AFRIG\

A Complicated War The UNESCO General The Harrowing of Mozambique WILLIAM FINNEGAN History of Africa "A sobering look at one of Africa's most devastating civil "One ot the most ambitious academic projects to wars. ...Vivid reportage, thoughtful analysis, and compre- be undertaken in this century."—West Africa hensive research; a seminal work not only on the war itself but on the conflicts that threaten post-cold-war, post- apartheid Africa."—Kirkus Revieus Volume V $25.00 doih PerslKctives on Southern Africa Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eigh- teenth Century Edited by B. A. OGOT A Democratic This fifth volume covers the history of the conti- nent as two themes emerge: the continuing inter- South Africa? nal evolution ot the states and cultures of Africa; Constitutional Engineering in and the increasing involvement of Africa in exter- a Divided Society nal trade—with consequences for the whole world. DONALD L. HOROWITZ $45.00doth, illustrated New in paper—"A masterful analysis of the current situation in South Africa ... it makes suggestions that New Abridged Paperback Edition— might well shape the outcome of discussions in South Africa regarding the country's future." Volume III —Lcroy Vail, Harvard University Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh SJ3.00 paper Perspectives on Southern Africa Century M. EL FASI, Editor I. Hrbck, Assistant Editor "A welcome contribution to the literature about Africa an important period in African history. ... A Endurance and Change South of the Sahara stimulating and informative guide." CATHERINE COQUERY-VIDROVITCH —African Economic History Translated by David Maisel $12.00 paper, illustrated New in paper—"A first-rate study on the forces and developments that have shaped contemporary Africa." —International journal of African Historical Studies $15.00 paper Winner of the Prix d'Aurnaie of the ActuLhrie des Sciences Morales et Polhiques

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Update The African-American Institute Editor: Russell Geekie Kenya Chairman The Politics of Doom 13 Maurice Tempelsman By Makau wa Mutua President Interview Vivian Lowery Derryck Gitobu Imanyara: Fighter for Human Rights 17 By Russell Geekie and Margaret A. Novicki Publisher Malawi Frank E. Ferrari Defying the Dictator 21 Editor-in-Chief Moi's Machinations By Melinda Ham Page 13 Margaret A. Novicki Drought Production Editor The Big Scorcher 25 Joseph Margolis By Andrew Meldrum

Assistant Editor Mozambique Russell Geekie Refuge from Renamo 28 By Andrew Meldrum Contributing Editors Alana Lee Drought and Desperation 33 Andrew Meldrum By Ruth Ansah Ayisi Daphne Topouzis Interview Art Director Salim Ahmed Salim: A New Agenda for the OAU 36 Kenneth Jay Ross By Margaret A. Novicki Advertising Office A New OAU? Conflict 212 949-5666, ext. 728 Page 36 War or Peace? 40 By Anne Shepherd Intern Fertice Miller III Nigeria Biting the Bullet 43 Africa Report (ISSN 0001-98361. a By Karl Mater non-profit magazine of African affairs, is published bimonthly and is sched- Eternal Enmities 47 uled 1o appear at the beginning of each date period at 833 United By Karl Maier Nations Plaza, New York, N.Y 10017. Editorial correspondence and adver- Liberia tising inquiries should be addressed 49 to Africa Report, at the above ad- Peace Postponed dress. Subscription inquiries should be By Peter da Costa addressed to Subscription Services. P.O. Box 3000. Dept. AR, Denville N.J. Cote d'lvoire 07834. Subscription rates: Individuals: USA $30, Canada $36, air rate over- Delaying Tactics Silencing the Opposition 55 seas $54. Institutions: USA $37. By Mark Huband Canada $43, air rate overseas $61. Page 49 Second-class postage paid at New York. N.Y and at additional mailing Mauritania offices. POSTMASTER If this maga- I temocracy in Doubt 58 zine is undeliverable. please send address changes to Africa Report at By Peter da Costa 833 UN Plaza. NY, NY 10017. Tele- phone: (212) 949-5666. Copyright (S Zambia 1992 by The African-American Insti- tute. Inc. Knd of the Honeymoon 61 By Melinda Ham South Africa Competition or Coalition? 64 Photo Credit: By Patrick Ixiurence The cover photograph was taken in Kitui district, Kenya, by The Third Force 68 Betty Press. By Philippa Garson After the Referendum Page 64 MELILLA Tjnis CEUTA

GUINEA-BISSA GUINEA Bissau ^- Conakry Fleet own SIERRA LEONE

MAURITIUS

REUNION

LESOTHO Maseru

Copyright © 1984 by the African-American Institute. Inc N THE NEWS Can Unita Survive the Democratization Process? In the 1980s, Washington lobbyists about the plot were aimed at minimiz- friends that he was in danger, Chingunji for the National Union for the Total ing the damage done to the organiza- returned to Unita's headquarters in Independence of Angola (Unita) suc- tion's image by Savimbi's acknowl- Jamba, Angola, in November 1988. cessfully cultivated Jonas Savimbi's edgement that abuses had taken place. with the belief that prospects for peace image as a "freedom fighter" and an Perhaps ihe most notable of the had made Savimbi a "changed man." indispensable ally of the United States, rights violations which Savimbi con- Bridgeland described Chingunji as ensuring that his armed movement was firmed were the disappearances of "fighting for survival" when he last saw well financed. When Unita and the Pedro "Tito" Chingunji and Wilson dos him in December 1988. Angolan government signed peace Santos, who were both high-level Unita In a blow to Unita, Savimbi's asser- accords in May 1991, officially ending officials. Questions about the fate of the tion that Puna and Fernandes were to Angola's 16-year civil war, the guerrilla two men, which Unita backers and crit- blame for the disappearances was group, known for its prowess in the ics alike had found troubling, are reportedly called insufficient by Secre- bush, was forced to re foe us its energies believed to be responsible for much of tary of Slate James Baker in a March 28 on the country's first multi-parly letter he sent to Savimbi, formally elections, scheduled for September demanding a detailed explanation of under UN supervision. With the vot- Unita's abuses. The State Depart- ing less than six months away, the ment spokeswoman. Margaret confirmation of human rights abuses Tutwiler, said, "We have called upon and high-level defections within Unita to address these allegations, Unita have seriously shaken the including the welfare and where- movement's efforts to present itself abouts of the two former Unita offi- as a viable alternative to the govern- cials (Chingunji and dos Santos), in ing Popular Movement lor the Liber- an open and public manner." The let- ation of Angola (MPLA), raising Margaret A Novicki ter reportedly said that a failure to questions about the continuation of from Cabinda to Cunene, only one people, only one nation" address the allegations could threat- U.S. support for its Cold War-era client. the pressure on Savimbi to explain en the continuation of the ceasefire and Past reports of divisions and human alleged abuses in Unita. elections. It is also reported to have said rights abuses within Unita were resur- Chingunji, who was Unita's represen- that those responsible for the abuses rected after two senior leaders from the tative to Washington in the 1980s, had should be punished. movement defected in February and been well-liked by pro-Unita decision- Puna and Fernandes, who talked to accused Savimbi of rights violations in makers in the United States. Savimbi's the press in Paris, maintain that Chin- mid-March. On March 25, Savimbi, claim in February that he was alive and gunji, his two children, and dos Santos who had always denied these allega- well did little to quell allegations that the were murdered in August, under orders tions, confirmed that they had been tak- former Unita representative had been from Savimbi. Puna, Unita's former ing place inside Unita for years, but murdered. The State Department had secretary for home affairs, said that blamed the defectors. Miguel N'Zau been raising the issue of Chingunji's fate Savimbi is also responsible for the dis- Puna and Tony da Costa Femandes. with Savimbi "regularly" over the past appearances of 30 other Unita leaders. Coinciding with his remarks were six to eight months, according to a state- Savimbi countered the defectors' Unita assertions that the defections ment it issued in March. accusations in more depth in a press con- were linked to an MPLA plot to assas- Chingunji's fall from grace in Unita ference on April 5, claiming that the mur- sinate Savimbi. which it claimed was described in an article for The ders took place in November of last year, "Western intelligence sources" had Washington Post by Fred Bridgeland, when he was in the Angolan capital, uncovered. In an interview on Unita's who is known to have had close contact Luanda. He was away from the Unita radio station, Voice of Ihe Black Cock- with the Unita leadership and is the base in Jamba from September 24 to erel, the movement's chief of staff of author of a flattering biography of Sav- February 20 and has said that Puna was in the armed forces. Gen. Arlindo Chenda imbi. Bridgeland recounted that four charge during his absence. Savimbi main- Pena "Ben-Ben." said. "There is a very years ago. Chingunji, at the height of tains that he only learned of the murders clear link between the desertion of Puna his Unita career in Washington, had upon his return to Jamba in February and and Tony and the macabre MPLA plan said that Savimbi was responsible for that he was not lying when he said that to assassinate Comrade President Sav- the deaths of his parents and several Chingunji was alive and well prior to that. imbi." Observers feel Unita statements other relatives. Despite warnings from On April 5, he also reportedly told sup-

May/June 19 9 2 porters, "The head of a company doesn't rassments to its political advantage. In a $600,000 on a semi-annual basis. Alter know everything that goes on in a compa- speech in Luanda on March 14, President sitting on the sidelines in the Washington ny...It's not possible. But the company Jose Eduardo dos Santos said, "A reality, lobbying market for years, the Angolan head has to take responsibility." which many used to regard as mere government has also hired the services Savimbi says that four Unita people MPLA propaganda, is now unfolding of two high-paid lobbyists. have been arrested in connection with before the eyes of all of us. As we had International observers have ex- (he case, but that they had acted under forecast, the farce that had for a long time pressed concern that the elections might orders and that Unita's vice president, been nourished by propaganda and lies. be jeopardized because of slow Jeremias Kalandula Chitunda. is lead- could not withstand the first shock of real- progress in the implementation of the ing an investigation into the case. Sav- ity and the dynamics of social democrati- Bicesse ceasefire accord. The terms of imbi's iron-fisted control of Unita has zation. We shall continue to strive for the agreement for holding elections are led observers to state, however, that it is freedom and transparency." running months behind schedule. The implausible that Savimbi was not cog- While the effect that the defections most troubling lack of progress has nizant of the murders. and revelations about abuses within been in the demobilization of troops Accusations of abuses aside, the Unita will have on the organization's and relinquishing of control of territory detections of Puna and Femandes leave support within Angola is hard to gauge, to the government by Unita. Unita with troubling questions about the the issues have certainly raised eye- Femandes accused Unita of main- unity and makeup of its leadership in the brows in Washington, which has sup- taining an army on the Namibian border run-up to the scheduled elections. Critics plied Unita with hundreds of millions and it is widely reported that Savimbi is point out that the senior leadership is of dollars in aid over the years. The end unwilling to relinquish control of the now made up almost exclusively of the of the Cold War has increasingly made Jamba area. The London Guardian also Ovimbundu (the country's most popu- U.S. aid to Africa conditional on human reported in March that aid workers said lous group) and gains most of its support rights records and democratization, Unita was keeping peasants in its areas from south and central Angola. As rather than containment. through its control of large quantities of natives of Cabinda, the northernmost After Savimbi's confirmation of UN-provided food. province in Angola, Puna and Femandes human rights abuses, an administration The problems are not all caused by had been considered important in official was quick to point out that the Unita, however. Undisciplined govern- Unita's bid to gain nationwide support. only aid the U.S. is currently providing ment forces, a lack of resources, and a Savimbi himself recognized the impor- Unita is part of a package for imple- ravaged infrastructure have all played tance of the two lost "comrades" in a menting the peace accord and the elec- their part in slowing down the process. March 13 Unita anniversary rally speech toral process. This assistance, which is President dos Santos recently said, when he said, "If Puna and Tony were reported to be worth $14.5 million, is "These problems are mainly caused by here to attend our 26th anniversary cele- available to all of the 30 political parties Unita, but not always." brations, we would have been more expected to take part in the elections. In a sign that Unita wants to show complete." But, in keeping with Unita's But there is another roughly $30 that it is willing to cooperate in matters attempts in early March to downplay the million in aid earmarked by Congress relating to abuses within the territory significance of their departure, he added for fiscal year 1992 to assist Unita in that it controls, the movement agreed to that differences in policy toward Cabin- transforming itself into a political party. hand over to the government a Unita da led the two to leave Unita and that No new covert aid had been granted for official considered responsible for the they had always had different objectives Unita for fiscal year 1993 as of March deaths of four British tourists in Jan- from the organization. 31, the deadline for allocating such aid. uary. At the time of the murders, Sav- Puna has stated that Savimbi's neglect There is talk in Washington that imbi denied Unita involvement on the of Cabinda, an oil-rich exclavc of Angola members of Congress are considering grounds that his forces were too disci- wedged between Congo and Zaire, was holding hearings in the near future on plined to have carried out the act. the deciding factor in his decision to split Savimbi's human rights violations in As the election date in Angola draws with the rebel leader. The territory's recognition of the recent revelations, but closer, the U.S. has begun to show that it more than 100,000 inhabitants are des- at this time it seems unlikely that either is serious about a commitment to human perately poor, even though better than the $30 million earmarked for Unita or rights and democratization in Angola. half of Angola's main export, oil. is pro- its share of the $14.5 million set aside After keeping its pledge that it would duced there. Unita and the MPLA are for the democratization exercise will be support Unita until the last Cuban sol- both opposed to independence for Cabin- denied the organization. dier had left—this happened on May 26, da where a secessionist movement active Assisting Unita in its efforts to pre- 1991—the State Department is now in the territory since the mid-1960s has vent the U.S. from cutting off its aid are willing to question its ex-client's become increasingly violent. Puna and a number of lobbying firms it employs in undemocratic practices. Regardless of Femandes have reportedly joined the Washington. The most notable, which who wins Angola's elections—at present separatists, but Puna says that he is not handled Unita's public relations during it appears to be a two-parly race, be- resigning from Unita and will instead be the heyday of U.S. covert assistance in tween Unita and the MPLA—war-weary fighting to make it more democratic. the 1980s, is Black, Manafort, Stone and Angolans will be most able to maintain a It remains to be seen if the MPLA, Kelly, Public Affairs Inc. The corpora- democracy if they can rebuild their which itself is criticized for having a poor tion is currently entered into a one-year country. This will require large amounts human rights record, mismanaging the contract with Unita signed last Septem- of aid akin to the assistance Unita economy, and doing little to stop rampant ber which stipulates that the organization received to wage its long and successful corruption, can use Unita's recent embar- compensate it the base amount of guerrilla stmggle. •

A/r i Report TOCO lion people in the northern region, which is predominantly made up of people of Amnesty International released a POLITICAL Hausa-Fulani descent, and 41.3 million report in April calling on the Togolese in the southern region, which is dominat- government lo bring past perpetrators POINTERS ed by Christians of Yoruba and Ibo of "widespread human rights viola- descent. But the census also revealed tions" to justice. The report, Togo: that the population of the states dominat- Impunity for Human Rights Violators has called the census results Ehe most ed by the Yoruba and Ibo is greater than at a Time of Reform, expresses concern accurate in Nigeria's history. that of the states made Lip primarily of that despite the open discussion of As a result of the new population the Hausa-Fulani if states dominated by human rights abuses at ihe national count, previous estimates of 3.3 percent minorities are left out of the comparison. conference last year—which reduced per annum growth are expected to be Problems with past counts had occurred President Gnassingbe" Eyadema's power adjusted to 2.1 percent and annual per when southerners accused the northern- —and the public examination of the capita income should now rise from ers of inflating their counts. violations by Togo's National Human $250 to about $350. Nigerians, who A more startling census result was Rights Commission, "those responsible took pride in boasting that Nigeria's that there are an impressive 27 million appear to have been allowed to act with population exceeded 100 million, can people belonging to minority ethnic impunity." take solace in the fact that theirs is still groups in both the north and the south. The June-August national confer- Africa's most populous country. Some groups have organized them- ence did not strip Eyadema of power Always a contentious issue, the three selves into a forum, but relations for long. In December, elements of the previous post-independence attempts at between minorities have remained military forced the interim prime minis- a national headcouni—in 1962, 1963. strained and it does not appear that they ter, Joseph Kokou Koffigoh, to name a and 1973—resulted in accusations of will form a united third force. new transitional government. The rat- fraud, political tension, and violence. The enumerating was an essential tled Koffigoh retained his post as prime All three exercises had been used to step in Nigeria's return to civilian rule minister, but Eyadema clearly showed determine political representation as in January 1993 being carefully man- that he still wields power. With Eyade- well as federal revenue allocations, and aged by the government. ma maintaining his grip on the army, it brought to the surface religious, ethnic, is dubious at best that people responsi- and political rivalries. CHANA ble for human rights abuses during his To avoid past problems, the military long reign will be prosecuted. regime of President Ibrahim Babangida In a speech marking the 35th anniver- Included among the numerous viola- deliberately structured the 1991 census sary of Ghana's independence in March, tions Amnesty cites in the report is the to avoid issues of language, ethnicity, the chairman of the Provisional National case of a prisoner being forced to stare at and religious affiliation and discontinued Defense Council (PNDC). Flt.-Lt. Jerry the sun until he went blind: the death in the practice of allocating federal rev- Rawlings, announced the timetable for detention of a former vice-president of enues based upon state population. The Ghana's transition to civilian rule. He said Togo. Idrissou Antoine Meatchi; and the count was also executed under strict the process would kick off on April 28, deaths of 28 demonstrators who were control. From November 28 to 30, the with a referendum on Ghana's new con- dredged from a lagoon in Lome in April government closed Nigeria's borders, stitution. This is being followed by presi- last year. The bodies of the demonstra- cancelled international flights, closed dential elections on November 3 and par- tors were found at a time when repres- schools and government offices, shut liamentary elections on December 8. The sion by government forces was particu- almost all businesses, and introduced a process will be completed on January 7 larly severe in response to the growing decree lo discourage fraud while when a civilian government takes over. opposition to Eyadema's rule. 800.000 enumerators were at work. Opposition groups in Ghana have The Amnesty report says that if the Other provisions included computers set questioned the decision to hold the ref- current government does not bring up in seven zones (with special software erendum prior to the May 18 lifting of those responsible for the violations to to detect cheating), a trial census, a spe- the ban on political party activity, also justice, torture and extrajudicial execu- cial communication and transportation announced by Rawlings. They say the tions can happen again. committee, and a major publicity initia- six months this leaves them to organize tive. The UN, Japan. Britain, and the is insufficient. They have accused the Netherlands assisted in the operation, NICERIA PNDC of staging the transition to allow which cost an estimated $120 million. it to remain in power. To the surprise of the Nigerian gov- President Ibrahim Babangida has In a move seen as a concession to ernment, ihe World Bank, and the Unit- reportedly said of the census. "It is not a the opposition, which also accuses the ed Nations Fund for Population Activi- contest in ethnic or religious strength, PNDC of political imprisonments, ties, there are only 88.5 million nor is it a contest between region or cul- Rawlings announced that he would Nigerians-—20-30 million fewer than tural groups." But the results reported in release political prisoners incarcerated had been believed. This is according to March did offer some answers to ques- since 1966. Nigeria's National Population Commis- tions pertaining to the strength of differ- Still unanswered is the question of sion (NPC), which released its 1991 ent groups in Nigeria. The Nigerian whether or not Rawlings will run for census findings on March 19. The com- magazine. Newswatch, reported that the president. Many Ghanaians and ob- mission's chief. Alhaji Shehu Musa. census revealed that there are 46.9 mil- servers believe that he will. May/June 19 9 2 AFRICAN OUTLOOK

INTERVIEW: THE WEEKLY MAIL'S ANTON HARBER AND DON MATTERA

he alternative press in South Africa is credited with having played an important role in the transition T toward non-racial democratic rule. At the cutting edge of alternative reporting has been The Weekly Mail. After the closure of The Rand Daily Mail and The Sunday Express, the English-language paper was started in 1985 by out-of-work journalists who were concerned that the media in South Africa didn't include enough "critical, questioning, independent anti-apartheid voices," according to the paper's co-editor, Anton Harber. The Weekly Mail's journalists were frequently intimidat- ed and detained during South Africa's 1986-1990 state of emergency, and the paper was temporarily closed by the government in 1988. Since President F.W. de Klerk signaled the end of apartheid in February 1990, The Weekly Mail has continued to play a leading role in the South African

alternative media, gaining worldwide fame in April of last Don Mattera, chief training and development offten ieft7 and Anton Harber, co-editor rear when it broke the "Inkathagate" story of secret govern- ment funding for the Inkatha Freedom Party. Harber: A major issue of our press freedom at the moment is Africa Report spoke to the The Weekly Mail's co-editor, the issue of ownership and control and the lack of access to Anton Harber, and chief training and development officer, the media for most people, including many important politi- Don Mattera. about the alternative media in South Africa cal groups. shortly before white South Africans went to the polls in Africa Report: Ownership and control is a major concern. March and overwhelmingly confirmed their support for the The ANC Media Charter, published in January, would broad- negotiating process. en control of the media. Do you foresee this happening before elections, as the ANC would have it? Africa Report: Who reads The Weekly Mail? Harber: 1 think the priority now would probably be neutral- Harber: Its readers are overwhelmingly South Africa's pro- izing control of slate-owned media and insuring its indepen- fessional, educated people. dence. I don't think that in the interim there is going to be Mattera: Decision-makers read the paper and the govern- quick action on the question of ownership and control of the ment is the most avid of them. rest of the media. I think that will be more complex, and Harber: It's a very interesting spectrum. I use "professional" probably slower. There will be a great many powerful conser- loosely, because I think there is a trade union leadership and a vative forces ranged against attempts to introduce even stan- political leadership, across the spectrum, that reads us—like dard anti-trust legislation in South Africa. us or not—ranging from Communist Party leaders to the Mattera: The "free the airwaves" slogans that are being Conservative Party. bandied around are serious because the South African Broad- Africa Report: What is the state of press freedom in South casting Corporation |SABC] controls 100 percent of almost Africa today? everything with the exception of Radio 702. There is no other Harber: It has certainly improved from the dark days of the radio station that I know of that is in the hands of private peo- state of emergency, when we were battling for our survival ple. The ANC is making noise and this is important because and threatened with closure—and in fact closed—and con- it is making people think about the liberation of the airwaves. stantly facing seizure of newspaper copies, detention of jour- Africa Report: What about the role of the outside media, nalists, and a huge string of prosecutions. It has certainly such as the BBC? eased off from those days, but it's a position of flux. While Harber: It's limited. There aren't that many people in South the restriclive press laws are hardly being implemented, they Africa who can afford shortwave radio. Radio is very impor- remain on ihe statute books, and they remain a threat—all of tant in South Africa. Shortwave radio was important during them, the Prisons Act. the Defense Act. They still remain the times of repression. Many of those who had a radio depended laws that govern reporting on all the major areas of South on international reports for a lot of information. The BBC is African life. there with a strong signal through most of southern Africa, Mattera: The Police Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Gener- but most people have FM radios and the power of the SABC al Amendment Law Act—not one of those statutes has been is enormous. removed. Free press is a relative term: As far as I'm con- Mattera: It controls FM and the people want to tune in to cerned it's how free we make the press that is important. We FM, not shortwave. have also freed the press from commercial chains. Harber: There are iwo processes: one is to try to neutralize Afri Report 8 I J3ATE the SABC, within the political process. The other is to ensure Mattera: I don't see it changing. I can just see it intensifying that there are more voices on ihe FM spectrum, offering its need to bolster the bastion of the press as an article of greater diversity. democracy. The Weekly Mail has done it excellently, but let's Africa Report: Has there been more talk of a private FM sta- create the hypothesis that the ANC is the government tomor- tion? row. Will The Weekly Mail's role now be lessened? More so, Harber: There's plenty of talk and there are a whole lot of it will be required of The Weekly Mail to keep a check. It is an people who have put in applications to the authorities in important and exciting role. anticipation of the creation of an independent broadcasting Harber: We very much see ourselves playing the same role authority. But I think the major problem is like all problems of an independent, sharply critical watchdog of the values of media ownership and control in South Africa: There are that we stand for—human rights, democracy, non-sexism, not that many people who can afford to start radio stations and equality generally—and we are going to need to be even and most of those who can are already the overwhelmingly more vigilant about those things in Ihe future. dominant players in the media market. The fear is that we Mattera: We have a history as a mirror for us, particularly might have more radio stations, but we may not have more African history. voices in the media spectrum. It's diversity that we need. Africa Report: Do you see an expanded role for the paper? Mattera: The cable television that we have is about hedo- There was a failed attempt to make it a daily a few years ago. nism through the movies. You could count the educational Can the paper increase its circulation? things thai come up. Harber: Obviously we'll be attempting to sell more copies. I Harber: That is a perfect illustration. It's the only non-slate don't think we'll change the basic target that we are aimed at, owned television, so you would imagine the responsibility is which is decision-makers across the political and racial spec- enormous and the opportunity is fantastic. At last you can trum. There are more of those that we would like to get to. counter state broadcasting, and all we get is old American That remains our key target. soaps and movies. It has been the most disgraceful illustration Mattera: A comment by the judiciary through Judge Gold- of the mainstream press not meeting their responsibilities. stone fin regard to the paper) is significant. He said to one of Africa Report: As an alternative newspaper. The Weekly- the Inkatha people that are accused. "You don't know about Mail has been in the vanguard of the media in South Africa in this case, why don't you read The Weekly Mail?" That tells terms of breaking stories. Do you foresee this role changing you that we are being read at very high places, but that does in the "new" South Africa? Continued on page II The Weekly Mail Training Project: An Investment in Democracy In 1986, The Weekly Mail launched based organizations. The project The training project is financially "a project to train a new breed of jour- received over 300 applications for the independent and is registered as a chari- nalists: critical, creative, and committed 1992 training period, some from as far ty, with the South African Newspaper to exposing both the good and the bad afield as Malawi. Education Trust administering its of South African society," according to The training program's development funds. Mattera and The Weekly Mail's the 1992 status report and prospectus of officer, journalist/poet Don Mattera. co-editor. Anton Harber. have both the project, called The Weekly Mail told Africa Report that the program has expressed disappointment with the low Training Project. The training program, proven to be mutually beneficial to the level of support that American compa- which places particular emphasis on trainees and the 12-member editorial nies with interests in South Africa have training blacks who would otherwise staff of The Weekly Mail. He said, "The offered for media training in the coun- not have access to the journalistic pro- interns play a very important part in the try. Mattera said: "One of the Sullivan fession, can be called a by-product of paper and this is an important training Principles was managerial training and the widespread violence in South ground for them...Some of them have so on. This has not really been forth- Africa the previous year when the The been absorbed into very key positions coming from the American companies Weekly Mail was founded. According to in the industry." operating in our country. Although the report, the decision to implement But Mattera and The Weekly Mail there has been some minimal entre- the project was based on the paper's also see the training project as playing a preneurial support, there hasn't been experiences that year, which "starkly major role in the development of the support for the kind of training that we revealed the limitations independent alternative media in South Africa and in want for our people. Our training is not and alternative newspapers faced in the future of the country itself. Mattera to just make you a journalist, it is also finding journalists from the underprivi- said. "We give the industry the impor- to make you a newspaper manager and leged sections of the society who could tant critical person we would like to see administrator. We haven't seen a great report fairly and capably—and with involved in the new country, during and input into the long-term human invest- first-hand knowledge-—about the terror after the reconstruction period." ment in South Africa." and the torment of lhat time." The Weekly Mail reports that most of Harber. who views the training as Now in its seventh year, the program its former trainees currently hold posi- "fundamental" to the survival of the has expanded from training three peo- tions of authority in South Africa's news- alternative press in South Africa, said ple in 1986 to 14 in 1991. including papers. The project also provides instruc- of support for training, "We see it as an trainees who participated in the "out- tion in the various aspects of newspaper investment in a free press and a free reach program" which offers training at management, including accounting, media, which is an investment in the paper to people from community- advertising, and general management. democracy." •

