vative Republican majority to both houses of the U.S. Peace Corps as a separate agency and putting it under Congress a few months later. State Department control, and restructuring the U.S. Republican leaders in Congress, led by Rep. Newt Agency for International Development. The Wall Street Gingrich (R-GA). the new speaker of the House, have Jounal reports that "the GOP also may lake the ax lo the been explicit in their desire to limit U.S. aid to non- current $2 billion annual U.S. contribution lo mulitlater- strategic Third World countries, many of which arc in al development banks, particularly the World Bank's Africa. Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY). chairman of the soft-loan window." which provides low-interest loans lo House International Relations Committee, outlined his many African countries. party's policy initiatives, indicating that "national secu- Many consider McConnell a moderate in comparison rity" will be paramount in decision-making regarding to his colleague. Helms. However. McConnell's cuts U.S. foreign policy, particularly related to military inter- conform in good part to Helms' foreign policy ideology. vention and funding UN peace-keeping operations. Helms referred to the "so-called foreign aid pro- Gilman has been described as being "in the broad main- <:ram...$2 trillion...much of it going down foreign rai stream of American foreign policy." and is considered a holes"; and the "revaluation of U.S. relations with 'that moderate compared to his Senate counterpart. Sen. long-time nemesis of millions of Americans, the United Jesse Helms (R-NC). Nations...which costs the American taxpayers billions On the Senate side. Sen. UN/J Isaac of dollars." " Helms, known for Mitch McConnell (R-KY). hindering foreign service incoming chairman of the Sub- appointments in the pasi and of committee on Foreign Opera- being adamantly against "multi- tions, has proposed making lateralism." is expected to lead awards "to countries based on efforts to revamp U.S.AID. whether such aid would advance With the foreign policy battle America's security and econom- lines clearly drawn. Clinton ic interests." Using that criteria, administration officials have it is unlikely that Africa, many duly warned African leaders of of whose countries rank among the tough times ahead. As 1994 the poorest in the world, will be closed. National Security entitled to much. Adviser Anthony Lake, on a The congressional appropria- seven-nation swing through tion of $800 million for the Africa, warned, "Those of us 3 Development Fund for Africa in who recognize the importance the 1993-94 fiscal year remains of continued active engagement secure; however, a bill being and support for Africa are con- prepared by McConnell propos- fronting the reality of shrinking es to eliminate this subsidy in resources and an honest skepti- coming years. According to The cism aboul the return on our New York Times, McConnell investments in peace-keeping says that while he does not sug- Clinton and Boutros-Ghali: Fating cutbacks for Africa? and development." JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1995 AMERICAS VOLUME 40, NUMBER 1 LEADING MAGAZINE ON AFRICA

A Publication of the VREPORT African-American Institute

The African-American Institute Update 5 Editor-, Aiana Lee Chairman Roger Wilkins Mozambique President Fulfilling a Dream 13 Vivian Lowery Derryck By Dan Isaacs

Publisher Angola Steve McDonald A Fragile Peace 22 Editor-in-Chief By Karl Maier Margaret A. Novicki Peace at Last? Page 22 Associate Editor Zimbabwe Joe Margolis The Land Scandal 28 By Andrew Meldrum Assistant Editor Russell Geekie South Africa Editorial Assistant Shantha Bloemen Reforming the Police 32 By Colleen Lowe Morna Contributing Editor Andrew Meldrum A Role Model for Activists 36 Art Director By Denis Herbslein Kenneth Jay Ross

Advertising Office The Horror Revisited Rwanda 212 350-2958 Scenes From a Nightmare 40 Interns By Sonia Pace Debra Brookes Jennifer Thompson AIDS Pioneering Africa's Research 45 Africa Report (ISSN 0001-9836], a non-profit magazine of African affairs. By Wilson Wanene is published bimonthly and is sched- uled to appear at the beginning of each date period at 833 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017 The Gambia Editorial correspondence and advertis- ing inquiries should be addressed to Out With the Old 48 Africa Report, at the above address. Subscription inquiries should be By Peter da Costa addressed to: Subscription Services, P.O. Box 3000. Dept. AR, Denville N J. 07834. Subscription rates Individuals: Interview USA $36. Canada $42, air rate over- seas $60. Institutions: USA $48, Cana- Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings: A First Among First Ladies 52 da $54, air rate overseas $72. Second- class postage paid al New York. N Y By Margaret A. Novicki and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: If this magazine is undeliverable, please send address changes to Africa Report at 833 UN Women Plaza, NY, NY 10017. Telephone: (212) 350-2958. Copyright © 1995 by Plus ga change 55 The African-American Institute, Inc. By Colleen Lowe Morna

Culture Photo Credit: Africa's Film Capital 61 The cover photograph of young Frelimo supporters in the cen- By Rob Wright tral Mozambique province of Manica was taken by Ferhal Toward Beijing Momade/AIM. 1994 Index 64 Ethiopia and Rwanda: A Tale of Two Human Rights Trials aving witnessed scenes of horrifying brutality Charges included 211 counts of "mass murder, torture, inflicted by Africans on their fellow citizens, the and forced disappearance." The accused face the death H world watches as two different countries— penalty, if convicted. The trial is scheduled to resume in Ethiopia and Rwanda—prepare to face their recent histo- March, according to The Washington Post. ries and formally charge leaders alleged to be responsible The explanation given for the delay of the long- for crimes against humanity. As Ethiopian and Rwandan awaited trial is that the charges are unprecedented, and prosecutors prepare their cases, it is hoped that the trials thus the lawyers require more time to answer them and will begin a process of healing and reconciliation, allow- to prepare their defense. Mengistu and his co-defen- ing their governments to tum a page on the past. dants are not merely being charged with murder, In 1991, the guerrilla army of the Ethiopian People's although specific allegations have been made on Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) occupied behalf of the estimated 2,199 victims, including Addis Ababa, ending the 16-year regime of Mengistu Ethiopia's last monarch, Emperor Haile Selassie, who Haile Mariam. Soon after establishing control, EPRDF was executed by suffocation. Mengistu is also lo be soldiers seized over 300,000 documents from govern- held accountable for his government's policies of ment archives, which provided a detailed record of the forced relocations of rural populations and the result- human rights abuses and atrocities alleged to have taken ing famine, in which it is estimated that as many as place during Mengistu's "reign of terror." 100,000 people perished. Three years later, on December 13, 1994, three Western observers and human rights groups were Ethiopian judges began hearing evidence against offi- watching the proceedings closely, vigilantly monitoring cials of Mengistu's government. The first 73 defendants the prisoners' civil and human rights. Questions have were charged with "planning genocide," which was been raised about the trial's legitimacy, in light of alle- described as "a crime against humanity" by Special gations of human rights abuses by President Meles Prosecutor Girma Wajira. Of the 73 defendants formally Zenawi's government. Zenawi, however, has upheld the charged, only 46 appeared at the trial; the remaining promise he made upon assuming power—to try officials had either died in prison, or like Mengistu Mengistu using guidelines established by both Ethiopi- (who is being tried in absentia), are in exile. an and international law. Three days later, the court recessed in order to allow According to The Christian Science Monitor, Zenawi the defendants' attorneys—government-appointed said that he "wants a new standard for Ethiopia. The tri- Ethiopian lawyers—time to better prepare their cases. als send a message to any future Ethiopian government." In fact, the proceedings may be a model that other African countries, seeking to redress abuses by repres- sive and violent leaders, can follow. Since entering Kigali in August—finally halting the massacres estimated to have slaughtered over 500,000 people—Maj.-Gen. Paul Kagame, vice president and defense minister in the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) transitional government, has called for international assistance to establish a war crimes tribunal. In Septem- ber, Kagame said: "It is important to put a justice sys- tem in place.. .or we risk the danger of people taking the law into their own hands." Kagame has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the capacity and will of the UN and other international bodies to implement the trials. He warned that "his gov- ernment would press ahead unilaterally with its own tri- als if the UN was unable to organize them," according to The Guardian of London. Indeed, in November, the Rwandan government voted against the adoption of UN resolution 955 calling o for the creation of an international tribunal to try those Q. V responsible for the genocide, questioning its ability to OS £0 classify the crimes committed against the people and to u determine the chronology of events leading up to the mas- sacres. A key question posed by a representative of the Rwandan president was: "How far back should we go in Mengistu Haiie Mariam: On trial tor murder and human rights violations in absentia Continued on page 10 I JUTE

CABON a new wave of ethnic genocide in Having pronounced himself the POLITICAL Central Africa. Incidents of violence, winner in his country's 1993 elec- both political and criminal, continue tions, Gabonese President Omar POINTERS to plague residents in all parts of the Bongo has succeeded in forming a ^^^^^^^^^^m ^^^^^^^^^^™ country. Fighting between Hutu-led government which includes members of the country's guerrillas and the Tutsi-dominated army has flared up in principal opposition parties. northwestern Burundi, and refugees have amassed at Paulin Obame-Nguema, Bongo's appointee, sworn in neighboring borders. as prime minister in early November, announced the for- mation of a coalition government which includes six opposition figures from the High Council of Resistance TOCO (HRC), an umbrella group representing members of the On December 10, President Gnassingbc Eyadema country's organized opposition. These appointments were announced the re-opening of the Togolese-Ghanaian made in accordance with agreements reached in Septem- border. It is hoped that the opening, marked by a cere- ber at negotiations between the Bongo government and mony attended by civilian and military delegations from HRC leaders, aided by U.S. and French mediators. both countries, will signal the start of a new era in rela- However, two opposition members refused to tions between the two neighboring countries. Diplomat- assume the proffered portfolios. Obame-Nguema quick- ic relations have also been re-established, with the ly reshuffled his cabinet, and by the end of November recent accreditation of a Ghanaian ambassador to Togo. replacements were found from within the HRC, com- The Togolese government announced that it "desires pleting the new Gabonese "government for democracy." to promote good relations between Ghana and Togo, to By law, "free and fair" parliamentary elections must be continue to create the best conditions for consolidating held by December 1995; however, the HRC continues these relations, and to maintain peaceful relations." The to pressure the government to accelerate the process. border will be open 24 hours a day for people to cross and 12 hours for goods. BURUNDI The border had been closed most recently since Jan- uary 1994, but in fact has been opened and shut repeatedly Against a backdrop of a volatile mix of ethnic ten- since 1986, when Eyadema closed the frontier in response sions and ongoing violence, observers of the Hutu-led to an attempted coup, which he alleged involved Ghana- government of President Sylvester Ntibantungaya won- ian agents. Since then, the countries' borders have often der if he will be able to contain the political crisis which been subject to Eyadema's preoccupation with national has resulted from the election of Jean Minani as speaker security, opening and closing at his whim. of the National Assembly. Minani's election by a slim margin of votes from his party, the Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu), pro- ZAMBIA voked a walk-out by Unity and National Progress Party It has been only three years since Kenneth Kaunda (Uprona) deputies, who accused the speaker of having ended his 27-year reign as president of Zambia. But it incited Hutu massacres of Tutsis in October 1993, after appears that Kaunda, 70, is eager to once again become an the death of former President Melchior Ndadaye. active player in Zambian politics. The former president On December 5, demonstrators responding to calls announced his return to the political hustings in early by Uprona party officials, took to the streets of Bujum- October, with a tour of the country to campaign for elec- bura to express their outrage at Minani's election and to tions "now and not tomorrow." The next elections are due call for his resignation. Despite being declared an illegal in 1996 and it appears unlikely that President Frederick action by the government, the demonstration proceeded Chiluba would consider cutting short his five-year term. peacefully and, in the following days, the call was Kaunda's re-emergence as a politician has been greeted echoed throughout the country with anti-Frodebu with mixed responses. Supporters argue that the economic demonstrations occurring in the north as well. and political situation in Zambia has so deteriorated that In mid-December, officials of Ntibantungaya's gov- Kaunda is needed to solve the country's problems. Others ernment assembled in the capital seeking a solution to perceive his return as a crude example of opportunism and the crisis. Minani indicated that he was not inclined to greed. resign and that he might in fact call for a judicial hear- Although he founded the United National Indepen- ing to investigate those responsible "directly and indi- dence Party (UNIP), Kaunda is no longer a member. Both rectly" for the October 1993 crisis. In a separate state- the UNIP leader, Kebby Musokotwane, and the young ment, Prime Minister Anatole Kanyenkiko, a member members of UNIP have vowed to fight his application for of Uprona, said that he would not capitulate to Uprona membership and his likely attempt to regain leadership of re party demands that he resign from his post in the Frode- the party. 3 XI bu government. He warned against the consequences of The government has already warned that by breaking at dissolving the government over this issue, but that if an his promise not to return to politics, he will lose the bene- u. acceptable compromise were not found, he might ulti- fits of his monthly allowance, which is calculated at 80 mately leave the government in deference to his own percent of his former salary, as well as the special status party's request. accorded him by Zambia's overseas embassies. He has Meanwhile, observers were fearful that political divi- already received a large pay-out on his retirement and a sions in Bujumbura will provide the spark needed to ignite four-bedroom house. INTERVIEW: KENNETH BEST, NEWSPAPER EDITOR AND PUBLISHER enneth Best, one of West Africa's most coura- forum. We were just about to start a literacy column. geous and well-respected journalists, was The Jawara government appreciated the paper. One K deported from his exile in the Gambia by the time I went to see the former president and he told me, new military junta on October 30, two years after hav- "Mr. Best, you have started your own competition," ing launched the nation's only daily newspaper. Best, a because since we started, many newspapers have come Liberian, is no stranger to run-ins with the region's up and those in existence tried to improve, even the military rulers. In the 10 years he operated Monrovia's government paper. So I said, "Yes, Mr. President, that's Daily Observer, Samuel Doe's government closed the the name of the game." In Liberia, shortly after the paper five times, and jailed Best three times, as well as Observer arrived on the scene on February 16, 1981, twice attempting to burn down the paper's offices. In you saw many other newspapers coming up and soon April 1990, as the civil war in Liberia was heating up, we had about four or five dailies in Liberia. Best decided to heed the warnings and escape to the But somehow our message of accountability, trans- Gambia, where two years later, he was able to start parency, good government, progressive government Banjul's Daily Observer, which he made into a popular policy and programs didn't get through and when on and thriving paper, until Lt. Yaya Jammeh's junta July 22, these boys took over, they could point to a lot decided to deport him. The indomitable Best speaks of corruption and mismanagement in the country. Seven here with Africa Report about his experiences in trying of the major parastatals had collapsed because of it. We to push the boundaries of press freedom in a region all tried to warn—that's the purpose of a newspaper, to too familiar with media censorship. point to dangers—and we used the benefit of our expe- rience in Liberia and other places to let them know Africa Report: What was it like publishing the Gam- these things could not go on indefinitely because people bia's first daily newspaper? are watching, but nobody paid too much attention and Best: In the last two years under the Jawara govern- things went from bad to worse. ment, we did our best to be a credible newspaper, point- We had hoped that the young soldiers would have ing out the good and the bad, and trying to expose some kept to their pledge to be "soldiers with a difference." of the problems in society in a way they were never Unfortunately, they started harassing me and through exposed before. In the Gambia, you have a very small me the rest of the press. If you shut the mouth of the society and before we got there, information just didn't press, people no longer have a voice. We are hoping circulate. There was only one government newspaper, that they change their policies to allow more freedom The Gambia Weekly, which sometimes for three and of the press and open up the society and rethink their four months didn't come out. There were other smaller four-year timetable to elections. The donors have cut newspapers, mimeographed, that were either monthly or off a lot of aid. The British have warned their tourists occasional, and many of them were scandal sheets. The they can no longer guarantee their safety in the coun- politicians in Africa are happy with scandal sheets try, and with the collapse of peanuts, the main foreign because they can play one politician or prominent per- exchange earner has been tourism over the last two to son against another and for little money they can get three years. So you can see the economic slide. In an their enemies discredited. unstable situation, tourists will not come. The hotel When we got there, we pledged to give them a profes- industry will collapse. My paper is still publishing, but sional daily newspaper. In the process of doing that, we we don't know for how long. incurred the animosity of many of the rich and power- Africa Report: What reasons were given for your ful, because they were not used to having their business deportation and how was it carried out? exposed in the newspapers. Best: They issued a press release after my deporta- Prior to our arrival in the Gambia, information circu- tion. They didn't tell me why they were deporting me. lated in very restricted form—a group of friends would When the man gave me my ticket to Liberia, he only meet at a certain place in the evenings after work and said: "Here is your passport, this your deportation chat about the gossip and rumors. But here you had a order, and here is a free ticket to Monrovia" and he daily newspaper putting everything in the papers and escorted me to the plane. When I took my seat, he the common man appreciated it because for the first gave my passport to the captain of the plane and said time he knew what was going on in his country. We to give it to me on my arrival in Monrovia. That's o also had a daily world news page and many develop- what happened. a. v ment columns in the paper—the Observer Doctor, the Early that Sunday morning, I had gone to the office as Observer Farmer, the fitness column, the nutrition col- I usually do to put the lights out because the staff umn, poetry, arts and history columns. Following the doesn't come to work until 10 am. When I returned to coup, because these young soldiers said they wanted to my gate, I met this immigration officer with the same < contribute, the short time they were there, to the devel- jeep I had been taken into custody in two weeks earlier. opment of the country, we started a development The man said he wanted to go see the foreigners in my * J3ATE office. I said there things had died down, but apparently he never forgot are no foreigners in about it. Later on, we continued to write editorials and my office; in fact quote people calling for a credible timetable and he there is only one didn't like this either. So they started sending people to person there and investigate us. Two days, after I was deported, they that's the security issued a press release stating that I owed 7,000 dalasi guard and he is in taxes—about $400 or $500. I paid my expatriate Gambian. He said, quota, which is about $1,200 for me to work in the "Let's go in. 1 just country. They said, "Yes, you pay, but you pay it late." want to make sure What else did they say? They said I employed five and we'll come refugees, and refugees are not supposed to work in the straight back." But country. 1 have no problem with anybody taking such a when we left my drastic action against me for giving refugees a liveli- gate, instead of tak- hood and preventing them from going on the street and ing me to the office, begging or stealing. "My wife and I are among the very few Atncans who have he took me straight Africa Report: What was the make-up of your staff? ventured journalistically into other countries" to the airport. Best: We had about 35 people, most of them were The background to that was two weeks earlier, they Gambians. About 11 of them were foreigners—-highly had summoned me to the immigration department and professional people—my wife, my sister-in-law who told me all the foreigners in my office could not go to was the accountant, my sister who was one of my edi- work until they were sure their papers were regularized, tors, but most of these people were voluntary. I had a including my wife, who is a share-holder in the busi- nephew who was sports editor and he did so well that ness. So I had to go back to my office and call a meeting he became the main BBC stringer in the Gambia. 1 had of all the foreign staff and tell them to go home. It put one Ghanaian helping with editing and five Senegalese great strain on the operation, because many of the peo- who were in my printing department. The Senegalese ple were highly professional and we needed them, but had no problem because since the confederation, the only I could show up for work. Gambia has not changed the rules regarding Sene- Africu Report: Had they been harassing you since galese working within the country. But we had a num- they came to power, or did they just deport you unex- ber of other refugees from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, pectedly? Ghana, who were doing odd jobs selling newspapers Best: The first time was following the publication of a and doing things like that. New York Times article where I was quoted. The jour- But I think the fact that I was a foreigner didn't really nalist asked me what 1 thought of the military govern- play a major role in anything. I was a national in Liberia ment, so I prefaced my remarks by saying "Military and Mr. Doe closed us down five times, one time for governments come to power making many promises nearly two years. He sent me and my wife to jail. She and as soon as they taste power, they begin to break went to jail one time with the rest of the staff, I went to those promises. But these fellows have told us that they jail three times. He tried twice to burn the operations are soldiers with a difference and so far they are proven down and finally in September 1990, when he was cap- to be." 1 then gave him many examples of how: one, the tured and killed, these people went around Monrovia bloodless coup; two, the relative absence of harassment saying "No Doe, No Liberia" and our office was one of of the public; three, they are listening to the press. Then the first hit. And I was born and bred in Liberia and a I said, "There is relative freedom of the press; they Liberian citizen. haven't harassed any journalists and they have said they Africa Report: What would you say about the broader want to hear from the press, be criticized by the press, issue of freedom of the press in Africa? so they can order their policies to suit the people. These Best: Look at Nigeria: The Guardian, the Concord are and other reasons make me believe that they are soldiers closed, so many journalists are in jail. With African with a difference." leaders, it is very difficult to predict anything because But when the journalist wrote his article, he only put people act in such a rash, arbitrary manner. The African the preface of my remarks in. I was the only person in perception of power has always been warped. In a the whole article that was quoted on the record. Two speech in Nairobi in 1984,1 talked about four crises fac- days later, I got a summons to the minister of interior, ing the African press. One of them was the crisis of who is head of security, who said he had been reading power, people misuse power, they don't understand (0 my article in the International Herald Tribune, and then what power is supposed to do. People are prone to use X) said: "We thought you were a friend, but you say one power for more evil than good. That's why the continent u. thing to us here and when you go to the international is in chaos and crisis continually. media, you say something else. So we have decided to I suppose you can probably say without too much send you packing. We want to deport you." contradiction that my wife and I are among the very C I explained to him what happened and he said he few Africans who have ventured journalistically into would inform the chairman of the council. I thought Continued on page 10 UP'TM- other countries as publishers. Even people in their own caught fire as soon as it hit the streets. That first day we countries have not ventured into publishing. Take a were sold out. swing around West Africa and you will find that most The same thing happened in Liberia: Most of the of the media institutions are government-owned. It's media institutions were government-owned and we just recently since the pro-democracy movement you were the First serious group to borrow money from the have had private newspapers in Cameroon. In all of bank to start a newspaper. It succeeded. We were able to francophone Africa, only Senegal had a few indepen- start a printing press from that and the press is still oper- dent papers. ating although the paper has closed. But for the most part, people in the continent didn't Africa Report: Why didn't the Jammeh junta just close feel that publishing was an option and that is why I had down your paper? They see you as a threat, but not the difficulty raising money in the Gambia for this project. I paper itself? didn't raise a single cent, although we had a profession- Best: I don't know the answer, they probably didn't ally done feasibility study which everybody approved want to bite off more than they could chew. But of. But nobody wanted to touch it, for many reasons, maybe they were just angry with me and not at the including number one, that the country has an 80 per- paper, but the paper has continued to do what it had cent illiteracy rate, who would read the paper? Ten to 20 been doing. Maybe they were just being vindictive people read one newspaper in the country: Who would over my interview with The New York Times. I don't buy it? Then some of the journalists told me the Gam- know. bian government says they are interested in press free- Africa Report: Do you think they still could shut down dom, but they don't really mean it. We give you three the paper? What do you foresee? months and you will be in jail and the paper will be Best: With African leaders, anything is possible, not closed. So the journalists themselves were not con- just military, even civilians—look at Mr. Moi harassing vinced that the country was ready for something like the journalists in Nairobi, he hasn't closed down the this. It is only optimistic fools like me who would ven- Standard or die Nation, but he has thoroughly harassed ture into something like that and with my own money. many of their staff and succeeded to some extent in My wife and I had to borrow from our children the little cowing the newspapers into a certain degree of money we had put aside for their education and gamble silence.B it in the Gambia, and that's how the paper started. It —Margaret A. Novicki

dauntingi y high Trials continued from page 6 wall surrounds holding people responsible?" From the first reports of A the beige brick President Juvenal Habyarimana's death in April 1994, the house in the posh murders of government officials and the subsequent geno- Harare suburb of Gun cide throughout the country were well-documented. Yet, Hill and a 24-hour according to RPF officials, plans for the massacres were blockade by the Zim- conceived well before this incident, and preparations for babwe police prevents the ensuing genocide were made in 1993. anyone from ap- Unable to reach an agreement on a single legal proaching the modest instrument, it appears that Rwanda and the UN will residence which hous- hold separate trials. The UN tribunal will charge es Ethiopia's former defendants with crimes committed after April 1994; ruler, Col. Mengistu the Rwandan prosecutors will indict people they allege Haile Mariam. were involved in planning and inciting criminal acts, Beside the police predating the April incidents. The Rwandan jurists tents stands a tele- will seek the death penalty (not allowed under UN phone pole which is conventions) claiming it is the "appropriate" penalty Mengistu's main link for crimes against humanity. The Rwandan govern- to the outside world. In fact, he uses the phone a great ment has promised that it will provide evidence to the deal to voice his bitter opposition to the current UN panel, as it prepares individual cases. Ethiopian government, as witnessed by the telephone bills averaging $4,600 per month. The fact that the o Will the tribunals provide much-needed solace and a Zimbabwe government is paying these phone bills and v healing to the devastated people of Rwanda, or will u the public recitation of recent crimes further inflame other costly expenses of Mengistu's asylum has still-simmering tensions? Kagame claims that his goal become a controversy lambasted by independent is to achieve national reconciliation, above all else. newspapers and opposition politicians. The trials will be one more hurdle for the Rwandan Often the former Ethiopian strongman is unavail- people to clear before attempting to rebuild their able to speak on the phone, possibly because of ill country. • effects from the whisky bottles that neighbors say pile In the Age of AIDS, Developing World Needs Help orlds AIDS Day on December 1, 1994, was nizations working on HIV/AIDS research, treatment, marked by a one-day summit held in Paris, and prevention. Dr. Peter Piot, a Belgian doctor who has Wwith representatives from 42 countries pledg- spent many years studying AIDS in Africa, will head the ing their moral and financial support in the fight program. against AIDS. The event, which was co-hosted by The World Bank also issued a statement underscoring France and the World Health Organization, was used its commitment to making AIDS a key policy issue. "No to promote unified action in the form of a new United institution concerned with development can afford to Nations program. ignore the other costs of AIDS: the loss of human talent, Delegates, including 13 prime ministers, signed a the crippling demands on public health, the increasing declaration designed to give higher political profile to poverty," said David de Ferranti, director of the Bank's Ihe international fight against AIDS. According to the Population, Health, and Nutrition Department. Financial Times, the HIV virus affects approximately 17 Bank Managing Director Sven Sandrom, at the AIDS million people, of whom 92 percent live in the develop- World Conference held in Stockholm on November 28, ing world. It is estimated that $1.5 billion is spent annu- acknowledged that those countries worst affected by the ally on AIDS prevention, of which only 10 percent has disease are located in sub-Saharan Africa and thai the been used to implement prevention programs in the impact on development efforts in the region is potential- developing world. ly devastating. He cited World Health Organization esti- The other important outcome was the formation of a mates that a truly effective HIV/AIDS prevention pro- coordinated global program to work together with gov- gram will cost approximately $3 billion. He indicated ernments and other organizations. As UN Secretary- that it was not just the responsibility of those countries General Boutros Boutros-Ghali asked, "Why has our suffering from the epidemic, but also that of the devel- mobilization borne so little fruit? All loo often there oped world to increase its financial commitment to have been no links between global strategies, and at AIDS prevention and control. times there has even been rivalry." The tentatively The World Bank, in conjunction with NGOs and gov- named United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS will for ernments, currently sponsors a variety of different pro- the first time coordinate efforts of six international orga- jects in Africa to combat AIDS. •

up in his weekly trash. Bui when Mengistu does defending our territory, trying to keep our country answer the phone, as he did in December, he eagerly united." describes his plight. "I am a refugee in Zimbabwe Mengistu said he would like to travel outside his because my country is occupied by a minority govern- house more and to play tennis. In fact, life in the ment of Tigreans, who don't believe they are Ethiopi- three-bedroom villa has become so claustrophobic ans, lei alone African," said Mengistu. "They are not that two of Mengistu's Ethiopian bodyguards last running the country by democracy, it is by tribalism. year scaled the wall and sought asylum in the Canadi- They want to see Ethiopia disintegrate." an embassy office next door, claiming their boss beat Mengistu has been a refugee in Zimbabwe since he them. fled Addis Ababa in May 1991. His refuge is com- The Ethiopian government formally asked Zimbab- fortable, but restricted. He is not free to have visitors we to extradite Mengistu to stand trial for scores of or to travel around Harare. In effect, he is under murders and other human rights violations. Zimbabwe house arrest because Mugabe wants to curtail his out- refused, so the Zenawi government began the trial with bursts against the government of President Meles Mengistu in absentia. Zcnawi, with which Zimbabwe has full diplomatic "I am not afraid of those trials, it is just a bandit relations. Several months ago, Mengistu issued a court," scoffed Mengistu. "They are digging iheir own lengthy diatribe against the Zenawi government and graves. Their charges against me are just lies and exag- urged the Ethiopian people to rise up against it. When gerations. I will not go to their trials. 1 will return to it was published in the local and international press, my country in my own good time." Zimbabwe's minister of foreign affairs, Nathan In addition to speaking on the phone, Mengistu said Shamuyarira, told Mengistu. in no uncertain terms, he is writing about "the present situation in Ethiopia "Shut up or get out."' for the next generation." He warned a civil war will Bui once Mengistu has an audience on the phone erupt in Ethiopia "that will be worse than anything in 01 line, it is difficult to gel him to slop his fulminalions. Africa, a tragic situation." And Mengistu vowed that "We were not perpetuating the Red Terror in our coun- he is not finished. "I have only lost a battle; the strug- try, it was the Tigreans of the EPRDF who occupy gle continues and I am part of it."B Addis Ababa today thai caused the terror," charged Mengistu. "It was not the Dergue, not the Workers —Andrew Meldrum Party, not my government. We were bogged down Harare, Zimbabwe KENYA ANCOLA A series of economic reforms BUSI NESS The prospect of a long-awaited undertaken by the government of peace has coincided with the President Daniel arap Moi achieved BRI EFS expansion of Angola's oil indus- the desired effect, with a favorable try, as production begins in new response by aid donors at their annu- ^^HI^^^^ ^^^^^MM^^H deep-water fields off the Cabinda al December meetings in Paris. In a gesture of confidence, coast. According to the Financial Times, this will the Western governments have indicated that they will bring Angola's daily output up to about 600,000 bar- meet Kenya's $800 million estimated external financing rels a day, from the 1993 average of 512,000 b/d. gap, according to the Financial Times. Despite nearly two decades of civil war, which has Among the reform measures announced by Moi in destroyed most of the country's infrastructure, the oil the run-up to the donors' meeting was a pledge to open industry has continued to thrive, and last year marked Kenya's stock exchange to foreign investors and to new highs. Despite damage to oil storage and loading deregulate the oil industry. In November, Moi was the facilities around the coastal town of Soyo, the keynote speaker at a conference organized by the Con- petroleum-producing areas were largely unaffected by federation of British Industry, where he said that "for- the fighting. eign investors would be most welcome to take part in The country's main oil deposits are in Cabinda Kenya's privatization program affecting 150 public province, an exclave in the northwest bordering Zaire enterprises," including the transport, agricultural, and Congo, in offshore fields, beyond the range of tourism, and manufacturing sectors. land-based artillery. In many cases, with the use of No doubt hoping to reassure donor governments and offshore processing and tanker-loading facilities, oil foreign investors alike, Moi also addressed the issue of no longer needs to be pumped onshore, but can be corruption, describing it as a "perverse and complex phe- exported directly, mainly to the U.S. Stability in nomenon affecting every country on earth." He said that Angola will nonetheless facilitate both oil and dia- recent liberalization measures will "contribute toward the mond exploration. The new licensing of deep-water reduction of corruption in Kenya," which he said his gov- production has been received optimistically by oil ernment is determined to fight at every level. Moi also companies, in particular Chevron, which feels confi- maintained that Kenya's new openness also involved dent that deep-water production will be as lucrative as major political reforms. that in shallower waters. Moi's motto during the London conference was "Kenya means business," but the country has slipped NAMIBIA before in its efforts at economic liberalization and without a commitment to political reforms, it might be business as The Namibian government and De Beers, the South usual. African mining conglomerate, have signed an agree- ment formalizing a 50 percent partnership in the Namibian diamond industry. The formation of 5OUTH AFRICA Namdeb, the newly constituted company, was Ford Motor Co. announced its return to the South announced on November 24. Consolidated Diamond African automotive industry in late November, with the Mines, formed by Ernest Oppenheimer in 1920, has acquisition of a 45 percent stake in the South African had exclusive rights to prospect for and mine dia- Motor Corporation (Samcor). Ford, which disinvested monds in Namibia for the last 75 years. from South Africa in 1988, plans to re-enter an already Control of the diamond industry, which produces 8 congested market, with competition coming from German percent of the world's diamonds, had been in negotia- and Japanese manufacturers. tion since Namibia's independence in 1991. All pre- Ford is acquiring its stake in Samcor from two Johan- existing licenses and contracts had been replaced by nesburg-based companies, Anglo American Corp. of Namibia's post-independence mineral legislation. South Africa and Anglo American industrial Corp. The Namibian government will not be required to According to The Wall Street Journal, the company plans put any capital into the new company, but will receive to add additional vehicles to Samcor's Mazda line, and taxes, dividends, and other revenues from the partner- might also establish a division of its financing unit. ship. Diamonds currently account for 34 percent of While the South African auto market is currently Namibia's exports and 11 percent of its gross domestic small—300,000 vehicles by some estimates—manufac- product. At present, CDM is the country's biggest turers see good potential for increasing these numbers. employer besides the state, and further expansion will According to The Wall Street Journal, both General benefit Namibia's economy. Motors and the Chrysler Corp. acknowledged the "poten- In exchange, De Beers has the security of this o tially large growth market" that South Africa represents. arrangement for the next 25 years or until the dia- a Neither company currently has facilities in South Africa. monds run out. It has also received assurances that it The French automotive corporation, Peugeot Motor will be able to continue to exploit its existing onshore Company, has also announced that it is considering and offshore assets in the country. Namdeb will also investing in the region, possibly building a plant in continue to allow De Beers' London-based Central South Africa's Eastern Cape. Mercedes-Benz is plan- Selling Organization

By DAN ISAACS

TWO YEARS AFTER THE

UNITED NATIONS BEGAN

ITS PEACE PROCESS (AT

A COST OF $1 BILLION),

MOZAMBICANS FINALLY

GOT TO VOTE IN THE

FIRST-EVER MULTI-PARTY

ELECTIONS, PUTTING AN

END TO 16 YEARS OF

CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE

FRELIMO GOVERNMENT

AND RENAMO REBELS.

DESPITE THE

UNPREDICTABILITY OF

THE RENAMO LEADER,

AFONSO DHLAKAMA, ID THE ELECTION

PROCEEDED SMOOTHLY

AND THE GUERRILLA...

I (an Isaacs ...ORGANIZATION-TURNED POLITICAL PARTY WON A SURPRISING 1 1 2 OF THE NEW PARLIAMENT'S SEATS, VERSUS 129 FOR FRELIMO. DHLAKAMA, HOWEVER, RAN WELL BEHIND HIS PARTY IN THE PRESIDENTIAL POLL, AND WAS TROUNCED BY PRESIDENT JOAQUIM CHISSANO, 53 PERCENT TO 34.

espite a dramatic last-minute boycott Mid-morning on the first day of voting in a small by Renamo, the election machine kept village in Nampula Province, northern Mozambique, on rolling. Mozambicans had waited there was a dramatic news broadcast on my radio. two years for this moment, and it was Renamo had announced that it was boycotting the too late to stop the country's 6.5 mil- elections just hours before the start of voting. But in lion voters from taking part in their front of me, far from the political turmoil in Maputo, a first-ever multi-party elections. It was the culmina- thousand people were sitting patiently in the blazing tion of a two-year, UN-backed peace process, costing sun waiting for their turn to vote, unaware of the high almost SI billion, that brought 16 years of conflict political drama unfolding a world away in the capital. between the ruling Frelimo party and the South One by one, they were given ballot papers: one to African-backed Renamo rebels to an end. The final choose a president, the other for the parliamentary results confirmed Frelimo and President loaquim elections. The old were led gently Chissano in power. But it was a close contest, with to the polling booths, the crippled President Chissano Renamo winning almost 40 percent of the popular were carried. It was a slow, but carried by his vote. orderly and very moving process. supporter*! Election officials explained to each He wen 53 per- Dan Isaacs covered the elections for the BBC from northern Mozambique. and every voter how to put a mark cent of the vote

oe. So Who Voted for lenamo? Although Renamo lost the elections, It did win the filled in with earth, they were in their time used to support of almost 40 percent of the population, giv- ambush passing vehicles. Sometimes mines were ing it a majority in five out of 11 provinces. In a broad placed In or around the trench, but their main pur- sweep right across central and northern Mozam- pose was to slow the vehicle down long enough to bique, Renamo won the vote in Sofala, Manica, Zam- make the attack. "One day In 1986, the Frelimo sol- bezia, Nampula, and Tete provinces. Not so long diers came," Nzero explained, "and Renamo ran ago, few people would have credited the former away to the bush." He then told a story of how the South African-backed rebels with such a following. government soldiers had come to the village looking So who voted for Renamo? for Renamo, had taken anyone that had not run Albino Rafaele Is the traditional chief in a village away, and killed them. "They did not shoot them, called Zero. The people of the area call him Nzero, because they had no bullets. Both men and women, meaning "the intelligent one" in the local language, a they took them to the road and beat them over the name given to his father before him. There's not head with their guns until they were dead." much to see in the village—20 or so thatched huts Frelimo set up a military base at the crossroads and a few chickens—and nearby a bomb disposal and laid mines in the surrounding fields. To compli- unit is clearing the fields of mines. cate matters further, Tanzanlan soldiers arrived soon Zero lies on the country's main north-south road at after and laid their own mines. The Tanzanians had a strategic crossroads in central Zambezia Province. come to Mozambique, along with troops from Zim- "In this area, Renamo soldiers used to come and go," babwe and Malawi, at the request of the faltering explained Nzero. 'Sometimes they stayed here. Frelimo government. South African support for Ren- Sometimes they asked for food. They were not amo from 1980, in retaliation for Frelimo's assistance always our friends, but they were not our enemies to ANC guerrillas, had allowed Renamo to spread its either." Pinned to a tree In the middle of the village is activities throughout Mozambique and the Frelimo a large poster. "THERE IS ONLY ONE PRESIDENT," army could no longer cope alone. it proclaims above a sun-bleached photograph of the For the people of Zero, the regional power game bespectacled Renamo leader, and beneath are the was Irrelevant. All that mattered to them was that the words, "DHLAKAMA AND NO OTHER." To have his presence of anti-personnel mines meant that they photograph taken, Nzero insisted on standing by the could no longer plant their crops in the surrounding poster. fields. "Sometimes we went hunting in the bush for In this part of central Mozambique, Renamo fight- meat or wild fruit," says Nzero, "but most of the time ers had gained a substantial degree of support dur- I remember we were hungry." The Tanzanians are ing the conflict. The Frelimo government and its now long gone, and the villagers of Zero are patiently army were dominated by the southern Shangaan, watching the mine clearance team finish their work. which led to resentment among the central and Ex-British Army officer Charlie Ames, working for the northern peoples. Under the revolutionary socialist Halo Trust organization, leads a team of around 25 program adopted by President Samora Machel in former Frelimo and Renamo soldiers working togeth- the late 1970s, traditional chiefs were stripped of er in the clean-up operation. Anti-tank, anti-person- their powers, people were forced Into collective vil- nel, and fragmentation mines triggered by trip wires lages and re-education camps. Nzero explained to are all hidden in the scrub in a broad arc around the me that even now, four years after Frelimo had aban- village. doned its revolutionary socialist constitution, the gov- "The problem we have now," explains Ames,"is ernment was causing them problems. "The road is that the Tanzanians have all gone home, so they can't open now and we want to open shops by the road to tell us where the mines are. Frelimo soldiers can't tell sell to passing motorists. But only one man is allowed us either. So we're still searching for the damn mine- to have a shop, and he comes from the city. It seems field." It's slow work in the blistering heat, dressed we are not allowed to own anything here except our up in flak jackets and visors. "We think there might chickens." also be plastic Ml4s about, so we can't even go in Local hostility to the government boosted support with metal detectors yet. Which means they're out and recruitment for the emerging guerrilla force, there on their hands and knees digging up the area with shovels." originally set up by neighboring Rhodesia in the early >. 1970s to counter Zimbabwean nationalist rebels But Nzero's troubles aren't over even when the de- operating from bases inside Mozambique. Renamo miners eventually leave. "Government people have built on those links with traditional culture, which told us that there is a man In Quelimane |the provin- Frelimo was attempting to destroy, and loyal chiefs cial capital| who says he owns all the land around like Nzero and his father were a key factor in their here. When the fields are clear, they say that he's support. coming back. So we won't be allowed to farm the A short distance up the tarmac road are the tell- land. This is what Frelimo has done to us. So you see tale signs of Renamo's stay In the area. Trenches why we are voting for Renamo.'• three feet wide have been cut across the road. Now —D.I. by the preferred party or candidate, how to fold the caps and Land Cruisers—were ready with their clip- ballot paper, and where to put it when finished. boards. The election was in full swing, nothing There were no radios around but mine. No one could stop it now. was aware of the crisis unfolding in Maputo, where- And within a matter of hours, Afonso Dhlakama by one man's extraordinary change of heart had pro- realized that too. On the morning of the second day duced total confusion among the assembled politi- of voting, he announced :hat Renamo was back in, cians and diplomats. Two years of peace talks, two that it would take part after all. Mozambique was more years of ceasefire, and now it looked for all the saved from its worst nightmare and the United world as if it was about to explode, with Renamo Nations peace-keeping mission—with $1 billion and leader Afonso Dhlakama's unpredictable finger quiv- its own credibility hanging in the balance—could ering on the trigger. breathe again. By the end of the three days of voting, I knew that the journalists in Maputo would be close to 90 percent of the Mozambican electorate in feeding frenzy mode, rushing about town, wait- had turned out, and the international observers were ing for any news, any developments, any word from falling over one another to declare to the world that the Renamo leader himself. But here where I was in the whole process was free and fair. rural Nampula, one of Renamo's heartlands, not a Ten days later, sitting by his swimming pool in murmur, not a whisper was heard of the chaos in the garden of his house in Maputo, the Renamo the capital. The voting went on regardless. Around leader looked relaxed and comfortable in his tai- the country, 7,000 voting stations were in full lored suit, his aides fluttering around him with swing, tens of thousands of voting officials were at mobile phones and the city traffic a gentle hum in their posts. United Nations observers—all blue the background. No longer the bush guerrilla leader, A Land of Opportunity Dan Isaacs Dan Isaacs • • • With the arrival of peace in whole range—zebra, wildebeest, Mozambique, a new breed of and some big cats." The set-up is entrepreneurs, many of them all legal, with licenses from the white South Africans, are return- ministry of agriculture. "It took a Ing in search of a new land of little time getting through the red opportunity. And there are as yet tape, but that's all behind us now. few controls over what they get Eventually we hope to run photo- up to. Some come to set up a safaris as well, but that will take a legitimate business, some for an little longer.'' uncrowded beach, but many Van Seyl is fairly new to come for the rich pickings Mozambique, but Mauvis has offered by a vast country with been around quite a while. He few enforceable laws. first came to farm crocodiles in At 100 yards, a warthog Manica Province on the border makes an easy target with a with Zimbabwe. That was during Winchester rifle. They move pret- the war and he was operating in ty slowly, and with their tails in an area controlled by Renamo the air as they scamper through rebels. "They used to come the short grass, they're easily around, but they didn't cause me spotted. Shoot one—legally— too many problems, and at the and it will cost you around $500. peak," says Mauvis, "I had three Shoot a sable antelope and it wilt set you back and a half thousand crocs. Then the market for upwards of $2,000. On a continent where killing big crocodile skins collapsed and I had to pull out." game is increasingly outlawed, the potential demand Once into the game-hunting business, and over from wealthy, game-starved hunters is enormous, the legal hurdles, the problems for Mauvis and Van and John Mauvis hopes to cash in on it. Seyl were only just beginning. Their game lodge at Mauvis Is a white Zimbabwean and a professional Mohimba in the swampy marshlands of coastal Zam- O hunter. With his South African partner Ian Van Seyl, bezia Province is a long way from the comforts of a he has set up a hunting park on 22,000 hectares of home. Access to fresh water is limited. At the camp ae. private land, owned by the Norwegian company, the water is salty and no good to drink. The vehicles MADAL. "Our initial plan is to fence off 10,000 for hunting had to be brought on pontoon rafts up hectares and to build up the stock of animals," Mau- the river, and until Mauvis had carved out a grass vis explains. "For now, it's mostly buffalo, waterbuck, airstrip by the lodge, a journey to the nearest town and warthog, but In time we hope to bring In the meant a four-hour trip by inflatable motor boat. Dhlakama has made the transition to plausible city sition leader was still crying foul. "We would have politician with frightening ease. He knew he had won," Dhlakama insisted, "had there not been mas- lost the elections, but he was smug all the same. "I sive fraud at the polls," and he repeated the memo- am the second most important man in Mozam- rable line, first spluttered to journalists during the bique," he explained. "1 will be the leader of the worst hours of the boycott crisis, "This was not an opposition and President Chissano is a worried election, it was a picnic for Frelimo." man. Next time he knows I will win." But Dhlakama must also have been aware that to The final results—announced the following week- reject the results now would be political suicide for end—were to prove that he had a point. Renamo, Renamo. "1 will accept the results, because i know once universally condemned as a puppet of South that the international community will not pay for Africa's apartheid government with little popular another election in Mozambique, but 1 also know support, had won nearly 40 percent of the parlia- that they were not free and fair." This calm, almost mentary vote. Not enough to win, but enough to put casual assessment of the frantic events that sur- 112 Renamo members into the national assembly rounded the boycott were almost as if spoken by a alongside Frelimo's 129. It was a result few observers different man, not the dangerously unpredictable would have believed possible two years ago when figure during the election. President Chissano and Dhlakama signed their On the eve of the vote, Dhlakama himself had peace accord in Rome ending 16 years of conflict. been 500 miles to the north of Maputo in Beira, But even with such a strong showing for Ren- Mozambique's second city and the Renamo leader's amo—although Dhlakama himself performed con- home territory. He had just returned from Harare siderably worse in the presidential poll—the oppo- where a Frontline States meeting had been taking

But now, after their first season, business Is lem, but with few resources at its disposal there is beginning to take off. Paying guests arrive by light little It can realistically do. "When the roads opened aircraft directly from South Africa—with a short up after the war," explains Samiro Magane, head of stop-over in Beira, 40 minutes away, for passport conservation at the ministry, "that's when the real formalities. And now the big-game hunters are destruction started. It was mostly former fighters starting to get a taste for Mozambique. The slaugh- who still had their guns. Thousands of them had just ter shed at the ranch is full of horns and hides dry- been demobilized and stilt had their AK-47 assault Ing out In the sun—buffalo, reedbuck, crocodile, rifles. They were hungry, and they just went out and the occasional sable antelope. killing everything in sight." There are strict quotas set by the ministry of There are estimated to be around 1 million agriculture on the number of animals that can be weapons unaccounted for in Mozambique even now, shot, but it's difficult to see how they can possibly following a UN-backed arms collection program. be enforced. At Mohimba ranch, they are trying to "The biggest problem we have now is to control the build up their animal stocks, so Mauvis is defensive illegal hunting," says Magane. "Because of the col- about accusations of wildlife slaughter. "It's not lection of weapons, we ourselves were not allowed here that's the problem. There are a lot of cowboys guns and very little money to carry out our job either. in Mozambique, real fly-by-nights," he says. "They There were other more important problems. Like think that they can walk all over the government feeding starving people and making sure that the and this country. But it's not that easy, and most of elections went ahead peacefully. Now all that is them get caught eventually. They are forced to turn over, I hope we can improve things, catch the poach- round and go home with their tails between their ers, and encourage the legal hunters to build up the legs." But there are many others who don't get game stocks." caught and it's all too easy to nip across Mozam- There are big plans ahead for the country's bique's porous southern border with South Africa game parks. There is even World Bank money in for a weekend's hunting. the pipeline to encourage the "ecotourism" indus- But vast quantities of Mozambique's wild animal try In Mozambique, with the planned reopening of population had already been wiped out even before at least three reserves bordering South Africa and the foreign hunters arrived. In some areas, It was Zimbabwe. But, with the country's road network in Renamo rebel fighters who cleaned up, in others, ruins, and 800,000 square kilometers of country- government soldiers who did the killing. But it's side for the cash-strapped conservation depart- been in the last two years, since the signing of the ment to police, there will still also be rich pickings ceasefire, that most of the damage has been done. for many years ahead for poachers and big-game The wildlife conservation department at the ministry hunters alike.• of agriculture in Maputo is well aware of the prob- —D.I. Ferhat Momade/AIM place. Dhlakama had put his concerns about the given priority—and as zero hour approached, Ren- preparations for the election to President Robert amo officials were becoming anxious. They saw the Mugabe of Zimbabwe, but did not receive the sup- delay as something much more sinister—a deliber- port he had hoped for. To make matters worse, he ate Frelimo plot to undermine the whole process and was not invited to attend the heads of state summit to steal victory away from them. Convinced that their at which President Chissano was present. By all complaints were not being taken seriously, Renamo accounts, he was extremely put out by this. officials were working up a serious head of steam. In the run-up to the poll, Rename had lodged a They demanded a few days' delay in the polling for series of complaints with the Electoral Commission. the irregularities to be investigated, but the Electoral But for an office snowed under with preparations for Commission president, Brazao Mazula, refused. the vote, looking into such irregularities was not Amid bitter recriminations, and while Afonso

Joel Chiziane/Mediacoop Dan Isaacs

PRESIDENTE HA SO UM.