May/June 19 9 Green Is Finally In, But Who Will Have to Pay For It? After decades of giving the topic lit- anticipation of the United Nations Con- Prepcom conference, which met for tle more than lip service, the world ference on Environment and Develop- five weeks in March and April, negotia- community finally agrees that protect- ment (UNCED), better known as the tors agreed to the principle thai devel- ing the global environment is a "Earth Summit," to be held in Rio dc oped nations have a responsibility to paramount issue. The disagreements Janeiro in June. Battle lines have large- help the Third World develop in an begin when discussions are undertaken ly been drawn between the industrial- environmentally sound and sustainable on how this should be carried out and ized nations of the North, which are manner, which was a fundamental point who should pay for it. pushing for global agreements on the argued by the South. Representatives from more than 160 environment, and the developing coun- The agreement, which was part of a countries have debated these issues tries of the South, which are more con- 27-point draft of environmental rules to over the last two years in sessions of the cerned with the local environment and be considered at UNCED. also recog- preparatory committee (Prepcom), in development. In the fourth and final nized "eradicating poverty as an indis- When Is Culling the Animal Not Killing the Animal? As expected, the most hotly debated In their effort to get the elephant off 600.000 animals between 1979 and issue among (he representatives of 112 the Cites treaty's appendix I, which 1989. Proponents of the Cites ban on countries at the Convention on Interna- bans all sales of elephant products, the ivory trade cite as reason to maintain tional Trade in Endangered Species southern African nations at Kyoto the ban a decreased price for ivory, (Cites) meeting in March was whether argued a compromise stance which less poaching in southern and eastern or not to reverse the international ban called for a limited resumption in trad- Africa, and an estimated 50.000 on ivory trade. The eighth triennial ing elephant meat and skin, but not increase in the elephant population meeting in Kyoto, ivory. South Africa since 1989. Many argue that even a Japan, retained the said that it would partial resumption of the ban can lead three-year ban. But accept a ban on to a full-scale resumption of the ivory the debate, which ivory sales until trade. In a study of six African coun- pits East African the next Cites tries, the World Wide Fund for Nature countries and other meeting in 1994, found that poaching had in fact proponents of the and the other four decreased since the imposition of the ban against a southern African ban, but said that tougher policies by group of southern countries said they local authorities were responsible. African nations would agree to a It remains to be seen what the which are against it, is not closed. "moratorium for a reasonable period response of the proponents of ivory The southern African countries lead- which would allow time to put in place trade will be to the Cites refusal to a ing the opposition to the ban are Zim- a trading system that would not encour- partial lifting of the ban. A threat by babwe, Namibia. Botswana, Malawi, age any illegal opportunities for ivory Zimbabwe and Botswana to quit the and South Africa. Implicit in their argu- trading." organization is probably a hollow one, ment is that their countries have an But the southern African countries but it nonetheless underscores the over-abundance of elephants which fre- dropped their proposals, reportedly southern African nations' determina- quently compete with people for scarce under heavy pressure from Western and tion not to let the issue rest. Last year, land. Culling the animals is necessary African countries which support the Zimbabwe, Namibia. Botswana, Zam- to maintain a sustainable environment ban. Some of the angered southern bia, and Malawi formed the Southern for the herds. They say trade in ele- African nations reportedly accused the African Centre for Ivory Marketing phant products is warranted because it developing countries' leaders of cater- (Sacim), a cartel for selling ivory from makes the costly activity of controlling ing to their constituents who support legally culled elephants under tight the elephant population economically the ban. rather than examining the reali- controls. The cartel faced an early set- viable. Stephen R. Mishkin, the pub- ties of wildlife conservation in southern back when Zambia withdrew after lisher of a new publication, African Africa. With the exception of South reversing its decision to trade ivory. Wildlife Update, told Africa Report, Africa, the proponents of trade in ele- Many Western leaders are reportedly "The southern African countries, espe- phant parts argued that the Cites deci- wavering on whether or not to accept cially Zimbabwe and South Africa, sion to retain the ban was largely the the case that the best road to conserva- have a utilization philosophy, which result of the developed nations impos- tion is to relax the ban. It is possible they believe is the most effective way ing their will on the developing nations. that they will support a repeal of the to conserve their wildlife." The south- But Kenya and several central and ban by the next Cites meeting. The ern African countries maintain that as West African nations support the 1989 problem remains, however, that the rest long as .they have funds, their healthy ban, which came about after conserva- of Africa is simply not nearly as well- elephant populations arc not in danger tionists estimated that Africa's ele- equipped to protect its wildlife as is the from poaching. phant population had been halved to southern African bloc. •

Africa Report 10 'DATE pensable requirement lor sustainable out Agenda 21—a comprehensive 29- using environmentally friendly technol- development," and the essential role of point plan of action for cleaning the ogy, or through the environmentally women in environmental development environment that is expected to be damaging methods that the industrial- and management. The draft also includ- adopted at Rio—the cost to industrial- ized countries had used to develop. ed the principle that nations have "the ized countries would be $125 billion a Also left for UNCED are the highly sovereign right to exploit their own year. $70 billion more than is current- publicized issues of biodiversity and resources pursuant to their own envi- ly being given in development aid. global warming, which pit the U.S. ronmental and developmental needs," Africa Recovery reported that Strong against Europe because of the former's but are responsible to clean up pollu- hopes the Earth Summit will lead to refusal to agree to set specific limits of tion they cause beyond their bound- commitments of $7 billion per year carbon-dioxide emissions. aries. for Agenda 21 and related activities African negotiators were generally The issuance of the detailed draft on global warming and biodiversity. pleased with the draft agreement, which document, which assigns responsibility However, most commentators do not addressed several issues—including to polluters in lieu of a more general estimate increases of more than $6 bil- poverty and additional assistance—that statement of shared principles that the lion in aid. In March, the United they had outlined in the "African Com- industrialized nations had favored, was States backed away from its earlier mon Position on Environment," a posi- seen as a victory for the developing position that the Third World did not tion paper presented to Prepcom. nations. But a number of burning issues need additional aid to carry out the But Africans felt that other issues remain lo be negotiated at the Rio dc plan. European countries had previ- must be more fully addressed, including Janeiro summit, which was supposed to ously pledged to supply additional desertification, which is proving to be be the ceremonial conclusion of the aid. particularly threatening to African Prepcom sessions. Another hotly debated issue not fully development. The North has reportedly Probably the thorniest North/South addressed regards the transfer of tech- been quick to write the problem off as a issue remaining is the price developed nology. According to Africa Recovery. local environmental concern. But countries must pay for environmental Senegal's Minister of Tourism and Africans point to the case of deforesta- cleanup. The South argues that addi- Environmental Protection Jacques tion which has received international tional development aid is essential to Baudin echoed a common Third World attention because of its effect on global any global package on the environ- sentiment when he argued that develop- warming and argue that desertification ment. UNCED Secretary-General ing countries have a right and a duty to is also related to the world's climate Maurice Strong estimates that to carry develop, and they could do so either by and should be a global concern. •

Africa Report: Could you talk about the role and influence The Weekly Mail continued of the English-speaking press in the referendum in light of not solve our problem. We also need the money to continue. statements by both the National Party and the conservatives One of the things that we are looking for is a serious injection that English-speakers are going to be the pivotal segment in ofinvestment into the paper. deciding the referendum? We are not talking about investment which would break Harber: Well, the English-speaking press overwhelmingly up the sanctions in our country; obviously we are waiting for always supported the PFP over the NP and it didn't help them Mandela and olhcr relalively credible sources to give us the very much! It isn't a great advertisement for the power of lead on that. But we are looking for individuals in our own media. country lo share in this dream, to keep The Weekly Mail on Seriously, a major factor on de Klerk's side clearly is that the cutting edge of democratization in our country. he overwhelmingly has the support of the media. The Conser- Africa Report: You are talking of private investment. Do vative Party has far fewer resources to do battle in that way. you foresee a state infusion of capital at some point? Mattera: And the English press has really pushed hard. Harber: No. We value our independence enormously. If There was a powerful editorial in The Star, which has the there is state support for independent media, presumably largest daily circulation, calling for a 'yes* vote. It has been that would have to come through a trust or some kind of running articles to that effect all the time, and so have many neutral body. There is a lot of talk about building a Afrikaans papers. Swedish-style subsidy system to encourage diversity in the Harber: For us. the role has to be wider. It has to be to make media. sure that those who are not voting arc also heard. At a time Africa Report: What are the paper's main sources of rev- like this, that responsibility is an important one. It is also enue now? important to keep a watch on those who wish to disrupt Harber: Individuals who have been politically sympathetic things. The potential for an increase in violence around the to what we've done and what we stand for have given us sup- referendum needs lo be watched very closely. port over the years. Mattera: The role of the press is really to push people. Even Africa Report: Putting aside the difficult sanctions issue, the Sowetan newspaper, which is a white-owned paper for have there been interested external investors? black people, has been pushing for a strong 'yes' vote. Not Harber: Yes, in particular some British people have given us that the white people are reading that paper, but it's setting a support in that way. But we've often been disappointed by state of mind, it's setting a tone: Lots of black kids have the level of support from many American companies for a white friends and you know they might say. "Hey my friend, free and independent media in South Africa. I hope you vote yes." H

11 May /June 1992 Lonrho shareholders: Its stockbroker, ALCERIA UBS Phillips & Drew, resigned, appar- Algeria secured an untied loan worth ently miffed at not being briefed on the $300 million from the Export-Import BUSINESS Libyan sale. Bank of Japan in March, in support of Tiny is now 74 and his African inti- the country's economic reforms. The BRIEFS mates from the days of independence, agreement follows a loan worth $350 like Kenneth Kaunda, Milton Obote, million extended to the country by the and Gaafar Nimeiri, are either dead or World Bank last June. misleading campaign of hysteria. Let out of power—or about to be out of The Financial Times reported that the jackals bark, the caravan carries on." power, like Kamuzu Banda and Daniel the Export-Import Bank is expected to Rowland told the Daily Mai! that he arap Moi. And ironically in Zimbab- grant two additional loans in the near had known Libya's leader, Col. Muam- we, the birthplace of Lonrho, Tiny has future. Both loans will be earmarked mar Qaddafy, for 21 years, "He is my not been close to the government since for projects being implemented by friend. I am absolutely satisfied that he backed the wrong horse at indepen- Sonatrach, the state-owned oil and gas Qaddafy is not at the root of the terror- dence, Joshua Nkomo. company. ists." Algeria's debt currently stands at The generous price for a minority SHIPPINC $23.4 billion. stake in Metropole, a chain of hotels in Britain and Africa, went some way to The executive body of the European reduce Lonrho's debt of about $1.8 bil- Community fined a French shipping INVESTMENT lion. Profits have been slashed lately group $18.6 million for operating a car- The flamboyant British business- and the company is looking to sell off tel on trade routes between France and man Roland ("Tiny") Rowland cut his minority stakes in its other assets. But 11 West and central African countries, teeth in Africa since the 1950s, trans- the fiercely loyal small shareholders according to an article in The Journal forming the near-bankrupt London & had their image of Rowland as a finan- of Commerce. Rhodesia Mining & Land Company cial wizard shaken even before the The privately held Bollore Group into an $8.75 billion international trad- Libyan deal, as share prices have sunk had been the cartel operator through a ing conglomerate, Lonrho, all the to the lowest level in nine years. subsidiary and the arrangement while charming a variety of influential Before the March annual meeting, involved 13 other shipping lines. The African politicians. institutional investors, not so mesmer- article reported that a number of con- The huge trading company now has ized by Tiny's charisma, were report- cessions had been wrung from the at least 700 subsidiaries throughout the edly lobbying for the appointment of a group to restore competitiveness, world, but it is Africa where Rowland high-powered managing director to including its withdrawal from three got his start and the continent remains help restructure the corporation, free- African trade conferences. Tiny's playground and Lonrho's prime ing Rowland to fly around Africa in profit producer, particularly through his private jet and cultivate his many Ashanti Goldfields, a joint venture with contacts. Many large shareholders SOUTH AFRICA reportedly have begun selling off their the Ghanaian government, and two big European Community foreign min- Lonrho stock. platinum mines in South Africa. isters agreed to lift the EC's seven- Lonrho is an old-fashioned con- One disgruntled investor told The year-old ban on oil sales to South glomerate; in fact, some would say Independent on Sunday, "With these Africa, at a meeting in Luxembourg maverick—it still has the aura of Tiny deals, the company needs Mr. Rowland in April. Commenting on the deci- the tycoon's personal fiefdom. There more and more, not less and less. It is sion, South Africa's Pik Botha said, are no logical links between companies not a nice situation for shareholders." "Psychologically it means the doors and they have been bought and sold By April, Lonrho's crisis of confi- are fully opened to South Africa to do whenever the price was right. dence had deepened. With its stock business, to do trade and to move In March, even though the price was prices plummeting, the company's back into the world that was closed to definitely right ($306 million), the tim- biggest outside investor. Fidelity Man- us." ing of one such sale stunned Lonrho agement Research of Boston, said it The EC decision was taken after stockholders and the financial markets. was carefully considering the implica- white South Africans overwhelmingly Rowland masterminded the politically tions of the Libyan deal and had not confirmed their support for the negoti- sensitive sale of a one-third interest in precluded selling its 9.8 percent stake. ating process being undertaken by Pres- Metropole Hotels to Libya's investment The Libyan involvement raises the pos- ident F.W. de Klerk in a referendum company just as Libya faced economic sibility that UN sanctions, which took held on March 17. sanctions and asset seizures for its effect April 15, could hit Lonrho itself. The only remaining EC sanctions on alleged role in the Pan Am bombing According to the Financial Times, South Africa are a ban on the trade of over Lockerbie in 1988. Rowland flew to Libya twice just weapons or military-related goods, and "The deal was Mr. Rowland's per- before the sanctions deadline, apparent- measures prohibiting military or nucle- sonal achievement," said Lonrho's ly in an effort to reach a compromise ar cooperation. These are mandated by chairman, according to the Financial over Qaddafy's refusal to hand over the the United Nations Security Council. Times: He criticized the press for sub- Lockerbie suspects. The United Stales lifted its oil em- jecting the company to a "persistent and And there was more bad news for bargo against South Africa last year. Africa Report 12 'A MUTUA NYA

THE POLITICS FORD members rallying supporter* I C W% f\ f\ AA Pfessured into opening Kenyan society to ^ ^ *^ multi-party politics, President Daniel arap Moi has made it clear that he prefers going back to the status quo ante. With it all but assured that the opposition would . win fair elections, critics charge that the gov- ernment is now fomenting ethnic violence and pluralism won't work. Meanwhile, the opposition Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) is riven by its own contradictions between the old guard and the new generation. arely four months after caving in to demands for political pluralism. Presi- dent Danie! arap Moi has — encouraged, and most critics j i charge, orchestrated one of 1 the worst spates of inter- "* communal violence that Kenya has seen since independence in , 1963. More than two months of violent clashes in western Kenya have left scores dead and thousands homeless. In Nairobi, ' security forces have repeatedly attacked demonstrators, raising fears that the social fabric of the nation will soon come apart. In the meantime, the government has banned / all political rallies, temporarily arresting the march cal violence has taken on an ethnic expression. In toward an openly elected government. February and March alone, over 60 people were killed Since opposition political parties were legalized last and more than 5,000 left homeless when some members December, the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) of the Kalenjin group, to which Moi belongs, attacked the government has taken a series of actions designed to Luo, Luhyia, and Kikuyu, whom tyey perceive as support- reverse the transition to a freely elected government. ing FORD. Villages have been set on fire and schools and Massive defections from Kanu, most notably of Mwai homes razed to the ground as these clashes appeared to Kibaki, a former vice president, and the growing popular- spiral out of control. ity of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy Ostensibly, the clashes are spurred by disputes over (FORD), have left little doubt that the defeat of the Kanu land, with the Kalenjin charging that the other groups government is certain once free and fair elections are have encroached on their traditional lands. But many called. observers believe that the violence is not ethnic; it is To avoid this dire prospect, and to prolong his hold on politically instigated and orchestrated by the govern- power, Moi is determined to convince Kenyans and aid ment, they say. According to Gibson Kamau Kuria, a donors that opening up the political process to competi- prominent human rights lawyer who fled Kenya in 1990 tion was a mistake. To the surprise of no one, Moi has following an intense government crackdown on its crit- repeatedly warned during public rallies and in interviews ics, "This violence, which is directed by the government, with news organizations that multi-party politics would is supposed to demonstrate the unsuitability of the multi- lead to ethnic violence and national disintegration. party political system to Kenya." Betty Press

To make good on these warnings, the Kanu govern- The government has moved to suppress independent ment has denied the opposition registration of party political activity elsewhere. In March, security forces branches at the district level, making it illegal for them to attacked unarmed civilians in Kisumu, Nyanza Province, hold public meetings and carry out recruitment drives. a FORD stronghold, at bus stops, hospitals, and schools. In another sinister move, the government is "zoning" The attack, which was entirely unprovoked, appeared to parts of the country—declaring certain "Kanu-only" have been calculated to intimidate FORD supporters. On areas—and physically assaulting opposition activists who March 3, security forces viciously attacked women with dare travel there. The Rift Valley Province—the coun- batons, truncheons, and clubs in Nairobi's Uhuru Park. try's farm belt and Moi's home region—has been partic- The women had been camped at the park since February ularly inhospitable to opposition political parties. Senior 28, peacefully demanding the release of all political pris- government officials and Kanu leaders in the province oners. Professor Wangari Maathai, the coordinator of the have openly called on their supporters to beat up FORD Green Belt Movement, an environmental advocacy activists. group, was hospitalized after being sprayed with teargas. In western Kenya and the Rift Valley Province, politi- Since then, news of police violence against citizens has become commonplace. Makau wa Mutua. a lawyer, is projects director at the Harvard Law On March 20, Moi banned all political rallies, citing School Human Rights Program. Africa Report 14 the spate of ethnic violence that has gripped western repudiated by a majority of Kenyans, the Kanu govern- Kenya. In cancelling the rallies, Moi charged that FORD ment has not bothered to propose a coherent, acceptable, was behind the campaign of terror, carried out by sabo- and credible formula for transition. It has not even put teurs and guerrillas trained in Libya. FORl) has repeated- forth a draft working agenda for a new political arrange- ly accused the government of fomenting the violence as a ment. Instead, its most senior officials are obsessed with pretext for calling off multi-party elections. "I am not sur- the retention of power, creating the crisis in leadership prised by the government's use of the violence, or even which has led to a slow but sure decomposition of nation- the extent of the violence." says Kuria. "What surprises al institutions. Unfortunately, FORD, the primary opposi- me is the lack of subtlety in the regime's use of naked ter- tion party, has failed to seize the political initiative to ror to retain power. In its manipulation of ethnicity, the translate its popularity into a broad and comprehensive government is denying the very existence of a Kenyan agenda for action. nation which it needs to rule." To be sure, the government has made it extremely dif- Other Kenyans agree. In a harsh and angrily worded ficult for the opposition to organize by denying permits pastoral letter, the usually moderate Catholic clergy for public meetings, refusing registration of local offices delivered an unprecedented attack on Moi on March 22, as required by the Societies Act, physical attacks, blaming the violence on the government. The letter, killings, and intimidation of opposition activists, and most which was read to congregations throughout the coun- recently the banning of all political meetings. In their let- try, in effect withdrew from Moi any remaining support ter, the Catholic bishops decried the "lack of impartiality" he might have retained among one of the country's most in coverage by the government-controlled or -owned powerful establishments. print and broadcast media. But while some senior lead- The action leaves the president without any significant ers within FORD and other critics sympathetic to the social base and virtually takes away his ability to govern. party concede that these obstacles have hampered effec- In the pastoral letter, the Catholic bishops categorically tive organization, they also point out that the party lead- dismissed government assertions that the violence in ership does not western Kenya, which has pitted the Kalenjin against the have its priorities Luo, Luhyia. and Kikuyu, was driven by land disputes or straight. ethnic rivalries. With equal vigor, the bishops also reject- These critics ed the suggestion by the government that the violence By all indications, argue that the was a product of the legalization of opposition political direction of FORD parties last December. the government has has been hijacked In a direct attack, the bishops argued that the violence by a group of old is "part of a wider political strategy" by the government to no interest in men who appear to discredit multi-party politics. They pointed out that the be driven solely by attacks were carried out by "well-armed bandits and effecting a speedy the quest for power arsonists" with orders "to inflict injuries only on particular and personal glory. ethnic groups." 'Hie bishops charge that the attackers are transfer of political According to a not local residents but have been "transported to the source close to scenes from outside the area." The bishops concluded power to an elected FORD, petty that it was "difficult for the government to exonerate itself squabbling and from responsibility for these violent clashes" particularly government. narrow personal because its security forces had not acted impartially. ambitions have par- The clergy also assailed what it referred to as "high- alyzed the party. ranking politicians" for "declaring certain zones to be The young and exclusively for the Kanu party." Many Kenyans concur more idealistic of the party, drawn mostly from the legal with the conclusions drawn by the bishops, pointing out profession, have been sidelined by the veteran politi- that the violence is a self-fulfilling prophecy for Moi. cians. In this paralysis, FORl) has been unable to develop Willy Mutunga, the current vice-chairman of the Kenya an integrated strategy to address the government's Uiw Society and a former political detainee, noted, "Moi intransigence and to outline its vision for the country's has fomented the violence to prove that political plural- future. ism will create ethnic violence. He hopes that the opposi- Since December 3, according to these critics, the vet- tion will retaliate so that he can get an excuse for declar- eran politicians have been preoccupied with plans to ing a slate of emergency, and gain a new lease on his merely replace Kanu by recycling the political leader- political life." ship. The obsession with power, coupled with what some The ethnic violence, together with continued harass- see as elements of opportunism, has overlooked funda- ment of government opponents, comes as no surprise. mental issues that must be addressed before elections By all indications, the government has no interest in are held. According to Maina Kiai, a research fellow at effecting a speedy transfer of political power to an elected TransAfrica in Washington, D.C., "the opposition needs government. Although it is quite clear that it has been to identify its priorities clearly. The struggle is not about

15 M a v / J " " e 19 9 2 replacing Moi with another dictator; it should rather be would like to delay elections as long as possible, most focused on restructuring institutions. First, the opposi- probably until February next year, in the hope that it tion needs to mobilize mass action to either force Moi out would cancel them before then under the pretext of a or to compel him to agree to a neutral transitional gov- worsening security situation. The strike was marred by ernment." Looking to other African countries that have incidents of violence as security forces shot at demon- deposed dictators, Kiai adds that "a sovereign national strators, who stoned cars and buses to prevent com- conference is the best option to chart the country's muters from going to work. future. The opposition can use its mass support to force Problems within the opposition have arisen, many these issues. But first, it must get its house in order." believe, because of the nature of the opposition move- Similar views are echoed by Peter Kareithi, a promi- ment in Kenya. During the 1980s, when the government nent Kenyan journalist. "Currently, there is a paralysis. became increasingly repressive, opposition to its policies FORD is not pushing Moi hard enough. This paralysis is was voiced by lone individuals. But by 1989, as calls for partly a result of the inability of FORD to decide on its more open political systems began to surge throughout candidate for the presidency." Kareithi points out the Africa, these disparate voices started coalescing into a competition between Kenneth Matiba, a former cabinet nascent, middle-class protest movement led primarily by minister and a prominent opposition figure who is recov- lawyers. By 1990, this movement of young professionals, ering in London following a stroke suffered while in veteran opposition politicians, sections of the clergy, and detention last year, and Oginga Odin- the alternative press had attained ga, a former vice president and the domestic and international legitimacy. interim chairman of FORD, has thrust Soon thereafter, the Kanu government, the party into a crisis. "Both gentle- once prized by the West as a check on men should step aside and throw their Although the young Soviet expansionism in the region, weight behind a younger, more vigor- began to suffer diplomatic isolation as ous person, perhaps outside the movement for change the Soviet bloc collapsed. FORD interim committee, if neces- Although this young movement for sary." Kareithi notes that Odinga's has managed to de- change has managed to de-legitimize advanced age and Matiba's poor the Moi regime, it lacks ideological health should be considered when legitimize the Moi cohesion. The only thing its adherents FORD chooses its presidential candi- agree upon is the necessity to remove date. regime, it lacks Moi from office. Most older career Gitobu Imanyara, the courageous politicians who have served in the gov- editor of The Nairobi IMW Monthly and ideological cohesion. ernment before see the struggle for a senior FORD leader himself, insists democracy in purely personal terms. that the opposition must get back to For them, it would be sufficient to the ideals that have brought the move- depose Moi, Their younger colleagues, ment for democracy this far. He admits that FORD has on the other hand, are a new species of African politicians placed too much emphasis on elections without working whose rallying call has been human rights. This group is to create a climate to make them free and fair. "The oppo- wedded to the establishment of a liberal democracy in sition must insist on certain minimum conditions that Kenya, with its accompanying institutions of a free press must be met by the Moi government before elections are and an independent judiciary. The conflict between these held. These include the establishment of an independent two visions partially explains the muddled thinking with- and impartial electoral commission, the registration of in FORD, critics charge. voters, and the presence of international election moni- Unfortunately, the direction of FORD, on which a tors," says Imanyara. Mutunga believes that the violence majority of Kenyans have pinned their hopes, remains in unleashed by the government "proves that the opposition the hands of those with a narrow political agenda. These has used the wrong strategies to remove Moi." He adds contradictions also explain the inability of FORD to articu- that they "should now press for a national convention and late its economic vision for the country. This political cri- seize the initiative for political reform." sis has been compounded by skyrocketing unemploy- There are some recent indications that the opposition ment and the scarcity of essential foodstuffs, which have may be attempting to address these problems. On April become common in Nairobi and other urban areas. There 2, FORD called a fairly successful two-day national strike. is widespread fear that the state may collapse unless the The general strike, in which 60 percent of Nairobi's opposition moves quickly to force the transition to a popu- workforce stayed home, was called to put pressure on lar government. This is the challenge that FORD must Moi to speed up the transition to an elected government. address before the government instigates more violence Among other things, the opposition called for the release and uses it as a pretext to ban political parties and impose of political prisoners, the establishment of an indepen- martial law. As the Somali and Liberian experiences dent electoral commission, the speedy completion of an amply demonstrate, intransigent dictators would rather electoral register, and an early election. The government ruin a country than give up power. O