DHLAKAMA y E MAIS NENHUM. VOTA AFONSO DHLAKAMA \j( m a vfroriaf f Dan Isaacs Scenes from the election; Below left, President loaqulm Chissano casting his vote Below right, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama shaking hands with the Mozambican transport minister, Armando Guebuza, while the Renamo general secretary, Vicente Ululu, looks on

Above, United Nations observers in Nampula Province Ferhat Momade/AIM Dhlakama sat tight in Beira, Renamo officials in But as dawn broke on the first day of polling, the Maputo announced their decision to call a boycott center of attention shifted to Beira. South African the evening before the vote. The news reached the ambassador [ohn Sunde and the Lonrho chief, |ohn UN representative, Aldo Ajello, during dinner at the Hewitt, called on Dhlakama's house and soon other house of the German ambassador and—with the diplomats arrived. They found the Renamo leader polls due to open across the country in a matter of convinced that Frelimo was planning a massive hours—there followed a series of fevered meetings electoral fraud. He preferred, he said, to withdraw and telephone calls with Renamo officials late into from the election than to be forced into accepting a the night. Dhlakama himself could not be contacted fraudulent result. But he would, he eventually in Beira, as he had given instructions to his staff that agreed, fly to Maputo that afternoon to continue he should not be disturbed. the negotiations. More fevered phone calls fol- ii Momade/AIM [ I

•* *v i eira |oao da SMva had good reasons not to support the sentiment one hears again and again in Beira: Mozambique's former rebel Renamo movement. His "The turning point for this city was when Frelimo got home village In Sofata Province was taken over by into government." That was in 1975, when Mozam- Renamo guerrillas in 1988. "They stole all my pos- bique achieved independence. The new government sessions, and killed my uncle," recalls da Silva. Like immediately imposed sanctions against Ian Smith's so many displaced people in central Mozambique, regime in Rhodesia. It was a principled decision, in da Silva fled to the port city of Beira, where he lives compliance with contemporary UN resolutions. But In one of the teeming slums that ring the decrepit for Beira, it spelled economic disaster. In the early city center. And yet, given the opportunity to vote for 1970s, the city had been enjoying a boom, based on the first time in his life during last October's multi- revenues from the port and railway that supplied party elections, da Silva chose Renamo. landlocked Rhodesia with access to the sea. And It's a paradox that appears to defy explanation. Beira was also a favorite destination for white But the vast majority of Belra's residents also gave Rhodesian tourists to spend their money and free their support to Renamo: Afonso Dhlakama's party time. Its long beach-front was overlooked by a picked up over 113,000 votes in the city, against just series of imposing hotels, breathtaking in their size 33,000 for the ruling Frellmo party. In the surround- and vulgarity. "Go and look at those same hotels ing rural areas, the scale of Frelimo's defeat was now," says forge, "they are all in ruins.'' even heavier. Sofala Province, of which Beira is the The high-rise buildings in the city center, built in capital, voted 74 percent in favor of Renamo, and the last years of Portuguese colonialism, also began just 14 percent for Frelimo. The former rebels, com- to suffer in the years of economic decay that fol- monly perceived during the civil war as little more lowed. As electricity and water supplies broke than blood-thirsty thugs in the service of South down, piles of rubbish and sewerage accumulated Africa's apartheid government, proved that in cen- at the bottom of dark, stinking stair-wells. "For eight tral Mozambique they are a movement with years, my wife had to carry jerry-cans of water up 15 immense popular support. flights of stairs," says forge. "And when she went to Belra's rundown, depressing air gives one clue to the shops, there was nothing to buy except toilet the reasons for Renamo's success. Manuel Jorge paper, newspapers, and candles." drives a mini-bus, or cftapa, the form of transport But Frelimo is not only blamed for Beira s eco- that most people in Beira rely on following the grad- nomic slide, but also for a tough, repressive style of ual decline of the public bus company. He expresses administration. "They made it impossible to travel Barnaby Phillips is the BBC correspondent in Mozambique anywhere without documents and those who com-

lowed, including one with Nelson Mandela on holi- any event, all traces of the boycott were finally put day in Saudi Arabia, who promised to send the to rest when Dhlakama announced to assembled South African deputy president, Thabo Mbeki, to journalists shortly before noon on the second day Maputo of the election that he would be voting in the With Dhlakama safely back in the capital, the Mozambican election after all. "The father of diplomats descended on him. By now—the evening Mozambican democracy," he declared, "has decided of the first day of voting—a very weary Renamo to save the nation." leader was insisting that while he had no intention The details of the discussions may never be to return to war, he did not wish to participate in the known, nor the deal that was finally struck. Official- election with his demands unmet. More phone calls ly, the international community and the Electoral followed, including one from Mugabe in Harare and Commission had agreed to investigate, at the first another from Mandela. Between this string of inter- possible opportunity, all of Renamo's complaints of national phone calls and audiences with a succes- electoral fraud. But what concessions were really sion of ambassadors, Dhlakama was also in contact made during those frantic diplomatic meetings with with senior Renamo officials, who brought him the the Renamo leader? Or had Dhlakama planned the o news of a massive electoral turnout throughout the whole charade well in advance, aware that it was his Q. country, including in those areas regarded as Ren- last moment of real power in the whole peace pro- amo strongholds. He was receiving a clear message cess—the last chance for him to pressure Frelimo that the boycott call was being ignored. through the international community, to give in to Perhaps it was this that finally broke through his demands for a government of national unity? Dhlakama's armor, or maybe it was the call early the After all, he was well aware that the United following morning again from Robert Mugabe. In States, among others, favored some form of unity plained were publicly flogged," recalls Jorge. The Beira. It's a sprawl of wooden and mud huts, rub- Frelimo leadership, predominantly from southern bish pits, and wasteland. It has a reputation as a Mozambique, has often appeared frustrated by its Renamo stronghold. "Everybody here voted for failure to build up a rapport with people in Beira. Dhlakama," says the priest in Munhava s Catholic Samora Machel, Mozambique's first president, church. "They love him here. And when the national described them as "a population filled with com- results showed that he had lost, people here just plexes.'' Farouq Sadit, the editor of Beira's daily couldn't understand it." Diario de Mocamhique, remembers a mass rally Renamo delegate Manuel Pereira is in a bullish held by Machel in Beira. "He said we were just a mood these days. He is a tall, dark man with twin- bunch of chicken heads....it didn't go down very kling eyes. Sitting in the dingy party offices in well." Sadit returns to a theme beloved by many downtown Beira, he jabs his finger to make his Belreans: the tendency to see their city as "forgot- point. "The people of this town are not going to ten," perpetually doomed to come second to accept another government of the south: We've told Maputo in the queue for development projects President Chissano that we don't like him." He chal- and resources. "Look at the example of television. lenges the new Frelimo government to show that it Maputo had a television service 12 years before Is serious about decentralizing power and achiev- we did," he says. ing a better representation for the regions. The Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama exploited But for all Pereira's rhetoric, the predominant these resentments during the electoral campaign. mood in Beira is one of acceptance rather than Dhlakama Is a native of Sofala Province, of Ndau resistance to another five years of Frelimo rule. Like origin, tike much of Beira's population. People on elsewhere in the country, many people cast their the streets of Beira say they like the way Dhlakama vote more out of a commitment to the peace process speaks. One woman put it succinctly: "He is a son of than out of any great enthusiasm for the political our land...he knows us and speaks our language." parties on offer. The predominant concern now is Dhlakama drilled home a crude regionalist mes- that political stability will last, allowing Beira's econ- sage during the election campaign: that Frelimo omy to continue its gentle revival. In Munhava mar- remained a party representing southern interests, ket, women sell piles of greasy black fish. "We hope which would continue to discriminate against that President Chissano can work with Dhlakama," Mozambicans from the center and north of the one woman said, before adding, "but what is most country. The message hit home. important is that there is no more fighting."! Munhava is a shanty town on the outskirts of —Barnaby Phillips

government as well. The American ambassador, ment minister, Dame Lynda Chalker, but his chest Dennis lett—in the months before the election swelled with pride all the same. —had been openly pushing for a South African- On November 19, three weeks after the polls had style transitional government in which both Ren- closed, the final results were officially announced by amo and Frelimo would serve, rather than the win- an exhausted Brazao Mazula. In the end, Frelimo ner-take-all formula that had been the basis of the had won 44 percent in the parliamentary vote Mozambican election process. Or perhaps the against 38 percent for Renamo. In the presidential volatile Dhlakama had simply panicked—aware contest, loaquim Chissano narrowly won an overall that he was about to lose the elections, and terri- majority with 53 percent, against Afonso Dhlakama fied at the consequences. It is said that Dhlakama some way behind with 34 percent. It had been a mad needs continual reassurance of his own impor- scramble to assemble the results. After being count- tance—and the full and undivided attention of the ed at the loca! and then provincial level, the ballot most important diplomats and politicians in the boxes had been flown to Maputo where they were region, if only for a few hours, may just have done scrutinized for a third time. There were large num- (0 the trick. bers of disputed papers and heated arguments 3 X> I remember one point during my meeting with among party delegates over what constituted a valid 0) him. when Dhlakama had given me one of his sly vote. As the delays mounted, the murmurings of smiles. "During the war nobody would come to impatience and foul play increased. So it was a very speak to me, but now I am a respected man. Even relieved commission president who emerged a full the British ambassador comes to my door personal- week later than scheduled to announce the final ly to deliver a letter from Mrs. Thatcher." He had results. "We've done it. We've finally done it," Brazao meant, unfortunately, the British overseas develop- Mazula declared, breaking into tears as he said it. O l\V the highlands and linked Zambia and Zaire to the have been nothing here," said Farinha. During the Atlantic Ocean. It has not functioned, however, since Unita occupation, Farinha rented out his factories as Savimbi launched his guerrilla war against the ruling warehouses for international aid groups to store Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola food. (MPLA) in 1976. As soon as the government captured Huambo, Shops and businesses in Huambo have been gut- apparently facing no resistance from retreating ted and the industrial area, which used to produce Unita troops, thousands of people with their belong- furniture, textiles, beer, and soft drinks, s aban- ings on their heads gathered at the airport each doned. During Unita's 18-month occupation of the morning hoping to catch a lift on one of the few area, the main economic activity was international arriving military transport planes. Government sol- food relief sent by the likes of the UN World Food diers guarding the entrance to the airport fired shots Program and the International Committee of the into the air and wielded whips to control the crowds. Red Cross. "I want to go to Luanda because there is nothing "Without the WFP and the Red Cross, there would left for me in Huambo," said Maria Isabel Wanovava, ta Continua The businessmen i-cimc in-a. I hey began pouring into surely emerge from Angola greatly rehabilitated. Luanda in the last quarter of 1994. smelling sweet In Luanda, the United Nations Development Pro- deals and fast money to be made before and after gram has proudly circulated a serious two-volume set the peace agreement. Most came from lohannesburg on UN assistance to Angola. It is touted in the intro- on the non-alcoholic South African Airways flight, ductory letter as ::an increasingly important instru- where liquor is no longer served because the Angolan ment for development assistance and information and Zairian small traders who ply that route drank it and cooperation at country level for donors and all as soon as they were airborne at 9:15 am. When recipients." Too bad the figures pertain to 1991-92 asked about the nature of their business, a couple of and this is 1995. Maybe it's a good symbol of how far young white South Africans say simply: "They need to the UN lags behind in real time. import everything here, and we have everything." While the expat experts plan Angolas reconstruc- Angola's private sector shows confidence if not in tion, a minister shows up at the offices of a major peace itself, at least in the hope that the govern- donor pleading for opportunities for Angolan techni- ment is winning the war. In the last three months, cians. At a third of the price of a foreign expert, new shops, pubs, discos, and restaurants have Angolans trained in Cuba and the former Soviet sprung up in Luanda. Dilapidated buildings are Union are perfectly capable of drilling a borehole, being renovated, a new hotel has opened. Besides cleaning an irrigation canal, or repairing a bridge. the usual steamy nightlife, there is now a vibrant The minister knows of 500 jobless Angolan techni- cultural life, with art exhibits, jazz concerts, new cians living in camps for displaced people. They will recordings, and even films. stay once the expats are gone. Shouldn't they be Little of this investment filters to the wretched involved in the reconstruction of their country? poor of the capital, who still live in filth and squalor, The high point for disaster tourism is war-torn, without clean water, electricity, education, or medi- devastated Cuito in the central highlands. The city cal care. An army of child beggars and homeless has been in government hands since July 1994. Life people creeps into Luanda at dusk, nestling in nooks is somewhat—but not much—better for its war- and doorsteps for the night. weary residents. Oxfam drilled wells, Medecins Once the peace agreement was signed in Lusaka Sans Frontieres-Belgium|MSF| provides medical on November 20, it was the turn of the "briefcase care, the World Food Program brings in food, TAAC brigade to invade. Hordes of expatriate experts flies in the beer. descended upon Luanda, summoned by UN agen- On top of a gutted six-story building sits a brand cies eager to get donor funds for grandiose schemes. new satellite dish: National TV is back in town. They came in their well-pressed suits and safari jack- From the governor's wrecked palace, a newly ets, fresh from Somalia. Mozambique, and Rwanda. installed FM radio station broadcasts. The govern- At breakfast at the Tivoli or Mertdien Hotels, while ment brought a few hundred radios to give to sur- munching on fresh papaya and drinking mango juice, vivors. "I'm most thankful, but I can't eat it." a resi- the buzzwords are rehabilitation, ' reconstruction," dent said wryly. A disco is open on weekends. "the continuum between emergency and develop- Angolans love music, can't stop dancing, "n festa ment." The UN is going to put the country on its feet continua' (the party goes on). again. Disaster tourism is also good for small talk: Commercial flights bring the ubiquitous traders "Was Mogadishu worse than Cuito? ' "Did you see the from Luanda to Cuito: Large women in dashing graves and the amputees?" At $250 per diem, with boubous, carrying bundles and baskets and crates, cheap dinners of lobster and shrimp, the experts eager to cash in on people who were cut off from the

Mi'lu'ili'5 S iS il /ft'i'IiUNY |iWI!il!i5< I'rtSt'd III I ILTMIV world and its goodies for more than a year. Now, in IS, as she stood in the human chaos in front of the in fail, and others were stabbed to death and thrown airport with her nine-month-old baby losara Paulina. down wells." "My husband Horacio Tito was taken away with three As Unita forces and sympathizers fled the FAA friends by Unita in luly and we have had no word offensive, they organized a massive sacking of the from him. I am sure he is dead." city, including millions of dollars worth of food, cars, Horacio Tito, 19, was one of hundreds of Huam- and even toilets. A dozen international aid groups, bo's residents whom witnesses and foreign aid work- ranging from the International Committee of the ers said had been killed by Unita in the days and Red Cross to Save the Children, lost everything weeks before the Angolan Armed Forces (FAAl including their aid workers' clothes. recaptured the city. His crime was to have conspired More sackings and killings occurred when the FAA to escape the city by walking to the coastal city of entered the city in what one foreign aid official Benguela. "They had lists of people sympathetic to described as a bloody "settling of accounts." the government and killed them in the last few One barefoot FAA soldier wandering around the days." said one foreign aid worker. "Some were killed airport last week approached with a proposal: "I have

the markets of Cuito and Kunje, you can find bub- find politically incorrect objects seldom seen any- blegum and candies, batteries and soft drinks. where else in Africa: leopard and cheetah skins, There are few buyers. freshly cut ivory, big tortoise shells, protected birds, The traders take back to Luanda goats and and all kinds of trinkets looted from all over Angola. chickens—a needed source of protein for locals. At the losina Machel hospital in Luanda, I find The price of a goat jumped from 2 million kwanzas many amputees I met before, flown in from Menon- to 20 million or more in one week, after a swarm of gue and Malange a year ago, barely recovered but traders descended upon Cuito. Residents asked the unable to get home for lack of means, thus unable to governor to stop that traffic, to no avail. leave their space on the floor and blood-stained There is little food in the markets because peo- blankets (not beds) for new patients. The cholera ple are still afraid to venture far from Cuito or Kunje. ward is full, the trauma ward is full, but the shelves Not only because of mines, but the first who dared are empty of basic medical supplies. go farther away were attacked by unidentified At the airport in Luanda, a pair of "blue helmets" armed men, who stole the food they were bringing. hangs around, trying to look busy. At the Unavem That's why the market offers only mangoes, anemic hangar, where UN Special Representative Alioune tomatoes, a bit of rice, and a bit of salt. Luckily now Blondin Beye's white jet gleams in the sun, Unavem people have access to the river, so there is dried planes are back on the tarmac, to be cleaned and fish. But no goats or chickens. polished. You can even see a few Unavem cars in the It's no wonder that on December 5, the MSF city (before, they wouldn't dare go out because peo- feeding center admitted 18 severely malnourished ple would throw stones at them). The prices of children. Those who have enough food face another apartments in Luanda are skyrocketing to greet the danger: the mines and unexploded ordnance that peace-keepers and the experts in style: $4,000 a litter Cuito. Now that kids can run around not haunt- month for a two-bedroom apartment, on a noisy ed by a deadly sniper, they have a greater chance of street, with erratic water and electricity. being blown to pieces by a grenade. As 1 board my flight to Windhoek, I review some In November, MSF conducted 16 amputations endearing images: a couple of women tending and six reamputations—that's one accident every knee-high maize planted in the church yard in other day. As I snap photos. I'm aware that the gaze Kunje; a four-year-old girl, all smiles, in a ruffled red of mine victims has a particularly sad intensity and dress, limping on her crutches, one leg blown off by dignity—proof and censure of this crime of humans a mine in Cuito. I think of my friends Clara and Hora- against humans, or soldiers and arms merchants cio from Cuito, who, having survived the siege, took against civilians. a few days of holiday in Luanda, sent the shrapnel- Back in Luanda, at a diplomat's house, 1 admire injured children to Portugal for medical treatment, his superb pieces of Kongo sculpture. The diplomat and are back in town, itching to get their business nervously tells me the figures come from Zaire. Sud- going again. They have put on weight and there is a denly it clicks: Could these pieces belong to the healthy glow to their cheeks. Even their chickens are unique collection of sculpture looted from the muse- healthier. Horacio has so much energy that when I u. um in the diamond town of Dundo? Or looted from drop by for a visit, he barely takes time to embrace collectors' homes in Huambo? The spoils of Angola, me and goes on furiously cleaning a stove while I muse. Besides, if my friend the diplomat had not telling me stories about the siege. bought them, the lovely pieces could have been These are the people who will rebuild Angola—if chopped for firewood. only their leaders will give them a chance.• At the Sunday market south of Luanda, you can —Mercedes Sayagues a television, a big Sanyo, do you want to trade it for but rarely were they some clothes? 1 cannot carry the television very far, vas nothing uplifting affairs, and my family needs clothes." carried out amid The FAA was firmly in control of the city but. resi- de his house. scenes of utter dents said, not of itself. Many of its troops were led by destruction punc- teenagers, and heavy shooting broke out across the tuated by news of city every night as discipline among drunk govern- oldiers, had relatives killed, ment soldiers breaks down. "Most people in the city verything, maimed, or disap- do not venture out of their homes in the alternoon e kitchen peared in the past because by then, the soldiers are drunk and start two years ot fight- shooting," said the aid official. carpets and ing. Some discipline has been restored v*ith the i tLles on the At the town of arrival of the military police and Governor Baltazar Caala, 13 miles Manuel at the end of November. The FAA troops did fej\ the toilet. west of Hucimbo, not engage in mass killing sprees of vengeance, but "Tears" stood in a their drunken behavior and wild shooting into the pickup truck staring down the road that led to a air after dark left civilians frightened. home he had not seen for two years when suddenly Fear was so rife that wealthier residents of the he banged his fist on the roof of the cab for the driv- city who had generators refused to turn them on er to stop. On the road behind, a woman was hold- because they were worried the noise would attract ing her hand to her mouth in disbelief. soldiers or armed looters. "Generators and cars are "Tears," the nom de guerre of Captain Elias Chivu- things people do not want to show off right now," ka, 32, sprinted down the dirt road and hugged her. said Isabela, a 60-year-old woman who refused to "It's my cousin," he said as he climbed back aboard give her last name. the vehicle. "She thought I was dead. Everyone in my In one sense, the government's capture of Huam- family did " That was the source of his nickname. bo brightened the spirits of city residents. There "They cried for me, and I cried for them. Tears." was great happiness when the government :roops As the truck drove through the town of Caala to arrived because the people knew they were liberated his old neighborhood, known as "Firewood" because from the MiGs," said Isabela, who lives alone in Bair- it once had eucalyptus trees that provided fuel for ro Academico, a wealthy neighborhood hard hit by the local Benguela Railway station, Tears stared in the attacks because Unita officers once lived there. shock. His old house had collapsed into rubble and A house 50 yards from Isabela's home was black- was overgrown with weeds. ened by flames when a phosphorous bomb dropped Tears strode through a maze of mud hut com- by a government jet exploded onto the street out pounds, opened a piece of rusty sheet metal that Front. Three blocks away, a bomb had completely served as the entrance gate, and caught his 10-year- flattened another neighbor's home. "With the gov- old daughter Maria Conceicao as she leapt into his ernment back in Huambo. they knew there would be arms But his initial smile quickly faded into a gri- no more bombs," she said. But as the crowds at the airport showed, hundreds of people want to flee. They have not been able to leave since March 1993, when Unita occu- pied the city. Since then, they have been virtual prisoners, often suffer- ing severe malnutrition when international aid supplies dried up and living by selling off their clothes and furniture to buy the staple corn flour on the open market. "The people here just want to get out of Huambo as Q. soon as possible," said Lopes. "Huambo was like a cage, and now they are desperate to experience a new reality." For the first time in months, family reunions were possible, fleeing. Today, the hospital has no beds, no doors, and no medicine, not even an aspirin. In an area where malaria is endemic, Caala, once a city of 10,000 people, did not have one tablet of chloroquine. It was the second time the hospital had been looted. The first was when Unita captured the city on October 30, 1992. after Savimbi rejected his defeat in the September 1992 general elections and sent his army to occupy vast areas of the country.

mace of shame when he saw the sticklike body of his 10-year-old son, Domingos. above: Scenes of the destruction in After exchanging pleasantries with relatives, Tears Angola's central marched back to the pickup. It was not the home- highlands cities coming he had been expecting. His four children, particularly Domingos, looked in bad shape. His Right, President house was in ruins. lose Edtiardo dos Domingos gazed up at his dad standing like a Santos giant warrior in the departing pickup, dressed in the Three months green fatigues of the FAA. "I'll be back tomorrow, later, Unita's 55- son." As the truck sped off, Tears pulled out a few day siege of bills of kwanzas, the national currency, and threw Huambo began. them into the dust for Domingos, who scrambled Up to 10,000 peo- hungrily for them. "It's a disgrace," Tears said, "My ple were killed in son looks like a refugee." the fighting, and It was the same story across town where Manuel thousands of civil- loaquim da Silva, a 60-year-old Portuguese psychia- ian and govern- trist who has lived in Angola for 40 years, was survey- ment soldiers, like ing a pile of burned papers behind his home. "That is Tears, fled, walk- 10 years of work," he said- "Those papers were the draft ing for two weeks of my book for the university. Why did they have to to make the 200- burn them? They could have just left them at the side." mile journey west to the coastal town of Benguela. There was nothing left inside his house. Looters, The FAA chief of staff, General loao de Matos, reor- led by Unita soldiers, had taken everything, from the ganized and rearmed the routed government troops kitchen sink to carpets and wooden tiles on the floor, and enlisted refugee men and boys, most of them from even the toilet. The looting started after Unita the local Umbundu ethnic group, Savimbi's main base marched the city's residents out into the bush of support, into a new force to return. It took two years. several days before the FAA captured the town on After the FAA seized control of Huambo and November 5. "They said, 'We are going house to Caala, it was the turn of Unita troops and their sup- house and whomever we find, we will kill'." said da porters to march into the bush. But Tears and other Silva's wife, Maria Franca. residents of Caala and Huambo said they feared that Then Unita soldiers led a pack of looters through one day Angolas see-saw civil war will again see the the wealthier parts of town, and like swarms of return of Unita. some of whose troops have discard- locusts, they stripped everything. The other day, an ed their uniforms and weapons and put on civilian elderly woman selling shoes visited the da Silva's. clothes, "Many of the Unita troops 1 saw around "She had a pair of my high heels, and when I said town are stilt here." said one resident who refused to they were mine, she said, if you know your shoes, be named. "But we do not know if they are spying for you do not have to pay'," said Mrs. da Silva. "Some- Unita or they too are simply tired of war." one tried to sell me my own parasol, too." Another, a 50-year-old businessman named The city hospital was also sacked. The Unita nurs- Miguel, said. "This war always goes back and forth, es packed up all the medicine and took it before and nobody here thinks it is over." O ••Ml A g 1

Peace

HUAMBO AND OTHER CENTRAL HIGHLANDS CITIES OF ANGOLA ARE IN RUINS,

VICTIMS OF THE SAVAGE CIVIL WAR FOUGHT BETWEEN THE UNITA REBELS OF

)ONAS SAVIMBI (PHOTO) AND THE GOVERNMENT LED BY PRESIDENT JOSE

EDUARDO DOS SANTOS. THAT WAR ENDED WITH A CEASEFIRE IN NOVEMBER

AND THE PLANNED INCORPORATION OF UNITA INTO THE GOVERNMENT. BUT

SKEPTICISM WAS HIGH, OUR CORRESPONDENT DISCOVERED, AND THE

BELEAGUERED CITIZENS OF HUAMBO BELIEVE THE DEAL WILL HOLD ONLY

IF BOTH SIDES HAVE TRULY TIRED OF THE WAR. BY KARL MAIER

irgilio Farinha was sounding upbeat Talk of rebuilding Huambo and other destroyed aboul rebuilding the Coca-Cola plant central highlands cities such as Cuito is on every- $:'•% outside Huambo where he has been aone's lips since President lose Eduardo dos Santos's technical director for the past 15 government and Unita signed the Lusaka protocol years. With new supplies of sugar, peace accord on November 20 in Lusaka, Zambia, Coke formula, and water. Farinha, 60, and a nationwide ceasefire entered into force three said he thought the factory could return quickly to days later. The accord, mediated by UN special rep- its heyday when it produced 4,000 bottles of "the resentative Alioune Blondin Beye, called for demo- real thing" a day. bilization of troops from both sides, the arrival of a As his tour reached its end at the front of the 6,300-strong UN peace-keeping force and nearly 600 Coke factory, Farinha watched one of the plant observers, and Unita's participation in government, guards sitting by a fire in front of two abandoned with control of four ministries, three provinces, and Russian-built tanks ranting and raving to himself. dozens of municipalities and communes. "He is a lunatic," Farinha said catmly. But skepticism that the deal will hold was running The scene would have been remarkable almost high in Huambo, which suffered a 55-day siege by anywhere else in the world, but in Angola's central Unita in 1993 in which up to 10,000 people were highlands city of Huambo, once the stronghold of believed to have died, and regular aerial bombard- lonas Savimbi's National Union for the Total Inde- ments by government MiG and Sukhoi jets, before pendence of Angola (Unita) rebel movement, there the city's recapture by the government on November was something oddly routine about it all. 9. Many residents with education and business experience said they were planning to leave for Huambo, known by the Portuguese colonialists CD as Nova Lisboa before their hasty departure at good. Z3 Angola's independence in 1975, is a city in ruins. "If the peace agreement sticks, Unita decides to -Q Dozens of houses and buildings have been blasted send its members to Parliament and join the govern- into piles of rubble, burned-out vehicles and tanks ment, then perhaps 1 will stay," said Rafael Lopes, a litter its streets alongside unexploded bombs 45-year-old electrician. "Otherwise I will join my dropped by government airplanes. family in Luanda. Enough is enough." Much of the central highlands' economy was once Karl Maier is a correspondent for The Independent of London and con- tributes to The Washington Post. based on the Benguela Railway, which cut through THE DISPARITY IN WEALTH BETWEEN

THE BLACK MAJORITY AND THE WHITE

MINORITY IN ZIMBABWE HAS BEEN A

LONG-SIMMERING ISSUE AND ONE THAT

PRESIDENT ROBERT MUGABE HAD

PLEDGED TO CORRECT SINCE BEFORE

INDEPENDENCE. BUT THE

GOVERNMENT'S FIRST EFFORTS TO

CHANGE THE STATUS OUOF CALLED

* J "INDIGEN1ZATION," PROVED TO BE GET- RICH-QUICK SCHEMES FOR

POLITICALLY CONNECTED BLACK

BUSINESSMEN. SO IT WAS NOT A

COMPLETE SURPRISE WHEN THE FIRST :W* $* FORCIBLY PURCHASED WHITE-OWNED FARM UNDER THE LAND ACQUISITION

ACT, DESTINED FOR 33 PEASANT

FAMILIES, WOUND UP IN THE HANDS

OF WITNESS MANGWENDE (PHOTO),

WHO AS A CABINET MINISTER HAD BEEN

THE ARCHITECT OF THE NEW LAW.

By ANDREW MELDRUM The Land

% Zimbabwe

n a warm Saturday night, a band of So far, racial tensions have been confined to the "ifc«nearly 100 University of Zimbabwe economic sphere. As chief executive officer of Zim- "students went on a protest spree in babwe's largest industrial conglomerate, Ariston .downtown Harare. Charging that a Chambati is undoubtedly Zimbabwe's most success- !popular nightclub was "racist" ful black businessman. For his efficient management [because most of its clientele were of TA Holdings, a profitable group of companies, he white, they smashed in a window and then took over is well-respected in the white business community the bar, drinking beers well into the night. Chambati is also highly regarded among Mugabe's The university students went on several such inner circle. highly publicized "Smash Racism" campaigns Chambati is known for his thoughtful, moderate throughout October and November, until examina- views of Zimbabwe's economic situation as well as tions forced them to crack their books instead of its politics. Therefore it was a surprise when he windows. issued a stern warning that Zimbabwe's economic Unfortunately, the question of racial tension in status quo must be urgently changed. Zimbabwe will not go away so easily. Fifteen years "The present disparity in the distribution of after reaching majority rule, most of Zimbabwe's wealth between the white minority and black people 10.5 million blacks are living near poverty, while the is a recipe for disaster in the long term. This situa- tiny minority of about 100,000 whites lives largely in tion must be corrected," said Chambati at the Uni- ample comfort, even luxury. The gross disparity in versity of Zimbabwe. "The manufacturing, commer- living standards between the two racial groups pro- cial, and financial sectors are still dominated by the vides fertile ground for envy and mistrust. white minority. Such a situation, if allowed to con- Robert Mugabe's magnanimous policy of racial tinue unabated, would mean that the reconciliation reconciliation with his former Rhodesian oppressors we currently enjoy would be jeopardized." in 1980 set the tone for relaxed and easy-going race Representing about 1 percent of Zimbabwe's total relations that won international renown. But population, Zimbabwe's whites control an estimated throughout the 1980s, pockets of embittered, 80 percent of the country's private enterprise and ingrained white racists clung to their old ways about as much of the large-scale commercial farm- throughout the country and created ugly incidents. ing. In the 1980s, Mugabe's government tried to By 1990, that stubborn racism had eroded to the solve the problem with "Growth with Equity," mean- extent that white racism was rarely encountered in ing that blacks would get a better share of the coun- public. try's wealth as the economy grew. But steady eco- But by that time economic problems had grown nomic growth has proved to be elusive, and with in Zimbabwe and it was the black population who elections due in early 1995, the government has felt the pinch. Throughout 1994, Zimbabwean politi- seized on "indigenization" as the policy to improve cians stressed the need to address the economic the lot of Zimbabwe's blacks. imbalance between the country's whites and blacks. "Indigenization" is the current buzzword in Zim- And racial tensions are set to rise in 1995 as Presi- babwe, prominent in heated discussions among dent Mugabe's party appears ready to play on anti- businessmen, farmers, diplomats, and, especially, white sentiments in campaigning for the national politicians. Preparing the ground for the election elections, expected in March or April 1995. campaign, Mugabe held a four-hour "Meet the Peo- pie" televised question-and-answer session in private sector, such as Ariston Chambati. But most November specifically on the topic of indigenization blacks have been used simply as window dressing of the economy. and were placed in showcase, but not powerful, per- Unfortunately, the indigenization campaign has sonnel and public relations positions. shown that there is no quick fix to Zimbabwe's fun- Similarly the country's best farm land is owned by damental problem of the gross disparity in incomes just 4.000 white farmers, while some 7 million peas- between black and white. A few government-backed ants languish on overcrowded, under-developed "indigenization" projects have proved to be get-rich- rural reserves called Communal Areas. Clearly the quick schemes for politically well-connected black status of black Zimbabweans needs to be improved. businessmen. To many observers, "indigenization" In the corporate world, indigenization means giv- appears to be merely a slogan to popularize govern- ing preference to businesses owned by black Zim- ment policies which are intended to replace a white babweans. The concept has been promoted for four elite with a new black elite. years by the Indigenous Business Development Cen- Mugabe has led the way in promoting indigeniza- ter (IBDC), a group of ambitious black Zimbabwean tion as a pressing priority. Early in 1994, the politburo entrepreneurs. The association, for instance, has of his Zanu-PF party held a retreat at the resort of Vic- influenced the government to implement a policy to toria Falls to study the results of Zimbabwe's four- award to black-owned construction firms a signifi- year-old economic reform program, which is support- cant percentage of the contracting work on all gov- ed by the World Bank and the International Monetary ernment-funded building. Another policy is to make Fund (IMF). The restructuring is controversial, as it cheap loans available to black-owned businesses. has brought the average Zimbabwean a definite In agriculture, the indigenization policy fits in decline in living standards, with rising costs for staple with the Mugabe government's long-standing inten- foods, as well as health and educational services. tion to redistribute to black farmers half of the 11 The widespread unpopularity of structural adjust- million hectares currently owned by white farmers. ment poses a problem for Zanu-PF as national elec- On paper, these policies appeared plausible, but tions approach. The weekend retreat to Victoria Falls in practice serious problems have quickly become by the bigwigs of Mugabe's party was expected to evident. The preferential treatment of black enter- promote debate on structural adjustment. Many prises is open to abuse, particularly as preference hoped that the government leaders would propose appeared to be given to companies with good con- new measures to help the poor through the adjust- nections with the Zanu-P'- party. Zimbabwe's inde- ment period. pendent press revealed that the indigenization of Instead, Mugabe championed the idea that what the construction industry meant that contracts had the country most badly needs is the indigenization gone to firms with the best relations with the ruling of the economy. Mugabe called on Zimbabwe's party, not those that were best qualified. The indigenous people to combine their political power favoritism resulted in inflated building costs and, to and financial muscle. "That is the only way we can add insult to injury, it did not actually result in the hope to indigenize," said Mugabe. "It is up to us to promotion of black businesses. Press reports decide how we can entrench ourselves in the owner- showed that many of the so-called black firms were ship of the country's resources." merely black fronts with financial backing from the Mugabe's argument is that Zimbabwe's indige- major, white-owned construction companies. nous people, meaning blacks, are at an economic In addition, an unseemly power struggle erupted disadvantage as a result of 90 years of British colo- in the Indigenous Business Development Center nial rule. He has called repeatedly this year for itself. One leader, Strive Masiyiwa, was ousted in action to get more blacks to control private business favor of another who had better relations with and to own land. This has been vociferously ampli- Mugabe's Zanu-PF. fied by many cabinet ministers and others in Strive Masiyiwa is one of Zimbabwe's most Mugabe's party. "Indigenize Zimbabwe's economy, prominent business success stories. After years of indigenize the land!" has become a clarion call of working for large, well-established firms, Masiyiwa the party. used his experience in electrical engineering to start On the face of it, the campaign to increase black his own firm, which won competitive construction ownership of land and control of the economy contracts and, with help from an International seems reasonable. There is no question that Zim- Finance Corporation loan, began manufacturing babwe's blacks are at a terrible disadvantage as a electrical equipment As president of the IBDC, result of years of Rhodesian white minority rule. Masiyiwa took the promotion of indigenous busi- Zimbabwe's business and industrial sectors remain nesses seriously and helped establish workshops largely dominated by the country's tiny white minor- and training programs. ity. A few notable blacks have made strides in the But Masiyiwa made the mistake of challenging the government. His firm, Retrofit, formed an inter- Andrew Meldrum is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe, who writes for The Guardian and The Economist national partnership to provide Zimbabwe with a Illll

cellular phone network linked by satellite and thus cabinet minister who had argued so convincingly competed with the government's Posts and that the Land Acquisition Act would be used to help Telecommunications Corporation (PTC). peasant farmers. The fact that Mangwende had The PTC provides notoriously bad service. It is leased from the state, on very favorable terms, the unable to provide telephone lines to the more than first farm forcibly purchased by the state for peasant 100,000 people on its waiting lists. And those lucky resettlement raised a furor in Zimbabwe. Further enough to have a telephone must be content with revelations in the independent press uncovered that phone lines that are frequently out of order, some- other cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, top times for months at a time. Hundreds of businesses civil servants, and high-ranking army officers had must make do without a phone and conduct day-to- also been awarded leases on choice state-owned day affairs by sending messengers across Harare farms. What appeared to be an admirable land redis- because they cannot get a reliable phone line. tribution plan became what the newspaper head- Despite the fact that it cannot provide adequate ser- lines called the "Land Grab Scandal." vice on the existing network, the PTC objected to Eminent Zimbabweans, opposition politicians, Masiyiwa's plans to set up a new satellite network. and even politicians from Mugabe's own Zanu-PF The state corporation said that it should also have party lambasted the government over the scandal. the monopoly on satellite networks. The battle is Even Zanu-PF's own newspaper, The People's Voice, currently locked in the courts. But apparently for criticized the ieasing of state lands to "indigenous" having the nerve to challenge the state, Masiyiwa farmers. "If a black elite replaced a white elite in the found he lost his position as leader of the IBDC. His very large commercial farms, can one say land successor, Chemist Siziba, seems much better con- redistribution has taken place? The answer is in the nected to Zanu-PF. and is often quoted in the press negative." making statements in favor of government policies. Confronted by such widespread criticism of the Similarly, the indigenization of Zimbabwe's farm land policy. Mugabe in May announced the cancella- land also ran into controversy. When the Mugabe tion of the 100 leases of state-owned farms. He government pushed the Land Acquisition Act announced that a thorough study of Zimbabwe's through Parliament in 1992, the then agriculture land tenure system and the need for land redistribu- minister, Witness Mangwende, forcefully argued that tion would be carried out. white-owned land would be purchased in order to So both in business and in agriculture, the gov- redistribute to poor black peasants. Any objections ernment's efforts to "indigenize" were rapidly dis- to the vaguely worded bill, which gives the govern- credited by political favoritism Zimbabwean politi- ment sweeping discretionary powers to forcibly pur- cal analysts thoroughly reject that the policy of chase land at whatever price it sets, were aggressive- indigenization is a sincere effort to redress Zimbab- ly dismissed by Mangwende as attempts to prevent we's economic imbalance. Zimbabwe's land-hungry peasants from getting their "Indigenization is a word which is fast becoming a share of the country's land. Any warnings that the joke," wrote columnist Mwana Wevhu in the Financial government's new power to buy land could be Gazette. "Far from being what was originally intend- abused by cabinet ministers and others with politi- ed—a tonic for democracy—indigenization is evolv- cal influence were attacked as unpatriotic by Mang- ing into the politics of business, and if it is business wende. jubilant singing and dancing broke out in the designed merely to further enrich the chefs [political aisles of Parliament when the Land Acquisition Act leaders|, it will find no favor with the landless and was passed in 1993, as representatives celebrated the unemployed." the success of the bill to redistribute land to Zim- Another Zimbabwean columnist, journalist Iden babwe's peasants. Wetherell, concluded that 'indigenization has But the happiness turned to worry when it was emerged as a catch phrase the government uses to reported this year that the first batch of farms pur- cover up the sleaze that has emerged. Indigenization chased by the government included land owned by was initially tied to vague notions of affirmative three prominent opposition politicians, the Rev- action, but it turned out to be merely a slogan used erend Ndabaningi Sithole, lames Chikerema, and to give a legitimate cover to the wholesale grabbing Henry Ellsworth. of Zimbabwe's wealth by the political elite." And worry turned to dismay over the Bath Farm Far from producing a pleased voting public, the scandal. The farm in the Central Wedza area was the Mugabe government's efforts to "indigenize" result- _Q first white-owned farm to be forcibly purchased by ed in scandal and mistrust. Nonetheless, a troubling 01 the government. The owner appealed to be able to imbalance of wealth exists between the tiny white keep the farm, but the government argued that the minority and the struggling black majority. To build a farm was to be used to resettle 33 peasant families. more equitable, non-racial society remains a chal- It therefore came as a shock when the indepen- lenge to Zimbabwe's politicians; indeed it remains dent Daily Gazette newspaper revealed that Bath Farmthe principal challenge to all Zimbabweans, whatev- had been leased to Witness Mangwende, the very er their color. O SomhAjie

HOW DO YOU TRANS- Reforming FORM A POLICE FORCE WITH A WELL DE- 1X1© SERVED REPUTATION FOR BRUTALITY AGAINST BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS INTO A BODY THAT SERVES AND PROTECTS ALL ITS CITIZENS? THE ANSWER IS: SLOWLY, BECAUSE THE EXISTING SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE HAS TO HAVE ITS ENTIRE CULTURE CHANGED, IT HAS TO BECOME MORE COMMUNITY-ORIENTED, AND IT HAS TO INCORPORATE ELE- MENTS FROM 1 1 HOMELAND POLICE FORCES AND FROM THE AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS CADRES. ON THE PLUS SIDE, SAY ADVISERS TO THE NEW POLICE SERVICE, THE NEW SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE CAN ONLY BE BET- TER THAN THE OLD. BY COLLEEN LOWE MORNA

I center-page photograph in lohannes- the police force representative of South African society jburg's Star newspaper recently served by bringing in more blacks and women; as well as as a stark reminder of a past still bringing about an entire culture change in the way the painfully fresh in the minds of South police go about their duties. i Africa's black majority. The task must be achieved within the framework of Three police officers in military cam- South Africa's multi-party Government of National ouflage uniform are stooped over the body of a black Unity, whose accent is on reconciliation and burying man. One has his foot on him. The other is pointing an the past. The safety and security minister, who prior to automatic rifle at the man, even though he is dead. his new job headed the ruling African National There is a look of glee on the faces of the police offi- Congress's peace desk, inherits the entire top brass of cers—all of them white, all of them men, all of them the SAP from the former white-minority government. bearing Afrikaans names. Some of them have been accused in recent reports It is a photograph from the Star's archives, and of complicity in brutal atrocities and dirty tricks that although it was meant just as a reminder, it would be continued well into the 1990s, and long after the hard to say with all certainty that such pictures are police had been ordered to stop their "total onslaught" entirely a thing of the past. on the ANC. Among the most complex tasks that the new South It may seem at times like a case of David against African government faces is to convert a police force Goliath. But as lanine Rauch, formerly with the Pro- with one of the most brutal reputations in the world ject for the Study of Violence at the University of Wit- into one that serves and protects all its citizens. watersrand and now one of nine advisers to the new Armed with a new Interim Constitution that minister, points out, if South Africa can get it right, changes the name of the South African Police "Force" the country stands a good chance of having one of to the South African Police "Service," the country's new the most progressive police forces in Africa, if not the minister for safety and security, Sydney Mufamadi, world. "We have seen the very worst," she says "From now on, things can only get better." o dreams of the day when, instead of bolting away in a fear whenever they see a police car, little children run Under normal circumstances, the military has the up to greet their neighborhood cop. task of securing a country from external threats or ene- Before that dream can become a reality, the minis- mies and is geared to respond fast, using maximum ter faces the daunting task of amalgamating the 11 force if required. In contrast, the task of the police is to police forces that sprouted under apartheid; making protect the country's citizens, with a minimal use of force. In South Africa, the country's white-minority CoUeen Lowe Morna is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist based in Soulfi Africa who das written widely on Ajrican political and economic issues. government defined the majority black population as P Durand/Sygma "enemies" whom the police had the duty to control, as trial on 106 charges, including murder, fraud, and ille- though they were some threat from outside. gal arms possession. The two others implicated finally This self-created military function of the police was took early retirement, despite efforts by the current reflected in a number of ways: the military titles used police commissioner, lohan van der Merwe, to have by the police (like general and brigadier and colonel); them retained in their posts while the investigation the use of the term "Force" after South African Police; was continuing. the use of fierce police dogs and heavily protected Much of the dirty work of the SAP was carried out armored vehicles or "Caspirs" to patrol the townships. by the police forces created in the 10 "homelands" or Many members of the SAP actually served in military ethnic reserves carved out under apartheid. An exam- positions during the independence wars in Zimbabwe ple is the KwaZulu police in Natal, widely regarded and Namibia. as an arm of the conservative, Zulu-based Inkatha In South Africa, far from restoring law and order, the Freedom Party. Five reports—three by the Goldstone police were associated in the public mind with fanning Commission, and two prepared under the Transition- the flames of violence. This occurred in a number of al Executive Council that oversaw the elections— ways The most vivid are the many painful memories have pointed to the existence of hit squads in the in South African history of the occasions such as the KZP. This is still a matter of investigation. Also noto- Sharpeville and Soweto massacres of i960 and 1976 rious for its brutality is the police force of when police opened fire during marches and gather- Bophuthatswana, one of the four nominally "inde- ings, shooting civilians in cold blood. pendent" homelands. In many other instances, police were accused of Although blacks were enrolled in the SAP (they acting in complicity with pro-minority government comprise about 60 percent of the 108,000-strong forces, notably the Inkatha Freedom Party. Investiga- force), systematic job discrimination has left a legacy tions by the Commission of Inquiry into the Preven- of 95 percent of the senior officer corps being white. ra tion of Public Violence and Intimidation (commonly In a report in December 1992, the Commonwealth 3 known as the Goldstone Commission) have only just Observer Mission to South Africa commented: "It h- begun to lift the lid on a sordid covert network that would bedifficult to find any significant section of the V u. existed within the SAP with the aim of eliminating black population of South Africa today which regards anti-government activists. the police as an impartial force laboring under consid- As a result of these investigations, Col. Eugene de erable difficulties in the proper discharge of its duties. Kock, one of the most senior South African police offi- Black South Africans fail to understand how a police cers at the time of the April elections, is now standing force so efficient in maintaining apartheid laws now appears so helpless in securing convictions in cases •obligatory police/community forums at all police sta- involving blacks." tions; Over the two years leading up to the elections, the •an independent complaints mechanism (which will SAP gradually began to improve its image, helped take the place of the police reporting officers). largely by the structures created by the National Peace Soon after his appointment, Mufamadi (who served Accord of September 1991. This unique agreement on the National Peace Committee, the supreme poli- between 26 political parties and interest groups, cy-making body of the National Peace Accord) including the police and South African Defense Force, announced several more changes designed, in his sought ways of quelling the mounting political vio- words, to make the police more "user-friendly." These lence in the country. included the demilitarization of police ranks and a Through attending meetings of the structures creat- change of uniform, as well as a system of lay visits ed under the accord, which included over 200 local which would make it possible for community mem- peace committees, police for the first time found bers to visit police stations on an impromptu basis. themselves sitting opposite groups like the ANC and SAPS's new mission statement commits members South African Communist Party (SACP). They experi- to: upholding and protecting the fundamental rights enced a previously unheard-of phenomenon: account- of all people; impartiality, honesty, transparency, and ability to the public. accountability; using the powers entrusted to the The Peace Accord further provided for police police in a responsible and controlled manner; devel- reporting officers to whom the public could take com- oping a people-centered personnel management plaints of police misconduct. Although in practice it approach; optimal and cost-effective use of resources; was difficult for these overburdened officers (mostly continuous improvement of its service; and contribut- lawyers working on a part-time basis) to ever gather ing in every way to the success of the Reconstruction sufficient evidence to convict police officers, their exis- and Development Program. tence had a deterrent effect on torture in police cells. Although the SAP introduced a police/community The WitsAVaal Regional Peace Committee registered relations division in December 1992, this has been particular success in engaging the SAP in discussions criticized for compartmentalizing the notion of com- on how to go about controlling large crowds. During munity policing. Instead, says Zimbabwean Assistant the huge rallies, marches, and funerals that followed Commissioner Rudo Muchemenyi, one of the four the assassination by right-wingers of SACP secretary- international experts on the MIT, the new curriculum general Chris Hani in 1993. the RPC brokered deals emphasizes that the "community approach to policing with the police in which they agreed to stand back and permeates every aspect of policing." use minimal force to control the crowds. Instead, party Muchemenyi, who herself was one of the first offi- marshals and peace monitors holding hands and wav- cers to go through a pilot training program in post- ing peace flags—in scenes that brought a new vision of independence Zimbabwe, notes that "the problem in peaceful protest to South Africa—took the first line of South Africa was not poor training; rather the fact that responsibility for controlling the crowds. police officers were trained for misplaced goals. The The Police Board, a high-level advisory group com- training was excellent for military officers. The only prising half civilians and half police officers provided problem was that it purported to produce police offi- for under the Peace Accord, began the first work on cers." revising the police curriculum and orienting it toward The team, which in addition to Muchemenyi (who a low-profile, community-based service. With donor is sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund for Techni- assistance, it appointed the Multinational Implemen- cal Assistance) includes Swedish and Dutch police tation Team (MIT)—four international and four South officers, has been involved in training 350 trainers. African experts—now charged with overseeing the These, in turn, will be responsible for training 2,000 new training. new recruits into SAPS at the beginning of next year. In the aftermath of the elections, which went far At the Pretoria Police College, where Africa Report more smoothly than even the optimists had thought talked to several of the new trainers, they pointed out possible, the peace structures have gradually fizzled that unlike previous training, the course had involved out. But the ideas they generated, and the people a close study of the new interim constitution, and involved in them, are today at the vanguard of creating especially of the bill of rights. It relied heavily on role the new South African Police Service (SAPS). piay, forcing the trainers to "put ourselves into the "The National Peace Accord softened the ground," shoes of the public, and take account of their views," o a. says Rauch, herself a former member of the Police according to Sgt. Grace Ramotsabi. Board. "Without it, we would be much further behind." Another novel feature of the training is that the new The interim constitution, negotiated during the trainees will spend six months under supervision in transition, and the basis for a final constitution now the field after they complete their theoretical training. < being completed provides for Most of the new recruits, who will be predominant- •the amalgamation of the 11 police forces into one ly black, and 40 percent of whom will be women, will national police force; be posted to 45 pilot police stations (five in each of the nine provinces) around the country. The aim of the forces still have statutory powers (even though the model stations, which will receive donor funding and homelands have been abolished), and therefore amal- equipment, is to attempt to prove that with the correct gamation cannot proceed. training, approach, and resources, policing can be Sources say the technical work that is being carried effective. out on the amalgamation process has only gone to In accordance with statutory requirements, most show "what a nightmare it is going to be." Apart from provinces in the country are setting up police/commu- having different pay scales and conditions of service, nity forums. The PWV, which engaged the services of the system of promotions in the homelands was rapid the Institute for Democratic Alternatives (IDASA1, is and often corrupt. SAP officers are unhappy at being furthest ahead. According to Col. A.C. Dyke, regional integrated with officers from these forces whose coordinator of the forums, the South African police seniority they don't respect. Black SAP officers have "has a culture of supporting the government of the the double grievance that as a result of systematic dis- day," and will go along with whatever changes are crimination in the past, they are at the bottom of the being proposed. pack. No detailed plan has yet been devised for how The worrying question is how genuine such support affirmative action is to be achieved for the new concepts really is. Another worry for the Another thorny question is how to deal with non- new government is the extent to which it has to rely on statutory forces, such as the armed wing of the ANC. the old SAP to carry its new vision forward. Apart from party marshals, and peace monitors who want to join the advisory team, which includes five civilian police the SAP So far these have been told that they will have experts, Mufamadi has no civil service staff. Instead, to come in through the recruitment process, as junior he has to rely, as the former minister of law and order cadets. But many argue, on account of their experi- did, on SAP officers as his staff. ence and contribution to the liberation of the country, The result has been endless delays. For example, that there should be a system for them to enter at a the Police Bill, which will provide the legal basis for senior rank. With one of the lowest pay scales in the most of the proposed reforms, and which was drafted civil service (constables earn some $4,500 a year), a by the SAP legal division, has had to be sent back to major preoccupation of rank and file police officers is the drawing board several times, because it did not with their pay and day-to-day conditions of accurately capture the types of reform envisaged. service—rather than sweeping changes in the way Comments included the fact that the demilitariza- they go about their duties. tion of the police had not been sufficiently dealt with; Although political violence has declined dramati- that the bill did not take sufficient account of the fact cally in the post-election period, violent crime is on that the old police force was authoritarian, racist, and the rise. The number of police murdered—279 this sexist, and that it had attempted to create loopholes year, one of the highest such rates in the world—has through modifications such as only "serious" miscon- not abated. Such statistics, trainers say, make police duct by the police being investigated through the reluctant to carry less lethal weapons. This in turn Independent Complaints Mechanism undermines efforts to demilitarize the police. In The bill is now only expected to become law in addition, no decision has yet been taken on the August 1995. In the meantime, the president is techni- future of the controversial 7,000-strong Internal Sta- cally unable to appoint a new commissioner of police bility Unit, the public order policing wing of SAPS, and to make the changes at the top so desperately which wears the camouflage uniform and has an required. especially negative image in the townships. Yet, for Although Police Commissioner lohan van der all this, a softer image of the SAPS is gradually Merwe has outwardly cooperated with the new minis- emerging. ter, "he has been very technical, very correct about Not so long ago, the Star ran a front-page story, everything, showing no enthusiasm for the changes complete with smiling photograph, of two homeless being proposed," according to a foreign police expert people in Cape Town who got treated to a grand wed- closely associated with the reform process. ding after they told the policeman who patrolled their Applications for the top 20 posts in the SAPS are street about how they wanted to get married. The offi- being invited for early this year, with the possibility cer, newly schooled in community policing, raised that a way will be found to make these appointments funds from the private sector and organized the wed- even before the Police Act is passed One difficulty, ding. The photograph, which appeared in the Star a TO however, is that because only the SAP and homeland few days after the flashback to the ISU killing a black >- police forces have police training, the scope of appli- man, carried a powerful message of hope. That hope -Q cants is immediately narrowed. Some have argued arose from the fact that a local police officer had both- that for this reason the posts should be opened to ered to communicate with two people otherwise civilians as well—a political decision that President regarded as outcasts; probably suspected of being Nelson Mandela still has to grapple with. criminals. He discovered they were South Africans Another consequence of the Police Act not yet —with feelings, and dreams and, above all, a hope for being passed is that, technically, the homeland police a better tomorrow. O South Arc A Role Model Activists