Africa Report 16 Ill \. Novicki ii

Fighter for Human Rights Gitobu Imanyara

Africa Report: What is the status of Africa Report: How united is the the process toward multi-party democra- opposition movement in Kenya? Are they cy in Kenya? working toward common goals? Should Imanyara: President Moi has made it there be unity under the Forum for the known to the world that he introduced Restoration of Democracy [FORD], or multi-partyism as a result of pressure should there be a multiplicity of political from the international media, internation- parties? al human rights groups, and the nations Imanyara: Kenya has been a one- that have been Kenya's economic sup- party state for practically the whole peri- porters over the last 30 years. He has od that we have been independent, for also made it clear that he doesn't believe 28 years. It was only from 1966 to it can work and all indications are that 1969 when we had an opposition party. he is not going to facilitate the holding of So the opening up of the political climate a free and fair election to enable the is good in that it enables the people to introduction of a truly multi-party democ- form parties based on special interests. Russell Geekie racy in Kenya. In fact, what we are seeing is that none Africa Report: Is it his strategy to of these political parties which have itobu Imanyara, declare a state of emergency to post- emerged are ethnic-based. They are all pone elections? very national in outlook. Contrary to courageous editor of Imanyara: Yes, since the president President Moi's predictions that there announced the introduction of the multi- would be more than 50 opposition par- The Nairobi Law party system in Kenya, we have seen ties once he introduced multi-party poli- pockets of politically instigated violence tics, there are only three main political Monthly and in parts of Western province, where parties in Kenya—the ruling party, Kanu; members of the president's own tribe, the the mainstream opposition party, FORD; FORD's secretary for Kalenjin, are allegedly chasing away the and Mwai Kibaki's Democratic Party non-Kalenjins to Nyanza and Western [DP]. The three parties draw their leader- information, outlines ship from all parts of the country. provinces. We have evidence from peo- the demands of the ple who live there that this violence is not Over the past three months when instigated by the local people, but by political rallies were allowed, both the opposition movement armed groups who appear to be a spe- DP and FORD have been drawing very, cial unit within the Kenyan police. Peo- very large crowds in all parts of the before Kenya's first ple who have been living in these areas country. I think it is very healthy to have for many, many generalions deny being more than one political party. We are free and fair multi- responsible. Yef people continue to flee now seeing the development of a truly because they have been attacked. This civil society where people with similar party elections can always happens at night, never during interests can form their own political par- the day. So it is quite clear that it is part ties to safeguard their interests and fight be held and spells of President Mot's strategy to create a sit- a common cause. uation of political instability so that he out the West's role in All opposition parties are united in can declare a state of emergency and their desire to see Moi's one-party gov- postpone the elections, or hold elections helping to foster ernment removed from power. I can see a in an environment where he will emerge situation where the opposition parties are as the winner. democracy. going to fight the elections as a united

17 May /June 19 9 2 front against Kanu. Whether after the Zambia and Namibia where the interna- Africa Report: What is your view of elections they can continue as one oppo- tional observers played a very crucial the role the outside world, and specifical- sition party is another matter. My own role. Number three, the parties agree ly the United States, has played in push- view is that we ought to have more than that the president should not continue ing for change in Kenya? What would two political parties; otherwise we can telling the public that the date of the you like to see the U.S. doing now? revert to a situation similar to that in Zam- Kenyan election is his "last secret Imanyara: Had it not been for the bia where the opposition becomes the rul- weapon." In a situation where there very, very strong and intense pressure on ing party and the ruling party ceases to have not been contested elections for Moi from the Western nations, the World exist as a viable unit. A democratic soci- three decades, it doesn't make sense to Bank, the IMF, and the international ety needs a strong opposition, it is a hide the date of the elections because human rights groups, we would never strong check and balance. What we are the parties need time to prepare. They have gotten this far. The American seeing now in Kenya is very healthy for need to register voters, they need to pub- ambassador in Nairobi has been very the country's democratic future. lish their manifestos, and all these things outspoken, a pro-democracy activist. He can only be done when there is a specif- is very popular in Kenya and he has Africa Report: What has been the ic date for the elections- really given the pro-democracy move- impact of the ban on political meetings Right now, because of the culture of ment great impetus and encouragement. on the opposition's efforts to get its mes- fear that has characterized Kenyan poli- That has been matched to some extent sage across? tics, a lot of citizens, although they sup- by Congress, which over the last three or Imanyara: The immediate result is port the opposition parties, are not free four years has linked further aid to going to unite the opposition parties to come out and register because if they Kenya on the democratic reform process. even further because now they see that are businessmen, they fear losing their We have not seen as much support from Kanu is trying to create an unfair advan- trading licenses. All of them are waiting the administration, and one hopes that tage for itself. When President Moi came for the dissolution of Parliament and for the administration would be in tune with back from a visit to Austria and the Unit- the announcement of an election date in Congress, and with the ambassador in ed Kingdom, he warned that he is not order to publicly register and enroll as Nairobi because there is no doubt that going to allow the free press or more members of the opposition parties. With- both the United States and the UK have political rallies until the situation returns out a date being fixed, this is not hap- very great influence on Kenyan political to "normal." Now, we do not know pening and people are just waiting. In developments: the U.S. because of a whether by normal, he means a return to the meantime, President Moi and his long-standing military training scheme one-party rule, or what exactly he is party continue to enjoy an unfair advan- for the air force and a base in Mom- referring to. There have been violent inci- tage. So those are three minimum condi- basa, and rhe UK in the training of the dents in parts of Western province, but tions of the opposition parties within army. The U.S. also has very strong influ- the country has not seen any serious Kenya. ence in the World Bank and IMF and in cases of ethnic violence and it is not direct bilateral aid. clear what the president is talking about. The opposition based outside of But the immediate result has been to Kenya is also demanding an interim The U.S. should maintain the econom- unite the opposition parties to fight government. I do not know if that is ic pressure, continue withholding aid. against the new restrictions on the rights going to be possible because the U.S. influence in the World Bank, for they have been demanding and for Kenyan people are so fed up with Moi's example, could be instrumental in getting which many people have lost their lives government that they do not wish to give countries like Japan, which is now and many are still in prison and facing him the opportunity for legitimacy, Kenya's largest aid donor, to link their trial in the courts. because an interim government would economic aid to Kenya to political liber- Africa Report: What are the opposi- have to deal with all opposition parties alization and respect for human rights. tion's demands as to preconditions for as equal. Kenyans see Moi as the cause There is a need for the U.S. and the gov- holding elections? of the current political and economic ernments that have any influence on Moi Imanyara: The opposition parties are problems, and they want the earliest to act more in concert because that is the agreed on certain basic minimum condi- opportunity to remove him from office. only way to support the Kenyan people Subject to these conditions that I have in getting o peaceful transition from a tions: one, an independent electoral just stated, they are ready and willing to very authoritarian, one-man, highly per- commission. Without an independent have an election as long as it is super- sonalized system to a democratic culture. electoral commission which enjoys the vised by an independent electoral com- The momentum can only be maintained confidence of the people and whose mission and then they can get the coun- if the international community supports membership is drawn from persons try back on a strong economic and the efforts of the Kenyan people, particu- acceptable to all political parties, not political footing. larly through FORD, which is spearhead- only to supervise elections, but to register ing this campaign for political pluralism One of the first priorities after the voters and update the electoral register, in Kenya. there cannot be a free and fair election. election is a constitutional convention to Number two, the opposition parties redraw the Kenyan constitution to restore Africa Report: What sorts of things have agreed on the need for a strong fundamental rights and safeguard does the opposition require from the out- presence of international observers and against encroachments into these basic side in helping to prepare for elections? monitors. We have seen situations in rights by any arm of the government. Imanyara: We shall definitely need a

-Africa Report 18 lot of technical assistance, preparing the this year because obviously Moi does compulsory leave by his newspaper. electorate for the first truly free and fair not want to push the time up to the end All these measures being directed at elections since independence. We will where people would know the date of individual journalists and the press in need assistance in the registration pro- the election. But there is a lot that needs genera! are meant to intimidate them, cess, in preparation of ballot papers, in to be done. The electoral register needs because the democratization process in training the returning officers, in ensuring to be updated. There are about 3.5 mil- Kenya has been spearheaded by the that the counting process is seen to be lion Kenyans who have obtained the vot- press. It is the press that has publicized foir. We shall need assistance in getting ing age since the last time there was a some of the statements by opposition fig- the voters registered. People who have voter registration exercise who need to ures, so Kanu is very worried that a com- attained the voting age need ID cards to be registered. Under the law, we need a pletely free press would undermine their register as voters. I don't think the period for objections for people who chances of rigging the elections and get- Kenyan government is in an economic have been left out of the registers, or ting back power. The Foreign press has position to issue these papers. So we who have been registered in the wrong also been intimidated. This is something need support to ensure that the electoral areas to make appeals. that has been going on for some time. process is seen to be free and it cannot So we need a minimum period of four The government always attacks the for- be free if the exercise is left to the gov- to five months before we can really be eign correspondents because Nairobi ernment to implement. We need voting ready for an election both under the law has the largest number of them and booths, we need a lot of paperwork, offi- and being realistic about the entire pro- whenever there is some adverse article cials to train the election agents, a lot of cess. Once a new government is in in a foreign newspaper, Moi threatens to technical assistance from those countries place, it will take a minimum of two to have them thrown out of the country, that have gone through this process on a three years before the economy begins regular basis or after a long period of Africa Report: Could you reflect on to turn around. In view of the very drastic authoritarian rule. your experiences over the last two years and painful economic decisions that as one of Kenya's most courageous Africa Report: What is the impact of have to be taken by whatever govern- democrats who helped to launch the the deteriorating economy on the demo- ment is in power, I doubt that there can democratization process? cratic process? be any serious economic growth in less Imanyara: Since I was last in the U.S. Imanyara; Kenya's economic prob- than two years. two years ago, I have been in and out of lems are not caused by external factors. Africa Report: What is the current sta- prison at least four times. This has been It is massive corruption, delays of foreign tus of press freedom in Kenya? the longest period of freedom—three investors in remitting dividends out of the Imanyara: What we have seen since months. My passport was impounded country, bureaucratic delays in getting the introduction of multi-party politics is and I was not able to travel out of the permits for trading licenses. By and that the government's wrath appears to country during that time. I was severely large, Kenya's economic problems are a have turned on the press. The year began beaten up by police during the period I result of governmental mismanagement on a bad note when 30,000 copies of was in detention this last time, resulting of the economy. The external factors con- Society magazine were impounded by in serious illness which necessitated my tribute only about 20 percent. Before the the police and a high court order was being admitted to the national hospital. Kenyan economy can turn around, obtained the following day to legalize the There, although I did get medical atten- before we can start seeing an economic continued impoundment. The case is still tion, they continued holding me in environment that is conducive to foreign pending in the law courts, no decision chains. I was chained to the bed the investors and economic growth, there has been taken. In addition to that, indi- whole time I was in the hospital. must be a complete overhaul of the trea- vidual journalists have been Generally, I have been a special tar- sury department, for example. We need harassed—journalists of The Nation, The get of President Moi. Whenever he has to bring in accountability and trans- Standard, The Weekly Review. They have anything to say against the journalists, parency when decisions at the treasury been targets of the Kenyan police and the lawyers, or any pro-democracy activists, are taken, decisions that involve which latest is that the senior editors of both The he has targeted all that on me and a few companies are allowed to invest in Nation and The Standard have been sus- others, people like George Anyona, who Kenya. We need an open climate before pended. In March, the Kanu national until three weeks ago was in prison, and the Kenyan economy can start picking executive committee chaired by Moi held up. If we can create a conducive envi- that The Nation newspaper is "anti-gov- the leadership of the Law Society of ronment, then we can restore some confi- ernment" and was being used by the Kenya. We have just been sacrificed. But dence which can attract foreign investors opposition to undermine the government I think we have seen real positive devel- into the country. and the ruling party, according to the sec- opments in Kenya over the last two years retary-genera! of Kanu. Nation journalists as a result of our persistence in calling Africa Report: What is the timetable were arrested and interrogated, then for basic human rights. We have always for democratic change? released. The managing editor of The used non-violent methods and always Imanyara: Under the Kenyan constitu- Nation was held for two days before called for peaceful change and respect tion, the current term of Parliament ends being released. The managing editor of for the constitution, but these are seen by in March next year, so there must be an The Standard, after his interrogation by Moi as subversive activities and this is election before then. But we all antici- the police, was subsequently sent on what has caused him to order my arrest pate that the election will be some time and detention over the last three years.•

19 . M a v June 1 <) 9 2 rom age 17 when she served as a scout for the me very bard, when my husband [S.M. Otieno, a Mau-Mau freedom fighters, Watnbui Otieno, prominent lawyer] died," she related. In a case F 56, veteran Kenyan politician and defender of that made headlines the world over as a test of women's rights, says she has cheated death many women's rights, Mrs. Otieno, a Kikuyu, launched a times. Her latest brush with mortality came on suit against her husband's family over the right to February 19. A member of the steering committee bury bis body. Otieno says that Moi provided the and chairman of the status and role of women family, Luosfrom southwestern Kenya, with legal committee of the opposition Forum for the representation and funding to fight the case in Restoration of Democracy (FORD), Otieno was court After ber husband's body lay in a Nairobi leading a delegation to inaugurate a FORD office morgue for a year and a half, Otieno lost the case in Ngong, outside Nairobi, the parliamentary con- on appeal and ber husband's body was buried in stituency of the Kenyan vice president, George rural Nyalgunga—she refused to attend the funer- Saitoti. al As she arrived within 100 yards of the FORD Undaunted, she built a memorial to him in the office with other FORD officials and supporters, Ngong Hills, where she bad planned to inter him her car was suddenly surrounded by vehicles, originally, and where she has also dug her own blocking her route. Stones rained down on her car grave. A plaque at the entrance to the monument and chaos ensued. Although local police were reads: "I, Wambui Otieno, will be laid to rest out- standing by, having been alerted in advance of the side this memorial of my late S.M. to guard his ceremony which was to take place, they did noth- memory even in death." ing to intervene as Otieno was putted out of her A tenacious defender of the rights of Kenyan car and beaten severely by young thugs of "Moi's women, Otieno, who plans to contest the Ngong private army." parliamentary seat against Vice President Saitoti "I saw I was going to die. They broke my arm in the next round of elections, has devoted ber with a rungu (wooden Maasai club)," she said as time over the past year to ensuring that FORD she lifted her right artn, still enclosed in a cast. "I takes Kenyan women's rights into account in the was bleeding, hit In the bead, emerging political process. on the ear, and all over my She successfully organized body. They hit me bard on my women to veto an effort to cre- spine and 1 nearly lost con- ate a women's wing within sciousness. One came with a Wambui Otieno: FORD. "I told them that is javelin and was about to stab unacceptable. We are veteran nw." An Indomitable politicians like you. We want Fortunately for Otieno, as to join FORD in the main- the javelin-wielder paused Spirit stream and we are not going with weapon raised overhead to be marginalized." to ask, "Are these the people? "We have one problem," she Should we finish them?", a policeman intervened. says. "We have decided to stand for elections, but The attackers then fled to the marketplace, where women in Africa from time immemorial have they dispersed after beating market women and never been in charge of their finances. Most won't stealing their goods. be able to pay for election expenses." Hence, part Wambui Otieno is no stranger to battle with the of her agenda during her recent visit to the United government of President Daniel arap Moi. States was to seek donor agency and NGO support Although she is a founding member of the Kenya for women in the political process. Secondly, she African National Union (Kanu), the ruling party is speaking out on behalf of FORD to create an begun by f onto Kenyatta in I960, and the first awareness that "Moi is using donor money woman to become a member of its executive com- against us and that helps bim to continue. A lot of mittee, she has fought long and bard against what pressure must be put on him to bold elections, to she perceives as the erosion of Kenya's democrat- allow an independent electoral commission, and ic traditions under Moi's presidency. She has been international observers." a constant victim of harassment and intimidation Otieno says: "I wasted my youth fighting for the as a consequence. independence of Kenya, and that's what hurts me The 1985 election was the turning point, "when now. We are asking Western countries to help us I decided I couldn't go on with Moi," said Otieno. by stopping giving Moi aid. We are suffering, but 7 told him there was no democracy." Although let us die because for freedom there must be casu- she continued her work as treasurer of the Forum alties. Cowards die many times before their death, 85 NGO Organizing Committee for the UN Decade but the brave never taste of death. I will go on." for Women, she decided to resign her 25-year post Indeed, a broken arm and battered body hasn't %s a member ofKanu's delegates conference, after stopped Wambui Otieno, a women of indomitable ber run for assistant secretary-general was spirit and iron conviction. • stonewalled by President Moi But it was in 1986 when "Moi got a chance to bit —Marsaret A. Novicki

-Africa Report 1 #m»' >r F:' " •ii-_ BY ME LIN DA HAM IMEK I

hi FYIN 1 THE DICTATOR

4

ftaa dhibana

The cowed and long-dormant internal opposition to Life President

Kamuzu Banda's autocratic 30-year rule awoke in March when A Catholic bishops distributed a Lenten letter attacking the government and calling on Malawians to work for change. That sparked the first-ever anti-Banda demonstrations. Then, a prominent labor leader, Chikufwa Chihana, received a mandate from a meeting in Zambia of Malawian dissidents to return home and organize a national conference on democracy. He was arrested as he stepped off the plane. ne by one, over a dozen men stood up drought this century until specific demands are met. in the conference room, identifying They also appealed to donors to make no new pledges themselves as "graduates" of when they meet with Malawian officials in Paris for a Con- Malawi's notorious prisons. Many sultative Group meeting in May. had been detained without trial for The interim committee demands also included a practi- years. Others had spent up to three cal demonstration by the Malawi government of its com- decades living in exile. Remarkably, mitment to free speech and association by allowing the they still had the courage to "stand up and be counted" in national pro-democracy conference to go ahead. public—even if only in Zambia. To this end, the delegates demanded that all political The Lusaka meeting was the first of its kind, bringing prisoners inside Malawian jails be released and all politi- together over 75 Malawians living outside and inside the cal exiles granted a general amnesty. Article four of the country to discuss prospects for democracy in their constitution should also be repealed so that other political nation. As the Zambian minister of legal affairs, Roger parties could form. Chongwe, said in his opening address: "The political sys- One diplomat said that donors at the May Paris meet- tem in Malawi will have to open up...Malawi cannot be an ing would likely handle Malawi in the same way they did island. She must coexist in a region which is quickly Kenya last year—stipulate that aid be linked to a vastly adapting to political changes." improved human rights record and democratic changes. Delegates at the meeting, who came from Britain, Since Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi succumbed to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and from international, but also organized domestic pressure, and inside Malawi, formed an interim committee, not affiliated announced his intention to allow a multi-party system in to any exiled political group, which will be guided and December last year, the donors seem to have had a major bound by the decisions made by a national political move- effect. ment to be formed inside Malawi. Labor leader Chihana argues that Malawi has a signifi- They gave a mandate to Chikufwa Chihana, a promi- cantly more fragile economy than Kenya and if donors cut nent Malawian labor leader who lives in the capital, aid, "It would send the country into ruins and the after- Lilongwe, to go back after the meeting to form a demo- math would be absolute chaos." cratic alliance and begin organizing the first-ever national Malawi has no mineral resources of any significance. conference on democracy inside the country. Its economy is predominantly agriculture-based, with Chihana is the secretary-general of the Southern tobacco as its prime export earner. Most agricultural pro- African Trade Unions Coordinating Council (SATUCC), duce has been devastated this year by the regional which represents 10 million workers in the region. He drought. This is compounded by the continued influx of was also a founding member of the Malawi Congress Mozambican refugees. Party, but went into exile in Kenya just before indepen- At the moment, there is no "out of the closet" orga- dence because he fell out with Hastings Kamuzu nized opposition in Malawi. But Chihana was going to be Banda—soon to become president. When he returned in the torch-bearer, rallying together such potentially pro- 1971, he was detained without trial for seven years, five of gressive forces as the churches, students, academics, pro- them in solitary confinement, where he was kept most of fessionals, and businessmen. the time naked and in leg irons. Prison wardens frequent- But it was not to be. While at the meeting, the labor ly beat him, hung him upside down, and threw water on leader was extremely outspoken. He described Malawi as him. The London-based human rights group, Amnesty "one of the worst dictatorships in Africa" and the Malawi International, adopted Chihana as a prisoner of con- Congress Party—the sole legal party—as "the party of science. darkness and death." His remarks did not fall on deaf The interim committee also called for international ears. donors to cut all but humanitarian aid for Malawi's 1 mil- Lilongwe-based diplomats had warned Chihana that a lion Mozambican refugees and relief for the worst warrant was out for his arrest immediately after he landed in Malawi. But the determined democrat was not to be Melinda Ham is a Canadian freelance journalist based in Lusaka, Zambia.

Africa Report 2 cowed. Minutes after Chihana stepped off the plane at for fundamental freedoms of expression, speech, associa- Kamuzu International Airport waving a speech he was tion, and the press. about to read announcing the formation of a democratic "Nobody should ever have to suffer reprisals for hon- alliance on Malawian soil, he was grabbed by security estly expressing and living up to their convictions, intel- men. They shoved him into the back of a car waiting on lectual, religious, or political. We can only regret this is the tarmac which sped away into Lilongwe city center not always the case in our country...some people have escorted by four police cars. paid dearly for their political opinions," the letter said. Some shocked diplomats who watched the airport The bishops also emphasized they could not "ignore or arrest with growing alarm quickly got into their cars and turn a blind eye to our people's experience of unfairness pursued the one carrying Chihana. It went directly to the and injustice" and condemned expropriation of business SATUCC offices. Five Malawian SATUCC employees and property and detention without trial. were arrested and the offices ransacked, while the diplo- "People will not be scandalized to hear these things. mats were turned away at gunpoint. They know them. They will only be grateful that their true Chihana was also taken to his house, which was needs are recognized and that efforts are made to answer searched and an unknown quantity of money confiscat- them." the letter stated. ed—possibly to be used as evidence later that Chihana The bishops urged Malawians to "work toward a had foreign backers. Chihana's wife Christina had already change of climate" because they said participation in the been fired from her job as a senior lecturer at Kamuzu life of a country was not only a right, but a "duty." College and told to vacate the house. At the time of writ- Only days before, Amnesty International published a ing, Chihana was still being detained without trial at an report which alleged that many political prisoners in unknown location. Malawi were kept in leg-irons and handcuffs in darkened Chihana's arrest triggered off an international reac- cells and denied food. It described how 72-year-old prison- tion. The British and American embassies both registered er of conscience Orton Chirwa was put in leg-irons and official complaints to the Malawian government. The handcuffs and attached to an iron bar behind his knees in Americans urged the authorities to immediately release May last year. He was kept in that position for two days Chihana and allow him "freedom to express his political and denied toilet facilities. views, undertake political activity, and continue his trade After the publication and distribution of the Lenten let- union activities." The British foreign office said it held the ter, the seven bishops were called to meet the inspector- Malawian government directly responsible for Chihana's general of police and interrogated for eight hours before safety. they were released. They were then reportedly placed Solidarity messages poured in from trade unions under house arrest for four days at Archbishop James worldwide, while hundreds of Zambian university stu- Chiona's house in Blantyre before they were finally dents marched peacefully from their campus five miles to allowed to return to their own homes. the Malawi High Commission in downtown iAisaka shout- According to the government newspaper, the Malawi ing, "Free Chihana! Democracy for Malawi now!" and Daily Times, President Banda accused the bishops of anti-Banda slogans. "double-crossing" him. The Malawi Congress Party con- Amnesty International again declared Chihana a pris- demned "the bishops' nefarious attempt to plant seeds of oner of conscience because he had been detained for his disunity among Malawians of all denominations." The let- non-violent political opposition to the Malawian govern- ter was declared "seditious" and possession of it a crimi- ment. Because Life President Banda announced in Febru- nal offense. ary that all returning political dissidents would be "meat Trie treatment of the bishops provoked an internation- for crocodiles." Amnesty also expressed deep concern al outcry. Catholic conferences around the world declared that Chihana could face "extra-judicial execution" while in their solidarity with their Malawian counterparts and detention or soon after he is released. were joined by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and Even though Chihana must now face the horrors of the Anglican Church in Britain. Within Malawi itself, detention and torture, which he knows all too well, he has other churches preached from the pulpit their shared sen- returned to a different Malawi, where the groundwork of timents with the Catholics. resistance was already laid in March before he arrived. On the following Monday, emboldened by the Lenten His detention could provide the final spark needed to letter, University of Malawi students in the former colo- ignite the whole process. nial capital, Zomba, began singing songs such as Tikufu- It all began on March 8, when seven Catholic bishops na multi-party—which means "We want multi-party" in signed a Lenten letter which was read in churches the local Chichewa language—as they were leaving the throughout the country, and over 16,000 copies distribut- town's Catholic cathedral. Four were arrested. ed. Many more copies were made and sent by fax all over This sparked off a two-day clash between the the world. police—dressed in riot gear—and students throwing The Lenten letter denounced the lack of education and stones and singing pro-democracy songs. Lilongwe-based health facilities in Malawi, and the "growing gap between diplomats said that more than 250 students took part in the rich and the poor," and made an unprecedented call the anti-government demonstration—the first in 30 years.