IN 1959, ALBERT LUTHULI, THE PRESIDENT OF THE AFRICAN NATIONAL

CONGRESS, CALLED FOR AN INTERNATIONAL BOYCOTT OF SOUTH AFRICA.

THUS WAS BORN THE BRITISH ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT, WHICH FOR 35

YEARS, UNTIL ITS DISBANDMENT IN 1 994, FOUGHT AGAINST APARTHEID, SOME-

TIMES ALONE IN ITS SANCTIONS CAMPAIGN AND LATER WITH ALLIES IN THE

U.S. AND ELSEWHERE. PERHAPS ITS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT WAS CREATING A

CONSENSUS ON SANCTIONS WHICH APPEALED TO THE POLITICAL MAINSTREAM.

By DENIS HERBSTEIN

hen the Anti-Apartheid Movement heid was not understood abroad when, in 1959, the (AAM) went out of business in African National Congress president, Chief Albert November last year, it was "mission Luthuli, called for an international boycott of South accomplished" for one of the Africa. A group of London exiles. Africans, Indians, longest-running campaigns in British and whites, formed a Boycott Movement, which political history. Only the battle soon had the Labour Party leader, Hugh Gaitskell, at against slavery and the unfinished business of Trafalgar Square launching a month of not buying nuclear disarmament lasted longer. The AAM imme- South African goods. The message: Violence was diately transformed itself into a new organization inevitable, but sanctions might just force the which numbers among its aims improving access for Afrikaner nationalists to see the error of their ways. South African products to European markets. A nice Midway through that boycott month of March I960, irony...the Movement's first campaign at its launch police shot dead 69 unarmed blacks in a Transvaal in 1959 was to persuade British shoppers not to buy township. "Sharpeville" became the most potent and Outspan oranges and Cape sherry. enduring of the anti-apartheid icons. Over 35 years, the AAM drilled the words "anti- Why was South Africa a special case? There were apartheid" into the world's subconsciousness. It was worse massacres than Sharpeville. The Khmer Rouge there when South Africa was forced out of the British and Pinochet's Chile were certainly more methodical Commonwealth and the Olympic games-, it shamed in their murderousness. Many more would die in Barclays Bank out of South Africa; put Nelson Man- massacres and wars elsewhere in Africa. Yet dela on the world map, and, in the 1980s, exposed apartheid cried out for attention because of the way o the gap between the British public's distaste for the Afrikaner nationalists ennobled the ideal of Q, 0> apartheid and Mrs. Thatcher's accommodation with racial supremacy so recently destroyed in Hitler's it, It was a role model for like-minded activists Europe. In addition, it was an old British colony. around the world. Newspapers pictured the police driving through The true nature of the ideology known as apart- Sharpeville in British Saracen armored cars. It was the tip of an iceberg which included huge trade and Denis herbstein. a freelance journalist and author who lives in London, is writing a book on Canon \ohn Cotlins' International Defence & Aid Tund. investment, military collaboration, sporting con-

L Anglican Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, president of the AAM tests, emigre sons and daughters, the ease with which white South Africans could acquire British nationality. The Boycott Movement became the "Anti-Apartheid Movement" and set about break- ing these links. But sanctions had a poor track record. A genera- tion before, the League of Nations had voted them against the Italian fascists for invading Ethiopia. It was a miserable failure, a last nail in the Leagues coffin. Now, however, the bandwag- on was helped by the unyielding nature of the white rulers, and by the swelling ranks of Afro-Asian colonies-become-UN-vot- ers. The Movement gained authority from its links with the African National Congress and its exiled leader, Oliver Tambo, though relations with the smaller Pan Africanist Congress were invariably acrimonious. Sometimes the AAM would be the leading player in a campaign, or its contribution was indirect. In I960, as Commonwealth prime ministers considered Pretoria's application to be allowed to stay on as a republic, it organized Labour and Liberal MPs in a 72-hour vigil

Pa! Ttirane outside the conference venue in London's Marlbor- Springbok cricketers had to be called off, encour- ough House. Abdul Minty, a founder member, but- aged by an AAM poster captioned: "If you could see tonholed prime ministers behind the scenes. Cause their national sport, you might be less keen to see and effect is not easy to establish, but the one sure their cricket," beneath a picture of white policemen fact is that Dr. Verwoerd's application was rejected. batoning cowering blacks. With the votes of the "new" Commonwealth and the The trade union connection provided financial conservative Canadian, |ohn Diefenbaker, South cover when necessary and, on occasion, inside Africa was blackballed from the cozy club to become, information. On one occasion, a deep throat in the words of an Afrikaner newspaper editor, the passed on the news that South African air force "polecat of the world." Suspension from the Tokyo personnel were being trained on a mobile radar Olympics followed. And when Nelson Mandela and system at Plessey's in Surrey. An Afrikaner exile in his fellow ANC leaders faced the death sentence at the Movement's office phoned the firm and went the Rivonia trial, * .****?>- _ through a series of common Afrikaans names, until the AAM produced she was put through to an unsuspecting pilot. a form of words for With the votes News of this violation of the arms embargo broke a United Nations of the "new" in the midst of a conference of Commonwealth resolution for the heads of government. release of political Commonwealth, With the Soweto student uprising in 1976 and the prisoners. Even South Africa was murder of the Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko the British Conser- in 1977, the South African story would not go away. A vative government blackballed from country-wide swathe of 200-plus local "AA" groups voted in favor. The the cozy club to —campus, unions, churches, Labour-run municipali- trialists were jailed become the ties—gave the sanctions campaign a sharp cutting for life. edge. They were guided to targets by "Anti-Apartheid For the next "polecat of the News." No supermarket se.ling forbidden fruit was decade, with black world." safe. Nuclear processing plants handling Namibian nationalism side- - (/f. §B uranium were picketed. lined, the AAM Then Nelson Mandela was rediscovered. His wife struggled on against the apathy. The offices near Winnie had relentlessly sought to have him remem- London University were wrecked by right-wing bered. Abroad, Enuga Reddy, a consummate behind- arsonists. Estate agents were wary. Rooms above a the-scenes civil servant at the United Nations in Spanish food importer became available, and they New York, provided the breakthrough. He found out sank their anti-Franco pride and moved in. The new Mandela's birth date and pressed Mike Terry into Labour leader, Harold Wilson, pledged, at an AAM action. On the day in 1978, a group of Labour legis- rally in Trafalgar Square, to stop the sale of arms to lators cut a cake outside the House of Commons in South Africa. But when he came to power, the London. It was the spark wnich made Mandela and changes were minimal. Labour promises made in the freedom struggle inseparable. When the prisoner opposition were invariably watered down, even was made a freeman of the City of Glasgow, universi- reversed, in government. AAM officials were arrested ties and local authorities in Britain and Europe hur- in a protest outside "Rhodesia House" in the Strand, ried to bestow honors. Helped by a sympathetic as Wilson vacillated in his treatment of Ian Smith's Camden borough council, the London street in rebel regime. which the Movement had its offices was renamed Relief came with a rugby tour by the Springboks "Mandela Street." (Not ell the residents were (bizarrely, the name for post-apartheid national pleased.) teams). This was, still is, white South Africa's nation- Hundreds of thousands marched through Lon-. al sport, where young Afrikaners showed off their don's West End to Hyde Park or sniffed the begin- prowess against peer sporting nations But the tour ning of the end of apartheid at pop concerts at was wrecked. Activists, students, and Welsh miners Clapham Common and, on Mandela's 70th birthday, prominent among them, repeatedly invaded the Wembley Stadium—or had they just come to see fields and held up play—and were sometimes Simple Minds and Dire Straits? wonders Terry. Wem- assaulted by "rugger buggers." The South Africa bley produced a quarter million pounds for the AAM, debate had exploded into violence in Britain for the the only really big money they ever saw. Member- o a first time. Mike Terry, the AAM's administrative sec- ship peaked at 25,000, with 30 people employed v retary for the past 19 years, was president of the raising money with which to run more campaigns. Birmingham University union at the time. "The tour (This correspondent won an East German ghetto- produced a sea change in attitudes, politicizing a blaster in a raffle.) generation of students. They got jobs in banking, The lumbering sanctions train was picking up

00 insurance, large companies, and often helped us speed and passengers. When "The Struggle" became discreetly." Within months, a tour of England by too embarrassing, corporate Britain disinvested, led by Barclays, "apartheid's bankers," who succumbed dleston testily replied that he knew Paton well; after a 15-year onslaught. Two rock climbers had indeed, a character in the book was based on him. clambered up Nelsons Column and unfurled an When they left, Rifkin refused to shake the Archbish- anti-Barclays banner which glared across Trafalgar op's hand. Square at the South African embassy. The sanctions The disinvestment debate took a different and, at campaign linked into Scandinavia, Western Europe first, slower path in the United States. At first, Harry (the Dutch specialized in tracking down tankers Belafonte was a lone voice focusing on apartheid. breaking the oil embargo), Australasia, and North Later, the Rev, Leon Sullivan's "principles" on how America. American companies should behave in South Africa An umbrella of anti-apartheid organizations, were widely seen as holding up an effective sanc- including Canon lohn Collins' Defence & Aid Fund, tions campaign, because apartheid was not capable publicized South Africa's nuclear and arms build-up, of being reformed, lesse lackson changed all that the sportsmen lured by big money to "play with when he persuaded each aspirant Democrat presi- apartheid," and in particular, the plight of those on dential candidate in 1984 to speak out for sanctions. Death Row. The damaging information scandal, Simple arithmetic: 30 million black Americans. "Muldergate," which led to the downfall of Prime Congress, anti-apartheid johnny-come-latelies, Minister Johannes Vorster, was a desperate attempt voted a Black Caucus-inspired comprehensive sanc- to counteract the swamp of "bad news" about South tions bill. South African consulate offices across the Africa. United States were occupied by demonstrators, as In 1984, as Mrs. Thatcher entertained South Amy Carter and Randall Robinson, the mastermind African President P.W. Botha at Chequers, 50,000 at TransAfrica, and many others, were arrested Stu- protesters marched through London. Within dents forced university governments to sell stocks weeks, a rent boycott in the Vaal Triangle south of tainted by the South African connection. State and Johannesburg grew into the rebellion which would city governments followed suit. It could be that this end in democratic rule. Terry believes that reports climatic change, in defiance of the wishes of Ronald of the march 6,000 miles away might have been an Reagan, was the final nail in white South Africa's inspiration. The state of emergency and mass resistance. detentions, the shootings witnessed on television, The "terrorist" Mandela became president and convinced the waverers. Researchers estimate that apartheid was trashed. But there was a price to pay one in three British shoppers were consciously not for sanctions in form of the lost wine and fruit mar- buying South African goods. Support for the boy- kets, the shuttered cott cut across class and political party. Except With the forie s in factories, black that the AAM had no following from the West Indi- power throughout (and white) unem- an community, who might have viewed the leader- ployment. It will ship as white and middle class—though it was the 1980^ the take years to turn headed by the radical and incorruptible Anglican Anti-Apartheid around. At the archbishop. Trevor Huddleston. And too staid. The same meeting in picket of the Trafalgar Square embassy, which was Movement tried in London last No- maintained non-stop for several years until Man- vain to persuade vember where the dela's release, was the work of the renegade Trot- AAM disbanded skyist City of London branch. Mandela Street HQ the government itself, delegates did not approve. to relax its rigid launched its suc- This success in mass mobilization contrasted oppositiofi to cessor, Action for with a limited inability to influence the parliamen- Southern Africa tary establishment. No British government ever gave sanctions. (ACTSA), which a penny to the Movement, when even conservative will link into a regimes in Scandinavia and Canada offered enor- Europe-wide network of sister organizations aimed at mous material help With the Tories in power putting the sub-continent's case to the world. throughout the 1980s, the AAM tried in vain to per- Whether the enthusiasm of the 1980s can be con- suade the government to relax its rigid opposition to verted into more mundane activities remains to be sanctions. For Thatcher, the ANC was "a typical ter- seen. But one thing has changed. ACTSA's work has to rorist organization." As late as 1989, lohn Major, dur- been endorsed by former foreign minister John 3 ing his brief spell as foreign secretary, refused to Major.

Belly Press

A THIN VENEER OF NORMALCY HAS RETURNED TO THE INHABITANTS OF

RWANDA. BUT THERE IS SOMETHING THEY CAN NEVER FORGET—500,000

TO A MILLION RWANDANS WERE SLAUGHTERED BY THE ARMYR BY HUTU

MILITIAS, AND, WORST OF ALL, SOMETIMES BY NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS.

o a. OUR CORRESPONDENT WENT BACK TO KIGALI AND ENVIRONS AND TO v GOMA, ZAIRE, SITE OF THE BIGGEST REFUGEE CAMP, AND FOUND THAT THE

< SMELL OF DEATH STILL LINGERS OVER RWANDA. BY SONIA PACE weeks and months of utter terror before the Tutsi-led returned to Kigali, Rwanda has become a gian: mass Rwanda Patriotic Front IRPF) finally took Kigali last grave and the pungent smell of rotting corpses is pre- luly. Now, Justine does her best to drive away the sent in all too many places. One wonders constantly demons and so she comes to the nightclub to dance, where all the bodies are. There are the by now well- drink, and to forget, at least for a few hours. known massacre sites—the church compound at The rain finally stops and I offer to drive her home. Ntarama, south of Kigali, where the skeletons of She lives not far from the club, it's the house of her some 600 Tutsis still lie as they fell under the parents, she says, and we drive along a dark dirt road. onslaught of the presidential guard and the militias. My last view is of Justine walking to a dark house There is not much left, but the grimaces on the somewhere up the hill and I cannot help but wonder bleached skulls seem to still scream out in terror. what it must be like to share a house with the ghosts There is the church compound at Nyarubuye where that must haunt it. hundreds of men, women, and children were slaugh- lustine's story is just one of so many in Kigali and tered. Most of the bodies are heaped in one corner of all of Rwanda after what was perhaps the swiftest the church courtyard, but so many others are in the genocide in history. Some 500,000 and some say surrounding fields where they were obviously felled in more than I million Tutsis and Hutu government flight. There is the church of Kibuye on the shores of opponents were killed by Hutu militias, units of the Lake Kivu. where some 3.000 Tutsis were killed in late Rwandan government army, and sometimes by their April. The smell of death still permeates the church neighbors and people they once considered friends. itself, bloodstains mark the small compound out It's difficult to find any of Rwanda's original Tutsi back, and the freshly dug-up earth all around the inhabitants who have not been touched by the mas- church marks the mass graves, dug so hastily that sacres. Even though a thin veneer of normalcy has some of the corpses still stick out of the ground. Francois Mitterrand's Q jj P2viovsky'SygmP2viovsky'Sygmaa It was an old-style family Konare, who spoke bluntly reunion with a few new about the need for real faces, but also many of the democracy and reform on the old-time "members of the continent. And. there were club," or the dinosaurs" as the first-timers from the non- several French newspapers francophone sphere, includ- dubbed them. All gathered ing Issaias Afeworki of newly amid the faded glory of the independent Eritrea, Robert resort town of Biarritz in Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and southwestern France for two Deputy President Thabo days last November for the Mbeki of South Africa, look- 18th Franco-African summit. ing at times somewhat out of There was the "great place among the franco- white chief," French Presi- • hone clique. dent Francois Mitterrand, However, the Biarritz sum- visibly frail and tired from his mit was characterized as bout with cancer, coming to much by those who attend- bid farewell to his African friends and allies ..ntJ to wu - J> u^icsuu^.u., including 27 heads of state —as justify France s policy on the continent. After 14 years it was by those who were absent, most notably Rwan- in office, Mitterrand's term expires in May, but he da and previous invitee Uganda. Conditions were not told Africans to remember "where your friends are amenable" for inviting the new Tutsi-installed Kigali and where they will be tomorrow. " There wds the government, French officials said. In a somewhat great despot "survivor, " Zairian President Mobutu more forthcoming manner, Foreign Minister Alain Sese Seko, as always with his leopard-skin hat and luppe noted that the lack of stability in Rwanda and walking stick, making a triumphant re-entry onto the the new government's "aggressive" posture toward international stage and, in his usual air of defiance, France were the reasons behind the omission. Ugan- ignoring the opening plenary session to meet with da's Yoweri Museveni was apparently left out visitors and the press in his hotel suite. And there because of his close ties to the Rwandan government was Gabon's less than democratic ruler. Omar and the victorious Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriot- Bongo, ready to praise and endorse French policy in ic Front. The French decision not to invite Rwanda Africa. came under criticism from a number of African rep- There were a few faces that could signal

be differences of opinion among conference partici- that emerged from a "counter-sum-i ••••;*z pants as to who might join this eventual African sponsored by several human righ force. Gabon's Omar Bongo talked of a francophone humanitarian agencies. One particulr force that others could join if they wished, while ing incident for France during th<= . Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore seemed quite when its minister for cooperate aware that a francophone African force would not surely the one to talk to Africans ui, suit all needs, certainly not that of his West African was implicated in an ongoing corrupt region. 'The security of West Africa cannot be dealt France involving illegal use of campai with without the participation of Nigeria or Ghana, Roussin resigned a few days later. • who are not present here," said Compaore. — S.P. every street, every alley, and they are only slowly making their way out of town to several designated camps. Within a few days, cholera would strike down its first victims and the Rwanda refugee crisis would be brought into the living-room television sets of people around the world. Over the next weeks, more than 50,000 people would die from disease in these squalid camps. A few months later, the situation in the Coma refugee camps had changed drastically. The inter- national aid network was in full swing by then, there was plenty of food, clean water, and medical care. However, another threat had emerged. The camps were now under the control of members of the old Hutu militias. Rwanda's exiled army was visibly ensconced just outside of Goma, and the old Hutu political leaders were clearly pulling the strings. These are the same killers who organized and participated in the massacres inside Rwanda Betty Pfess mortar fire as the Rwanda Patriotic Front took Gisenyi, only a few months earlier. Aid workers were threat- just across the border. The main crossing point at ened, refugees were prevented from returning Goma is a scene from a nightmare. Mangled bodies lit- home, and some of those who tried to escape paid ter the small field where Hutu refugees had cemped with their lives. More than 800,000 people were out, some had been hit by shrapnel, others had been now being held hostage in the Goma camps by the trampled to death in the stampede that broke out old political establishment that sees them as their when the shelling began. The injured still lie on the remaining base of power. Aid workers admitted pri- ground, moaning, waiting for help, but so far no one vately that they were frustrated at having to help has come. these perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda, but A few journalists come to the border to have a what choice is there. "IF we have to help the bad look. There is the body of a young woman with her guys to help the good guys, then that is the choice dead baby, its head blown off Not far awa/ lies we have to make," said UNHCR spokeswoman Lyn- another dead woman, but the little girl next to her is dall Sachs. alive and unhurt. We debate whether to take the baby I went back to the Goma camps last October and to the French military field hospital at the airport or found it difficult to have much sympathy for the to leave it for aid workers to find. A Zairian soldier young thugs terrorizing their own people, stealing brings another small child, its mother is also dead, food and medicines for themselves and their kind. he says. In the end. we pick up the two small children How to respond when meeting with the former and begin walking down the road back into town. army chief of staff, General Augustin Bizimungu, Thousands of people are still milling around who sat in a banana grove surrounded by his body- aimlessly, seemingly stunned by the disaster. Amid guards and proceeded to try to convince me thai he the crowd two young girls begin to follow us. I pay was never a Hutu extremist, that he was a man of little attention, but the younger, perhaps eight peace, who only wanted to negotiate a return home years old, clings to my jacket, while the older girl, and a share in the power for the Hutu majority. who cannot be more than 14, follows closely Aid workers have been questioned repeatedly behind. They smile, but never utter a word. It's only about why the international community should then, when I look more closely that I realize that spend millions of dollars to feed, house, and take the young girl has an open flesh wound, a bullet care of these refugees, many of whom were implicat- hole in her cheek and the older girl's right arm has ed in outright genocide. But, perhaps Lynda 11 Sachs been ripped open to the bone by shrapnel. The was right. What choice was there? Among the killers bleeding has stopped, the girls are apparently in in the camps were also the many innocents, women shock, but still they run beside me as if afraid I and children, who had done nothing to deserve this. might disappear in the crowd. There is no time for It was impossible not to think of the two little O debate now. We bundle the wounded girls and the wounded girls and the two orphaned babies taken a two orphaned babies into a van and make foi the from the border to the French hospital at Goma air- DC airport. I deliver the children to the French army port lust a few months earlier. I found myself unable doctors and then head back into town. to go to the orphanages. I could not bear to see the Goma is in chaos. An estimated 1 million Hutu children or come to grips with the fact that i would refugees have by now crossed over the border into never find those two little girls, whose names or fate this small town, They've camped out in every square, 1 will never know, but whose faces still haunt me. O AE Pioneering Africa's Researc