May/June 19 9 2 On the second day, the university was officially closed. six cabinet ministers rebelled against Banda in the his- International aid officials claimed that at least 50 students toric "cabinet crisis," harshly criticizing the new president were detained. for his already emerging authoritarian style. None of the Then the demonstrations spread to the commercial ministers were from Banda's central region. capital of Blantyre and polytechnic students fought run- The president's response was to purge his cabinet of ning battles with the police throughout the night. Several opponents and begin a three-decade campaign of "divide shops were allegedly stoned. and rule," systematically discriminating against major eth- Violence was not limited to pro-democracy activists. nic groups in the northern and southern regions, to con- Wielding axes, MCP Young Pioneers broke into the solidate power. Montfort Fathers' printing press in Balaka, half-way The northern and southern regions were allocated sig- between Blantyre and Lilongwe, which had printed the nificantly less development assistance and northerners Lenten letter, smashed the press, and then set it on fire. were purged almost completely from the civil service and Over $10,000 worth of equipment was destroyed. all government ministries, especially education, and sent The following week, the MCP orchestrated counter- back to their region. It is no coincidence that most of the demonstrations in seven towns across Malawi, condemn- exile groups are composed mostly of northern Malaw- ing the Catholic bishops and their I^enten letter and show- ians, a handful of southerners, and a negligible amount of ing their support for Banda and the MCP government. To those from the central region. the MCPs disappointment, the rallies were poorly attend- It will be a monumental achievement if the new move- ed, as most people continued with "business as usual." ment can be credibly national in its composition, as well Chihana's arrest and indefinite detention now raise as representative of non-black Malawians such as Asians many questions. Besides his personal security, the crucial and whites. A lot depends on how much pressure West- problem is who will take over his role as prime organizer ern donors put on Malawi at the key Consultative Group of the new democratic movement. Before Chihana left meeting in Paris. Malawi for Zambia, he said he was meeting regularly with Malawi stands almost completely isolated among its a group of about 10 professionals including lawyers, neighbors. Zambia's new democratically elected Move- teachers, and former politicians. Before he was detained, ment for Multi-party Democracy government is unlikely Chihana said with assurance that one of them would take to support a dictatorship next door. President Frederick over the reins, although this remains to be seen. Chiluba and Minister of Home Affairs Newstead Zimba, The role of the Malawian exiles once an internal move- who were, respectively, former chairman and secretary- ment is formed is also in question. Many politicized people general of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, are within the country, including Chihana, have said they want thought to have close personal lies with Chihana. Chiluba to keep their distance and independence from the exiles. was also formerly president of SATUCC, of which Chi- Some delegates at the Lusaka conference were resent- hana is still secretary-general. ful that Chihana was forced on them as an interim leader. President Joaquim Chissano's government in Mozam- They had their own private agendas—fashioning them- bique harbors a deep grudge against the regime because selves as the next president of Malawi. But despite these Malawi was used as a transit point and a base for Renamo aspirations, none of those living in exile were willing to rebels. Relations with Tanzania have warmed somewhat, return home in Chihana's place. but there is a history of antagonism between the two Political analysts say that the external parties, such as countries and it is likely that Dar es Salaam would support the I^isaka-based United Front for Multi-party Democracy, change. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is the only the Dar es Salaam-based Congress for Second Republic, leader in the region to keep warm personal relations with and the Socialist League of Malawi—none of which have the Malawian president, but Mugabe is unlikely to find proven internal support—will rapidly become irrelevant. many colleagues in his government who would support The external wing of the interim committee formed at Banda. the Lusaka conference regards itself as only a support Even South Africa, Banda's ally when all others in the group for the internal movement. For example, more than region shunned Pretoria, would appear to have aban- 10,000 Malawian exiles of Asian origin live in England and doned Lilongwe. It no longer has the strategic importance they will be providing the backbone of financial support to it once had as a conduit for support to Renamo and as a the internal wing, according to Ahmed Dassu, a delegate base for keeping watch on liberation groups in the region. at the Lusaka conference. Its economic importance, as other countries such as Zam- Another question is how the new internal movement bia develop stronger and more open economic links with will reconcile regionalism, which has deep historical South Africa, is substantially reduced. roots. Malawi is divided into three regions: north, central, Friends of the Malawian regime are now very few. and south. The country's ruling triad—Life President Those who want change are many. They are likely to sup- Banda, his official hostess Mama Cecilia Kadzamira, and port the first signs of a credible opposition that emerges. her uncle John Tembo, the MCP treasurer-general— The questions remain: When will it happen inside the come from the central region. country and how long will Malawi resist growing interna- Just months after independence from Britain in 1964, tional pressure? O

Africa Report 24 BY ANDREW MELDRUM

The worst drought of the 20th century is burning up southern Africa, exacer- bating the plight of fragile economies. Hardest hit has been the region's staple THE food, maize, which has been devastat- ed from coast to coast, requiring the import of 11 million tons of the crop and BIC stretching severely strained transport networks. Some are now questioning the wisdom of being so dependent on a SCORCHER non-drought resistant food. Jorgen Schytte/Urvcef outhern Africa's drought is a natural disaster of Maize plays a prominent role in Zambian politics, as biblical proportions. It is the worst this century, well as in its diet. Kenneth Kaunda's government kept scorching crops right across the continent the country's urban population happy with low, state-sub- from Angola on the west coast to Mozambique sidized maize prices. Zambia's maize was, comparatively, and Tanzania on the east. the cheapest in the region. But the subsidy became a The drought respects no boundaries. At a time when heavy burden on the state budget and the low prices southern Africa is caught up in a tenuous peace process offered to producers gave farmers little incentive to grow and difficult democratization efforts, the drought has maize. weighed in heavily on political balances throughout the When Kaunda tried to remove the subsidy and raise region. maize prices, in 1986 and again in 1990, food riots broke In some cases, the effects of the drought are tipping out. The June 1990 disturbances rocked Zambia nation- the political scales in favor of change, such as in Malawi. wide and launched the democratization process that led In other countries, the drought is hindering the process to Kaunda's defeat at the polls. of democratic reform, as in Zambia. The drought is The drought has made it even more difficult for new threatening Angola's hard-won peace and is troubling President Frederick Chiluba's government to carry out a Namibia's stability. tough economic structural adjustment program which Of course, the biggest victim of the drought is maize. includes the removal of subsidies. Now Kaunda, leader of Fields of the failed crops stretch from the Atlantic to the the opposition, is trying to make political capital of the Indian Ocean and the drought has called into question high food prices—a result of both Chiluba's economic the suitability of maize as the region's staple grain. The policies and the drought. The drought has helped to has- insistent demands of hungry populations for maize meal ten the end of Chiluba's political honeymoon. have also forced leaders to question the political wisdom In Angola, the drought is threatening to undermine the of remaining so dependent upon the crop. ceasefire agreement and progress toward national elec- Maize was introduced to Africa by the Portuguese tions. About 100,000 army and rebel fighters, as stated in who brought it from the Americas. It was widely promot- the peace accord, have gathered at designated camps to ed by colonial agriculturalists as a staple food and a lucra- avoid disturbing the peace in the run-up to the national tive export grain. elections in September. But the drought has caused a Only now, with the widespread crop failure and the maize shortage that is shoving hungry, armed soldiers region's need to import an estimated 11 million tons of out of the camps in search of something to eat. They maize, are experts and peasants alike considering indige- could upset the plans to establish a new government. nous and drought-resistant grains like sorghum and mil- Mozambique's war still rages on and the drought has let. Southern Africa's ports and road and rail networks proved to be fuel for even more banditry and violence. are going to be severely strained to move efficiently such There is not enough food in the country, but plenty of large amounts of maize and other foods. South Africa, arms and ammunition. Neither the Chissano government importing 4.5 million tons of corn, has announced its nor Renamo are able to effectively control their hungry ports will be full handling its own needs. That means troops. Armed bands from both sides are marauding the Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi must rely on the notori- countryside in search of food. In Maputo, people refer to ously inefficient ports of Mozambique and Tanzania for "their bandits," meaning Renamo's rebels, and to "our their maize imports. bandits," meaning the army's hungry thieves. Namibia lost 80 percent of its maize crop, forcing the For years, southern Africa has been plagued by wars Nujoma government to spend foreign currency for and misery, but generally enough rain has fallen for peo- imports that it had planned to use on improving housing ple to feed themselves. The promise of peace, democra- and education for its long-deprived majority. Lesotho cy, and stability which appeared within the region's grasp expects to harvest just 45,000 tons of maize, compared to last year has been made that much harder by the its normal 120,000 tons. That should scramble the drought's scorching effects. already confused political situation there as the popula- In Zimbabwe, the drought has become a major factor tion braces for the expected skyrocketing prices. in the country's political equation. Many derisive com- Normally lush Malawi has only produced 700,000 tons ments and cynical jokes about the Mugabe government of maize, half its ordinary yield. With 1.2 million extra are heard while standing in the lengthy queues for corn mouths to feed—the number of Malawi's Mozambican meal, Zimbabwe's staple food, throughout the country. refugees—the Banda regime is particularly susceptible Waiting to buy a 10-pound bag of maize meal in front to pressure for political reforms from nations donating of one Harare supermarket, a household servant sighs, food aid. Already the government responded to Scandi- "Everything is scarce these days. I have waited for sugar navian pressure to release some political prisoners, but and cooking oil and now mealie meal [corn meal]," she now the political stakes are even higher. said. "This drought is making things tough." A talkative gardener standing behind her says it is not Andrew Meldrum, a contributing editor to Africa Report, is an American only the drought but also the government's economic journalist who is frontline editor of'the Johannesburg Weekly Mail. Based in Harare, he also writes /or The Guardian ofljtndon. structural adjustment program (ESAP) which is causing

Africa Report 26 problems. "Do you know what ESAP stands for? Ever these troubles could threaten, even bring down a govern- Suffering African People," he said, causing wry chuckles ment. In typical Zimbabwean fashion, the country's com- throughout the line. bination of drought and economic problems is being bun- At another supermarket queue, the joke is that Robert gled so that there is chaos and disorganization, but Mugabe has a new title: The Emir of Queue-Wait. There underneath there is enough planning and resources to are many more remarks in Shona, the language of 75 per- pull the country—and the government—through. cent of Zimbabwe's 10.5 million people, nearly all of them Mugabe responded to Zimbabwe's congestion of crises with the Mugabe government as the butt of the joke. by taking two weeks' leave. He went to Ireland following A few years ago, such public criticism of the govern- the death in February of his wife, Sally. Mugabe stayed at ment was rare; now it is commonplace. Zimbabweans are the fabulous Irish estate of Tony O'Reilly, chairman of making jokes, expressing worry and dissatisfaction, but the American multinational food processor, H.J. Heinz. it would be a mistake to construe that unhappiness as Heinz has a large investment in Zimbabwe and Mugabe support for an immediate overthrow of the government. and O'Reilly have met on numerous occasions. "No, we aren't very happy about the current maize But Mugabe was far too canny, even when grief-strick- shortage, the drought, the economy, corruption," said en, to allow Zimbabwe's political situation to unravel in Miriam Mandaza, a sales assistant in a Harare store. "But his absence. He left Zimbabwe in the hands of his vice- who would replace Mugabe? Everybody knows the alter- presidents, Joshua Nkomo and Simon Muzenda, and his natives are worse. Maybe by the next national elections cabinet ministers. More importantly, he left an astutely [19951, we will have a better choice." drawn-up blueprint detailing how his ministers should Some voters won't have to wait until 1995. Two parlia- deal with the drought. The savvy Mugabe did not trust mentary by-elections are being held in May in which five the drought effort to any single person or team. He different parties and one independent are contesting the appointed eight cabinet ministers to head up the drought two seats. In early April in Bulawayo, Isabel Pasalk relief measures in their home provinces. The ministers formed the Zimbabwe People's Democratic Party to can be relied upon to make sure their own provinces, protest the shortage of staples. So far, Zimbabwe's oppo- their areas of political support, will get their fair share of sition parties have remained fragmented and insignifi- emergency food assistance. cant, but they are an important political escape valve, After the initial disorder and melees in the supermar- allowing voters to vent opposition to the ruling party ket aisles, a more orderly system of queues has been without having to resort to overturning the whole sys- established for maize, meal, bread, sugar, cooking oil, tem. and other short items. Money also talks, and in Zimbab- In recent weeks, the drought has drastically increased we's thriving black market, township dwellers can buy the political problems confronting Robert Mugabe's gov- the scarce items at prices double and triple the controlled ernment by creating a shortage of staple foods. There prices in the supermarkets. have been mad scrambles for scarce goods, melees, and To ensure smooth delivery of the orders of maize mini-riots within supermarkets. To avoid such trouble, imported from the United States, Zimbabwean Transport stores are unloading truckloads under cover of night and Minister Denis Norman made an unprecedented trip to guards have been hired to keep orderly the sales of items Cape Town, South Africa, where he met with his South in short supply. African counterpart, Piet Welgemoed. Shortly after the Rural peasants would be happy to stand in queues. meeting, the first-ever between South African and Zim- Many subsistence farmers have run short of maize and babwean cabinet ministers, South Africa's government- some are already scavenging for edible roots and owned railway company, Spoornet, announced it would berries. In Zimbabwe's poorest area along the Zambezi bring 15,500 rail wagons out of mothballs to speed up Valley, desperate people are surviving on a porridge of regional deliveries of imported grain. baobab roots and sand. Zimbabwe is in a muddled state at the moment, but it The drought has dried up the water supplies of Bul- is getting by. Robert Mugabe returned from his leave, awayo, Mutare, Masvingo, and Gweru. Strict water but there are persistent rumors that the Zimbabwean rationing is in force in those cities. The low level of Lake president will step down from government. These do not Kariba means a reduction in the dam's power-generating appear to be well-founded, although even cabinet mem- capacity and a system of rotating power cuts was bers are speculating over who will succeed Mugabe. It is announced until the next rains fall in November. much more likely that Mugabe will steer Zimbabwe Food queues, water rationing, and power cuts are all through these drought and economic troubles. drought-caused hardships. Add to this the dramatically Back in the commonplace supermarket queues, the escalating prices for food, higher school fees, and hospi- latest rumor is that there will be shortages of salt and toi- tal charges that are part of the government's structural let paper. True or not, it has prompted a run on those adjustment program. Yet more trouble has cropped up in items, making the rumor a self-fulfilling prophecy. the form of strikes and go-slows. "Hmmph," grumbled an unhappy housewife grabbing The pile-up of problems is enough to give a throbbing an extra roll of toilet paper. "The only thing we don't have headache to any political leader. If not handled skillfully, a shortage of these days is people." O

May /June 19 9 2 BY ANDREWMELDRUM

himoio was once a sleepy, tropical town in cen- we to Beira port, one of Mozambique's Indian Ocean har- tral Mozambique whose population of 50,000 bors. For six years, the city has been protected from the served the plantations of the surrounding fer- war by Zimbabwean troops deployed to safeguard their tile plains which produced maize, citrus, country's lifeline to the sea. pineapples, mangoes, and tobacco. The pleasant little city For the past year, Mozambique's Renamo rebels have was also a fueling stop for Rhodesians driving to Mozam- honored a ceasefire along the Beira transport route bique for a beach holiday. which includes Chimoio. Droves of rural Mozambicans Today, Chimoio's population has swelled to an estimat- have fled the war-ravaged hinterland for the safety of Chi- ed 700,000. The city's boom has not been caused by a moio, ringing the city with squatter camps. growth in economic activity. Quite the opposite, it has "Every few months, we fly over the city in a helicopter been caused by desperation. Hundreds of thousands of to monitor the situation. Every time I am amazed to see Mozambican peasants have flocked to Chimoio as a how far out the settlements have stretched," said Jose haven from the country's gruelling war. Salemas, administrator for Redd Barna (Norwegian Save Chimoio is strategically situated midway on the 180- The Children). "Six hundred thousand, 700,000, 800,000 mile road and rail route which links landlocked Zimbab- people are there. It just keeps multiplying." Chimoio's city center may be safe, but Renamo is not Andrew Meldrum, a contributing editor to Africa Report, is an American journalist who is frontline editor of the Johannesburg Weekly Mail. Based far away. In the past few weeks, the rebels have staged a in Harare, he also writes for The Guardian oflMndon. number of attacks on the refugee camps, stealing food. REFUGE FROM The little city of Chimoio, along the Beira Corridor, is now home to 700,000 refugees desperate for a haven from Mozambique's grueling civil war. Yet the peace negotiations grind on after two years, with the stumbling blocks Renamo's uncertainty about what it wants from a settlement and, it is alleged, its continuing re-supply from South Africa and other sources.

clothes, and kidnapping young men to join their ranks. agriculture, making the coun- Terrified of Renamo's nighttime attacks, hundreds of try even more dependent those living in the outskirts hike into the city, carrying upon international assistance. meager belongings on their heads, and sleep on grass The Chissano government mats in doorways and on the city's sidewalks. only controls its capital, Recently a Red Cross worker drove a couple miles Maputo, and urban provincial beyond Chimoio's airport to find himself surrounded by centers. Even those cities are about 50 Renamo rebels. Fearing for his life because of subject to frequent attacks on Renamo's vicious reputation, the aid worker was sur- their outlying areas. The nation's economy is in shreds. prised to be asked by the band's leader what he thought Misguided Marxist policies are partly to blame, but the war itself takes the major blame for Mozambique's distinction with the World Bank as the world's poorest country, with a GNP per capita of just $100. RENAMO After nearly two years, Mozam- of the peace talks between Renamo and the Mozambican bique's on-again, off-again peace negotiations are now in government currently underway in Rome. The stunned their 10th round in Rome. The only point clear from the aid worker carefully said that all Mozambique's people Rome talks is that Renamo is not certain what it wants wanted peace. from a settlement. A discussion followed in which the Renamo leader "Renamo is for peace and we hope that this year we said his band wants peace, but they're not sure what is will achieve peace," said Maj. Francisco Majodo, speak- the best way to achieve it and so they were asking the ing in Chimoio. He is Renamo's representative on the opinions of others. 'Hie rebel leader said his men wanted eight-nation team monitoring the ceasefire along the cor- Renamo to have a role to play once there is peace. The ridor to Beira. He could not describe what principles Ren- aid worker replied that the negotiations in Rome were amo hoped to establish in the negotiations. He simply concentrating on that point and he was sure an agree- said his organization is searching for a settlement. ment could be reached to satisfy both Renamo and Presi- It is no wonder that Renamo has an ill-defined negoti- dent Joaquim Chissano's Frelimo government. Still ating position, considering its history as a surrogate frightened, the international worker was waved on his force for South Africa. The organization was established way. in 1976 by Ian Smith's Rhodesian government to counter That encounter vividly illustrates the issues at stake in Robert Mugabe's nationalist guerrillas and the Marxist the Rome peace talks, and shows the difficulties in reach- Mozambican government that gave them shelter. One of ing a settlement. Certainly there is no disagreement that Mugabe's principal bases was in Chimoio. Mozambique badly needs a negotiated peace. The 16 At Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, the Rhodesians years of war have taken more than 1 million lives, caused handed over the administration of Renamo to South more than 1.5 million people to seek refuge in neighboring Africa's military intelligence. The South Africans greatly £ countries, and have displaced another 4 million people stepped up support for Renamo, setting up training <3 who are effectively refugees in their own country. Out of a camps and airlifting massive amounts of weapons and Left, refugees along tota' population of 15 million, ammunition into rebel camps. Renamo's vague anti-com- there are very few Mozambi- munist sentiments were backed up by brutal tactics the Beira Corridor cans, if any, who have not been against civilians including mass killings, mutilations, and Above. Mozambique's directly affected by the war. the training of young boys as murderers. President Cbissano This year's region-wide drought with Portuguese Although South Africa states it has ended all assis- has scorched what little was tance to Renamo, it is widely believed that the South Prime Minister Ani- remaining of Mozambique's African military is continuing to aid the rebels. In the bat Cavaco Silva

May/June 19 9 2 r ONOR DEPENDENCY here are 180 non-governmental organizations field—the town of Chimoio—rather than the capital. (NGOs) working in Mozambique today, and "We were maneuvered, deliberately, I'd say, by some without them, the plight of the people would officials into assuming responsibility for a district that T be unthinkable. During the 1980s, when the was cut off," says resident representative Ernst number of NGOs soared from seven at the beginning of Schade. "So bit by bit, we found ourselves In the role the decade, these groups provided emergency food of an alternative to local government." relief, medical treatment, and the most fundamental of "If there is peace tomorrow, the situation will be services in a country woefully unprepared for self-gov- worse," says Jose Salemas, director of relief and reha- ernment when independence came in 1975. bilitation for Redd Barna. "Because there will be free "The problem is, when Frelimo came, it said politics movement, the people who are still in the bush will is at the forefront, and the economy was put on the come straight to the cities. The people in the urban second level," says Armindo Guiliche, the Oxfam pro- areas will not go straight back to the rural areas—plus ject director for Almada, a village 10 miles north of the the repatriation [of more than 1 million refugees in Beira Corridor. "That's why we see what we see now. Malawi and Zimbabwe], plus the [demobilized] soldiers Agriculture Is not working, there is no food for the peo- with no money or supplies, plus the Renamo people in ple, and no schools. Instead of going ahead, our econo- the same situation, plus the out-and-out criminals." my just stopped." One clear picture of the future emerging from the That's where the donor agencies stepped in. discussions in Maputo is that of a greatly decentral- Mozambique "is one of the most aid-dependent coun- ized Mozambique. The result of that decentralization tries in the world," writes Joseph Hanlon in his contro- will be a management vacuum, as provincial govern- versial book, Who Calls the Shots? "In 1988, foreign ments struggle to meet their new responsibilities with aid was equivalent to an incredible 70 percent of gross empty coffers and skeleton staffs. In the ensuing domestic product and It was receiving nearly $60 per chaos, NGOs will be in a position to flex their muscles capita in aid...because of their money, donors have so more strongly than ever. much power that they may act in more extreme ways The abuses of power by certain NGOs were chroni- than elsewhere." cled extensively in Hanlon's book, which takes an Compared to the monolithic powerhouses—the unremittingly hard line on non-governmental organiza- World Bank and the IMF—NGOs are the little guys, the tions. Hanlon charges that 'the independence, self- friendly village dispensers of food, money, training, and importance, charity-consciousness, do-goodism, and building materials. And indeed, the NGOs in Mozam- amateurism of the NGOs have created innumerable bique—95 percent of which get their financing from problems for Mozambique. Perhaps the most blatant foreign governments—are almost all small, with bud- combination of arrogance, disdain, and incompetence gets of under $1 million. Even so, they have virtually is NGOs promising things they do not deliver. Mozambi- replaced local government structures, which have cans are supposed to be grateful for whatever they grown fragile to the point of collapse over the war receive, and NGOs become quite angry if Mozambique years. complains of unfulfilled promises." This has been the case of Redd Barna—the Norwe- The other side of the equation is the fact that NGOs gian Save The Children and one of the few big interna- delivered to the people where the government, tional NGOs whose headquarters is located in the embroiled in war, couldn't or wouldn't. The dilemma

past few months, a number of defectors from Renamo Africa when Mozambique became independent in 1975 have testified they received training in South African are one source of support for the rebels. There are sever- camps as late as January this year. Refugees from al hundred thousand of those Portuguese living in South Mozambique's southern border with South Africa con- Africa. The Portuguese who actively back the rebels are firm there have been frequent flights of helicopters in the called "Renamo Brancas" (white Renamo). area, presumably carrying supplies to Renamo. The Indian Ocean Newsletter, published in Paris, has The southern border is Renamo's most active area. identified a number of right-wing religious groups with Western diplomats in Maputo privately agree that Ren- ties to Renamo, including the South African-based Front- amo continues to get vital support from South Africa. line Fellowship, the Shekinah Ministries in Malawi, and Perhaps it is not President F.W. de Klerk's government, the U.S.-based Food for Africa, World Relief Services, but a secret element within the South African military as and Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. well as extreme right-wing groups. The existence of South African and other external sup- Embittered Portuguese colonialists who fled to South port for Renamo is permitting Renamo to continue

Africa Report now has become whether that role can be effectively enact one law aimed partly at NGOs, which imposed rewritten for the peace-time stage. crippling customs duties on all imported goods except "The NGOs are going to move In. There will be a emergency relief. It Is an open secret that some NGO flagship fight among them. That's why we are keen to officials imported vehicles, computers, or commodi- hear from the government what role the NGOs can play ties duty-free and then sold them privately. But now all In the post-war reconstruction." the organizations are being penalized, and many find One obstacle to a new and productive partnership themselves unwilling or unable to pay the customs has been the tense relationship between the govern- duties. ment and the international NGOs. "In spite of the gov- The legislation has galvanized about 20 NGOs work- ernment's acknowledgement of the contribution of the ing along the Beira Corridor into launching an informal NGOs, the government's relationship with [them] coalition whose primary goal is to win exemptions remains rather complex and at times contradictory from the import duties. A secondary goal is to share and ambiguous," says a mission report by the United news and views and look for ways to help one another Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued in and avoid duplication of efforts. December 1991. "Due to the evolution of the NGO "The start of a post-war period is an ideal time for a movement and the internal political development of government to define coordination policies vis-a-vis the Mozambique, problems have become increasingly NGOs," says Ernst Schade. "They [the government] worse over the last few years." have clear ideas of what they want, the problem is to The lack of clear government guidelines has meant choose priorities and get political support for them," that NGOs inadvertently sabotaged their own or each The UNDP report stresses the importance of NGOs other's projects. "We were providing ox-drawn plows in the next chapter of Mozambique's history. "The on a loan basis in Mozambique," recalls David Gal- NGOs alone cannot solve Mozambique's development lagher, a regional coordinator for Oxfam Canada. "The problems...However, should clear and unequivocal farmer paid us back in cash or commodities, which we objectives be outlined for them, the NGO activity may put into a fund that was jointly administered by the serve as a catalyst and an example for other sectors small farmers association and Oxfam. We were half- of the Mozambique civil society and of the internation- way through that scheme when a big agency came in al community involved in the development process of from Europe and started giving plows for nothing." Mozambique." "That was partly the Mozambican [government's] Until then, the refugees will continue to drift in from fault," says Gallagher. "That country is so screwed up, neighboring countries under repatriation programs and with no control over foreign agencies. They can go in the internally displaced will travel from town to village and do what they like." chasing the rumors of food relief. There is a crying The UNDP report highlights this weakness: "The need for help for these people. What Is emerging in the lack of specific legislation regulating NGO activities, dawn of this long-awaited post-war era is the need for together with the lack of definition regarding relations the helpers, both within and without the country, to between the international NGOs and the government put their own house In order before the Mozambicans (at central, provincial, and local levels) have been one can truly come home. of the causes of a greater number of problems." —Heather Hill Last year, however, the Mozambican government did Harare, Zimbabwe

spreading violent destabilization throughout Mozam- International medics are still investigating the inci- bique and is slowing the Mozambican peace talks in dent. The Chissano government had scheduled a press Rome to a snail's pace. conference on March 13 to publicize its charges that Most troubling of all are the reports that Renamo is chemical weapons had been supplied by South Africa, in using chemical weapons to disable whole units of the contravention of all international regulations. But the government army. On January 16, a cloud of poison gas conference was called off at the last minute. Apparently engulfed an army unit that had been fighting a Renamo the Chissano government decided that such allegations band near the town of Macaene. Five Mozambican sol- might weaken de Klerk's campaign for a yes vote in the diers were killed, while many others choked and suf- referendum. fered burns in their lungs and on their skin. Residents of Mozambique's foreign minister, Pascoal Mocumbi, is the area stated that Renamo had arrived with gas masks hopeful that with the success of the South African refer- and "poison bullets," which they said they had gotten in endum, de Klerk will take steps to end South African sup- South Africa. port for Renamo, no matter where it comes from. 31 May /June I *J 9 2 "The yes vote is a positive sign for peace in our coun- for Renamo, is not to garner international support but to try," said Mocumbi following de Klerk's victory. 'The win the trust of the Mozambican people. very forces against change in South Africa are the same In order to buy time to promote a "new Renamo," ones supporting violence and destabilization in Mozam- Dhlakama would like the ceasefire to include a long tran- bique." sition period of perhaps two years before elections. Ren- Officially, the de Klerk government claims it no amo would then want to have administration over the longer has anything to do with Renamo. But Mocumbi large territories where it holds sway. Such a period of charges that "small and isolated" conservative groups unelected power is what Dhlakama badly needs to win within the South African military establishment remain Renamo a more friendly and electable image. Renamo's lifeline. He said it is incumbent on de Klerk to Another sticking point is how electoral representation root out those cells of support for Renamo. The aid to should be allocated. When Mozambique's first-ever Renamo is seen as the external side of the operations multi-party elections are held, Renamo would like some which, within South Africa, have fomented violence in sort of regional scheme that would assure it some repre- the townships. sentation from the sweeping areas it controls. Renamo Since assuming the presidency of Mozambique in would like the freshly elected Parliament to re-write the 1986, Joaquim Chissano has skillfully steered his govern- constitution. ment toward a negotiated settlement. In keeping with While the Chissano government is opposed to many Africa's democratic trend and to win the support of the of Renamo's demands, it is losing the will to argue about West, Chissano guided Mozambique away from Marxist principles while its administration is rapidly collapsing. rule to a pluralistic system. One-party rule has been abol- What is desperately needed at the Rome talks is the ished and Marxism rejected. A harsh forceful presence of big powers to push structural adjustment program drawn through an agreement. Italy and up by the World Bank and the Interna- Mozambique's former colonial ruler, tional Monetary Fund to promote a free Portugal, are already attending the market system is in force. Measures to The problem for talks and it is hoped that the United encourage a free press and an indepen- States will take a more active role. dent judiciary have been introduced. Renamo is how to get In the drought-parched fields sur- Chissano has won support from the rounding Chimoio, hungry peasants United States and Britain. As these an agreement that are foraging edible roots. Both Ren- changes all fit in with Renamo's crude amo and the Frelimo army are also anti-communism, hopes were high will ensure it a hungry. Both forces are largely ragged when peace talks with Renamo began in and undisciplined. Renamo has fol- June 1990. Yet the only accomplishment ^prominent role lowed the refugees to their camps of the Rome talks has been the limited around the cities, hoping to grab food ceasefire along the Beira and Limpopo in a peace-time from them. Renegade army units with transport corridors. grumbling stomachs have hijacked Essentially, Chissano has already met government. trains of food aid in order to get food Renamo's demands for a multi-party for themselves. democracy and free market economy, 'There are far too many hungry peo- but the rebels still will not agree to a set- ple and far too many weapons in tlement. The problem for Renamo is how to get an agree- Mozambique," said a military adviser. "My biggest fear is ment that will ensure it a prominent role in a peace-time that negotiations will be so drawn out that by the time a government. Renamo's odious reputation for brutalizing settlement is achieved, a situation of chaos and uncon- the country's people means it will not win many votes in a trollable banditry will have overwhelmed the country. If national election. that happens, then no ceasefire can help Mozambique, Renamo's crucial campaigns are no longer on the bat- and a terrible spiral of violence like in Lebanon or Soma- tlefields, but rather to win over the support of more lia will have taken over." Mozambicans. Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has Today, Chimoio is a city surrounded by the war, full to already begun re-shaping his image, trying to mold him- bursting with a population of fearful and hungry self into the profile of a nationalist leader, such as Ango- refugees. Very few Mozambicans in Chimoio will argue la's Jonas Savimbi. Dhlakama recently met a number of for one side or the other in the negotiations—they just journalists and baldly denied that his rebels carried out emphasize the urgent need for the war to end. many well-documented massacres of civilians. "I really don't care anymore about the government or Last year, Dhlakama toured Europe, where he was Renamo," said a one-time Frelimo supporter in Chimoio. received by the Portuguese and Italian government lead- "While they argue about small points in Rome, we here in ers. Although the Pope refused to countenance a meet- Mozambique are suffering and dying. I don't even care ing with Dhlakama, such recognition is a major step for- anymore what kind of government we have, just so long ward for him. But the hardest battle for Dhlakama, and as we have peace." O

Africa Report Ill MOZAMBIQUE III BY RUTH AN5AH AY1SI DROUGHT AND 5PERATIO i While the drought makes Mozambique even poorer, the negotiations to end the war between Renamo rebels and the Frelimo government drag on. In March, a protocol was signed on a future sys- tem of proportional representation and for i elections to take * place one year after a nationwide cease- fire—if and when t the two sides can * agree on a laying down of arms. lisa Nhangane, an elderly widow, thrust her Initial findings of the government and the United whole body forward as she plunged a hoe Nations estimate that the drought will mean an additional into a massive lump of baked-dry soil. In 1 million people will be dependent on food aid for their contrast to the energy she was expending, survival. Aid is needed desperately, said Veloso, "to avoid the crops around her withered under the large numbers of deaths." scorching mid-morning sun. The authorities in the northern province of Tete and Despite Nhangane's determination, there southern province of Gaza have declared a state of emer- seemed little hope of reviving her livelihood. What had gency. Last year 80,000 people, the majority of whom had been needed was rain, and that had not come. been displaced by the war, received free food aid. This "In previous years, I have had bumper harvests of year, the drought could shoot the number up to 200,000. maize, rice, garden vegetables, and bananas," said Rivers have dried up and livestock are dying. And tem- Nhangane. "But the only crops that have survived this peratures have been unusually high, over 40 degrees year are sweet potatoes and cassava. Then last week, centigrade. thieves came in the night and pulled them all up. So I'm To add to the problem, less than 50 percent of the food left with nothing." aid requested from the donors by the Mozambican Other farmers in Marrecuene, a rural district in the authorities for the crop year 1991-92 had arrived in the southern province of Ma- country by mid-March. (The crop year runs from May 1 puto, have turned to trading to April 30 the following year.) The donor community too as a way of survival. Just a has been worried about allegations of large quantities of few minutes walk down a food aid being stolen in some cases by the Mozambican sandy road from the peace armed forces before it reaches displaced people. Authori- of Nhangane's farm, a ties have clamped down on such diversions and those bustling market can be found guilty are being dealt with in the courts. found. It is full of people, but Besides acute food shortages, the drought means that not of food. Most vendors, drinking water is drying up in many parts of the country- who used to engage in farm- side. Reports have come through that 23 people died of ing, are now trying to carve thirst in the central province of Manica in March. And in out a living by selling coal, the interior of the southern province of Inhambane, firewood, beer and soft women have to walk the whole day just to fetch 20 liters drinks, and small quantities of fish which they buy in of water for their families. They have to sleep over night bulk from markets in the capital, Maputo, some 30 miles before returning on the following day. Besides the time away. factor and effort involved of walking miles and miles The drought, which experts fear could be the worst under the burning sun with a tank of water on their this century, has struck most of southern Africa. The out- heads, it often means a risky trek through areas where come could be devastating for the region. Countries like rebel attacks are frequent. Zimbabwe used to be able to export surplus maize, but Greg Keast, project officer of water and sanitation for now there are critical food shortages. Unicef, visited districts in Inham- For Mozambique, the drought is even more cruel. bane where some families were Left, a Mozambican The country is already reeling under the effects of 16 resorting to drinking salty water, soldier years of war between the government and the rebels of The drought has caused the salt the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo). The levels in fresh water to be unusu- Below, a center/or conflict has cost the lives of a million people, and has ally high. "I drank some of it displaced people in caused half of the country's 16 million people to be myself," said Keast. "It's almost the central dependent on international food aid for their survival. like drinking sea water. It is too Now as if that is not enough, Mozambique, one of the salty for any kind of irrigation. province o/Sofala world's poorest countries, has to battle against another enemy—drought. The Mozambican government has appealed to the international community for additional emergency aid to prevent mass starvation. Estimates of total grain produc- tion in Mozambique for this year were about 400,000 tons or about 25 percent of total needs, said Cooperation Min- ister Jacinto Veloso at a recent press conference. Rains started late throughout the southern and central region of the country, which delayed sowing by between one and two months. And then rainfall has been extreme- ly irregular in six of Mozambique's 11 provinces.

Ruth Ansah Ayisi is a freelance journalist based in Maputo, Mozambique. Africa Report 34 There's no plant that can take that sort of water. In fact means, through violence." He said there was still "no it's too salty in most cases for cooking. It can only be trust" between the two sides. Renamo's practice showed used for drinking. And to drink salty water, that means that "for them, defending the rights of Mozambicans you're not really quenching your thirst." means hacking off their ears, or stabbing through the However, if it is lack of water or food or both, one key stomach with bayonets." to effective assistance to the needy is peace. When ade- The main obstacle for the next round of the talks, quate food aid does arrive, there is the mammoth task of scheduled for the end of April, is Renamo's insistence transporting the goods throughout this vast, sparsely that the priority of a future parliament must be to revise populated country where the security situation has dete- the existing constitution, a point which the government riorated in the past year and infrastructure over the years rejects as irrelevant. A new liberal constitution was ush- has been torn apart. ered in just over one year ago. Peace talks in Rome between the Mozambican gov- Rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama is intransigent on this ernment and Renamo have dragged on for over one and a point, saying that this question must be resolved before half years. Three protocols have been signed, but the military issues leading to a general ceasefire can be fighting on the ground has intensified. Much of Mozam- worked out. Such a hard line has made people suspicious bique's once-rich agricultural lands are that Renamo is stalling the talks on left untilled as millions flee closer to purpose either because it lacks confi- towns or escape to neighboring coun- dence to face the electorate or it feels tries where they wile away the time Mozambicans are that it can win the war by force rather mostly in refugee camps. than negotiations. However, a breakthrough came in weary. They are not Even after the constitutional ques- the tenth round of peace talks with the tion is thrashed out, the military signing on March 12 of a protocol on interested in protocol- issues are likely to be tough. How to the country's future electoral sys- integrate the two warring armies into tem—at a time when both sides had signing. They long for one national army and how to demobi- seemed unable to resolve their differ- lize the rest will be a delicate matter. ences. the day when the war Already, arms are floating out of con- Some important decisions were trol around the cities' suburbs. The taken. Among them, the two sides will end. crime rate has rocketed. How will peo- decided that Mozambique should opt ple be persuaded to turn in their for proportional representation, and that the country's weapons? Also, many of the so-called Renamo soldiers first multi-party elections should take place within one are children who have been brought up in an environ- year of the signing of a general ceasefire. The fact that ment of violence, learning to kill at young ages. The proportional representation was conceded may mean remaining agenda will be a battle in itself. that the constitution will have to be amended. It currently Mozambicans arc weary. They are not so interested states that elections should be via the system of "majority these days in protocol-signing. They long for the day vote." when the conflict comes to an end. After hearing about Under proportional representation, each of Mozam- the signing of the latest protocol, one young teacher just bique's 11 provinces will be taken as a multi-member sighed. "It is as if we have to continue to sacrifice the lives constituency, and the number of seats given to each of our children because of political issues that in most province will be decided according to its population. The cases can be worked out after hostilities have ceased." voting age is 18 and only those who are registered will be Nhangane, despite her problems, takes a positive line. able to participate. Registering eligible voters, however, "I feel confident that peace will come here. I have been in a country where war has wracked infrastructure and following the talks on the radio. I know some day the war scattered the population, will be a monstrous task, and drought will end." Maybe it is that very determina- plagued with logistical difficulties. tion that things can only get better that keeps Nhangane It was agreed that the presidential candidate must be going. Besides losing most of her crops to the drought, proposed by at least 10,000 citizens of voting age, which and the rest to thieves, she has also to face the threat of again is in contradiction to the existing constitution rebel attacks. "It's true I'm still managing to keep alive," which states 5,000. And the candidate must secure 50 she said. "In previous years, I was able to sleep at home, percent of the votes before being elected. but this year the situation has become worse. I hear peo- Yet the crucial issue which remains is when a cease- ple saying that someone was killed just there or another fire will be signed. The head of the Mozambican govern- kidnapped, so I began to be frightened and that is why ment delegation in Rome, Transport Minister Armando now I sleep in the bush at night." Guebuza, recently put a damper on any optimism that the After the interview, Nhangane picked up her hoe day was close. Just six days after the signing of the proto- again and relentlessly hacked away at the lump of earth. col, Guebuza warned, "Renamo seems not to have desist- "I'm hoping that maybe I can grow some few vegetables ed from its intention to reach a solution by military here. I'm not sure. But it is worth trying." O

May/June lJ 2 II I;

A New Agenda for the OAU Salim Ahmed Salim

Africa Report: The Organization of of state signed the treaty for the establish- African Unity [OAU] concentrated much ment of the African economic communi- of its efforts on decolonization in years ty. We have already started discussing past- Given the global changes over the the specifics in terms of how to bring that past few years and a new political land- about. The initial phase is to strengthen scape in Africa, what is the agenda for cooperation at the sub-regional level, the OAU in the 1990s? whether it is Ecowas in West Africa, or Salim: We are now entering the phase the Preferential Trade Area and the of the second liberation of the African Southern African Development Coordina- continent. The first liberation phase con- tion Conference in southern Africa— centrated on the political independence these are going to be the pillars of the of our countries, and so the OAU's forthcoming African economic communi- efforts for the last three decades were ty. So that is the first priority: how to pro- more or less focused on how to restore mote economic cooperation and realize the dignity of the African people, which the goal of African economic integration. had been undermined severely as a But it is not really possible to achieve Margaret A Novick result of colonization and racial bigotry. meaningful economic progress and pros- Now we have almost finished the phase perity in our societies unless this is done of what I would call classical decoloniza- in conditions of peace, stability, and tion. The whole of Africa is now free, tranquillity. Consequently, one of the and we have one or two problems major preoccupations of the organiza- \he OAU Secretary- remaining: that of the Western Sahara, t tion must be to get more and more where I hope a referendum will take involved in the question of stability and place, and the question of South Africa. General outlines a security in our continent. This means, for There are great expectations that in the example, getting involved in helping to new generation of not too distant future, we will see the resolve internal conflicts. This is again a emergence of a democratic, non-racial, new area, because in the past, internal activity for the united South Africa. And so Africa will conflicts were considered to be no-go, continue to use its resources and its soli- taboo areas for the OAU. But now it is continent's three- darity to work in tandem with the interna- accepted that we cannot behave like tional community to ensure the realiza- ostriches in Addis Ababa and let Soma- decade-old organi- tion of that objective. lia burn, let a situation of conflict prevail in Sudan, in Rwanda, and elsewhere zation, addressing But the major preoccupation of our and have the OAU keep quiet. It is now time now is how to work for the uplift- issues of economic accepted by African leaders and desired ment of fhe lot of our people, because as by our people generally that the OAU is commonly known, despite 30 years of integration, conflict has to be involved in that. independence, and despite progress in resolution, and the the social and health sectors, for exam- Secondly, we have to be involved in ple, we have a lot of problems on our the whole question of the management of management of continent. Therefore, the priorities of the change. Africa is going through a very moment will be to concentrate on socio- exciting period, a period of transition political change. economic development: how to translate toward greater democratization, and we the objectives of inter-African coopera- have to work to ensure that this transition tion into a more meaningful, practical takes place in conditions devoid as far dimension. Last year in Abuja, the heads as possible of turbulence, anarchy, and

Africa Report 36 chaos. But more importantly, we have to flict resolution. Third, I am actually inun- me not give you a false impression: We work to ensure that the question of demo- dated by requests in Addis Ababa for are still in considerable difficulties, there cratic transformation takes root and the OAU to do this here and that there will still be the question of sovereignty, or becomes something of a permanent by countries concerned. This is the dra- what is perceived as national interests. thing, not simply a response to pressures matic shift that has taken place, whereas But the history of the world as it is now from outside, not simply because it is in the past, we were being criticized: evolving teaches us very clearly that we now fashionable to do so. We must see "Why are you trying to interfere in this are moving toward larger entities. Pow- to it that democratic institutions and or that?" Now, we are getting different erful countries are working together, like democratic foundations are created- criticism from member-states and others those which formed the European Eco- which will ensure that our people are the inside and outside Africa: "What is the nomic Community, almost all the former ultimate ones who decide on the destiny OAU doing about Somalia? What is it colonial powers of Africa, countries of our continent. doing about Sudan? What is it doing which individually are more developed in terms of science, technology, and cap- E Africa Report: The question of about Rwanda, Liberia?" ital than any combination of African sovereignty has limited the OAU's ability Personally I think this is a very healthy countries. And yet these countries find it W to act in specific instances. How can you criticism and a healthy development. So necessary to work together. surmount the fact that countries are the situation has changed. But I would extremely sensitive about their sovereign- go farther. The world has changed If the United States feels the urge to ty and often do not want interference in because of the end of the Cold War and work together with Canada and Mexico their "internal affairs"? Secondly, therefore with it, the competition or rival- in the context of a free trade area, if the although there have been a number of ry in the classical sense between the ASEAN countries are working together, economic groupings in Africa, countries great powers. There is less and less inter- it would be ludicrous for African coun- find it difficult to sacrifice in order to tries to go on any other path. So there is unite for a greater good. How can eco- now greater recognition by our continent nomic union work continent-wide, when of the need to work together and though some of the smaller units haven't? we will have problems, the goal and Salim: First, nobody's challenging the "AFRICA HAS TO AD- clarity of our objectives are there and all sovereignty of countries. It would be a we have to do is to keep on pushing and DRESS ITSELF TO THE wrong approach to start from the build bridges brick by brick. It is not premise that by getting involved in an ISSUE OF CONFLICT AND going to be easy, it is not going to be a attempt to resolve a conflict, you are dramatic transformation. After all, Rome infringing on the sovereignty of a given TRY TO DO EVERYTHING was not built in a day, even though I country. In reality, it is the sovereign deci- don't believe we can afford the luxury of sions of the African continent that have POSSIBLE TO END THE procrastination on this issue. But still with now made it possible for us to get CONFLICTS WHICH ARE patience, with determination, with perse- involved with internal conflicts, because verance, we will overcome the hurdles. two years ago, the heads of state and BLEEDING OUR PEOPLE Africa Report: Regarding OAU government took a decision in Addis involvement in Africa's internal conflicts, Ababa that Africa has to solve its own AND OUR RESOURCES." does the OAU have specific mechanisms problems, that Africa has to address in mind to do so? itself to the issue of conflict and try to do everything possible to end the conflicts Salim: I am very clear in my own mind which are bleeding our people and our est in the legitimate concerns of Africa about what can be done, but we are resources. by the outside world, barring exceptions now in the process of consultations, with here and there. And so if the African member-states and within the secretariat Nobody can suggest to me that one countries themselves do not take the trou- and with other people with similar expe- can invoke sovereignty and argue ble to address themselves to the prob- riences, to see how best we can imple- against a collective decision to put an lems of our continent, if the OAU is seen ment this new area of responsibility. For end to the misery, anarchy, chaos, and to be indifferent to these problems, I am example, there is the question of enhanc- mayhem that, for example, is taking afraid that the process of marginaliza- ing the human capacity of the organiza- place in Somalia. After all, when the tion of our continent will be complete. tion's secretariat to deal with the ques- OAU was created, its very purpose was The only way to break out of this trend tion of conflict. We have started to do to serve the interests of our people, and toward marginalizing our people and that by reorganizing the general secre- what is more important than the sanctity our continent is for African countries tariat of the OAU. We now have a spe- of life itself? themselves, first and foremost, to assume cial division dealing with the question of conflict anticipation, conflict prevention, So first, one con never invoke our responsibilities and to ensure that conflict resolution, and conflict manage- sovereignty to argue against fighting a through our collective action and our col- ment. So we have to build on that divi- situation which causes millions to lose lective solidarity, we force ourselves on sion. We have to ensure that the people their lives. But secondly, and happily, the the international agenda. who are manning that division are prop- African leaders now accept that the The same thing applies regarding the erly equipped to do so. OAU must play an important role in con- question of economic cooperation. Let

May/June 19 9 Then there is the question of creating their own social, cultural, and historical that you can belong to one political a mechanism—and I have discussed this values. And I put it to you that the party and another person to another. in the last council of ministers meeting African people, by the very fact that they These things take time, but I am saying and the ministers agreed with me in prin- engaged for so long in a struggle for that the process of democratization in ciple—which would enable the secre- freedom, are democratic in nature. They Africa is going ahead, it is irreversible tary-general and the OAU to act swiftly yearn for democracy. The struggle for and unstoppable. What we must ensure and decisively in situations of conflict. freedom was part of the struggle for is that this process is a genuine one, that Then there is the question of having democracy. So the struggle for democra- the end product is really the creation of some sort of political organ which can tization now is simply a logical extension real democracy and real democracy can backstop the efforts of the general secre- of that struggle. only be created through the creation of tariat. The question of resources is very Now that the wind of democratiza- permanent institutions. crucial: resources in terms of money, but tion is sweeping through our continent, Africa Report: What is your view of South African President de Klerk's visit to also in terms of identifying the areas my concern—and I have expressed it Nigeria? As President Babangida is where, when the need arises, we can during my talks in Washington with con- chairman of the OAU, does the visit rep- call for support. I see no reason why, for gressmen and administration officials—is resent a new philosophy toward South example, as the question of peace-mak- that while the friends of Africa should Africa within -he OAU? ing and peace-keeping becomes more support this process, the best and most Salim: President de Klerk has gone to and more an integral part of the OAU's constructive way of doing so is to sup- Nigeria at the invitation of President role, it should not be possible to ask our Babangida a:, the head of state of Nige- armies in each African country to have a ria. But also President Babangida is the section, company, or battalion, depend- THE AFRICAN PEO- current chairman of the OAU and natu- ing on the size of that country's army, to rally, his discussions with de Klerk pro- be specifically trained in matters of PLE, BY THE VERY vide a unique opportunity for the Nigeri- peace-making and peace-keeping, so an head of state, who has served the FACT THAT THEY that in the event that we need something, OAU with total commitment and distinc- we can make use of all these countries to ENCAGED FOR $0 tion, to discuss areas of concern to help us. Africa, as far as the situation in South But we will still need funds. Peace- LONC IN A STRUGGLE Africa is concerned. But to my knowl- keeping is a very expensive affair, as the edge, it does not in any way alter the United Nations realizes. So we have to FOR FREEDOM, ARE basic position and premises of the OAU, think in terms of how we can get funds. It namely: We are for change in South DEMOCRATIC IN may be by creating a trust fund, or get- Africa and we are prepared to do every- ting voluntary contributions—these are NATURE. THEY YEARN thing possible to encourage the process all ideas which have not yet been crys- of change, but we are not prepared to tallized. The only thing I can tell you is FOR DEMOCRACY.' relax completely the type of pressures that definitely we are proceeding ahead which are necessary to ensure that the on examining the ways and means of process of change is not aborted. We having an appropriate mechanism for port Africa in creating institutions for have followed with interest the recent sit- conflict resolution being done by the democracy, institutions which can guar- uation in South Africa. We have wel- OAU. antee that the question of democratiza- comed the outcome of the referendum, Africa Report: The World Bank presi- tion is not a whimsical thing, a passing which has given de Klerk a mandate to dent said at the last OAU summit that phase. It does not depend on the likes negotiate and go ahead with the ques- what Africa needs first and foremost is and dislikes of a particular individual or tion of constitutional changes in the con- text of Codesa. We think this is encour- good governance. What specifically can government, but is something perma- aging. On the other hand, we believe the OAU do to encourage the process of nent. that de Klerk should use the mandate that democratization, and how do member- And it is in that context that the OAU he got to ensure that the process of con- states feel about the OAU playing a role is going to play a role. In other words, stitution-making is not in any way under- in this? how can the OAU itself help in the pro- mined and that the end product is the Salim: There is a process of democrati- cess of change? By ensuring that this emergence of a democratic, non-racial, zation taking place in the continent and change takes place in a very orderly united South Africa. So this is the posi- manner in an atmosphere free of turbu- we understand that the outside world has tion. shown a lot of concern, but really the lence, chaos, and anarchy, in a consen- people who are responsible for change sual manner. At the same time, we also in African countries are the Africans hope to help in creating a climate devoid There is the question of sanctions. themselves. No one, no matter how pow- of intolerance—because where there is Many of the sanctions have now been erful, how strong, how well-intentioned, no tolerance, you cannot build democra- lifted, some unilaterally by individual cy—to create a situation where our peo- can actually have democracy created in countries, but some as the result of the ple understand that you can have politi- any African society. It has to be the peo- conscious decision of the international cal differences without being enemies, ple of that society, taking into account community. The United Nations, the

-Africa Report Commonwealth, and the OAU, for devoted their attention and provided sup- togetherness of the African countries, example, are saying now that it doesn't port, logistical, political, and diplomatic, which is best symbolized in the OAU, make any sense to continue with people- to the liberation struggle. I think it is no individual African countries would be of to-people sanctions. We have said there mean achievement that now Africa is completely no consequence in the world. is no problem as for as transportation, free and we are only talking of the unfin- If the EEC countries think in terms of rein- people visiting each other, these are ished business of South Africa. forcing Europe, which combination of areas which have been relaxed and I People have to take these things in countries in Africa can have an impact think rightly so. But there are certain their historical context. Twenty years on the world scene? Not even what I areas which have to remain, for exam- ago, it was inconceivable to think in would call Africa's great powers, Nige- ple, financial sanctions, the arms embar- terms of an independent Zimbabwe, an ria, Egypt, and potentially South Africa. go. Even though I am quite conscious of independent Angola or Mozambique. I Even they would be in no position to the fact that they have been violated by quarreled on more than one occasion at make a significant difference in the people, they are important both for sym- the United Nations with the gentleman world arena. But collectively and work- bolic purposes and also as pressure so who used to be the representative of Por- ing together, no one can simply ignore w that change in South Africa is not at any tugal and with the former foreign minis- Africa. point either undermined or aborted. ter of Portugal who believed that Portu- We have made mistakes. Africa from Africa Report: What will be the major gal extended up to Mozambique and the very beginning should have ad- issues before the June OAU summit in Angola, thaf those countries were part of dressed itself to the question of conflict. It Senegal? should have never allowed internal con- Salim: The follow-up to the question of flicts to go unattended. It should never WE HAVE MADE MIS- economic integration. South Africa obvi- have allowed the violation of human ously will be a major issue because by TAKES. AFRICA FROM rights to be done with impunity. We had that time we will have a clearer idea of situations of massive killings in some what is going on there and what role the THE VERY BECINNIN6 cases, we have had characters who not OAU should play in terms of helping in only vilified our people and our conti- SHOULD HAVE AD- the emergence of a new South Africa. nent, but got away with murder, and we The question of conflicts will assume very DRESSED ITSELF TO THE kept quiet. These were some of the mis- great importance—the discussions on takes. We made the mistake of not Liberia, Somalia, on the Horn of QUESTION OF CONFLICT. putting into concrete action our own Africa—and the democratic changes commitments in terms of economic coop- and the impact of these changes in the IT SHOULD HAVE NEVER eration. These are shortcomings, but world. Lastly, a whole reassessment by now we are trying to overcome these Africa on what is Africa's role in the con- ALLOWED INTERNAL shortcomings. text of the present world situation, how CONFLICTS TO CO The fact that now people are talking can we refuse this trend toward in terms of taking the question of eco- marginalization of our continent. Those UNATTENDED.' nomic integration seriously, the fact that are going to be some of the main fea- our leaders and our governments are tures of the summit. metropolitan Portugal. These are things now addressing themselves to the ques- Africa Report: How do you answer which have happened in our lifetime. It is tion of conflict resolution and conflict the OAU's critics who say it has been not something which we read from the management—these are indicative of the very ineffectual as an organization, a histories of a hundred years ago. And so significance that we attach to the ques- talk-shop, a waste of Africa's scarce the fact that now we can laugh about tion of change in our continent and I resources? Given thai a number of coun- them and we consider the whole thing to think this change will have its own tries have difficulty in meeting their finan- be so anachronistic is a measure of the impact on the OAU. cial commitments to the OAU, some success of the Organization of African The OAU cannot be completely differ- have even suggested that the OAU dis- Unity in galvanizing African support, in ent from its member-states. After all, the band. What would you point to as the coordinating support and getting support OAU is a composite of 51 independent failings and the accomplishments of the from the world community. states. It is like the United Nations. It is organization? The second area of importance is that an amalgam of all the countries. But I do Salim: I would quote someone who despite all its failings and its difficulties, not share the views of the cynics, of said if we didn't have the OAU, we the OAU has been able to project what I those who say the organization should would have to invent it now. Very seri- would call an African identity, to solidify be disbanded. In the real world, you ously, the OAU has had its shortcom- and enhance the Africanness of the accept the criticisms and see what can ings. I would not be the one to defend African people, to feel together. Now be done to overcome these criticisms. If the organization for issues which are this unity is sometimes artificial, but it is we disbanded, who is going to speak for indefensible. I think the OAU has done there. There is something called Africa the continent? Which organization or extremely well in some areas, primarily and we can talk about it. Why do I say which combination of countries can in the field of decolonization, because we would have to invent the OAU? speak in the name of the 500 million or that was an area where African leaders Because really unless you have this so Africans? •