AFRICA IS SLOWLY CARVING OUT A ROLE IN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF AIDS, THE CONTINENT WHERE THE DISEASE IS MOST PREVALENT. A PIONEER IN THE FIELD IS MBOUP (PHOTO), A PROFESSOR OLOGY IN SENEGAL AND ONE OF RERS OF THE HIV-2 VIRUS. HIS AFRICAN COLLEAGUES IN THE IAVE BEEN ABLE TO BROADEN DGE OF AIDS IN AFRICA BY FI..Y WITH THEIR COUNTERPARTS Hb COLLABORATION HAS BEEN A By WILSON WA N E N E

[J- R CLJ±

Scenes From a Nightmare

er name is lustine. With her intricately seen," she says with a tone of urgency and she begins plaited hair and short skirt, she looks to pour out the story of how her entire family was far younger than 23. Her eyes are killed in the ethnic massacres that began last April slightly glazed and her speech is after the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana. slurred, maybe from the one too many 'My whole family is dead, it's just me left—my father, beers she's had this evening. Maybe my mother, my brothers, and my sisters—it's just me she's just one of the many prostitutes that frequent left here in the world," she says. Perhaps the fact that Kigali's main disco, "Kigali Night." But. there is some- she managed to survive only adds to the painful thing about this young woman, something that no memories. amount of alcohol, seductive clothing, or swaying on lustine says she was not with her family when the the dance floor can hide. Sitting on the patio of the massacres broke out, she was living with a Belgian club, she grabs my arm as we listen to the downpour friend, and that alone, plus the fact that she is a of the rain. Tutsi, made her a prime target for the Hutu militias 01 "I have a lot of worries with all the things I've that came around on daily killing sprees back then. She says she managed to survive because when her Sonja Pace is the Voice of America correspondent based in Paris. She has been covering African issues since the early 1980s and was VOA's correspondent for Belgian friend was evacuated, he at least left her W?s! and Central Africa, based in Abidjan, between 1985-89. The views some money, enough to pay off the militias to spare expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views ofVOAorthe U.S. government. her life She speaks of weeks of hiding, of no food, of ight years ago, the World Health Orga- The African researchers work closely with Phyllis ]. nization (WHO) was in the early stages Kanki, another member of the team and an associate of charting out the AIDS epidemic in professor of pathobiology at the Harvard School of .West Africa. Senegal and Cote d'lvoire Public Health where the AIDS Institute's labs are had significant amounts of published located. Working with her, the Senegalese have ! data, but little was known of the other developed crucial lab skills and cost-saving meth- 13 countries. In Benin, for instance, the country's ods. They can separate DNA from white blood cells ministry of public health needed help to produce a infected with HIV-2. A test for H1V-1 or HIV-2 infec- short-term AIDS combat and surveillance plan. WHO tion costs at least $ 1 each per person when provided sent Souleymane Mboup and a fellow Senegalese by foreign suppliers. An additional $25 is needed to colleague to Benin to map out a rapid AIDS epi- confirm either HIV-1 or HIV-2 infection. Today, demiological survey. In less than two weeks, they Mboup's lab has tests that screen and confirm both determined that the country had a low HIV infection viral infections for less thar 30 cents. rate. A major aim of the collaboration is to give the A European researcher was dispatched to neigh- Africans as much research control as possible. For boring Nigeria for a similar survey. Unfortunately, he example, 2,000 Senegalese prostitutes are moni- got held up in negotiations with the government tored to differentiate between HIV infection and ail- before he could even get started. A foreigner, the ments familiar to African doctors, such as typhoid, researcher was regarded with suspicion for inquiring malaria, or diarrhea. In Senegal, a prostitute over the about AIDS, which at the time was a highly sensitive age of 21 is required by the government to have a issue with many African govern- photo ID with her address and a ments. More them 2 record of mandatory health exams. For the past decade, Mboup, a The data produced from this public professor of microbiology at the million adults have health policy has proven to be School of Medicine and Pharmacy contracted AIDS extremely valuable to Mboup's lab. at the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop Senegal has one of the lowest rates (formerly University of Dakar), has in sub-Saharan of HIV infection in Africa due in part carved out a prominent role for him- Africa, according to the government's progressive self at the cutting edge of African approach toward sexually transmit- AIDS research. Most notably, he is a to WHO, a figure ted diseases which dates back to the key member of an important collab- which represents 1970s. In West Africa, Guinea-Bissau orative effort launched in 1986 that two-thirds of and Cote d'lvoire have the highest includes researchers at his universi- infection rate. ty, the Harvard AIDS Institute, and the world's total. Mboup, who is also a lieutenant- the Universities of Tours and Limo- colonel in the Senegalese army, was ges in France It was this team which first produced born in Dakar in 1951. He earned a doctorate in evidence that suggested the existence of HIV-2, the pharmacy from the Universite Cheikh Anta Diop and virus mostly prevalent in West Africa, where HIV-1 is another one in immunology from the University of also found. Tours. His affable personality can easily obscure the "Souleymane is definitely the most successful of seriousness of his work. However, Harvard and Sene- the AIDS researchers I've met in Africa with respect to galese colleagues stress his resolute commitment to both real success, understanding, and commitment, the fight against AIDS. and in proving he would stay with it for 10 years and More than 2 million adults have contracted AIDS grow from the standpoint of training others and in sub-Saharan Africa, according to WHO, a figure obtaining results," says Max Essex, chairman of the which represents two-thirds of the present world Harvard AIDS Institute and head of the collaborative total. HIV is transmitted mainly through heterosexu- group. al intercourse. "The burden is really in Africa. There Mboup is in charge of one of the most advanced are a lot of opportunities working in Africa," said diagnostic labs in Africa, the Laboratory of Bacteriol- Mboup during a recent visit to the Harvard lab. "But ogy and Virology at Le Dantec Hospital in Dakar, we have a lack of resources. We have to bring in the which was set up to study AIDS and other sexually international scientific community." transmitted diseases In a continent where medical In the winter of 1985. Mboup made his first trip to o facilities are often inadequate and overstretched, a the United States on an important mission. While on 0) the lab—with a staff of some 40 Senegalese and the trans-Atlantic flight to Kennedy International a: as other Africans—stands out for possessing capabili- Airport, he worried that a parcel he had disguised as u ties that rival any standard AIDS lab in the United a gift box would be impounded by customs. It con- States, according to Essex. tained 30 vials of blood drawn from prostitutes in Senegal who were suspected, from preliminary lab Wifeort Wanene is a freelance writer based in Somerville, Massachusetts. tests, of being infected with a new AlDS-like virus. T eG m tit

SIR DAWDA JAWARA IIN PHOTO, CENTERI HAD RULED MULTI-PARTY GAMBIA FOR 29 YEARS UNTIL HE WAS SUDDENLY OUSTED IN A COUP BY YOUNG ARMY LIEUTENANTS LAST YEAR. BUT THOSE THREE DECADES OF STABILITY UNDER A CONSUMMATE POLITICIAN DISGUISED A STAGNANT, Out COMPLACENT, SOMETIMES INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATION, RIFE WITH CORRUPTION. THE COUP WAS CHEERED BY MANY GAMBIANS, AS WAS THE ANTI-CORRUPTION DRIVE BEGUN BY THE MILITARY IUNTA. HOWEVER, THE SOLDIERS' POLITICAL INEXPERIENCE AND LESS THAN DIPLOMATIC SKILLS SUCH AS AN INITIAL ANTI-WESTERN STANCE (WHICH PROMPTED A WITHDRAWAL OF ECONOMIC AID) HAVE LEFT MANY WONDERING WHETHER THEY CAN RESTORE CONFIDENCE AND BOLSTER THE ECONOMY, Old WHICH IS VERGING ON COLLAPSE.

W. Cam obeli/Sygma £;. --*gss COUpS d'etat go, the bloodless July have developed no response to the 50 percent deval- -5«KV ---;*22 ousting of one of Africa's longest- uation last year of the ubiquitous CFA franc. Almost "''**' & ^!:, serving civilian rulers by a motley crew entirely surrounded by its francophone neighbor, „- ,^-of young soldiers was unspectacular Senegal, the Gambia had historically earned .-.v .-.vi'.- '-v-to say the least. What began as an lifeblood income from the re-export trade, whereby '^..apparent mutiny by a small group of goods shipped into the Banjul port with its relatively the 800-strong Gambia National Army (GNAl ended low tariffs would be snapped up by sub-regional with the flight of 70-year-old Sir Dawda lawara, who businessmen and driven by road to countries had led his country to independence from Britain in throughout the Sahel and West African sub-region. 1965 and had maintained nearly three decades of Where the long and porous border had thwarted largely peaceful multi-party rule in a sub-region full Senegal's repeated efforts to curb a trade it deemed of trouble. illegal and dubbed "\afraude," the decision by Africa's it was symbolic of the political and economic 14-member franc zone to devalue the CFA franc dealt stagnation in the tiny West African country of a mil- the re-export trade a potential death-blow, The rapid lion people that the old leader—who had repeatedly downturn in commodity importation in the Gambia ensured the hegemony of the ruling People's Pro- drove many an entrepreneur out of business and gressive Party (PPP) at the polls—should be dis- impinged on the cohesion of the fragile social safety placed in his twilight years by a group of youngsters with an average age of less than 30. By PETER DA COSTA In a number of ways, it was a clear-cut case of out net of the extended family system—a situation the with the old, in with the new. Yaya lammeh, self-pro- increasingly hapless government was unable to sta- claimed chairman of the Armed Forces Provisional bilize. Ruling Council (AFPRC), is 30 years old. His vice- Add to this the fact that some 60 percent of the chairman, Sana Sabally, is 29, interior minister Sadi- country's revenues came from customs duties on bou Hydara is 30, local government and lands minis- imports and the doomsday scenario was complete: a ter Yankuba Touray is 28, and defense minister monocrop (groundnuts] economy in trouble with Edward Singateh is 25. All started life in the military shrinking revenues from imports, dwindling over- junta as lieutenants. All are now self-promoted to seas development assistance, and a government captains. dependent on the goodwill of the international com- The coming of age of Yaya lammeh and his band munity which had run out of solutions. of tenacious soldiers is for the history books. A coup lawara's almost messianic image among Gam- d'etat that until the plotters were more or less inside bians—particularly in the rural areas from whence State House was assumed to be a routine military he had emerged with his PPP in the late 1950s to exercise; the mysterious and fortuitous appearance posit himself and the party as the natural heirs to offshore in the capital. Banjul, of a U.S. nava! vessel Britannia—took a serious knock among observers in which carried the ousted president and his family to December 1991, when at a PPP party congress in safety in neighboring Senegal; the popular Mansakonko he declared he was stepping down, announcement that "henceforth a new era of free- only to change his mind a few weeks later. dom, progress, democracy, and accountability will lawara, a veterinarian-turned-politician, had been be the order of the day." c. shrewd manipulator of the political scene, playing A large number of Gambians were swept away by off the various socio-ethnic constituencies in a bal- the euphoria that followed the AFPRC's radio ancing act that earned the Gambia a reputation for announcement that the coup had become a necessi- peace, stability, rule of law and respect for human ty thanks to "rampant corruption of the PPP regime rights that belied its minuscule geographic size. The over the past three decades." For a country that was country had been held up by the West as the bastion among sub-Saharan Africa's highest recipients of of multi-partyism in a continent that was still com- overseas development assistance (approximately ing to terms with self-determination, a model 5100 per capita in 1993), the slow pace of develop- democracy amid a sea of oppressive regimes. Many ment had become the subject of increasing anti-PPP now argue that lawara, in changing his mind after government tirades, as exposes of corruption hit the the Mansakonko congress, signed his own political country's fledgling and increasingly bold print death warrant and tarnished his legacy forever. 3 media. Andrew Winter, the first-posting U.S. ambassador -Q To make matters worse, the former govern- whose role in facilitating the escape of lawara and ment—awarded high Bretton Woods marks for hav- members of his cabinet and family aboard the U.S.S. ing stabilized the macro-economy with a textbook La Motor County, had several months before the coup structural adjustment program (SAP]—seemed to hinted at the dissatisfaction with the PPP regime when he urged that cases of official corruption PcU-r Jti Coslii is ifu' UiterPress Sendee's regional director for Africa based in I liira/'i1, Zimfxifwt'. should be dealt with rapidly. Several Western envoys had expressed this sentiment to lawara, amid a pro- all but humanitarian funding, continuing to fund cess of investigations into corruption many had dis- only existing projects. The U.S. is prohibited by law missed as a farce. from giving aid to unconstitutional or military The new AFPRC's anti-corruption drive is anything regimes. but a farce. It has established a number ol public Britain has sparked controversy by ordering out commissions to probe government ministries, all its nationals (who make up at least 60 percent of parastatals, the assets of senior officials, and the the 100,000-odd mainly European tourists who visit manner in which the former PPP government con- the beach paradise every yearl, saying the situa- ducted its affairs. Preliminary revelations have creat- tion—especially in light of a failed November I 1 ed a sensation, painting a picture of unbridled greed counter-coup attempt in which an indeterminate and profligacy which has raised expectations among number of army mutineers died—is patently unsafe. Gambians, who—whatever problems they may have The move, dubbed unfair by the Gambia's new with the idea of a military junta—firmly believe the tourism authorities, who have lobbied the British book should be thrown at those found to ha\e been Foreign Office to change its stance, has caused the crooked. Scandinavians to follow suit, resulting so far in the One sensational case to come to light in sittings closure of at least five beach hotels. of a commission on crude and refined oil suggests Some 2,000 of an estimated 8.000 jobs occupied that at best, lawara's government was incompetent by Gambians in the tourism industry have been lost, and at worst that it engaged in a deliberate and sus- while tourism-related industries have seen dramatic tained campaign to defraud the nation over a period changes of fortune. "I used to supply all the hotels of several years. It has been discovered that of an with meat." one Gambian businessman told Africa expected maximum revenue of some S504 million Report. "After the Brits left, I lost something like 50 (from the sale of 16.8 million barrels of crude oil percent of my customers overnight." While at least made available to the Gambia by the Nigerian gov- one British tour operator continues to fly in tourists ernment in the early 1980s), less than $3 million in defiance of the Foreign Office travel advisory, the found its way into the coffers and the records of the tourism sector—a major earner of foreign Gambian government. exchange—is dying a quick, painful death. Much like The AFPRC—which gained much popular support the initial downturn in the re-export trade that hit and alienated as many by roughing up former minis- people's bellies, the demise of tourism may yet bring ters and prominent businessmen in the coup's hungry Gambians out in the streets. immediate aftermath—may find it is the victim of its If Britain's flexing of its muscles can be attributed, prime justification for seizing power, the need to at least in part, to the pressures being exerted by the restore accountability. "The crazy thing is that a lot exiled lawara as well as fears that the AFPRC is skirt- of information is being published about alleged cor- ing dangerously close to Col. Muammar Qaddafy's ruption, yet to prove anything concrete and to trace Libya, the increasing distance Senegal is putting the money is going to be a mammoth, if not impos- between itself and the lammeh junta raises new sible task." says a senior civil servant who spoke only cause for concern. Senegal's initial open-arms wel- on condition of anonymity, come for the youthful AFPRC quintet—and its frosty "Much of this is a result of gross incompetence," reception for lawara, whom it granted initial asvlum adds the civil servant, who points to "a culture of on "humanitarian grounds"—has, say Gambia- mediocrity in the way the Gambia was run" as one of watchers, been rapidly replaced by concern verging the downsides of lawara's style of leadership. "From on paranoia. This, it is argued, is because lammeh my reading, a lot of the excesses of the pasl were hails from the lola ethnic group that inhabits the more likely committed by junior accounts officers south of the Gambia, the cousins of the Diolas from who got away with millions because their bosses the Casamance, Senegal's troubled southern were too preoccupied with living the jet-set lifestyles province in which central government has expended of senior officials with the emoluments and vast amounts of diplomatic and political energy— perquisites than with ensuring the checks and bal- not to mention military lives—in keeping the lid on ances were effective," a low-intensity war of secession. lammeh and his AFPRC have a host of bad prece- "Senegal is certainly worried about these rumors, dents in the sub-region and a host of immediate whether they are true or not," explains a Western problems. Among them is what a number of analysts donor representative based in the Senegalese capi- predict is the looming collapse of the economy in tal, Dakar. "The Gambia has always been seen as a light of the international community's almost total thorn in their side and they strongly believe, and it's pullout from the country, whose need for aid had a Fact, that whatever breakdowns in security occur in made it a case study in the geopolitics of depen- the Gambia will directly affect them." This historic dence. The European Union, urging the soldiers to fear has been behind several attempts since inde- return to barracks and restore constitutional democ- pendence to forge political union between the two racy "in the shortest possible time," has suspended countries, the latest of which was an eight-year con- Federation that failed in large part because the ruling argued, be a function of what they believe to be the Mandinka-dominated PPP feared the Gambia would junta's fundamental flaw: a profound lack of commu- be swallowed up by the Wolof-dominated Sene- nications expertise. "The biggest problem now is a galese ruling elites. In lune 1991, Senegalese troops lack of protocol," asserts the British woman who is intervened to put down a Marxist-inspired attempt- close to the diplomatic community. "Ambassadors ed coup against lawara. Now the word on the streets are approaching these guys and because there is no in the Gambia is that Senegal might invade, this system in State House, the international community time to take over. However unlikely is not getting the right signals There this scenario, the AFPRC has is no communication." warned that it will go down Fighting _i _„ Others worry about the issue of against any foreign aggressor, and human rights. "Although many are in has, according to a number of favor of the anti-corruption drive," sources, recently imported fresh says a lawyer, "there is an apparent weapons into the country. lack of due process. People are being The hopes of Gambians rest on arrested, humiliated, detained, and a consultative committee of promi- later released. Incontrovertible evi- nent citizens appointed by lammeh dence is not being sought first before to review a widely criticized four- these arrests." The AFPRC response year timetable the AFPRC had to such allegations is to allow the issued less than 100 days into its international Committee of the Red rule. The committee, chaired by a Cross to visit and interview all surgeon and staffed by a broad remaining political detainees, and to cross-section including tech- insist that most of the commissions nocrats and district chiefs, was due to report on lan- are headed by foreign jurists deemed more likely to uary 3, a date nervous and genuinely concerned be impartial. Gambians were awaiting with bated breath. As the general populace harbors deep-seated For the increasingly embattled AFPRC, one sce- fears that the country' could slide into insecurity, the nario may be a speedy return to barracks within two difficulty remains in putting ones finger on exactly years and the appointment of an interim or transi- how things stand, One civil servant's view is that tional government to shepherd the country into a "two-thirds of the army is against this coup." Balla second republic complete with enhanced multi-par- Ceesay, a resident of Bakau. eight miles from Banjul, tyism (including among other things a reorganiza- insists "things are very interesting now, there's tion of electoral practices, the creation of an inde- accountability here." But he warns that "the old pendent electoral commission, and a more guard, those now being targeted by the anti-corrup- transparent voter registration process). The fear for tion campaign, have had years of experience as a many is that should the committee advise such a network and are extremely good at setting into train way out of the current quandary, it may not neces- a whispering campaign against the army boys/' sarily be adopted by the khaki-clad crusaders. Indeed, it is clearly the new urban-based middle Optimistic government observers see the advent class—which owes its ascent to the "urban-to-rural" of the consultative committee as marking a change development model planners lawara adopted—is in the AFPRC's brash, do-or-die stance which has most put out by the advent of the AFPRC. Rural- resulted in a series of anti-Western utterances and a based Gambians are equally nervous but are unlike- general dismissal of international friends whose ly to be agitating until and unless they cannot get a inputs are deemed vital to the nation's survival. The good price for their crops. For some, some of the old conventional wisdom is that the council is taking ways have changed for the better. "Before the coup advice from lustice Minister Fafa Mbai, a respected you couldn't get a passport from the interior min- jurist who is counseling a conciliatory stance toward istry in Banjul without queuing for weeks and brib- the international community and a more participa- irg somebody." recalls Bakary larju, a resident of tory approach to military rule. A number of political Brikama, a semi-rural town which ironically was a prisoners have been released and a public relations bastion of the ousted PPP, "Now you can apply to campaign has apparently been mobilized to render the district commissioner's office and have one the AFPRC's actions more coherent. issued without even having to go to Banjul."

In general, there is a recognition, as one British Others whose disgust at the alleged excesses of O resident of the country puts it, that "something had the previous regime were compounded by their to happen and it did. The question now is whether marginalization in a patronage system under the the military are capable of and want to return to bar- PPP see the whole issue in black and white. "As far racks." This perception that the AFPRC may be insin- as I am concerned, these young military officers are cere about its initial pledge to return to barracks "as heroes," insists a former middle-level management soon as accountability has been restored" may, it is official who is now a key technocrat. O Mboup was on his way to deliver the samples to Mbowa R Kalengayi, the chairman of the depart- Essex, whom he had gotten to know through a ment of pathology at the University of Kinshasa French colleague, for confirmation. Since at this Medical School. The 728-page book gathers the work point only one viral strain was known to exist with of more than 70 AIDS specialists from Africa, certainty—HIV-1—the implications of the blood Europe, and North America. Since it costs $202 to samples in the parcel were vital to AIDS research. order and ship a copy to Africa, the editors and After some routine questions, Mboup. with his authors have waived all royalties in order to help the inconspicuous piece of luggage in hand, walked publisher distribute it at no cost to African through the airport gates. The Harvard-Senegal link researchers and clinicians unable to afford it. was established. Mboup's work on AIDS extends beyond research, in "He's a very special kind of person. He's really an 1991. he chaired the Sixth International Conference intelligent guy. He follows the field in a very consci- on AIDS in Africa, which was held in Dakar and entious manner," states Kanki, who isolated the new brought together about 2,000 researchers from 45 virus, in reflecting on Mboup's contribution through- African and 34 other countries "We wanted to show out the collaboration. "He has a very broad view that Africans could organize something," said Mboup. which is very important." Mboup, Essex, He shook his head as he recalled the exhaustive task. Kanki, and a French colleague were excited "This was the first conference organized by Africans but also tense as they broke the news of themselves." Though the meeting had been held their preliminary findings at the Interna- in Africa twice before, Mboup's was origi- tional Symposium on African AIDS in nal in other ways as well. It had Brussels in November 1985. Their strong support from his hunch was that they were onto some- government; a special- thing big, but more fieldwork was ly produced film, line needed. How widespread was the Conversation. was virus? Did it cause AIDS faster? screened urging Africans Additional study confirmed not to stigmatize AIDS vic- that they had indeed hit upon a tims; and a daily eight-page new virus, confined mostly to conference newspaper, Le West Africa, that was genetical- Baobab, was published in ly between one found in English and French. healthy green African mon- Some of Mboup's Sene- keys and HIV-1, as it is now galese colleagues have man- called. The new virus, later aged to widen their knowledge named HIV-2. was more by enrolling at the Harvard similar to the monkey School of Public Health and are virus yet. like HIV-1, it still contributing to the collabora- struck the human tive work. lean-Louis Sankale, the immune system through T- colleague who accompanied him on cells, white blood cells. And there the 1987 Benin trip, is now pursuing a was a major paradox: Those infected with doctorate in virology. Ibou Thior, a med- HIV-2 in Senegal did not appear to get sick. Since ical doctor, did the clinical follow-up on these findings, the most important question for the prostitutes for the eight-year HIV-2 Mboup and the rest of the team has been how HIV-2 study. He is now on a Fogarty fellowship, which is differs from HIV-1 and whether this knowledge can designed to train health care workers and biomedi- eventually lead to an AIDS vaccine. cal researchers from developing countries in epi- In an article published in Science, this past demiology and lab skills. Having received all his September, the collaborators argue that HIV-2 is less previous education in Senegal, he sees African virulent than HIV-1. which stalks the whole conti- medical training as understandably designed to nent, especially Central and East Africa. Their con- produce primary care providers. Little attention is clusion is based on an eight-year natural history paid to epidemiology which stresses research and study of the HIV-2 virus they conducted on prosti- data-collecting skills. tutes registered at the Institute d'Hygiene Sociale Mboup's medical school, for instance, has a pub- clinic in Dakar. Women with HIV-1 had a 67 percent lic health department, but no unit that deals with likelihood of not developing AIDS five years after epidemiology. Thior is excited to be able to take infection, while those with HIV-2 had a 100 percent courses such as "Epidemiology of Cardiovascular chance. The reason for this is probably a lower viral Diseases" and "Design of Case-Control and Cohort burden with HIV-2 infection. But they caution that Studies." For this, he is grateful to Mboup. "I think more clinical evaluations are needed he is a very collaborative and positive person in AIDS in Africa was published in 1993 by Raven terms of advice," he says. "He put a lot of trust in me. Press and is edited by Mboup, Essex, Kanki, and I had a lot of responsibility." O interviGw NANA KONADU AGYEMAN RAWLINGS BY MARGARET A. NOVICKI

A First Among First Ladies

Ghana's First Lady is renowned for legislation and in bringing about both in Africa and abroad for changes in government policies that having launched—and having defend their interests, stayed actively involved in—an During a stay in the United States activist grassroots women's where she was a fellow at Johns organization, the 2 million-strong Hopkins University and was honored 31st December Women's Movement, by the African-American Institute which focuses on integrated rural for her achievements, Mrs, Rawlings development. An ardent champion spoke to Africa Report about the of the rights of Ghanaian women, changes the Movement has brought Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings about in the lives of Ghana's women has been instrumental in lobbying and children.