39 May /June 19 9 2 BY ANNE SHEPHERD

Sarah-Jane Poole WAR

Since 1960,20 wars have been fought on the African continent, killing 7 million people, turning 5 million into refugees, and wreaking billions of dollars in destruction and havoc on struggling economies. With Africa's burgeoning democracy move- OR PEACE? ment, there is some hope that in The upshot, according to Olara Otunnu, former Ugan- the 1990s, wars may become a dan foreign minister and president of the New York- based International Peace Academy, is that Africa finds thing of the past, but as conflicts itself between a state of "uncertainty and hope." While the "wave of the future in Africa is simple, plain drag on in some countries, there democracy," he told a recent seminar on "Conflict Reso- lution and Democratization in Africa," the question is is also much uncertainty. how to achieve it against the backdrop of violence that exists on the continent. According to figures compiled by the academy, 20 arring the Gulf crisis and a few other trouble wars have been waged on the continent since 1960, spots, the 1990s have brought a fresh whiff of killing 7 million people and creating 5 million refugees. peace across the globe. Although Africa accounts for a mere 2 percent of glob- Africa is no exception. Freed of the Cold al military expenditure, and the figure has been falling as War and South Africa's military tentacles, wars a result of the economic crisis, the continent still spends are winding down from Ethiopia to Angola. Elections in $14 billion a year on arms—equal to expenditures on countries as diverse as Benin and Zambia have brought education, and four times health spending. During the new hopes that the ballot box will replace the gun as the 1980s, Ethiopia alone spent $10 billion on arms imports main conduit for change in the future. from the Soviet Union. Yet, over the last two years, coups have been experi- More devastating than the hardware bill are the enced in Mali and Chad; strongmen are refusing to give destruction and lost economic opportunities. Ethiopia, up their grip in Togo and Zaire; the removal of dictators which could feed the continent, has become synonymous in Liberia and Somalia has led to virtual anarchy; peace with famine. A 1988 UN study put the direct and indirect talks in Mozambique drag on, while in Sudan they have costs of 10 years war in southern Africa—principally not even started. Angola, Mozambique, and Namibia—at $60 billion. Anne Shepherd is a l^ndon-based journalist who has travelled widely in The tide started shifting in the region with the defeat and written extensively on African economic and political issues. at Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, of the South African Defense Africa Report 40 Force by combined Cuban and Angolan forces, coupled That was followed by the ending, albeit grudgingly, of 19 with the internal reforms of President F.W. de Klerk, years military rule in Benin, and 26 years of virtual one- which prompted a rethink of regional military adventur- man rule in Zambia through the ballot box. ism. Apart from Kenya, Angola, and Ethiopia, multi-party That, along with the ending of the Cold War, paved the elections are scheduled to be held this year in Sey- way for the 1988 U.S.- and Soviet-brokered peace accord, chelles, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, and Lesotho in which South Africa conceded to UN-supervised elec- involving, in the latter three cases, a restoration of civil- tions for Namibia, and withdrew 9,000 troops from south- ian rule. Similar moves are afoot in over half the conti- ern Angola, in exchange for the withdrawal of 50,000 nent Cuban troops. Yet the coup era is far from over; several crises still The deal delivered independence to Namibia, and linger, while others brew. According to William Gut- removed the international dimension to Angola's conflict. teridge, director of the London-based Research Institute This opened the door to direct negotiations between the for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, there is, in many ruling MPLA and U.S.-backed Unita rebels, brokered cases, a "heightened level of military activity in African first by Zaire, and then Portugal, with U.S. and Soviet par- politics." ticipation. I^ast year, the two sides agreed to a UN-moni- In Chad, a hotbed of factional fights fuelled by outside tored ceasefire, and elections this September. forces since 1965, Idriss Deby seized power from South Africa has reduced its defense budget by 10 per- Hissene Habre in December 1990. But a counter-coup, cent; Namibia has disarmed 25,000 former fighters, and and regrouping of forces loyal to Habre, has provided a Angola is demobilizing 150,000 men from both sides. pretext for an opposition witchhunt, and postponement of In the Horn of Africa, once a virtual playground of the promised elections, which won him backing from France superpowers, the spurning of former President Mengistu and the U.S., both former Habre fans. Haile Mariam by the Soviet Union paved the way for his: " Similarly in Mali, former President Moussa Traore, ouster last year. resisting reforms, was overthrown last March by Lt.-Col. As testament to the ending of the Cold War, the U.S. Amadou Toumani Toure who promised a return to civil- brokered a peace deal for Ethiopia which involved allow- ian rule and political pluralism before January this year. ing the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic But a Tuareg uprising, fanned by Libya, has led to an Force (EPRDF), led by the Tigray People's Liberation indefinite postponement of polls. [Editor's note: Elec- Front, to seize power in Addis Ababa, so long as H agreed tions were held in April.] ;ctions. In Algeria, democracy has been put on trial with the jpresentatives of the myriad of political factions in seizing of power by a five-man Council of State, led by Ethiopia have been incorporated into a broad-based gov- Mohamed Boudiaf, a month alter the fundamentalist ernment with elections promised for later this year. Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won in multi-party elec- Eritreans, who have fought a secessionist war since 1961, tions. The West, whose phobia over communism has but now have the chance to opt for autonomy in a refer- been replaced by jitters over Islamic fundamentalism, endum, have laid down their arms. Transitional Presi- has remained markedly silent dent Meles Zewani has turned his attention to the econo- While the withdrawal of Western sympathy, coupled my, and to molding 200,000 fighters into a smaller army. with mounting internal dissent has led other military Next door in Kenya, Western donors, relieved of the rulers like Gnassingbe Eyadema in Togo and Mobutu need to prop up an unpopular regime for "strategic" rea- Sese Seko in Zaire to concede to reform, neither have sons, and in a watershed decision last December, given up power. Ironically, both countries are now in announced a six-month suspension of aid, pending politi- worse turmoil than before. cal'reforms. Opposition parties have since been legal- Both leaders cunningly appeared to step down by ced- ized, and elections promised, defusing, at least partially, ing power to opposition figures, only to pull the rug out mounting internal conflict. from under their feet through a continued shadowy pres- Where leaders have been more responsive to the ence and control of the military. Two attempted coups in democratic fervor now sweeping the continent. Africa Togo have forced Prime Minister Joseph Kokou Kof- can claim its first examples of peaceful transfers of figoh, once a respected opposition figure, into becoming power. a virtual army stooge. Zaire slid into virtual anarchy At the beginning of 1990, only six out of Africa's 53 when troops raided and looted the country late last year. countries (Botswana, the Gambia, Mauritius, Namibia, In Liberia and Somalia, the jettisoning of military lead- Zimbabwe, and Senegal) claimed multi-party systems, ers Samuel Doe and Siad Barre by the U.S. paved the and only in one of these—Mauritius—had a ruling party way for their overthrow by internal forces, but left a ever been unseated in an election. power vacuum which has also witnessed these two coun- In February last year, the former Portuguese colony tries descend into despair. of Cape Vero"e made history when its Marxist founder- In Liberia, the Economic Community of West African president, Aristides Pereira, handed over power to the States (Ecowas), has helped to avoid complete ruin by pro-capitalist Carlos Vciga, following peaceful elections. setting up the Ecomog peace-keeping force which pro-

41 May/June 19 9 WHO WILL MAKE THE PEACE?

hen the Organization of African Unity gath- chaos, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs ered for Its annual Council of Ministers meet- Herman Cohen gambled on allowing a Marxist guerrilla Wing in Addis Ababa this February, a fist fight force to take over. broke out between security guards and different fac- Many in Ethiopia and Africa questioned the U.S.'s tions claiming to represent Somalia. The scene was as presumptuousness. Yet few presented alternatives, tragic as it was familiar, illustrating once more the and the crowning irony was that the OAU, which is seeming impotence of the regional organization in the headquartered in Addis Ababa, seemed more con- face of the continent's mounting crises. cerned about whether or not it would have offices than Internationally, the principle of regional organiza- about the future of Ethiopia. tions taking the first move in resolving conflicts is well Elsewhere, the United States and other Western recognized. The issue of Interference in the internal countries have come under fire for seeming to leave affairs of sovereign states is a touchy one. Neighbors, African countries to their fate—in Togo, Zaire, and the rationale goes, are less likely to prove offensive more recently, Somalia. than foreigners. Since conflicts Invariably spill over In the latter case, the United Nations has been bit- borders, they also have more at stake. terly accused of not mounting for Somalia the same That has been clearly illustrated In Liberia, where kind of rescue package it did for Yugoslavia. The West, the mayhem that followed Samuel Doe's overthrow and the UN, make no secret of their preoccupation threatened the lives of other West African nationals, with the conflicts of Eastern Europe and the Middle and engulfed Sierra Leone, prompting Ecowas to East, but say that the ball is in Africa's court. mount a peace-keeping force. Asked in a recent Interview with The Washington The tendency, however, is still for Africans to look to Post about the UN's role In Somalia, for example, the outside mediators. Angola, for example, turned to the organization's new Egyptian secretary-general, former colonial power, Portugal, and superpowers for Boutros Boutros Ghali, criticized the inaction of mediation of Its Internal conflict, after different parties regional organizations, from which the UN takes its accused various countries in the African mediation cue. group of taking sides. Mozambique similarly dropped At the OAU Council of Ministers meeting, Ethiopia's Kenya and Zimbabwe as go-betweens, opting for Italy, new transitional president, Meles Zenawi—having with Portugal and the U.S. as observers. assured the OAU of its home In Addis—urged the orga- Following the declining role of Moscow in global nization to take a more active role in conflict preven- affairs, It was left to the U.S. to mediate the peace In tion and management. It may be an invitation worth Ethiopia. Based on experience In Liberia and Somalia, considering. • where the demise of despots left a vacuum filled by —A.S.

claimed an interim president, Amos Sawyer, and has for time, as it weighs the advantages to itself of pillaging tried to contain the damage wrought by two rebel lead- villagers versus contesting multi-party elections which it is ers, and former allies, Charles Taylor and Prince John- sure to lose. son. However, Taylor's forces have now spilled into Sier- In Sudan, where the Sudanese People's Liberation ra Leone, and are refusing to disarm for Army/Movement has been fighting the elections, once scheduled for mid-year. government of Brig.-Gen. al-Beshir to Somalia, unique in Africa for its eth- Waiting in the wings increase the autonomy of the southern nic homogeneity, has witnessed the tri- region, and repeal the Islamic shari'a umphant guerrilla forces of the United to fan the crises that law, efforts at peace mediation by Somali Congress degenerate into clan Jimmy Carter, the U.S., and several fights which have left 30,000 dead and 1 still bedevil Africa other countries have been spurned. million refugees in the space of weeks. Waiting in the wings to fan the crises Only now is the international communi- are arms dealers that still bedevil Africa are arms dealers ty awakening to the horrors of this from the East and West, and most tragedy (see box). from the East an recently, South Africa. Faced with A similar human tragedy plagues diminishing markets at home, these Mozambique. While the withdrawal of West, and now, manufacturers are now looking for new East bloc support for the government, clients in developing countries. Unless and South African support for Renamo South Africa. Africa can stem the demand, the hope rebels has forced both to the conference that characterized a new decade will table, the rebel group continues to play wither like a bloom in the desert. O A / r i Report 42 BYKARLMAIERIIMM1M1II BITING THE

Inflation is now taking a toll in Nigeria after the government floated the naira on March 5, part of its program to get the economy back on track. The next difficult steps, in a year in which the military is to turn over power to civilians now fighting an election campaign, are to cut massive budget deficits and restrict the money supply. With the tough economic outlook, the problems of rampant corruption and now, drug trafficking, are further clouding the picture.

President Ibrahim opping around pools of stagnant water to attend to customers at her stall in central Babangida: Lagos, Morayo Yusuf said that in her 12 Showing that his years as a market woman, she had never government has seen prices rise so fast. the political will to "The buyers are not coming anymore, the quality of the goods is not good anymore, and the prices keep get economic going up," said Mrs. Yusuf, 40, who sells plastic jugs, reforms back on powdered milk, and other household provisions at the track Sandgross market off Simpson Street. "We are being

\ May /June 1992 pushed to the wall, and there is going Nigerians' taste for imports and the to be trouble if this continues." foreign currency they need to pur- What kind of trouble there could Corruption has been chase them remains unquenched. be, Mrs. Yusuf did not specify, but ten- Even Babangida seems confused. sion in the markets is rising, as Presi- a major drain on the "Frankly, I have kept on asking my dent Ibrahim Babangida's seven-year- economists why it is that the econo- old military government continues economy, Nigerian and my of the country has not collapsed with its plan to restructure Nigeria's up until now. What is it that is keep- oil-dependent economy. While the Western economists ing it up?" he said in an interview pub- government's structural adjustment lished on March 29 in the state- program (SAP) has won acclaim from say, and has become owned Daily Times newspaper. the International Monetary Fund and "Surely, it is not our knowledge, it is Western lenders and should help in institutionalized at not our theories, it is not anything negotiations this year to reschedule that we have read. I still have not Nigeria's $30 billion foreign all levels. found an answer." debt—Africa's biggest—it is hated in Corruption has been a major drain the urban markets. on the economy, Nigerian and West- "Nigeria no good-o. Dey wan kill us," Mrs. Yusuf ern economists say. The Organised Private Sector group shouted, as nearby shoppers and merchants nodded in said in a report last year that corruption "has become somber agreement. Several market women said they institutionalized at all levels of government on industrial feared that if violence erupted, it would be worse than in and business operations." World Bank figures suggest 1989 when students and workers rioted against the SAP that up $80 billion in investment was wasted from 1970 to measures. the late 1980s due to corruption and mismanagement. As a market woman, Mrs. Yusuf, a mother of three, is That, together with the sharp fall in world oil prices a special breed. Like her sisters throughout West Africa, after the boom of the 1970s, has forced down per capita she is powerfully built with a sharp tongue and opinions income from $1,000 in 1980 to less than $300 today. Oil to match. Market women are the glue that hold together revenues, once at $20 billion, have plummeted to about the economies of Nigeria, Ghana, and neighboring coun- $7-8 billion. With the current low prices on the world oil tries, market and prospects that Iraq and Kuwait will soon Nigeria's new inflationary spiral was touched off by increase production, the outlook is not bright. the government's decision on March 5 to float the nation- The government has scored a major victory, however, al currency, the naira. In the past month, prices of every- with the country's first truly representative census, thing from staples, like cassava meal and milk, to radios which was carried out last November and should greatly and television sets have risen by between 50 and 80 per- help development planning efforts. Results announced in cent. March showed that Nigeria, Africa's most populous To emphasize the point, Rachidat Etti, 38, a six-year nation, has 88.5 million people, 20-30 million less than veteran of the market, walked around picking up items most previous estimates by UN agencies and the World for sale and giving their price histories. A tin of powdered Bank. milk has risen from 290 naira ($15) to 650 naira ($32.50), The effort was painstaking, involving at least $125 mil- a 50-kilogram bag of rice from 450 to 650 naira, and a lion and a half million census takers. The UN, Britain, small bag of sugar from 4.50 to 9 naira. A plastic one-liter Netherlands, and Japan all contributed to the exercise, jerry can cost 1 naira 10 years ago and today it sells for and banks of computers to analyze the data were set up 20 naira, or $1. 'They [the government] must do some- thing because there is no one here, there is no market anymore," Mrs. Etti said. The official value of the naira itself has plummeted with the exchange rate moving from 10.5 naira to the dollar to 18.7. Some independent (legal) exchange hous- es will pay 20 naira for a U.S. dollar. While the govern- ment said it was seeking to strengthen its currency by narrowing the gap between official and unofficial exchange rates, the result has clearly been the opposite. The problem is that there are too many naira in circula- tion chasing too few dollars. The government has pledged to cut its massive budget deficits and restrict the money supply to ease pressure on the naira, but

Karl Mater is the West Africa correspondent of The Independent of Lon- don and contributes to The Washington Post. Africa Report 44 in seven areas throughout the country. Two of the keys The IMF and the World Bank, however, continued to to its success were the decision to register every home press the government on two politically sensitive issues: beforehand and to use sophisticated computer software, the floating of the naira and the removal of the price sub- which could more easily detect attempts to cheat. sidies on fuel, which at a cost of about 2.40 naira, 12 U.S. Three previous attempts since independence in 1960 cents, per gallon, is among the cheapest in the world. to conduct a census have failed, as regional leaders sub- Diplomatic sources described the floating of the naira mitted bloated head-counts in an effort to show their peo- as a turning point in the government's attempt to revive ple were more numerous and thus entitled to what Nige- the flagging economy just a year before the army is rians call "a bigger share of the national cake." scheduled to hand over power to civilians after nine years A year after he came into office through a military coup of military rule. "The decision shows the government in 1985, Babangida launched the SAP in an effort to has the political will to get its structural adjustment pro- restructure the economy by promoting non-oil exports gram back on track," said one Western economic analyst and agricultural production while privatizing some state- "They have bitten the whole bullet, and it will be very dif- owned companies and forcing others to operate on a more ficult for the civilians to reverse it." commercial basis. Government-run marketing boards for The decision to float the naira came as a team of IMF agricultural goods were abolished to allow farmers a bet- economists was in Lagos to negotiate a new standby ter price for their produce. Production did increase. agreement. The old 15-month accord, signed in January 1990, lapsed last year after Nigeria missed targets on public spending, money supply, petrol price subsi- dies, and the exchange rate. A new agreement giving the IMF stamp of approval is key to government hopes of obtaining favorable terms in forthcoming talks to reschedule part of Nige- ria's $17.5 billion dollar public for- eign debt with the Paris Club. Nigerian officials have said they hope to obtain an agreement along the lines of the Trinidad terms, which could result in a major debt write-off. President Babangida said in his annual budget speech last January that Nigeria could spend only $2.28 billion this year on debt repayments compared to more than $5 billion in scheduled obliga- tions. Nigeria's foreign debt is big- ger than its entire gross national product. The new official exchange rate is now close to the parallel rate obtained at the "bureaux de change," which since August 1989 have been licensed to trade in for- eign currencies on the open mar- ket. Since August 1991, Nigeria's 120-strong banking community had purchased an average of $50-

Opposite page, voter registration in Enugu Left, market women at Ijora Port in Lagos

45 May/June 19 9 2 60 million each week in foreign exchange from the Cen- in brought into North America, Nigerian traffickers have tral Bank in a modified Dutch auction system, in which smeared the country's name, and Nigerians traveling they effectively set the price at well below market rates. abroad complain that they are routinely given a tough But few issues are more politically explosive than time at European, Asian, and U.S. airports. devaluation among a populace which has seen living Anti-drug experts say that at least six highly sophisti- standards fall dramatically in the past decade. A strong cated drug trafficking syndicates operate in Nigeria, all naira is a major campaign theme of most politicians who based in the Lagos area. They obtain heroin mostly from have declared themselves candidates for presidential Thailand and cocaine from Brazil and smuggle it into elections in December, a month before the hand-over to Europe and the U.S. civilians. The favored method of smuggling is for couriers to Demands on government coffers have been especially consume 500 to 900 grams of heroin or cocaine in bal- heavy over the past two years, with the addition of nine loons or condoms, washed down with thick okra soup. new states to the 21 already in existence, a costly military Thus, Nigerian couriers have been dubbed "swallowers" peace-keeping role in civil war-torn Liberia, the transfer in U.S. drug enforcement circles. of the nation's capital from Lagos to Abuja, and big cost President Babangida has said that throughout the over-runs on controversial industrial projects such as the 1980s, 15,000 Nigerians had been arrested worldwide for Ajaokuta steel complex. drug trafficking. The trend appears to be worsening. Further, government officials point out that they have While 27 West Africans, most of them Nigerian, were been forced to spend millions of dollars on the two legal arrested in 1983 for carrying 7 kilograms of heroin into political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the U.S., by 1990 the figures had risen to 657 couriers the National Republican Convention (NRC), and elec- with 240 kilos, according to Paul Higdon, the deputy tions to ensure a smooth transition to assistant administrator of the U.S. civilian rule, now scheduled to occur Drug Enforcement Administration. in January 1993. Few issues are more Nigeria's flagging reputation in the Most Western economists blame face of economic hard times partly government overspending and heavy politically explosive explains the celebrity status given to borrowing for sharp increases in the Adebayo Aremu, a 30-year-old taxi money supply and downward pres- than devaluation driver who returned 21,000 naira sure on the naira. In the first half of ($1,050) left in his car by a market last year alone, Central Bank figures among a populace woman. Even though the sum repre- show, the budget deficit reached 19.5 sented 18 months' worth of wages, billion naira, or about $1.9 billion at which has seen living Aremu said, "There is nothing I am the old exchange rate. going to do with anybody else's To compensate for the overspend- standards fall money. The thought never crossed my ing, the government has used mone- mind." tary policy to squeeze credit from the dramatically. After a story about his honesty private sector to fund the public sec- appeared in The Concord paper, well- tor. Interest rates, which were capped at 21 percent, have wishers sent him 4,000 naira, and the John F. Kennedy been deregulated, and following the floating of the naira, International School in Warri offered his one-year-old inter-bank lending rates have soared to over 35 percent. daughter a full scholarship to secondary school. That, together with the falling rate of the naira, has made Soon, however, everything seemed to go wrong. The it extremely difficult for domestic manufacturers to owner of the taxi forced him to pay for damage to the obtain money to invest. Thus, capacity utilization, already vehicle, which cost more than the 4,000 naira he had as low as 40 percent last year, is believed by most received, and then fired him. Aremu's second wife left economists to be falling further. him. "She said I have been a driver for 15 years and have The hard economic times have pushed many Nigeri- never been able to get my own car. So when I had the ans into illegal activities, such as fraud and drug traffick- opportunity, I just gave it away." ing, which have brought huge sums of money into the Aremu's disappointment deepened on March 7, when country. The effects of the drug money, Nigerian he was a guest at the Performing Musicians Association observers say, can be seen in areas like Allen Avenue in of Nigeria annual awards show in the capital, Abuja. He the northern I^gos suburb of Ikeja. Little more than a met President Babangida, who shook his hand and dirt track a decade ago, today Allen Avenue is a bustling praised him for his honesty, but gave him no financial road lined with boutiques, restaurants, and nightclubs. reward. Its nickname is "Cocaine Alley." 'The country will be honest if everyone sees it as a Nigerian drug syndicates now rank second only to the duty," he said. "But if there is no reward for being honest, Chinese as the leading importers of heroin into the Unit- people like me are seen as being stupid." Still, Aremu has ed States, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Adminis- no regrets. "If it happened again, I would look for the tration officials, and account for one-third of all the hero- owner," he said. "It is not in my nature to steal." O

Africa Report 46 BYKARLMAIERIKIM1MII

A high-powered delegation of traditional rulers from n Nigeria's middle-belt region, the northern states, led by the Sultan of Sokoto, seat of the powerful Islamic Caliphate, launched its own diplomatic ethnic minorities of Tivs and Jukuns effort in March and declared that the end was in sight. The have lived side by side for hundreds Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki, described the Tiv-Jukun war as "this threat to our survival as one nation." | of years, fearing and hating one The conflict, centered at Wukari town and its surround^ ing areas, is a hit and run affair, with both sides armed with another, Sporadically, their enmity everything from bows and arrows to automatic rifles, and employing scorched earth tactics. For miles around breaks out into war as it did in Octo- Wukari, silence has fallen over dozens of farming villages | ber 1991. Since then, in continuing which have been burned to the ground. Tens of thousands of refugees have fled to the neighboring state of Benue, skirmishes, some 5,000 people have where the majority of Tivs live, or to the town of Ibi on the shores of the Benue River. been killed, thousands more have fled Before the rains come in April, the Benue River retreats for their lives, and dozens of villages from its wide banks to become a bright blue stream snaking around islands of white, hot sand. The public trans- have been burned to the ground. port across the river in the dry season is a wooden barge about 75 feet long and 10 feet wide powered by a 60 horse- power Suzuki outboard engine. As it plows along, listing hen the boats of the Royal Niger Expedition heavily to the left under the weight of three cars, about 50 reached the Benue river port of Ibi in 1854, the people, and several pigs and goats, the isolation of Tara- mission's leaders, Dr. W.B. Baikie and S.A. ba—one of nine of Nigeria's 30 states that are less than a Crowther, asked a local man where the boundary was year old—becomes clear. between the Tivs and the Jukuns, the two peoples living in By February, Ibi was full of Tiv refugees and horror sto- the area of what is today Nigeria's remote central state of ries about Jukun atrocities. Nearly everyone, including top Taraba. The man, a Jukun, is said to have meshed together local officials, knew someone who has been scarred by the his 10 fingers to say that the two groups lived as one. If the conflict. Along the once heavily populated 25-mile road to man were alive today, he might well slam his two fists Wukari, not a village was standing. No one was working the together. fields, and few cars and trucks made the run for fear of Since the eve of Nigeria's independence from Britain in ambush. 1960, the Jukuns and the Tivs have fought a number of skir- The town of Wukari itself was eerily calm, except for the mishes, usually just before election time when the two sides hundreds of heavily armed regular police and mobile police attempt to use brute force instead of a fair vote to determine units patrolling in big trucks along the streets. Wukari had the outcome. A full-scale war has erupted since October been largely saved from the war, except for a December 31 1991 in the run-up to gubernatorial primaries and elections raid by Tiv guerrillas which left two people dead. contested by Nigeria's sole two legal political parties, the The view from Wukari, seat of the Aku Uka's palace, is Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republi- completely opposite to that of Ibi. The horror stories are can Convention (NRC). The pools were the first major electoral battles of President Ibrahim Babangida's tightly controlled transition pro- ETERNAL ENMITIES gram. Many observers believe that as many as 5,000 lives attributed solely to the Tivs, whom the Jukuns consider have been lost in the fighting, making it the worst outbreak "settlers" and "strangers." of violence since the 1967-70 Biafran civil war. Neither side shows any sign of compromise. The Two peace efforts in January and February by Vice Jukuns, citing somewhat shaky historical evidence, President Augustus Aikhomu failed to end the conflict, but describe themselves as a peace-loving people who have did succeed in bringing together the spiritual leaders of the occupied the Wukari area for the past 700 years. In fact, the two peoples, the Jukuns' Aku Uka, and the Tor Tiv, nominal old Jukun state, Kwararafa, was on the north side of the head of the 4-million strong Tivs, Nigeria's fifth biggest eth- Benue in what is today Plateau state and had emerged as a nic group. feared military power by the second half of the 16th centu- ry. Jukun calvary armed with long spears pillaged across Karl Mater is the West Africa correspondent o/Tlie Independent of Lon- Hausaland, entered Kano and Katsina, and even threatened don and contributes to The Washington Post Borno. The Fulani Islamic jihad of the early 1800s appears

47 May/June 19 9 2 to have destroyed Kwararafa and sent the Jukun to Wukari. neither Jukuns or Tivs but by Hausa-Fulani, Nigeria's The paramount Jukun chiefs, the Aku Ukas, started their biggest group. Bantaji, a sprawling settlement of 20,000 reign in Wukari in 1855, at least two centuries after Tiv people, had avoided the war until early February when Tiv immigrants, originally from modern-day Cameroon, had merchants, recently expelled from selling in a nearby settled in the area. Jukun village, asked if they could open stalls at the open-air As the Royal Niger Expedition discovered 138 years ago, market Bantaji villagers, hoping the excellent Tiv farmers the Tivs and the Jukuns lived together in relative peace would improve the produce selection, agreed. until the British arrived. The colonial policy of "indirect Armed Jukun guerrillas attacked the village, but were rule," or administration through a pliant traditional ruler, repulsed. In response, Banataji's residents set up a road promoted the Jukuns to a dominant position over the more block to check passing vehicles. That angered the police in numerous Tivs, a loosely organized farming people who Wukari since only official roadblocks were legal. Villagers live in isolated homesteads. The British ruled Wukari said the police had warned their chief to dismantle the road- through the Aku Uka, and thus until independence, the block or face the consequences. Jukuns controlled the area. But in elections to the Federal The consequences came on February 12, market day, House of Representatives in 1959, a year before the Union when according to numerous witnesses, a combined force Jack was lowered for good in Nigeria, the Tivs formed an of Jukun men and four truckloads of Nigeria's notorious electoral alliance with another important community, the mobile police attacked, burning scores of homes, looting Hausas, to elect a Tiv man. many others, and killing at least 31 people. Five days later, After the latest bout of fighting started in October 1991, the ruins of the villages were still smouldering as a member a Jukun was elected local government council chairman for of the chief's council sat in front of his destroyed home and the first time. accused the mobile police of carrying out the attack. "Most Relations between the two communities have continued of the killing was done by the police because they were in to sour. "Our problems with the Tivs have been on for a long the front." said Galadima Adamu Bantaji. Another young time," the Aku Uka said in an interview at his palace, seated man said he saw mobile policemen shoot his father dead at between two crude mortars which he said the Tiv fighters his home. "We have buried 31 people, but we are still find- were using. "Before the advent of the colonial masters, the ing bodies," Adamu Bantaji said. "Most of the people fled Tivs were under us. and even when the colonial masters into the bush, some with wounds to go and die there." came. But because of their large number, they developed a That same day, five members of the police were kid- habit of not recognizing the legitimacy of the Aku." napped. One escaped and the corpses of four others were The Tor Tiv, based in Benue state, sees it differently, later found in shallow graves. The mobile police units are a accusing the Aku Uka of treating his people as second-class special force, but pay and discipline are low. They are com- citizens. "Because of that single advantage which the Jukun monly known in Nigeria as 'Tail and go," and after repeated people had through the colonial masters, they considered reports of their involvement in extortion and extrajudicial themselves as the indigenes of that place, while the Tiv peo- killings across the country, the Babangida administration ple all along had been regarded as settlers, strangers, and withdrew them fromnighttim e patrolling of the highways. squatters," he said at his palace in Gboko, about 80 miles While some observers argued that some mobile police southwest of Wukari. "There is fear in the minds of the had been paid by the Jukuns to come to their aid, Tanko Jukun that one day the Tiv people would dominate that Muhammed, who as local government secretary is Ibi's place completely and they would be pushed to the corner." third-ranking official, linked it to the civil war, when the Ibo The Tivs' land hunger is especially worrying to the people attempted to secede and establish the independent Jukuns, who largely rely on fishing for their livelihood. nation of Biafra. "The Tivs played a large role in the Federal Some Tiv leaders have charged that the current fighting is forces in the war against Biafra, and the mobile police are an attempt by Jukun elites to force the Tivs off the land so mostly Ibos," he said. "So it is much easier for the Jukuns to they can start up commercial farming enterprises. buy the mobiles [police]." The Tiv-Jukun confrontation is the worst example of dis- Muhammed and other officials have called on the Feder- putes among ethnic groups in several parts of Nigeria's al government to remove the mobile police and send in middle belt region, where minorities live side by side or what they consider to be a neutral force, the army. That call near the country's three main peoples, the Ibo of the east, was echoed on February 25 by the state police commission- the Yoruba of the west, and the Hausa-Fulani in the north. er in neighboring Benue state, Sule Mohammed, when he On February 6, for example, at least 60 people died in clash- admitted that the police had failed to quell the violence. es between Hausas and Katafs in Kaduna state, sparked by Only a special force, like the National Guard, could do the a decision of local authorities to transfer an important mar- job, he said. ket, known as Zango Kataf, out of a Hausa area. As in Tara- Hopes for a solution are now pinned on the mission of ba. the Zango Kataf episode masked deeper conflicts over the northern traditional rulers, who wield great influence in land and the Kataf claim that they are indigenous to the Nigeria. If they fail, the coming national legislative and pres- area and that the Hausas are settlers. idential elections later this year could spark even greater The effect of the Tiv-Jukun struggle could be seen at violence and become a bad omen for relations between the Bantaji, a village 25 miles east of Wukari and inhabited by myriad of ethnic groups across the middle belt region. O

Africa Report 48 BY PETER DA COSTA Ml 11 Mil MM Liberia is bogged down in stalemate. The carefully drawn Ecowas blueprint, to have culminated in April elections, has PEACE broken down, primarily due to the intransi- POSTPONED gence of Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front rebels. The situation has frustrated the interim government of Amos Sawyer and tried the patience of Ecowas's peace-brokers.

P.iirlck Robert/Sygma espair, something Liberia's citizens Since a November 1990 ceasefire ended the worst of have known all too often, has begun brutality catalyzed by a December 1989 incursion aimed to insinuate on the optimism of at unseating the 10-year dictatorship of Samuel Doe, even the most stoic of West Africa's Taylor's National Patriotic Front (NPFL) rebels, with peace-brokers, whose best efforts control of 12 of Liberia's 13 counties, had brooked little at shepherding the civil war-torn compromise. Shunning the Ecowas peace plan, which nation toward a new beginning counseled an interim government of national unity, Tay- have fallen victim to the very stale- lor had installed his own administration, declaring him- mate they were designed to end. self the country's sovereign ruler on the principle of ter- Yamoussoukro IV, the blueprint for a free and fair ritorial supremacy. election born after a tortuous, painful labor in Cote Given the odds, Yamoussoukro IV, when it came, was d'lvoire's political capital last November, has been rightly viewed as a genuine breakthrough, Liberia's war- excruciatingly slow in execution, with the result that ring factions agreed to a 60-day timetable for the disar- rumblings of discontent have become the order of the mament and encampment of their respective militias; day—from elements within the 16-member Economic Ecowas's peace-keeping arm, Ecomog, would guarantee Community of West African States (Ecowas) which security throughout the country; and sine qua non con- spawned the peace plan, as well as the swelling ranks of ditions for a process leading to the first free and fair elec- jobless returnees driven homeward by refugee fatigue. tion in Liberia's 145-year history (repatriation, resettle- At Yamoussoukro, all the stops were pulled out by a ment, and voter registration) would be in place no later Community desperate for a breakthrough in a mediation than six months from D-Day on November 15. process that was stretching its meager resources and D-Day plus 60—the January 15 deadline for encamp- fragile political consensus to the very limit. Overwhelm- ment—loomed and disappeared almost without event. ing peer pressure was concentrated on Charles Taylor, The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) remained armed, the main protagonist whose intransigence had ensured albeit en-camped in the capital Monrovia, while the Inde- that 1990-91 was the year of stalemate. pendent National Patriotic Front (INPFL)—an NPFL splinter faction— maintained a menacing martial pres- Peter da Costa is a freelance journalist based in Banjul, the Gambia. ence over inhabitants of Caldwell, a Monrovia suburb.

Africa Report 50 Their early adherence to the plan notwithstanding, the operated from bases in Sierra Leone (where it has often AFL and INPFL remained in a state of preparedness for fought alongside regular army units) and Guinea. Hav- one reason: The 10,000-strong NPFL army was still ing declared a suspension of hostilities after Yamous- armed to the teeth. soukro IV, the group has now announced it will invade The 60-day window of opportunity did yield gains, NPFL areas and hand over captured territory to Eco- however limited. On January 10, amid much fanfare, mog—a prospect that causes peace-brokers to wince some roads—notably a highway leading from Monrovia since the Ulimo variable is one they neither expected to Taylor's seat at Gbarnga 125 miles north—were par- nor welcomed. tially opened, with a significant reduction in the night- Citing the need to defend NPFL territory against marish rebel checkpoints that had served to inhibit free attacks, Taylor's aides have raised the Ulimo issue at movement. Ecomog reconnaissance teams identified every meeting of the joint NPFL/Ecomog technical encampment sites in each county and even succeeded in commission. NPFL paranoia has gone further, suggest- billeting a light detachment of soldiers in the NPFL-held ing that Ulimo forces are being trained right under the port of Buchanan. peace-keepers' noses. Suspicion of Ecomog still persists This apart, Yamoussoukro IV has remained largely after nine months of confidence-building work. Taylor unimplemented. An Ecomog undertaking to create a finds it hard to forgive the Nigeria-led imposition of a buffer zone on Liberia's border with its northeastern ceasefire in late September 1990 that robbed him of the neighbor. Sierra Leone, designed to prevent cross-bor- executive mansion—Doe's seat of government that der attacks, has so far remained on the drawing board. would have ensured him the presidency. An electoral commission and ad hoc supreme After Yamoussoukro IV, Ecomog, little more than an court—bodies which were due to start work after the ini- anglophone clique, sought to become more representa- tial implementation period—find themselves without a tive of Ecowas as a whole. Now an 11,000-strong, seven- conducive operating environment, pieces of the topsy- nation unit, the force has kept contingents likely to turvy, upside-down jigsaw that is post-war Liberia. The offend Taylor stationed in Monrovia while using the new International Negotiation Network (INN), part of the Senegalese contingent (deemed more impartial by Tay- technical assistance package pledged at Yamoussoukro, lor) to forge ahead with confidence-building and recon- has only tentatively embarked on the business of plan- naissance. This softly-softly approach has exposed the ning a poll. peace-keepers to allegations that they are colluding with Set against this is the phenomenon of spontaneous the NPFL to prolong the stalemate for financial re-ward. returnees—Liberians encouraged by the expectations "Liberians are raised by Yamoussoukro IV to make their way home not grateful at all," from refugee camps in neighboring countries. Mon- Taylor finds it hard to spat an Ecomog of- rovia's Ecowas-installed interim government (IGNU) ficer when asked to reported in February that the city's pre-war population forgive the Nigeria- comment on the of 450,000 had swelled to nearly a million. Aid organiza- allegation. "What tions put the figure at 750,000. led imposition of a people don't realize Despite the uncontrolled influx, the United Nations is that if we were High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is delaying ceasefire in late given the order, we a full repatriation program because it does not believe would clear [the conditions are safe. If a spate of armed robberies and a September 1990 that NPFL] out just like February grenade attack in Monrovia—carried out that. Maybe we despite the high profile of Ecomog—are anything to go robbed him of the should just get out by, UNHCR may be wise in its caution. "The security sit- of Liberia and leave uation in Monrovia is worse now than it has been for a executive mansion. them to it." Even long time," lamented Gerard Van Dijk, operations direc- the force's diplo- tor of the World Food Programme in Liberia. And in matic commanding greater Liberia, aid workers and civilians alike report officer is showing uncharacteristic, if understandable, continued harassment by armed rebels. signs of strain. In February, Maj.-Gen. Ishaya Bakut told While civilian safety fears are on the increase, it is a Monrovia newspaper that technical commission talks Taylor's security concerns that have punctuated the had broken down over the NPFL's insistence that its Yamoussoukro IV go-slow, in the face of actual and per- troops be deployed countrywide alongside Ecomog, an ceived threats from Ulimo, a coalition of anti-Taylor eventuality he said would contravene Yamoussoukro IV. forces bankrolled by Doe loyalists with the stated aim of Back from briefing the Ecowas chairman. President "liberating Liberia from Charles Taylor." But if Ulimo's Abdou Diouf of Senegal, on the impasse, Maj.-Gen. Bakut combined campaign of incursions and propaganda was betrayed his frustration when he said tersely, "I have designed to propel Taylor into compliance with Ecowas given the Ecowas leadership the pros and cons. It is left plans, it has had precisely the reverse effect. with them to design a solution and get back to me." Eco- Since entering the fray in March 1991, Ulimo has mog and the NPFL had differences in the interpretation

51 May/June 19 9 2

I THE VIEW FROM FOGGY BOTTOM

he tempo of Liberia's fractured diplomatic settled on Liberlan territory. But for now, the burden of battle for political legitimacy in Washington pressure remains on Taylor. is heating up as Bush administration doubts "We have made a considerable Investment of time about ineffectual regional accords have and resources in Liberia without demonstrable opened the way for talk of new methods to progress toward Yamoussoukro IV," a State Depart- Tulet the country's internal combustion. ment official said. "We must now consider a number of State Department sources maintain any change In things we could have done but haven't yet." policy toward Liberia will be made in concert with Escalating anti-Taylor sentiments within the State regional leaders and say the administration continues Department suggest that formally recognizing Amos to view the Economic Community of West African Sawyer's Interim government (IGNU) would best States (Ecowas) peace plan as the best hope of bridg- counter continuing French and francophone African ing the country's divide. support for Taylor in the conference room and on the But diplomats frustrated by the results of regional battlefield, while sending a signal to the Liberlan peo- mediation have privately questioned the motives of ple that Taylor has finally gone too far by alienating some governments' involvement in the conflict, lead- their traditional backer and most likely source of Ing to suggestions that rebel leader Charles Taylor is reconstruction aid. not the only one benefiting from perpetual delay. Sawyer's deliberate manner has begun to earn him Taylor's blessing remains crucial to any lasting high marks for "trying to run a clean shop with little or deal, but repeated excuses about delaying the nothing behind him," according to a State Department encampment of his rebels under the Ecowas interven- official who favors full recognition. tion force, Ecomog. are clearly eroding much of the Despite sub-regional pressure to recognize Sawyer, marginal goodwill he once enjoyed In Washington. senior U.S. officials fear the move might provide Taylor Taylor's claim that the disarmament accord negoti- with the provocation for which they feel he searches to ated In Yamoussoukro remains on track Is "absurd," abandon the Ecowas plan altogether, claiming perma- according to a senior State Department official who nent sovereignty over the 12 of 13 counties he now said agreeing to further talks in the Ivorlan capital occupies by portraying Sawyer as a traditional Ameri- would be "playing into his stalling tactics." can stooge. Lester Hyman, Washington counsel for Taylor's "Recognizing the government In Monrovia would Gbarnga government, said the disarmament process is say to Charles Taylor that all tills pious talk about neu- moving forward, but admitted It Is not in step with the trality from Washington Is hogwash," Lester Hyman Yamoussoukro timetable because Taylor wants to said during an interview at the Georgetown offices of familiarize Ecomog with his territory and establish a Sindler & Berlin, the National Patriotic Reconstruction common response to the United Liberation Movement Assembly's registered U.S. counsel. of Liberia for Democracy (Ulimo). Without regional condemnation of Taylor and an Ulimo's commitment to democracy, the timing of accompanying groundswell of support for Sawyer, the their first attacks, and misgivings about those behind tactical benefits of recognizing the Interim the Sierra Leone-based movement are part of Washing- government remain dubious, according to a State ton's concern about other West African scores being Department source, because it Is a card of marginal

of the Cote d'lvoire accord, he added, implying that future track strategy of keeping rank-and-file soldiers in the technical meetings would stand a better chance of suc- dark about the agreements signed at Yamoussoukro, cess if the rebel team backed down on this position. paint a picture of Taylor as the prisoner of his own The general perception is that Taylor is stalling the dream. The scenario is that having failed to gain abso- peace process for a number of reasons. Some analysts lute power, Taylor is worried that his men, the most interpret his insistence on an April 1992 election while trusted among them soldiers of fortune, may consider refusing to disarm as an indicator that the NPFL leader capitulation to Ecowas a betrayal. doesn't believe himself capable of winning an open con- A persistent theory which has strong credence is that test. "He is using the gun philosophy to keep the people the stalemate has provided senior NPFL officials with in his territory compliant," ventured one senior Mon- unprecedented get-rich-quick opportunities. IGNU Pres- rovia official. ident Dr. Amos Sawyer claimed in a recent interview Others, citing recent claims by a high-ranking NPFL that "...for all practical purposes Mr. Taylor is conduct- defector that Taylor and his inner circle had run a two- ing a clearance sale of Liberia's resources." Sawyer

Africa Report saucratlc advantage that can be played only once marck Kuyon, speaker of Monrovia's Interim Legisla- and cannot be withdrawn if it ends up leading to a tive Assembly (ILA) on an official visit to Washington. losing hand. "The frustration of the Liberian people everywhere, After repeated demands for a firm position from behind Taylor lines or in the U.S., is over this gun busi- Washington, Sawyer now seems to agree. Given Tay- ness." lor's volatility, IGNU's Washington counsel, Paul Reich Kuyon, whose youngest brother is deputy speaker of ler, said Sawyer no longer feels formal U.S. recognition the Gbarnga legislature, feels debates over foreign pol- is crucial to the success of his administration and is icy and elections must yield to the country's need to instead satisfied with de facto recognition or regular regain its sense of family before dwindling hopes for meetings with Ambassador Peter deVos. peace grow deeper. "When the Bush administration formally requested "Maybe we in the interim government haven't done that Liberia co-sponsor repealing the UN resolution enough to bridge the gap of mistrust with Charles Tay- equating Zionism with racism, they didn't go to lor," he said promising that the I LA would continue try- Charles Taylor or Prince Johnson," Reichler said. "They ing to establish a dialogue among all warring factions. went to Amos Sawyer." : "This Isn't a matter of diplomatic recognition, it's a: Taylor was getting "a bad rap," Hyman said, "but the matter of family." perception from Washington changed as he matured Former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf from a revolutionary leader to a political leader." agrees that Liberia must first try to heal its emotional Since his rebels were denied the crowning legiti- wounds and reconcile its internal divisions through a macy of taking the executive mansion, Taylor has provisional government of genuine national unity campaigned extensively throughout his territory, dis- before moving toward elections. pensing largesse and warning of threats to Liberia's "It's just too early," she said. "If Charles Taylor by sovereignty when not busy with peace talks in neigh- one means or the other gets himself elected or boring capitals. NPRA radio broadcasts of Taylor takes power, Liberia will have no peace because worship and popular music can be heard in Mon- there will be two or three Ulimo's destabilizing the rovia. country." The interim government mandate is to negotiate Frustrated with the pace of disarmament and its itself out of existence, according to Reichler, and eventual impact on elections, State Department Sawyer is accordingly ambivalent about responding to sources say Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Senegal are the volume of Taylor electioneering. But while support- also awakening to the need for something more to ing the rebel leaders right to contest the presidency, push Liberia toward peace. Reichler offered his own assessment of Taylor's While Washington politely threatens tougher action chances. against those its perceives to be dragging their feet lit "When you've killed someone's mother because she Liberia, there seems little else it can do but support spoke another language, you can't win them over by regional efforts to end the conflict and hope, in doing playing nice music," he said. so, that the seeds of another are not sown. • "You can't have 12-year-old boys with guns running —Scott Stearns around the country and talk about elections," said Bis- Washington, O.C.

alleged in February that Taylor was selling off the coun- ing in a cold war between Monrovia and Gbarnga that try's diamonds, timber, and other resources to European has further impeded progress. collaborators. "Who are the people bringing the coffee Sawyer's administration—recognized by the interna- and cocoa to Monrovia that has not been sold across the tional community as Liberia's legitimate transitional gov- border to Cote d'lvoire?" he asked. "It's not the small ernment, yet powerless to enforce its edicts—had begun farmers. It's the commanders." to balk at its invidious position. "We don't have control," IGNU frustration has sparked a number of initiatives. conceded Sawyer. "But we don't desire control of Eco- Monrovia's finance ministry has replaced the old Liberi- mog so much as we desire Ecomog to do its job." Talk- an five-dollar bill—claiming rebel hoarding of container- ing tough, the political science professor is beginning to fuls of old notes was pushing inflation upward. They act tough, too. have imposed an embargo on petroleum and selected As part of the new salvo of initiatives, Sawyer has goods leaving the capital. Predictably, these measures revived the moribund Mano River Union, a sub-regional have been replicated by the NPFL administration, result- grouping whose other members are Sierra Leone and

May/June 19 9 2 Guinea, as a platform for revitalizing Liberia—precisely the vehicle for the flagging peace process—sending diplomatic peer pressure of the sort a clear signal to Ecowas that its Despite its evident prescribed by Powell. Yamoussoukro efforts are falling short of the mark. is once again likely to be chosen as the Sawyer's shuttle diplomacy has displeasure at being venue for this latest pow-wow—in won promises from Libyan leader keeping with the idea that maintaining Col. Muammar Qaddafy and Burkin- strung along by the Cote d'lvoire at the epicenter of peace abe President Capt. Blaise Com- efforts will hold together the hard- paore—both backers of the NPFL, the Ecomog won, yet ever-fragile anglophone/fran- NPFL—that they will work toward a cophone coalition. lasting peace in Liberia in line with high command must Ecowas chair Diouf is a strong pro- sub-regional efforts. As a senior ponent of regional economic integra- Liberian diplomat put it: "We went to again employ tion—a reason he is keen to see the Tripoli at Qaddafy's invitation and end of the Liberia problem. An initial came out with more in two days than patience. dissenter from the Ecowas initiative the whole of Ecowas has managed in until softened by U.S. inputs, Senegal two years of sending envoys to now has as much at stake as any Com- Libya." munity member. Its leader's year in the sub-regional hot The ball is now firmly back in the Ecowas court. The seat, due to expire in June, will be judged more kindly chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff. Gen. Colin Pow- should the pivotal issue of disarmament be settled ell, implied as much in February during a West African before then. tour highlighted by head-to-head talks with Nigeria's In order to do this, the crisis summit will have to Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Sierra Leone's Gen. Joseph reduce the NPFL's margin for procrastination by com- Momoh, and Ecomog's Maj.-Gen. Bakut. Speaking to prehensively addressing Taylor's security concerns, be journalists, Powell said the U.S. was anxious to see all they genuine or concocted. Creating the Sierra Liberia's factions disarmed and encamped. He suggest- Leone/Liberia buffer zone will be shifted up in priori- ed a tightening of the diplomatic screws, an increase in ty—to allay NPFL fears of Ulimo attack and ease Sierra pressure on Taylor. Leone's task of crushing an incursion into its southeast- Almost on cue, Babangida announced Nigeria's back- ern region by suspected Taylor loyalists. ing for another heads of state level summit on Despite its evident displeasure at being strung along by the NPFL, the Ecomog high command must again employ patience. It has no choice, since a mandate of imposition would not only renew the onslaught on civil- ians, but would overturn the limited gains of the past two years and upset the sub-regional balance, such as it is. "We must redefine the concept of sovereignty so that the locus of sovereignty is seen to be the people," IGNU President Sawyer told Africa Report last November. There is a growing feeling that with military action an increasingly remote solution to the stalemate, the people themselves will take responsibility for their own enfran- chisement. Signs are that people power is beginning to regain its potency. On March 25, following the execution of six civilians by NPFL officers on suspicion of being Ulimo insurgents, the port city of Buchanan saw an unprece- dented protest by 12,000 residents, who are reported to have called on Taylor to put an end to killings. The protest worked. Taylor arrested four senior comman- ders and promised courts-martial. Charles Taylor: According to Ecomog sources, the demonstration was so intense that Is he worried an NPFL team due in Monrovia that his men may for a March 26 technical commis- consider capitu- sion meeting failed to turn up. lation to Ecowas Instead, they drove to Buchanan a betrayal? to calm the civil unrest. O Africa R e p it r t 54 BY MARK HUBANDHMtllEMIll

Political reform in Cote d'lvoire has been shelved for now after 12 opposition leaders were jailed in March, held responsible for a demonstration that turned violent. Their arrest and trial demonstrates the extent to . which the country is still subject to the power accu- mulated over 30 years by 87-year-old President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, whose failure to lay the \ groundwork for the next political generation is at the root of the nation's anxiety over the future. SILENCING THE OPPOSITION The imprisonment in March of 12 opposition politicians in Cote d'lvoire, including the leader of the main opposi- tion party, has halted their attempts at reforming the country's delicate power structure. It has also exposed the weakness of the law in the face of massive presiden- tial power even after two years of multi-party democracy. A four-day trial, after which eight of the 20 accused were set free, followed a riot in the center of the capital, Abidjan, on February 18, which led to thousands of dol- lars worth of damage. Demonstrators had gathered for a legal march organized by the main opposition party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). They were demanding that the government punish soldiers in accordance with the recommendations of an official inquiry into army brutali- ty during the suppression of student militancy on Abid- jan's Yopougon University residential campus in May 1991. President Felix Houphouet-Boigny rejected the report, saying punishment of the soldiers would split the army. In explaining the government's refusal to act, Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, in an interview, revealed the extent to which the maintenance of C6te peace in one of West Africa's most stable el'Iroire countries relies on the law being sub- President sumed by the exercise of presidential Felix power. Houpbouet- Referring to the murder last May of a Roigny pro-government student, Thierry Zebie,

55 May /June 19 9 2 who had infiltrated a now-banned students' union, the state, as it was highly unjust that the opposition leaders Federation of Ivorian Students and Pupils (Fesci), Ouat- should go to jail for crimes committed by thugs not even tara said: "When Martial Ahipeaud and members of the known to be members of the political parties which had bureau of Fesci killed Mr. Zebi, I asked the government organized the march. Laurent Gbagbo and his co-defen- lawyers to pursue them in court. This was in June, and a dants denounced the trial as "political," and the process few weeks later, the president told me that he wanted the succeeded in giving the opposition a spotlight rarely government to abandon this trial, because of peace and accorded it in the state media. However, it also revealed so forth. the extent to which the country has retained a highly "This is also what he did with Yopougon for the mili- centralized power which provides the regime with all the tary. In the case of the students, they killed someone. It's trump cards in disputes of this kind—a situation which, true that things [the military did] were revolting. It's far from being contained by the state, will more likely fur- revolting for all of us. But the president is the only one ther intensify feelings against the party in power. who has that right by the constitution [not to pursue the For the past year, since its disastrous defeat in the case]. He decided in one case that we should not pursue October 1990 presidential and legislative elections, and someone who killed a student, and in the other case he exasperated by its total exclusion from real power, the decided he would not take sanctions against [the mili- FPI had been attempting to unravel the political tradi- tary] who were supposed to have brutalized students." tions which assured Houphouet-Boigny's victory and Opposition demands for action over the Yopougon much of the country's social cohesion. report, after the murder charge against the anti-govern- PDCI power relies on a balance having been struck ment students had been dropped, are seen by members between the president's Baoule ethnic group, the of the ruling Democratic Party (PDCI) as a deliberate Senoufo of the party's secretary-general, Laurent Dona refusal by the opposition to abide by the constitutionally Fologo, the Malinke of the prime minister, and groups based, though largely unwritten, rules of presidential loyal to the former defense minister, Jean Konan Banny, power, which have been woven over 32 years since inde- and the president of the National Assembly, Henri Konan pendence from France in the interests of social cohesion. Bedie. Controversy still surrounds the actual events which The PDCI dominates in the north and the center of led up to the violence, however. The march started with- the country, while the FPI has considerable influence in out the normally heavy presence of the security forces, the south. In the run-up to elections in 1996, the FPI though police who were present were aware that some intends to try and sever the alliance between the north 200 marchers had arrived with violence in mind as they and the center, splitting the PDCI support, which it were armed with sticks and batons. So the question believes is based on propaganda rather than genuine loy- remains as to why the march was not halted or the trou- alty. Ouattara levels the same accusation against the FPI, blemakers isolated. which has only nine deputies in the 168-seat National "It would have been worse if the military had started Assembly, two of whom are now in prison following the to stop the march," Ouattara said, "because these people trial. were ready for a fight, and I was happy that there were Now, due to the president's grip on power, it has no deaths. If the police wanted to prevent it, the police become increasingly clear that the democratic blueprint would be in an illegal situation because they had the for francophone Africa, drawn up by France and mod- authorization to march...This government wants to elled on the developed world, is proving itself barely respect the legal process. You cannot tell someone you applicable as it founders on a social structure which have authorized them to march and then at a certain deprives opposition parties of a role in the process of gov- point say you cannot march...But from now on if we see ernment. someone coming with arms and saying he will march, we Its exclusion from power has led the FPI to take an will just tell him to stop it," Ouattara said. increasingly populist approach, which is seen as having The evening before the march, Houphouet-Boigny partly led to the violence of February 18, as it has attract- signed an ordinance holding march organizers responsi- ed supporters inclined to use violence. Meanwhile, the ble for the conduct of their supporters. The timing of the FPI leader, Laurent Gbagbo, who received a two-year jail signing, which took place in Paris and was not debated sentence and a $900 fine, concentrates on criticizing the by the National Assembly, caused consternation, as it nepotism of the regime rather than elaborating beyond a made it appear that the government was preparing for general view of regionalism, an economic policy which violence on the eve of the demonstration. Its own legal will ease the plight of the economy's victims. advisers said the ordinance was not credible, so the pros- Gbagbo's position is partly explained by his view of ecution simply charged the opposition leaders with being Africa's new democracy: "Democracy is not established co-sponsors of the violence. in Africa, because the reactionaries don't want to leave French and Senegalese defense lawyers rubbished power," he said in an interview a few weeks before his the court case from the beginning, saying it should be imprisonment. dropped before the country was regarded as a police Three days before the opposition leaders' sentencing, Mark Huband is a freelance journalist based in Abidjan, Cote d'lvoire. the leaders of Fesci were sentenced to three years in