Africa Report: First Ladies in Africa often get involved change, then we must have strict objectives. After two in so-called "women's issues," but their involvement meetings, we decided to have objectives that cut tends to be superficial. You, on the other hand, are across, since there were several issues which affected deeply involved in a grassroots movement which has women. Another group had the name, 31st December made an actual impact on women's lives. What moti- Women's Movement, already, so we joined with them vated you to launch the 31 st December Women's Move- and started working out the objectives, then talking to ment? the women about them. Rawlings: At the turn of 1981-1982, a couple of women It was clear that there was a problem with women in came to me and said that since we were going through the country, not because Ghanaian women didn't know this change in the country, we should also get together their rights or didn't have a say per se, but they were and form a women's organization. So we started having just not organized into any serious group or in any o formidable way that could make them actually stand up a meetings, at first with some of the progressive women

FACT THAT THERE ARE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DISPARITIES BETWEEN MEN

AND WOMEN, AS WELL AS SYSTEMATIC GENDER DISCRIMINATION, AND

URGED AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS TO STOP P^-I\:~ n\iv : ir — pvirr- TO THE PROBLEMS. By COLLEEN LOWE MORNA

OISE, NOISE. NOISE," grumbled a on Women, which will take place in Beijing this year. male Congolese passenger on the But the challenge, she told Africa Rcpon (see *• Air Afrique flight from lohannesburg accompanying interview), is how to "capitalize on to Dakar packed with southern this energy" so that when African women meet again African delegates to the fifth Region- a decade from now, their scorecard is slightly more sasse; al Conference on African Women in encouraging than in the recent past. the Senegalese capital. "Everywhere you look there According to a report by the Economic Commis- are women," the irate gentleman continued, "and sion for Africa lECAl, which acted as the secretariat everywhere you go there is noise." for the conference, while African women are better "Well, you had better get used to it," responded organized than they were at the last global confer- Zambian gender activist Sarah Longwe, who had set ence for women in Nairobi in 1985, they are poorer, up a bazaar at the back of the aircraft to sell NCO and no better represented in government- inon-government organization! T-shirts, buttons, Organizational problems, including frequent and reports championing the cause of African changes of schedule and venues at the NCO forum; women. "From now on," she said to cheers from a full day power-cut at the meeting of technical other women passengers, "this is the way it is going experts, which preceded the ministerial meeting; to be." and inefficiency by the secretariat in incorporating For sheer energy, creativity, color, style, and and translating changes to the draft plat- rhythm, few gatherings could have matched the form of action, which formed the center- November 16 to 23 Dakar conference, which brought piece of the Dakar conference, detracted together a record 3.000 African women from around from the debate on these crucial issues. the continent, They came from capital cities, New In addition, many NGO representatives York, London, and Paris, as well as from some of the were disappointed at the failure to deal remotest villages on the continent. Air connections head on with the many contradictions being what they are in Africa, some had to travel between customary law and modern writ- three days to make the trip. With only 2,500 hotel ten constitutions, which leads to practices beds in Dakar, many had to sleep on floors, some like polygamy, bride price, female genital even in hotel lobbies, while accommodation was mutilation, and lack of access to property being sorted out. rights for women still pervasive in many Formal speech-giving was punctuated by song, African countries. dance, and ululation. At the closing of the NGO "We have reached a recognition that Forum, which preceded the formal meeting, women there are gender disparities and systemat- from Guinea, clad in matching traditional dress, ic gender discrimination," reflected Zam- asked for the floor to make a presentation, in absen- bia's Longwe, who is co-partner with her tia, to South Africa's President Nelson Mandela for husband in a gender consulting firm, as the pride and hope he has brought to Africa. Women well as being an executive of several Zam- from around the continent joined them on the stage bian NGOs concerned with women's in an impromptu song demanding health, wealth, rights. However, she says. African govern- and peace. ments "are paying lip service to the solu- If there is one remarkable difference in African tions, hoping that no one will notice that nothing is women over the last decade, it is the degree to actually happening." which they have begun to vocalize their grievances, The efforts by African governments to implement commented Gertrude Mongella, United Nations the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies adopted secretary-general for the fourth World Conference worldwide in 1985 have not been encouraging.

Colleen Lowe Morna is a Zimbabwean freelance journalist based in Soulh Among the problems bedeviling the continent, Africa who has written widely on African political and economic issues which continue to prevent women from realizing their full potential, the following are highlighted in school enrollments, this has been at the primary conference literature: rather than secondary school level. Even then, with •Efforts to redress gender inequities have coin- an enrollment rate of 83 percent for boys as com- cided with IMF and World Bank-sponsored structural pared to 61 percent for girls. African boys clearly adjustment programs in many African countries. have an advantage over girls. According to the ECA, Despite efforts to cushion the effects of such pro- in 1990 the median literacy rate for women was 38 grams on the poor, this sector of society has suffered percent, compared to 50 percent for all adults in the most as a result of cuts in social expenditure, job sub-Saharan Africa. losses in parastatals, cuts in subsidies on basic • The maternal mortality rate in Africa in 1993 was foods, and the abolition of price controls. Because 690 per 100,000, almost double that of low-and mid- women are at the bottom of the socioeconomic lad- dle-income developing countries, AIDS has emerged der, they have had to bear the worst brunt of struc- as a new and frightening threat to the limited gains that were being made in the health sector. According to the World Health Organization (WHOI, as a result of the widespread practice of African men having more than one sexual partner, and often refusing to use condoms, the number of new HIV infections among women in most African countries outstrips men by six to five. More than 6 million women of child-bearing age have been infected. In some major

Dianng Bailey/UN cipants at African urban cenrers, the the Regional Conference WHO notes, one out of every on African Women three women attending Left, the ONIFEM booth antenatal clinics is HIV-posi- Above, women hold the tive. conference banner • In accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, most African governments provide for gender equality in their constitutions. But 20 African countries have stili not ratified the 1981 Convention on the Elimi- nation of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Those that have done so have reg- tural adjustment. More have hc< n lurceci into the so- istered numerous reservations to the Convention, called "informal sector," but even there, women run which "condemns discrimination against women in the lowest-return ventures, such as selling food- all its forms" and whose signatories agree "to pursue stuffs on sidewalks. Women, according to the ECA, by all appropriate means, without delay, a policy of earn only 10 percent of the income from formal eliminating discrimination against women," employment, and own only 1 percent of Africa's The reality in most African countries is that mod- assets. ern constitutions exist side by side with customary •To the extent that there has been an increase in and relieious laws which condemn women to minor- ity status all their lives: first under their fathers, then The highest percentage of women in an African their husbands, and as widows, under sons or broth- parliament is in South Africa, where one-quarter of ers-in-law, Few countries have had the courage to the 400 House of Assembly seats are held by women outlaw traditional practices that are in conflict with MPs. However, this is because the African National modern constitutions, such as bride price female Congress (ANC]—the majority party—had a quota genital mutilation, and the denial of property rights. of one-third of its candidates being women in an • Despite the sweep toward multi-party politics election fought on a proportional representation across Africa, women are only marginally better rep- basis. There are only two women ministers, and two resented in politics, prompting Mebo Mwaniki. the women deputy ministers, in President Mandela's head of the ECA's African Center for Women, to com- cabinet. ment that "democratization in Africa has started •Many of the fragile gains on the political and without women." A study of 26 African counties car- economic front have been negated by the two dozen ried out by the ECA showed that, over the decade, wars that have afflicted the continent over the last political representation had increased from 7.65 to two decades. Haifa dozen conflicts are still ravaging only 7.77 percent. the continent. Despite objections by Nigeria, whose In Botswana, regarded as one of Africa s most military government is resisting pressures to allow democratic countries, the number of women in Par- multi-party elections to take place in the country, liament increased from two to three out of :J8 after the Dakar Platform of Action states: "Unfortunately, this year's elections—but only as a result of the the number of African countries in political turmoil president using his prerogative to nominate two is or\ the increase, with many such cases manifesting women to positions. According to the ECA, this themselves in the form of disputes over election story is repeated elsewhere, leaving only a handful results and halting the democratization process." of African women who have actually contested and Women, it was agreed, suffer most from these ongo- won elections. ing conflicts. According to the platform, women and Gertrude Mongella Janzanias Gertrude MongeUti ashed not to be inter- comparison to the others, and where do things viewed in lite bedroom of her <>t tin- Pr.^idftttstand now with reparH t<"< preparations for Beijing? Meridieit Hotel in Dakar wilt Mongella: Its like a race. As she was attending the fifi.- • <<-,-. io an end, you start Regional Conference on African anting, but you can't stop, Women. She did not wisli to give our goal is in sight. You feel the impression to the world, she t. You are almost there. This said, "that I a HI tired and in -ist regional conference has need oj rest." een the largest, and I have To anyone who has in een overwhelmed by the nrririutfs, motherly, str nergy of African women. lalliiiuj UN secretary-gen*. ,x,, hese are not the same peo- for the fourth World Conference e who were being character- on Women to be held in Beijing ss weak and vulnerable ne\t year, this hardly seems •- in i.--..ni-K ,-u'o. The chal- possible. Chairperson of the iiat in Bei- third World Conference v n this Women in Nairobi in 198 uith a Mongella was plucked from her concise, action-oriented last assignment as Tanzania's high commissioner to \iufia by Africa Report: Although you the UN secretary-general to >me from Airica, and clearly lead all the iruiirfii oj the world .ive an empathy with the con- to Beijing. Conscious oj tU sent, it is your duty to repre- huge responsibility she carries, and Hu <>;;. world. Do you find this diffi- she has brought to African women. Mongella simply won't allow herself to get tired—as she revealed in a Mongella: -2re are clear geographical and devel- wide-ranging interview with Africa Report. :-5 to the types of problems ijndatnental problem of gen- Africa Report: N the fifr -.: same. For example, ,„. ..nd last in looking for dishwashers, jing. How do you view the Afii • looking for water with children constitute 80 percent of the 7 million to the conference that the country was not all made refugees in Africa, as well as the bulk of the 25 mil- up of warlords. Ordinary people—especially women lion internally displaced persons. and children—were crying out for peace, If the Dakar conference came out loud and clear Although government experts did not accept an on any one subject, it was the need for African gov- NGO suggestion, in their critique of the original ernments to cut back on military expenditure, and draft platform of action, that aid to African countries for African peoples to stop killing each other, in just be tied to the ratio between military and social about every one of her speeches, Mongella referred expenditures, they did call on African governments to the $8 billion spent by African governments on to redirect military expenditure into improving sci- arms each year. Calling the arms trade between ence and technology, especially for women. Africa and the rest of the world "a new slave They accepted an NGO suggestion which trade...unethical and immoral," the former Tanzani- strengthens the 1993 Kampala Action Plan on an minister had this to say at the opening ceremony: Women and Peace (the first such declaration by "Think what it would mean to rural women and African women on this subject) by demanding that children if some of these funds could be reallocated African governments ensure gender parity in peace to provide clean water, health care, schools and negotiations and conflict resolution. housing...Think what it would mean to the millions The Platform of Action breaks new ground with a of refugees, the majority of whom are women and section devoted to the 'girl child," a recent Unicef children, if they could return to their homes/' catch-phrase which emphasizes the importance of Throughout the conference, women from crisis-rid- gender equity starting at an early age, with girls den countries like Rwanda, Mozambique, and Soma- given an equal opportunity to go to school; their lia spoke out on the need for peace at a UNIFEM- work loads reduced: traditional practices harmful to sponsored peace tent. Somali women, through the health eliminated; and sex education made avail- UNDP representative in their country, sent a message able to avoid teenage pregnancies.

which to wash dishes, but both groups of women reluctant to ratify this convention. If, as most con- are washing dishes. stitutions now state, men and women are equal, Africa Report: One of your initiatives has been to what is the difficulty with ratifying CEDAW? ,outh in the process of the preparation for Africa Report: Many NGOs feel that the African Beijing. How effective has this strategy been? Platform of Action is ambivalent on matters relat- Mongella: The youth are excellent, superb. They ing to negative aspects of tradition and culture in ii idden agenda. They call a spade a spade the effort to achieve gender equity. What is your and not a big spoon. The youth see themselves as view? Shouldn't the document come out and con- the ones who implement the Platform of Action, demn ^ome of these practices? because they are the adults of tomorrow. For the Mongella: Condemnation and attack are not the youth, gender discrimination is not really an issue. right approach when dealing with culture and tra- They play together; they respect each other and they dition. You have to approach the issue through dis- don't look down on each other. So the question cussion and persuasion. Culture is not static: It is becomes, at what age does it become an issue? evolving all the time. You can legislate against tra- Africa Report: Have you been given sufficient sup- ditional practices, but unless the reasons are port and resources by the UN in the tasks that con- understood, these laws will be ignored. That is why front YOU? tradition is strong: why you can't break a tradition Mongella: I have a small staff, and they work day and rest in peace. If you make laws that people and night, without complaining. But I think the UN don't understand and agree with, they will break has to think very seriously about strengthening them without feeling guilty; they might not even resource allocations for the work that has to be know that they exist. done after the Beijing conference, to ensure that Africa Report: What is your message to African pol- what is resolved there is carried forward. • < •• is they approach the Beijing confer- Africa Report; Some 20 African governments have ence? sun noi rarmed the Convention on the Elimination Mongella: That if we are not careful, Africa will be X> of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women nd in the 2 1st century and become a liability u. (CEDAW). What is your view on this? for the international community. Women provide an Mongella: CEDAW is one of the legal instruments exit to development: They are part of the solution, that can make a difference for African women if not the problem. They have saved the continent governments ratify and apply its provisions. If gov- from the scourges of structural adjustment. They ernments are willing to agitate for the dismantling can help to lead Africa to peace and prosperity.! of apartheid, then I don't see why they should be —C.L.M. f

Betty Press

WHILE AFRICAN WOMEN ARE BETTER ORGANIZED THAN EVER BEFORE, THEY ARE POORER, AND ONLY MARGINALLY BETTER REPRESENTED IN GOVERNMENT, THAT WAS THE MESSAGE AT THE FIFTH REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON AFRICAN WOMEN.,. This section of the Platform of only "urged" to ratify CEDAW. but Action was also inspired by the over The Platform of not given a time limit within which 100 NGOs convened by the Nairobi- to do so. Those with reservations based African Women's Develop- Action suggested are not asked to withdraw them in ment and Communication Network that some of Africa's the Platform of Action. (Femnet) prior to the formal meet- huge international The contradictions that arise ing. Despite some infighting and from the dual legal system that organizational problems, the NGOs debt burden be exists in many African countries produced a critique of the Draft turned into were not addressed. While the Platform of Action, as well as their manifestations of these, such as own Plan of Action, based on the 45 resources that traditional practices harmful to the workshops held at the NGO Forum. would enhance the health of women, are acknowl- The Platform of Action stresses edged, there was no undertaking by access by girls to education as key economic stake of governments to outlaw such prac- to reducing population growth on African women. tices. the continent; to women's partici- I 1 In a paragraph that left most del- pation in politics; and to economic egates baffled, and can be interpret- empowerment. With regard to IMF and World ed any way governments want, the platform states: Bank-sponsored structural adjustment programs, "Social, cultural, and traditional practices shouid be the platform comes up with the novel suggestion, reformed toward a common civil code that upholds again at the prodding of the NGOs, that some of the dignity of women as equal partners with men in Africa's huge international debt burden be turned the family, including the removal of gender bias in into resources to finance projects that would matters of marriage, divorce, custody, and property enhance the economic stake of African women. rights." In the section on political empowerment, the But, in the assessment of the thousands who platform falls short of calling for quotas, but urges flocked to Dakar, all is not lost In the logistical and governments to "establish mechanisms and other problems experienced at the conference, many strengthen chances for women's full and equal par- participants found their voices and realized they ticipation and equitable representation at all levels were not powerless. of the political process." In an unprecedented press statement at such a To the disappointment of many NGO representa- gathering, heads of delegation from Swaziland, tives, especially the pan-African Women in Law and Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa protested Development in Africa group, governments were against being barred by Senegalese security forces from entering the conference center for the official opening after Senegal's President Abdou Diouf had entered the room. Deploring the treatment as "downright degrad- ing," the ministers said it was "ironic that a confer- ence dedicated to equality, development, and peace shouid be marred by exclusion, harassment, and disempowerment of women." South African NCOs decried what they called the gender insensitivity of the conference arrangements, pointing to women speakers being cut short, while HISTORIC AFRICAN LIBRARY male speakers, who included the executive secretary Late Yale Professor Harry Rudin (1898-1994) of the ECA, Layashi Yaker, and African Development 500 Volumes covering Pre-WWl to 1990, Bank President Babacar Ndiaye, spoke for lengthy political and sociological: colonization thru periods. independence of African nations. A daily newspaper published by the New Delhi- Mostly Priced SI - $3 based Women's Feature Service carried a complaint No title listing available, bulk orders can be by Femnet President Njoki Wainana on NGOs being placed by calling 1-800-ELI-YALE, Kai sidelined from the official proceedings, and not o Cornelio, or (203) 787-2506, Richard Ballard. being given a chance to speak at opening and clos- a ing ceremonies. Illllllllllllllll African women, the paper commented, appeared to have taken a cue from one of Mongella's favorite < Illllllllllllllll lines, "calling a spade a spade and not a big spoon " What remained was to convert this energy and self- o 77 Broadway • New Haven, CT 0651 criticism into a better life for African women. O a funny thing, culture. "Culture is at both the beginning and the end of Three Africans have won the Nobel development," said Philippe Sawadogo, Fespaco's -.""v?? ^^.." Prize in Literature in the past eight secretary-general. "We must see it as part of our a1ttW yy.^r-i^ years. Western rock stars have brought identity. It is the common place where al! our people African musicians a wider internation- can come together and discuss things. We often i-„.--•.• -^...al audience then ever before. African think of economics and politics, but we must think dance troupes find an enthusiastic audience when of culture as equally important—-that's why we're they tour the U.S. But ask even an ardent film lover working so hard on this." to name the African directors who have won plaudits "And I think we have to work very hard," he contin- from critics worldwide in recent years, and you'll ued. "Africans have a lot to tell in terms of our histo- probably draw a blank. ry and culture that is not very well known. One friend What a paradox, then, that African film is the sub- of mine in the French film industry says We have a ject of an affair at the end of February that many now creativity crisis in European film.' Perhaps we can consider the continent's leading cultural event. It's reroute our creativity there to help solve it. just as called the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film Festival, Africa's music has given the world so many sounds, or Fespaco. Held every two years in Burkina Faso's and its art was so influential at the beginning of the capital city, this year's 25th anniversary extravaganza century with Gauguin and Picasso." version runs from February 25-March 4. Twc years Today's bustling activity is a far cry from the early ago, a reported 400.000 cinema enthusiasts flocked days of Fespaco, which began with nothing more in for the 200 films that were shown. than an informal conversation between a few In 1993, the throngs included 3,500 foreigners friends. There were no filmmakers among them. In representing 71 different countries, among them fact, only a handful of African films had then been African-American luminaries like director |ohn Sin- made. gleton \B0y2 N ike Hood), novelist Alice Walker [The Nevertheless, five people came together in Ouaga Color Purple), and singer Tracy Chapman. This year's one day in 1968—three local journalists, a govern- version promises the most ambitious schedule ever, ment official, and a representative of the French Cul- including the first participation by South Africa and tural Center. They wondered together about the a historical retrospective marking outsiders' visions potential of an indigenous film industry to commu- of Africa in films from 1895 to 1960. nicate independent Africa's identity to the rest of the "I've heard it said that it's the biggest single world. event, period, that brings people to Africa," said Fes- France by then had redefined the boundaries of paco veteran Cornelius Moore of California News- world cinema through the work of New Wave direc- reel, a San Francisco non-profit that distributes tors like Godard, Truffaut, and others. More so than video cassettes of African films in the U.S. "The only Britain or the U.S.. it had developed an acceptance comparable other things are the OAU meeting, but of film as art as well as entertainment, and was inter- it's only people from the governments that go to ested in cultivating the same taste in its ex-colonies. that, and the African-American summit, which may The French ministry of cooperation adopted a have more from abroad but not as many overall. To goal of demonstrating the existence of "an African have the biggest singie thing that draws people to cinema, which was made in Africa, by Africans, on Africa at one time be a film festival is really saying African subjects." It quickly became the biggest pro- something." ducer of African film, doing so at a time when Lon- What little hotel space the city has fills up far in don's funding for media development in anglophone advance, sending organizers scurrying to arrange Africa instead primarily supported local radio and lodging in people's homes for festival-goers. Local television. Consequently, it was francophone film- theater space may not be up to Cannes standards, makers who could find enough external funding to but visitors to past Fespacos say the week's creative make the earliest African feature films. They contin- energy more than makes up for its lack of facilities. ue to dominate the field today, although peers from That energy goes not into commercializing film as Ghana. Zimbabwe, and a few other nations are slow- a mass entertainment vehicle, but developing its ly joining their ranks. potential to preserve Africa's unfiltered view of itself. The founders obtained enough French support to The works shown are primarily art films without organize an initial event in Ouaga in 1969 that they large audiences at home or abroad, But no matter called Africa Cinema Week. It drew 10,000 people to how hard it is to raise funds, or how long it takes view new films from five African countries—Senegal, them to finish a picture, the African filmmakers res- Mali, Cameroon, Niger, and the host country, then paco celebrates are here to stay. More than any known as Upper Volta. other reason, experts say, that is because of the work According to Howard University expert Franchise that has been done in Ouaga over the years. Pfaff, full-length African filmmaking had only begun the year before with the release of Senegalese direc- Rob Wrigfit, a Washington, D.C.-based writer and film buff, visited Burkina Vnso in Howmber 1994. tor Ousmane Sembene's Mandabi (Wolof for The Money Order). A former railroad worker, soldier, and traditional morality overtakes the urban thief Samba longshoreman/trade unionist on the docks of Mar- as he returns to his native village. There he pursues seilles, Sembene had earlier published several nov- Saratou. a beautiful single mother who becomes a els in French. But since the early 1960s, he had con- far more challenging target than the gas station he sidered film the best vehicle for bringing his artistic robbed in the opening scene. vision and Marxist social critique to a wider audi- Ouedraogo used many nonprofessional actors to ence in his own country, Using the language most tell the story, which he gave a universal appeal by people spoke was an obvious first step, and one oth- "taking care to give emotional truth to the image." ers elsewhere on the continent would eventually fol- Americans who see it will find Africa to be much less low. distant than they once thought. Widely considered the father of modern African "The emotions and feelings described are univer- film, Sembene was the key director featured at the sal and not a product of the setting," the screenwrit- first Ouaga film fest. Today there are several African er/director has said- "I wanted to produce a very filmmakers who win high praise from international open film that could very easily have taken place critics, and Fespaco has become the essential place anywhere else." to discover their work. With consistent support over The juried competition in Fespaco has grown to the years from the Burkinabe government and Euro- include categories for shorts, documentaries, tech- pean donors, the event has also spawned the conti- nical considerations, and even a Paul Robeson Prize nent's only film library and training school. for films made by directors of African descent world- "This is the premier festival for people of African wide. All is in a spirit, festival organizers say, of mak- descent worldwide People come from the U.S., ing "Africa known in its true light." since "no one Britain, other parts of Europe, the West Indies," said ignores the negative effect that some images made Cornelius Moore, preparing to go to his third Fespa- about the black world have had so far, and how they co. "The idea of being in Africa at a cultural event run have helped set universal norms against Africa and by Africans is an empowering thing." its diaspora." Seeing little chance of support from Hollywood, Sadly, the works shown at Fespaco still have Moore's group has built up a library of classic mod- only a tiny audience, both inside Africa and out ern African films for distribution to schools, Language barriers and prohibitive dubbing costs libraries, museums, and the like. generally keep them from being shown in African High on its list is Malian director Souleymane countries other than their own. And no commercial Cisse, whose 1987 film Yeleen [Brightness in Bambara)distributor has yet found a way to market them has been termed "one of the great experiences of successfully in the West. Consequently, much of world cinema" by the Los Angeles Times and "an aston- the week in Ouaga is devoted to meetings between ishing work of great virtuosity" by The Village Voice. emerging African filmmakers and European or In it, Cisse reaches far back into his country's rich American supporters, who try to find them an oral tradition to tell the ancient story of a son's 300- audience. mile trek across the Sahel fleeing an evil father Typical of them is a Sierra Leonean-born New sworn to kill him Highly skilled in visual narrative Yorker, Mahen Bonetti. For her, the 1993 Fespaco and not afraid of addressing the role of fetishism in was a springboard to organizing the first New York West African society, Cisse is the only two-time win- African Film Festival, which honored Sembene, at ner of Fespaco's top prize, the cslalon ("stallion"). He Lincoln Center. The event is now being held on an won in 1979 for Baara {Labor) and again in 1983 for annual basis, and in 1995 will travel to cities across Finye [The Wind), but has not made another film since the U.S. She spends much of her time raising the Yeleen. foundation support needed to bring African cine- Fespaco itself can take considerable credit for ma's themes and images to American audiences. Burkina Faso's most prominent cultural figure, Idris- "They can take our diamonds away from us and sa Ouedraogo. The Hew York Times called his work every other material resource, but not our culture," "enormously sophisticated," hailing him as "both she said. "We have to hold on to something. Man distinctly African and brilliantly universal, and does not survive without culture." among the most accomplished of contemporary More than anything else, that sums up the event's filmmakers." reason for being. (0 Ouedraogo was discovered at Fespaco, attended "Fespaco is working for cultural integration, which D its cinematography school before going on to study beyond Africa embraces the black diaspora through- filmmaking in Paris, and in 1987 saw his first feature out the world," Philippe Sawadogo has written. "It LL. film Yaaba {Grandmother in Morel presented at does so with true images of a black civilization which Cannes. By 1991, he was winning the esUilon in Fespa- has suffered too much raping, too much theft, and co for Tilai {The Law). His latest film, Samba Tmore, many handicaps and insults during the past cen- made with support from several European sources, times. Fespaco is therefore taking an active part in the took the 1993 Silver Bear in Berlin. It depicts the way restoration of black civilization through images." O C Lute AFRICA'S

THE OUAGADOUGOU PAN-AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL (FESPACO) IS BACK IN BURKINA FASO'S CAPITAL IN FEBRUARY—AND THIS YEAR IT CELEBRATES ITS SILVER ANNIVERSARY. IN 1969, WHEN THERE WAS ONLY ONE FEATURE-LENGTH AFRICAN FILM, OUAGA KICKED OFF ClNEMA WEEK, AN EFFORT TO PROMOTE AFRICA'S CULTURAL IDENTITY. IT IS BECAUSE OF FESPACO'S WORK OVER 25 YEARS THAT AFRICAN FILMMAKERS, WHOSE MOVIES ARE DISTINCTIVELY AFRICAN, USING Top, Burklnabe directoridrissa INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES, AND ARE NOT MONEY-MAKERS EITHER Ouedraogo Philippesawadogo. ON THE CONTINENT OR ABROAD, THAT THIS EXPRESSION OF Fespaco secretary- general AFRICAN CULTURE HAS FLOURISHED. By ROB WRIGHT 1994 INDEX AUTHOR INDEX Adams, Paul "Nigeria: The army calls the tune," Jan-Feb 47 Lewis, Peter, 'The politics of economics," May-Jun 47 "Nigeria: The deepening stalemate," Jul-Aug 62 Machel, Graca, "Mozambique: Women after war," Jul-Aug 58 "Nigeria: Reign of the generals," Nov-Dec 26 Mazrui, Ali A., "A griot's tale," Sept-Oct 28 Africa, Louise, "Full circle in the life of a South African," Meldrum, Andrew, "Mozambique: Repatriating the refugees," Jul-Aug 28 Mar-Apr 46 Barnes, James, "Gabon: The tainted win," Mar-Apr 67 "Madagascar: Trouble in paradise," Mar-Apr 61 Bickel, Sam, and Prendergast, John, "Sudan: Scorched-earth "Malawi: New actors, same play?," Jul-Aug 52 war," May-Jun 37 "Mozambique: On deadly gro jnd," Jul-Aug 55 Bryden, Matt, "Somalia: Status quo ante?," May-Jun 18 "The stone sculptors of Zimbabwe," Jul-Aug 69 "Somaliland: Fiercely independent," Nov-Dec 35 "Southern Africa: The unifying process," Sept-Oct 64 "President Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal [of Somaliland]: "Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe" (interview), Going it alone" (interview), Nov-Dec 41 Sept-Oct 70 Burkhalter, Holly, "Rwanda: A preventable horror?," Nov-Dec 17 "Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania" (interview), Carolus. Cheryl, "South Africa: The real struggle begins," Sept-Oct 70 Jul-Aug 34 "Zimbabwe: A family planning paradigm," Nov-Dec 46 Carver, Richard, "Malawi: The army factor," Jan-Feb 56 Mwiinga, Jowie, "Zambia: Chill for Chiluba," Mar-Apr 58 Collymore, Yvette, "Population: Short shrift for Africa," Morna, Colleen Lowe, "South Africa: Patrolling the poll," Jul-Aug Nov-Dec 43 29 da Costa, Peter, "AIDS in the Gambia," Jan-Feb 52 "South Africa: Good neighbor policy," Nov-Dec 64 "The squeeze on the Gambia," Mar-Apr 16 Nielsen, Waldemar, William R. Cotter, Frank Ferrari, and Vivian "Liberia: The forgotten country," Mar-Apr 26 Lowery Derryck, "A short history of the African-American "Liberia: Counseling victims of the civil war," Mar-Apr 30 Institute," Sept-Oct 19 "Senegal: Shades of Algeria?," May-Jun 58 Novicki, Margaret A., "George E. Moose: Clinton's policy "West Africa: The political kingdom," Sept-Oct 38 priorities" (interview), Jan-Feb 21 Derryck, Vivian Lowery, 'The back page," Mar-Apr 70 "President Jerry Rawlings: Ghana's fourth republic" Diamond, Larry, "Democracy: The new wind," Sept-Oct 50 (interview), Mar-Apr 23 Doyle, Mark, "Kenya: Wildlife and politics," Mar-Apr 64 "Esom Alintah: Doing business with Africa" (interview), Fleischman, Janet, "Mauritania: Ethnic cleansing," Jan-Feb 45 May-Jun 50 Fleischman, Janet, and Whitman, Lois, "Liberia: The child "Mohamed Ibn Charnbas, deputy minister of foreign affairs, soldiers," Jul-Aug 65 Ghana" (interview), May-Jur 56 Flint, Julie, "Somaliland: Struggling to survive," Jan-Feb 36 "Kaire Mbuende: Strengthening southern Africa" (interview), "AIDS: The plague years," May-Jun 27 Jul-Aug 45 French, Howard, "Cote d'lvoire: Closing a chapter," Mar-Apr 19 "Babacar Fall, the Pan African News Agency" (interview), Geekie, Russell, "Zaire; A symbol of repression," May-Jun 44 Nov-Dec 8 "South Africa: The second best place to be," Jul-Aug 26 Nowrojee, Binaifer, "Kenya: Pressure for change," Jan-Feb 39 Gettleman, Jeffrey, "Sounds of the street," Nov-Dec 32 Ofori, Ruby, "Rawlings' biggest challenge," May-Jun 53 Greenfield, Richard, "Somalis on their own terms," May-Jun 22 Prendergast, John and Bickel, Sam, "Sudan: Scorched-earth "East Africa: The changing scene," Sept-Oct 42 war," May-Jun 37 Ham, Melinda, and Hall, Mike, "Malawi: From tyranny to Sayagues, Mercedes, "Angola: The siege of Cuito," Jan-Feb 17 tolerance," Nov-Dec 56 Shepherd, Anne, "South Africa: The land inequity," Jan-Feb 65 "President Bakili Muluzi: Building democracy" (interview), "South Africa: A wing and a prayer," Mar-Apr 40 Nov-Dec 60 "South Africa: The task ahead," Jul-Aug 35 Hammond, Ross, and Hellinger, Doug, "Structural Adjustment: Shiner, Cindy, "Angola: The worlds worst war," Jan-Feb 13 Debunking the myth," Nov-Dec 52 "Mobutu ascendant," May-Jun 42 Helton, Arthur, 'The kindness of strangers," Mar-Apr 32 "Liberia: A disarming start," May-Jun 62 Herbstein, Denis, "South Africa: Spy master & spy," Mar-Apr 44 "South Africa: The silent struggle," Jul-Aug 42 "De Klerk's big win," Jul-Aug 20 "Liberia: The authority vacuum," Nov-Dec 22 "South Africa: The exile returns," Sept-Oct 78 "Sierra Leone: War across the border," Nov-Dec 25 Hermida, Alfred, "The battle of Algiers," Jan-Feb 42 Simpson, Chris, "Angola: Peace or war?," Mar-Apr 55 "North Africa: The state and Islam," Sept-Oct 55 Slatter, Mick, "Namibia: Harboring their port," May-Jun 65 Hill, Heather, "Mozambique: Fantasy islands," Mar-Apr 52 "Namibia: The terrorists return," Jul-Aug 60 "The well revolution," Nov-Dec 48 "Sam Nujoma, president of Namibia" (interview), Sept-Oct 71 Hilsum, Lindsey, "Rwanda: Settling scores," May-Jun 13 Smerdon, Ondine, "The regressados return from East Germany," Katsouris, Christina, "Back to the future," Sept-Oct 34 Mar-Apr 50 Kelso, B.J., "AIDS: Orphans of the storm," Jan-Feb 50 Stearns, Scott, "Burundi's refugees: A catastrophe for Rwanda," "Human rights: A sorry record," Sept-Oct 59 Jan-Feb 30 "Movement to combat female mutilation," Sept-Oct 60 "Rwanda: An uneasy peace," Jan-Feb 32 Kitchen, Helen, Aaron Segal, John Storm Roberts, Anthony J. "The OAU's peace-keepers," Jan-Feb 35 Hughes, and Margaret A. Novicki, "Looking back: The edi- Taylor, Louisa, 'Tanzania: The 30-year itch," May-Jun 30 tors [of Africa Reporf\ then and now," Sept-Oct 13 wa Mutua, Makau, "Kenya: Young Turks vs. old guard," May-Jun Kornegay, Francis A., Jr., "Chakufwa Chihana: Dissident for 34 democracy" (interview), Jan-Feb 59 The end of an absurdity," Jul-Aug 32 o "South Africa: A little help from friends," Jul-Aug 23 "Malawi: Decline of the despot," Jul-Aug 48 a. "US/Africa: Setting a new agenda," Sept-Oct 72 "Ethiopia: The anointed leadership," Nov-Dec 30 v Lange, Karen, "Liberia: War and reconciliation," Jul-Aug 67 Walgren, Judy, 'The lost boys of southern Sudan," May-Jun 40 DC Laurence, Patrick, "South Africa: After victory, what?," Watson, Catharine, "Burundi: The death of democracy," re u Jan-Feb 62 Jan-Feb 26 "South Africa: The 11th hour," Mar-Apr 36 "Uganda: NO to multi-party," May-Jun 24 "South Africa: Acceding to the inevitable," May-Jun 67 Watson, Paul, "Rwanda: Purging the evil," Nov-Dec 13 "Mandela's lofty goals," Jul-Aug 13 Whiteman, Kaye, "France/Africa: The party's over," Mar-Apr 13 "South Africa: Election results analyzed," Jul-Aug 18 Whitman, Lois, and Fleischman, Janet, "Liberia: The child "Mandela's first 180 days," Nov-Dec 63 soldiers," Jul-Aug 65 SUBJECT INDEX Islam Agriculture The battle of Algiers," by Alfred Hermida, Jan-Feb 42 "South Africa: The land inequity," by Anne Shepherd, Jan-Feb 65 "Senegal: Shades of Algeria?," by Peter da Costa, May-Jun 58 Update, Jan-Feb 6, 7 "North Africa: The state and Islam," by Alfred Hermida, Sept-Oct 55 AIDS Update, Jan-Feb 7; Nov-Dec 11 "Orphans of the storm," by B.J. Keiso, Jan-Feb 50 "AIDS in the Gambia," by Peter da Costa, Jan-Feb 52 Media The cost of caring," by BJ. Kelso, Jan-Feb 55 "Zaire: A symbol of repression," by Russell Geekie, May-Jun 44 The plague years," by Julie Flint, May-Jun 27 "Africa Reports four decades of evolution," Sept-Oct 5 "Babacar Fall, the Pan African News Agency" (interview), by Children Margaret A. Novicki, Nov-Dec 8 "Orphans of the storm," by B.J. Kelso, Jan-Feb 50 Update, Jan-Feb 10; Nov-Dec 8 The lost boys of southern Sudan," by Judy Walgren, "Looking back: The editors [of Africa Reporf\ then and now," by May-Jun 40 Helen Kitchen, Aaron Segal, John Storm Roberts, Anthony "Liberia: The child soldiers," by Lois Whitman and Janet J. Hughes, and Margaret A. Novicki. Sept-Oct 13 Fleischman, Jul-Aug 65 "Sounds of the street," by Jeffrey Gettleman, Nov-Dec 32 Organization of African Unity The OAU's peace-keepers," by Scott Stearns, Jan-Feb 35 Culture The stone sculptors of Zimbabwe," by Andrew Meldrum, Jul- Population Aug 69 "Short shrift for Africa," by Yvette Collymore, Nov-Dec 43 "Zimbabwe: A family planning paradigm," by Andrew Meldrum, Democracy Nov-Dec 46 "Burundi: The death of democracy," by Catharine Watson, Jan-Feb 26 Refugees "Rwanda: An uneasy peace," by Scott Stearns, Jan-Feb 32 "Burundi's refugees: a catastrophe for Rwanda," by Scott "Chakufwa Chihana: Dissident for democracy" (interview), by Stearns, Jan-Feb 30 Francis A. Kornegay, Jr., Jan-Feb 59 "Mauritania: Ethnic cleansing," by Janet Fleischman. Jan-Feb 45 "Uganda: NO to multi-party," by Catharine Watson, May-Jun 24 "Liberia: The forgotten country," by Peter da Costa, Mar-Apr 26 "South Africa: Election results analyzed," by Patrick Laurence, The kindness of strangers," by Arthur Helton, Mar-Apr 32 Jul-Aug 18 "Mozambique: Repatriating the refugees." by Andrew Meldrum, "Bophuthatswana: The end of an absurdity," by Makau wa Mar-Apr 46 Mutua, Jul-Aug 32 "Mozambique: The regressados return from East Germany," by "Malawi: Decline of the despot," by Makau wa Mutua, Jui-Aug 48 Ondine Smerdon, Mar-Apr 50 The new wind," by Larry Diamond, Sept-Oct 50 "Rwanda: Purging the evil," by Paul Watson, Nov-Dec 13 "Nigeria: Reign of the generals," by Paul Adams, Nov-Dec 26 Update, Mar-Apr 7 "Ethiopia: The anointed leadership," by Makau wa Mutua, Nov- Dec 30 Tourism Update, Jan-Feb 7; Mar-Apr 7; May-Jun 8; Jul-Aug 7,8; "Mozambique: Fantasy islands," by Heather Hilt, Mar-Apr 52 Nov-Dec 5,7 United Nations Economies see Update, passim "Somalia: Status quo ante?," by Matt Bryden, May-Jun 18 The party's over," by Kaye Whiteman, Mar-Apr 13 "Somalis on their own terms," by Richard Greenfield, May-Jun 22 The squeeze on the Gambia," by Peter da Costa, Mar-Apr 16 Update, Mar-Apr 10; May-Jun 6; Jul-Aug 5,7 The politics of economics," by Peter Lewis, May-Jun 47 "Esom Alintah: Doing business with Africa" (interview), by Wildlife Margaret A. Novicki, May-Jun 50 "Wildlife and politics," by Mark Doyle, Mar-Apr 64 "Back to the future", by Christina Katsouris, Sept-Oct 34 "Debunking the myth," by Doug Hellinger and Ross Hammond, Women Nov-Dec 52 "South Africa: The silent struggle," by Cindy Shiner, Jul-Aug 42 "Mozambique: Women after war," by Graca Machel, Jul-Aug 58 Ethnicity "Movement to combat female mutilation," by B.J. Kelso, "Burundi: The death of democracy," by Catharine Watson, Sept-Oct 60 Jan-Feb 26 "A family planning paradigm," by Andrew Meldrum, Nov-Dec 46 "Burundi's refugees: a catastrophe for Rwanda," by Scott Update, May-Jun 12 Stearns, Jan-Feb 30 "Rwanda: An uneasy peace," by Scott Stearns, Jan-Feb 32 World Bank "Mauritania: Ethnic cleansing." by Janet Fleischman, Jan-Feb 45 "Debunking the myth," by Doug Hellinger and Ross Hammond, "Rwanda: Settling scores." by Lindsey Hilsum, May-Jun 13 Nov-Dec 52 "Ghana: Rawlings' biggest challenge," by Ruby Ofori, Update, Jan-Feb 12; Mar-Apr 12; May-Jun 12; Jul-Aug 12 May-Jun 53 "Mohamed Ibn Chambas, deputy minister of foreign affairs, COUNTRY INDEX Ghana" (interview), by Margaret A. Novicki, May-Jun 56 Algeria "De Klerk's big win," by Denis Herbstein, Jul-Aug 20 The battle of Algiers," by Alfred Hermida, Jan-Feb 42 "Rwanda: Purging the evil," by Paul Watson, Nov-Dec 13 "The state and Islam," by Alfred Hermida, Sept-Oct 55 "Rwanda: A preventable horror?," by Holly Burkhalter, Update, Mar-Apr 11; Jul-Aug 5; Nov-Dec 11 Nov-Dec 17 Update, Jan-Feb 9; Mar-Apr 7; Jul-Aug 8 Angola "The world's worst war." by Cindy Shiner, Jan-Feb 13 Human Rights (see also Ethnicity) The siege of Cuito," by Mercedes Sayagues, Jan-Feb 17 "Kenya: Pressure for change," by Binaifer Nowrojee, Jan-Feb 39 "Peace or war?," by Chris Simpson, Mar-Apr 55 "Mauritania: Ethnic cleansing," by Janet Fieischman Jan-Feb 45 Update, Jul-Aug 5; Nov-Dec 7 "Malawi: New actors, same play?" by Andrew Meldrum, Jul-Aug 52 "A sorry record," by B.J. Kelso, Sept-Oct 59 Benin "Reign of the generals," by Paul Adams, Nov-Dec 26 Update, May-Jun 7,1 o Update, Jan-Feb 11; Mar-Apr 7,10; Jul-Aug 7 Botswana Lesotho Update, Mar-Apr 12; Nov-Dec 7,12 Update, Mar-Apr 8; Nov-Dec 7

Burkina Faso Liberia Update, May-Jun 12 'The forgotten country," by Peter da Costa, Mar-Apr 26 "Counseling victims of the civil war," by Peter da Costa, Burundi Mar-Apr 30 'The death of democracy," by Catharine Watson, Jan-Feb 26 "A disarming start," by Cindy Shiner, May-Jun 62 "Burundi's refugees: a catastrophe for Rwanda," by Scott 'The child soldiers," by Lois Whitman and Janet Fleischman, Stearns, Jan-Feb 30 Jul-Aug 65 Update, Mar-Apr 7; Jul-Aug 5 "War and reconciliation," by Karen Lange, Jul-Aug 67 'The authority vacuum," by Cindy Shiner, Nov-Dec 22 Cameroon Update, Jan-Feb 12; Jul-Aug 5 Update, May-Jun 7,11 Libya Central African Republic Update, May-Jun 7 Update, May-Jun 12 Madagascar Chad Trouble in paradise," by Andrew Meldrum, Mar-Apr 61 Update, May-Jun 7 Malawi Congo 'The army factor," by Richard Carver, Jan-Feb 56 Update, Jan-Feb 9,12 "Chakufwa Chihana: Dissident for democracy" (interview), by Francis A. Kornegay, Jr., Jan-Feb 59 Cote d'lvoire "Decline of the despot," by Maka J wa Mutua, Jul-Aug 48 "Closing a chapter," by Howard French, Mar-Apr 19 "New actors, same play?," by Andrew Meldrum, Jul-Aug 52 Update, Jan-Feb 5,12; May-Jun 12; Jul-Aug 5; Nov-Dec 12 "From tyranny to tolerance," by Melinda Ham and Mike Hall, Nov-Dec 56 Djibouti "President Bakili Muluzi: Building democracy" (interview), by Update, Jan-Feb 11 Melinda Ham and Mike Hall, Nov-Dec 60 Update, Mar-Apr 12; May-Jun 5; Nov-Dec 12 Equatorial Guinea Update, Jan-Feb 7 Mali Update, Jan-Feb 12 Eritrea Update, Jan-Feb 7 Mauritania "Ethnic cleansing," by Janet Fleischman, Jan-Feb 45 Ethiopia 'The changing scene: Ethiopia 1959," by Richard Greenfield, Morocco Sept-Oct 44 "North Africa: The state and Islam," by Alfred Hermida, 'The anointed leadership," by Makau wa Mutua, Nov-Dec 30 Sept-Oct 55 "Sounds of the street," by Jeffrey Gettleman, Nov-Dec 32 Update, Jan-Feb 12; May-Jun 11 Update, Jan-Feb 12; Jul-Aug 8 Mozambique France "Repatriating the refugees," by Andrew Meldrum, Mar-Apr 46 'The party's over," by Kaye Whiteman, Mar-Apr 13 'The regressados return from East Germany," by Ondine "Closing a chapter," by Howard French, Mar-Apr 19 Smerdon, Mar-Apr 50 Update, Jan-Feb 6,8,11,12; May-Jun 7,8; Jul-Aug 6,7 "Fantasy islands," by Heather Hill, Mar-Apr 52 "On deadly ground," by Andrew Meldrum, Jul-Aug 55 Gabon "Women after war," by Graca Machel, Jul-Aug 58 'The tainted win," by James Barnes, Mar-Apr 67 Update, Jul-Aug 5; Nov-Dec 5 Update, Jan-Feb 8; May-Jun 11 Namibia Gambia "Harboring their port," by Mick Slatter, May-Jun 65 "AIDS in the Gambia," by Peter da Costa, Jan-Feb 52 "The terrorists return," by Mick Slatter, Jul-Aug 60 "The squeeze on the Gambia," by Peter da Costa, Mar-Apr 16 "Sam Nujoma, president of Namibia" (interview), by Mick Slatter, Update, Jan-Feb 12; Nov-Dec 11 Sept-Oct 71 Update, Jul-Aug 12; Nov-Dec 6,12 Ghana "President Jerry Rawlings: Ghana's fourth republic" (interview), Nigeria by Margaret A. Novicki, Mar-Apr 23 'The army calls the tune," by Paul Adams, Jan-Feb 47 "Rawlings' biggest challenge," by Ruby Ofori, May-Jun 53 'The deepening stalemate," by Paul Adams, Jul-Aug 62 "Mohamed Ibn Chambas, deputy minister of foreign affairs, "Reign of the generals," by Paul Adams, Nov-Dec 26 Ghana" (interview), by Margaret A. Novicki, May-Jun 56 Update, Jan-Feb 10,12; Mar-Apr 12; May-Jun 7,11; Jul-Aug 5; Update, Jan-Feb 12; Update, May-Jun 10; Jul-Aug 12; Nov-Dec 12 Nov-Dec 12 Rwanda o Guinea-Bissau "Burundi's refugees: a catastrophe for Rwanda," by Scott a Update, Mar-Apr 6 Stearns, Jan-Feb 30

Tanzania Dr. Johnston's insights. The 30-year itch," by Louisa Taylor, May-Jun 30 "The changing scene: Tanganyika 1952," by Richard Greenfield, Sept-Oct 43 "Julius Nyerere. former president of Tanzania" (interview), by ORDER NOW! Andrew Meidrum, Sept-Oct 7 Update, Nov-Dec 12 1 800 447-6811 ext. 99 Togo Update, Mar-Apr 7; May-Jun 7,8; Jul-Aug 10 $15.00 + $2.50 (s/h)

Tunisia "North Africa: The state and Islam," by Alfred Hermida, Sept-Oct 55 Update, Jan-Feb 7 Publishell by Longstreet Press, Inc. Uganda "NO to multi-party," by Catharine Watson, May-Jun 24. Update, Jan-Feb 6; Jul-Aug 12; Nov-Dec 12 Dakar, Senegal

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