Africa Report 56 prison. They were accused of organizing violent demon- using brutal methods in silencing the opposition. The strations in February 1992 and of reconstituting the toughness of the response also led to Gbagbo's imprison- union after it had been banned. ment, drawing criticism from reformist political parties The imprisonment of the opposition leaders was con- throughout West Africa, including those in Benin. Niger, demned by the European Parliament, led by French and Zaire. Socialist members. On a visit to Abidjan, the U.S. deputy Leaders of Cote d'lvoire's smaller opposition parties, assistant secretary of stale for African affairs, Leonard who are largely ineffective, met Ouattara in early March Robinson, called for the prosecution of the soldiers impli- and were told that the government's measures were not cated in the official inquiry into the violence at Yopougon intended as a way of halting the process toward democra- in May 1991, whose actions had originally led to the tization, but were aimed at proving that politicians could February protest. Such foreign criticism, which has been not expect exemption from the law if they were implicat- unprecedented in its directness, has seriously under- ed in violence. Ouattara argued that the opposition mined the until-now high reputation abroad of the Ouat- should have accepted the government's decision not to tara government, at a time when it is attempting to revive prosecute the soldiers implicated in the Yopougon the country's economy by introducing sweeping reforms report, just as the government had accepted that it would agreed upon with the World Bank and the International be inflammatory to prosecute the killers of the student, Monetary Fund. Thierry Zebie. Ouattara's hard line against the opposition leaders, Both decisions not to pursue legal action had been which was taken in the absence of Houphouel- taken by Houphouet-Boigny and were not initially sup- Boigny—on an extended visit to Europe when the vio- ported by Ouattara, who preferred to see cases brought lence occurred—is explained by his determination to fol- to court. Houphouet-Boigny was made aware by the vio- low through with the reforms. lence of February 18 that the opposition was no longer "I explained to the opposition leaders that the reform abiding by the rules which have largely determined the program I am implementing needed social peace conduct of presidential power since he became head of because the economic situation is difficult and, by itself, state at independence in I960. creates social tensions. We are still very open to dia- Ouattara, who has retained his reputation as a techno- logue. In fact, after the events, I received several opposi- crat assigned to the process of economic reform rather tion leaders. I told them that this was a very, very unhap- than a politician with a solid basis of support, says openly py development, but the government had to react the that he has no desire to remain as prime minister beyond way it did, that this is a country where the law should be the 1995 election. His apparent confidence, based on the respected by all, that once this is done, we transfer things possibly short-term nature of his tenure, has led him to to the courts and we will let the court process decide the rebuke the opposition in a way which pays little heed to final outcome. And now the outcome is known," he said. the requirements of a fledgling democracy. Moreover, However, Ouattara exposed the weakness of his legal- his view reflects minimal concern for the pitfalls that istic position by acknowledging that real power—the multi-partyism has in store, the main one being the fear power to pardon, the power to pursue or not pursue legal of ethnic conflict on party lines, which Houphouet- action—lay firmly in the hands of the president. This Boigny himself used for years as the reason for disallow- issue is becoming increasingly important, as the debate ing political opposition. Ouattara is perhaps overly blase over 87-year-old Houphouet-Boigny's succession takes when he assesses the nature of opposition support: on a greater urgency. With the opposition silenced and "It's true that Gbagbo got nearly 19 percent of the jailed, and the ruling PDCI as stultifyingly undynamic as votes in presidential elections in 1990. But I am sure that ever, the president appears to have refused to see beyond half of them voted against the system. The real opposi- the short term. The failure to lay the groundwork for the tion vote is not that much, And the fact that Gbagbo is in next political generation, when the alliances he has jail and nothing is happening I think is a clear illustration formed over the past 30 years no longer have him as cen- that he does not have the type of popular support that he tral arbiter, lies at the heart of national anxiety over the feels he has. future. "Maybe that's not [the case] in his region because, for The opposition leaders' trials were followed by numer- the Africans, the notion of nation is still very recent. It ous arrests of student activists over the succeeding could be that some people in his village or in his region weeks and the banning of all marches, marking the most think this is unfair. But otherwise we don't see a region vigorous crackdown against opposition activity since the where the FPI is very, very far ahead of the PDCI." introduction of multi-party politics in May 1990. Opposi- While Gbagbo is unlikely to become a martyr, the tion activity has ceased to function throughout the coun- stage is now being set for this very lack of opposition try, with local party branches barely daring to make their support to polarize feelings about the regime—simply for presence felt in fear of reprisals by the security forces. or against, not based on party lines, but based on popular Houphouet-Boigny remained in France, and Ouattara left judgments about the way the government is behaving. It the implementation of the tough stance to gendarmes is from this process that Houphouet-Boigny's worst fears and police who were accused by human rights leaders of of gradual national disintegration could emerge. O

57 M a v /June 1 <) ') 2 BY PETER DA COSTA DEMOCRACY

itary strongman Col. Maaouiya Ould Sid' Ahmed Taya won Maurita- nia's first-ever democratic presidential election after 28 years of one- party rule. But the opposition, which supports black rights in the complex Arab/African ethnic divide in the desert nation, charged election fraud and boycotted the subsequent legislative poll, It remains to be seen if Taya will recognize the importance of resolving the nation's ethnic crisis before its economic problems can be addressed.

auritania's leader, Col. Maaouiya Ould poll. Weeks before the casting of the first ballot, opposi- Sid' Ahmed Taya, whose capitulation tion leaders had accused Taya's Military Committee for last year to internal as well as external National Salvation (CMSN) of taking illegal steps to pro-democracy pressures earned him ensure pre-eminence for Mauritanians of Arab stock who the distinction of staging the first-ever officially dominate the population of 2 million. multi-party election in an Arab-led state, can hardly be Blacks—mainly of Fulani and Wollof ethnicity—insist relishing the monumental task ahead. they are the majority, and reject a 1977 census which put Despite winning the presidential race outright in the their proportion of the national total at one-third. Under first round on January 24, the nature of the military the UDF umbrella, many complained electoral authori- strongman's victory, far from serving as a basis for par- ties had failed to issue them voting cards. ticipatory nation-building, raised new doubts about the On election eve, Daddah warned that were he not efficacy and practicability of bringing multi-pariyism to a returned, "the country will dissolve into civil war and northwestern African desert nation few believed capable instability." Blacks were no longer willing, he proclaimed, of holding elections by universal suffrage after 28 years to brook a regime that had systematically and historically of one-party rule. trampled on their human rights (slavery was only official- Official results gave Taya 63 percent of the vote (he ly outlawed in 1980, but Africa Watch alleges it still exists needed 51 percent to obviate the need for a second unchecked). round), as compared to 34 percent polled by Ahmed Disturbances in the economic capital Nouadhibou on Ould Daddah, his main rival and the candidate of the January 26 almost proved Daddah right, as security Union of Democratic Forces (UDF)—a coalition of oppo- forces clashed with bitter UDF supporters at the coali- sition parties. Two other aspirants, one-time putsch lead- tion's headquarters, killing three and injuring scores er Col. Moustapha Ould Saleck and Mohamed Mahmoud more. The bloody confrontation was catalyzed by Dad- Ould Mah, former mayor of the capital Nouakchott, dah's contention that Taya had employed ballot fraud and scrapped over the remaining 3 percent amid cries of intimidation to secure victory. "foul" from all camps. Demanding a fresh election, the UDF candidate Mauritania's complex ethnic divide, a function of its exhorted his followers to remain mobilized and vigilant. delicate geopolitical location as the bridge between black Taya wasted no time in quelling the dissent. Security and Arab Africa, had always presaged a volatile landmark forces arrested 150 protesters and imposed a dusk-to- dawn curfew in both Nouakchott and Nouadhibou. An Peter da Costa is a freelance journalist based in Banjul, the Gambia. Interior Ministry statement blamed the violence on ele-

Africa Report 58 merits it said had "exploited the atmosphere of freedom as early as December 1986, when—despite maintaining and tolerance in order...to disturb security and public the ban on formal political parties—he allowed a variety. order." of candidates to contest 426 seats on 13 municipal coun- The military leader could hardly have hoped for a cils. This was followed by country-wide local government worse start to his transition from authoritarian to demo- elections in the 32 districts (January 1988) and 164 rural; crat. Cautious in their criticism, international election communes (January 1989). monitors blamed both Taya's Republican Democratic If Taya's tendencies toward reform went against the Social Party (PRDS) and the UDF for electoral irregulari- grain of Mauritania's militaristic trend, his regime's reac-; ties. European Community observer Henri Saby voiced tion to ethnic tensions—beginning in April 1986 with the the widespread belief that cash-strapped countries like distribution by black Mauritanians of an anti-oppression Mauritania could not be expected to guarantee complete- manifesto—cast the CMSN firmly in the repressive; ly fair polls. mold. Sidestepping the Arab root of the ethnic problem, Privately, Western diplomats agreed with opposition the government cracked down on a wave of rioting by charges that government had inflated the number of eli- accelerating the introduction of shari'a law. gible voters (officially put at 1.4 million). Some even The 'in camera' trial in late 1987 of 51 Toucouleurs speculated the PRDS had used its in-built advantage to accused of plotting to overthrow the state sparked off register Tuareg nomads from neighboring Western protests, both from the Senegal-exiled paramilitary black! Sahara and Mali. opposition FLAM {Forces de Liberation Africaine de If all this put a damper on Taya's march toward legiti- Mauritanie) and from international pressure groups. , macy, worse was to come with the legislative round on Arrests of some 600 supporters of the Iraq-fundedi March 6—marred by a mass UDF boycott which result- Baath Arab Socialist organization, light-skinned Moors ed in a turnout of just over 30 percent. In the first round, who had been a powerful lobby within the CMSN, were the PRDS won 67 of the 79 seats up for grabs in the lower followed by the incarceration of 13 Baathist Taya oppoJ house of Parliament, with the remainder going to pro- nents found guilty of working against Mauritanian inter- Taya parties. On March 13, the PRDS completed the for- ests by backing Morocco over the Western Sahara dis- mality, ceding only one of the remaining 17 seats to an pute. independent. But it was Taya's reaction to tensions over grazing Asked why his coalition had boycotted part of an elec- rights on the banks of the Senegal River—which sepa- tion whose very idea had bonded the country's fragment- rates Mauritania from its southern neighbor—that ed opposition, UDF spokesman Bechir El Hassen told showed just how deep-rooted his country's ethnic divide journalists the decision had been taken because Taya was. In the aftermath of the April 28 incident, marked by had ignored demands for electoral reform after the "mas- murders in both capitals and mass repatriation, tens of sive fraud" of January 24. Announcing the UDF's inten- thousands of black Mauritanians fled to Senegal. In July, tion to shun an April senatorial poll, Hassen said: "We Amnesty International reported that black Mauritanians, cannot be part of another fraudulent election. The way regardless of their social status or army rank, had been we see it, the credibility of the PRDS is very low. Taya stripped of their citizenship and deported to Senegal. cannot possibly say he is democratically-elected since he Detailing allegations of torture and genocide, does not have the mandate of the people." Amnesty mobilized international pressure into calling for Shrewd tactician though the 49-year-old Taya might an inquiry. Ignoring the evidence based on testimonies, be, he is now in a position few, even the most Houdini- Nouakchott insisted those expelled were "foreigners." In like among political contortionists, would envy. Since April 1991, Amnesty went further, alleging that some 200 helping his minor presidential opponent Ould Saleck to blacks (mainly military officers rounded up after a sus- oust the civilian regime of Mokhtar Ould Daddah in pected Senegal-aided coup plot the previous November) 1978. the then Lt-Col. Taya has been absorbed by the had been tortured and extrajudidaily executed. problems of the nation he now leads. Beset by the twin devils of internal strife and foreign The period between 1978 and 1984, when Taya ostracism—exacerbated by Mauritania's pro-Iraqi stance became supreme CMSN leader, was characterized by a during the Gulf War—Taya turned to multi-partyism. bitter war with Morocco over the disputed territory of Last year's July 12 national referendum secured a 97.9 Western Sahara, a feud from which he extricated the "yes" vote for the newly drafted constitution. In the dere^ near-bankrupt regime in the nick of time. Next, in a poli- stricted environment, newly sanctioned opposition ele- cy shift analysts say marked him as a progressive if ments argued that only 8 percent of those registered somewhat autocratic helmsman, Taya instituted econom- actually turned out. ic reforms aimed at attracting foreign donors. The constitution allowed a six-year presidential term Aware of the pulling-power Mokhtar still had with with no limit on the number of times a single leader France (who granted Mauritania independence in 1960), could seek a mandate: a two-tier legislature made up of a Taya pardoned the exiled former head of state and five-year national assembly and a six-year senate; as well appointed to office some of Mokhtar's supporters. as constitutional, economic/social and Islamic councils. To his credit, Taya had experimented with democracy Parties based on ethnicity or religion remained banned.

59 May/June 19 9 Taya now controls the paper democracy of his cre- Moukness, 58, a widely respected eminence grise who ation less by dint of a superior agenda or election cam- served as foreign minister under Mokhtar Ould Daddah, paign than by default. The conventional wisdom is that would undoubtedly bring legitimacy to the Taya govern- the ruling party, which had hoped to at least preside over ment were he to accept the prime ministership he is a credible, representative parliament, will slide into the widely tipped for. Taya's co-option of Moukness would old autocratic ways of the CMSN given its popularity send a signal to other liberals and pave the way for a pos- among army hardliners—unless Taya can pull an effec- sible consensus cabinet. So far, however, Moukness has tive power-sharing solution out of his trick bag. shied away from the challenge. But in many ways, the opposition coalition cannot Taya, whose old regime was riddled with incompe- remain blameless for the current impasse in which Mau- tence, must, say analysts, bring in new blood. He must ritania finds itself. Analysts argue the UDF will have to also replace some of the old retrogressive hardliners undergo some searing soul-searching and tactical revi- among his advisers with more reform-minded counsel. sion if it is to avoid six arid years in the extraparliamen- But above all, Taya must open a line of communication tary wilderness. with the black Mauritanian leadership. One olive-branch UDF coordinator Mohameden Ould Babbah admits many believe would catalyze national reconciliation the loose federation of opposition elements—ranging would be for the PRDS government to comprehensively from far-left black Mauritanian parties such as FLAM to address the extrajudicial executions of 1990 and compen- liberal Arab groups—must find a new strategy. On the sate the families of the victims. eve of the legislative elections, Ould Babbah accepted an In the new climate of donor conditionality, Taya invitation to dine with President Taya but would not be cannot fail to see the benefit a resolution of Mauritania's seduced into dropping the UDF's non-participation ethnic problem would have on his country's flailing econ- stance. omy. Over a year after Iraq was defeated by the U.S.-led However, the call to arms was not unanimously obeyed. coalition, the country remains an international pariah for UDF candidates Ahmed Killy and Mohamed Ould Amar its pro-Saddam stance. defied the order and contested the legislative first round. Since Mauritania's livestock and agriculture-based "I shall remain in the opposition, but I believe the opposi- economy is subject to the ravages of drought, the mining tion should take every opportunity to play the electoral industry—developed in the 1960s and 1970s—will be game," insisted Killy He later rejoined the boycott Taya's strongest foreign exchange crutch. Its continued One casualty of the UDF reforms may well be Ahmed productivity and expansion will, however, depend on how Ould Daddah himself. A wealthy half-brother of former enthusiastically the World Bank and IMF two-step to his President Mokhtar, Ahmed, 47, secured the UDF candi- pluralistic tune. dature despite returning to Mauritania on the eve of the Foreign investment and peace with its neighbors poll after eight years in European exile. His impeccable are prerequisites for economic recovery, and Taya is curriculum vitae—he is a former finance minister who is sure to consolidate on the rapprochement with Sene- well-connected on the international banking gal in particular and sub-Saharan Africa in general. By circuit—made him the preferred candidate of Western virtue of its ethnic schizophrenia, Mauritania must diplomats (while earning him the scorn among national- also court the Arab world, arid Nouakchott is due to ist elements who dubbed him "the West's whipping host the five-member Union of the Arab Mahgreb boy"). summit in April. Ahmed's innovative ideas (among them a classic SAP In the final analysis, Taya has a hard slog ahead. plan to make the Mauritanian ouguiya convertible and FLAM and other black pressure groups may be part of win repayment concessions on the country $2.4 billion the democratic process, but a lack of political will on the debt) boosted his selection. His sympathy for black Mau- race question will soon send them scurrying back to ritania despite being an Arab won UDF support in their border bases and weapons. Nouakchott and in the south. But UDF doubts over the And despite the ban on religious parties, little can be propriety of the presidential poll notwithstanding, Ahmed done about fundamentalist cliques like the Oumma is stigmatized by the mark of defeat. He may well form Party, ideologically close to the Islamic Salvation Front his own new party. In any event, pundits say Daddah that catalyzed neighboring Algeria's about-face on multi- secured the UDF nomination only because another Arab partyism. Oumma veers toward the UDF, which pledged liberal, Hamdi Ould Moukness, turned it down. to legalize Islamic parties were it elected. Moukness believes the problem of Mauritania's As militancy grows in multi-party Mauritania—be it blacks—both the Africans of the south and the Arabized from students or the rapidly expanding women's emanci- "Harantines" that were used as foot soldiers of the 1990 pation movement—the army may yet be of use to its for- repression—can only be solved in the Islamic spirit of mer chief of staff, Taya. During his campaign, Taya fairness and reconciliation. He views Arabic, the official implied he was the only candidate that could keep the language, as "a language of separation" and supports the military in check and prevent further coups. His newly designation of Soninke, Pulaar, and Wollof as national emergent PRDS—and much of the population—will be languages. praying he can deliver on his election promise. O

Africa Report 60 BYMELINDAHAMIIMJM1II

OF THE HONEYMOON

Sarah-Jane Poole

The new government of edented aid pledges President Frederick from donors. But the Chiluba is striving to record drought and implement economic suspicions of politics- reforms—a program put on hold as-usual are threatening to post- by the Kaunda administration pone the necessary changes for —and is managing with unprec- at least another year.

lthough the carnation on his lapel ments support, project support, debt relief, and aid to was drooping after the 10-hour import nearly a million tons of maize, to compensate for flight, Finance Minister Emmanuel crop failure in the worst regional drought this century. Kasonde was bubbling with energy Since Chiluba and his Movement for Multi-party and enthusiasm as he told a press Democracy (MMD) swept into power in last October's conference at Lusaka airport that multi-party elections, the new government has made Zambia had won record pledges of efforts—in spite of the drought—to implement a struc- $1.4 billion at the March Consultative Group meeting in tural adjustment program which lay dormant under the Paris with Western donors. previous Kaunda administration for more than a year. The Paris meeting was the real test: to see if donors Soon after taking office, the MMD government resus- could match their words of praise and encouragement citated relations with the World Bank and the Interna- over the previous five months for the new, fledgling tional Monetary Fund and received broad support to con- democracy of President Frederick Chiluba with pledges tinue a revised structural adjustment program. of hard cash. Then in January, donors provided a bridging loan so Donors came close to satisfying Zambia's staggering that Zambia could repay the Bank its $51 million in demand of $1.7 billion, which included balance of pay- arrears, thawing $78 million of frozen 1991 credits. Ken- neth Kaunda's government had defaulted on payment of Melinda Ham is a Canadian freelance journalist based in Lusaka, Zambia. arrears to the Bank. As a consequence, aid had been sus- 61 May/June 1992 pended in September 1991. The new government also they are ready to toil under the MMD. "There is no sweet took the plunge and raised the price of maize meal by without sweat," the ad reminds viewers. over 200 percent, almost completely removing the sub- But are voters satisfied with this rhetoric or are these sidy. just hollow words for hungry stomachs? Mildred "We applaud the new government for courageously Munthali, a resident of Mtendere, a very low-income sub- implementing very tough measures in their first few urb north of Lusaka, typifies many people's stoic attitude. months in office and we will be keen to keep on funding "They [the MMD] have told us to wait for one year while them," one Lusaka-based diplomat said. they sort out all the problems left by IINIP [Kaunda's Most donors generally share these sentiments. Ger- party). We voted them in and we shall wait, because we many lias decided to use Zambia as a model for its aid to trust them." the rest of the continent, while Japan is giving more aid to But Owen Sichone, a lecturer at the University of Zam- Zambia than to any other country in southern Africa. At bia and chairman of the Social Democratic Party—the the Paris meet- most vocal of the dozen small opposition parties with no ing, the World seats in Parliament—is not prepared to wait: "To offer Bank increased starving people relief in a year's time sounds rather its 1992 allocation sadistic," he says. to Zambia by Sichone claims that the MMD has responded to the $100 million, economic crisis in the same way Kaunda's UNIP did, bringing its con- "bombarding us with propaganda, with claims of falling tribution alone to inflation, crocodile tears at the plight of peasants, and $240 million. promises of light at the end of the year-long tunnel." A few donors Some unionized workers have also lost patience. caution that the Workers in banks, factories, the university, the national new government airline, the national railway, and local government coun- may have set over-ambitious targets in its 1992 budget, cils have gone on strike, demanding a living wage to such as aiming to cut inflation from 118 percent in 1991 match the spiralling prices. In the first four months of the to 45 percent by the end of 1992. MMD government, there were 29 strikes and 5,120 Finance Minister Kasonde has warned that the recent working hours lost, according to Zambia Congress of price rises of maize-meal are to "prepare" consumers for Trade Unions Secretary-General Aleck Chirwe. further increases once the imported grain comes into the As one political analyst says: "The MMD has per- country. Kasonde admits that the drought will "severely formed commcndably economically, but politically they distort" the budget. appear very confused. In-fighting and jostling for power Nearly two-thirds of Zambia's maize harvest—the at the ministerial level and minimal coherence at the country's staple food—was scorched in January, just as grassroots has left the MMD in a weak position." crops were about to flower. Donors came up with only A presidentially appointed commission looking into $65 million of the $300 million Zambia asked for, because the car crash of Vice President Levy Mwanawasa in Agriculture Minister Guy Scott says they were given too December lifted the lid on a Pandora's box of petty jeal- short notice to find more. ousies, accusations, and counter-accusations among Scott optimistically says more aid is "in the pipeline" members of the MMD. Some witnesses claimed that but for the moment, the govern- Brig.-Gen. Godfrey Miyanda, ment will have to "cut its coat to the minister without portfolio, suit the cloth," and dip into funds had plotted with Kaunda to earmarked for other areas because assassinate Mwanawasa. feeding the country's people is the Four Scotland Yard detec- government's top priority. tives assisted the commission As one diplomat said: "We real- in its investigations. They ize that in this food crisis situation, eventually cleared Miyanda, some of the expected economic saying that there was no evi- reform measures may become dence to implicate him. The unrealistic and have to be put off accident was caused by a reck- for another year. But the new gov- less drunken driver, they said. ernment is trying and we will remain understanding." The commission has yet to present President Chiluba The president and some cabinet ministers have with its finalconclusions—bu t the MMD has already pub- attempted to promote their policy of "open government," licly revealed power struggles and tensions in its midst. touring the country to explain to voters the reasons The political analyst adds: "Although the MMD aimed behind the harsh economic reforms. to create a 'new political culture of openness and account- An advertisement on national television shows Chilu- ability,' in their first months in power, many ministers ba in last year's election campaign asking voters whether have continued to follow the old UNIP culture of personal

Africa Report aggrandizement, acting on their own volition, ignoring building was built with government money and on gov- Parliament and the rule of law." ernment land, it rightfully belonged to the state. The gov- This was clearly illustrated in the deportation of over ernment also took over Zambia National Holdings, a 500 "illegal" West African immigrants. The ministry of major source of UNIP's income, which controlled 15 home affairs began a swoop on these foreigners in companies. December. They were picked up from their homes, the But the new government's political performance has street, and even pulled out of mosques and thrown into not gone unnoticed. Cabinet ministers such as Chongwe jails around the country. — —I have spoken out, and MMD members No trials were held, but the govern- who are unhappy with many of the ment alleged that they were involved Critics say that during government's actions have formed an in illegal dealings in ivory, drugs, internal lobby group. Women have foodstuffs, gemstones, and stolen last year's election, also called for recognition of their cars. The Senegalese government rights. eventually came to its nationals' res- the MMD complained Chongwe echoed many others in cue in February and chartered a DC- the government when he argued at a 10 plane to take them, their wives, and bitterly about the recent seminar that although during children to Dakar. last year's election campaign, the Simultaneously Issa Galedou, a constitution but, once MMD complained bitterly about the Malian businessman, was arrested constitution, once in power, it has done and threatened with deportation. in power, has done nothing to alter it. Galedou had been deported several Chongwe said that the constitution years earlier, but then allegedly nothing to alter it. passed under the previous one-party allowed back into the country again parliament should be rewritten by the Kaunda government on forged because it consolidates too much documents. power in the hands of the president. The legal affairs Approaching last year's election, Galedou decided to minister suggested that there could be a titular president switch alliances to the emergent MMD, reportedly pro- with an executive prime minister who sits in Parliament. viding cars for its campaign and financial backing to cer- 'Hie new lobby group, which calls itself the Caucus for tain politicians who have now become members of Parlia- National Unity, held a conference at the beginning of ment and even cabinet ministers. March and endorsed Chongwe's stand on the constitu- When government officials attempted to deport him, tion, resolving that a commission should be appointed Galedou determinedly resisted and claimed he would not immediately to review it. leave the country until some cabinet ministers paid him The caucus—which was made up predominantly of over $740,000 which they owed. But two days later, he MMD members from southern and western Zambia was quietly deported. —also resolved that the president should review his cabi- In reaction, all 25 opposition UNIP members of Parlia- net and other senior appointments to make sure there ment stormed out of the National Assembly, claiming that was equitable distribution of ethnic groups and women Galedou had been bribed in a government cover-up. One and men. UNIP MP wanted to reveal a list of the ministers involved Not a single women was appointed to Chiluba's cabi- with the Malian. But debate on the issue was muzzled by net and the majority of appointments in key ministries the Speaker of the House, Robinson Nabulyato. such as defense, finance and commerce, and industry UNIP itself has also suffered under the new govern- have all been from northern and copper belt provinces. ment. Soon after the MMI) took office, it began to dis- The president argues that his appointments were on mantle UNIP's privileges and assets by confiscating gov- merit and not ethnicity or sex. ernment cars and houses and freezing the bank accounts The caucus called for an extraordinary MMD conven- of UNIP politicians who had access to government funds. tion before the end of May so that these and other prob- Then, this first session of Parliament repealed the lems could be openly discussed. But this has been resist- State Leaders Retirement Act, which was rushed ed by most members of the government and even by through Parliament by the Kaunda government just Chiiuba himself, who says it is unnecessary at this early before the elections, intended to "reward" former UNIP stage. leaders with hefty retirement packages. Legal Affairs While the new government has demonstrated its abili- Minister Chongwe argued that it was immoral to spend ty to clearly put economic reforms into practice, it still millions of kwacha on a few former politicians while ordi- has to find its feet politically. It also has to live up to the nary people were dying for lack of drugs in the hospitals. many expectations of a new and vibrant democratic politi- Minister of Lands Dawson Lupunga also announced cal culture. But most of those—nationally and interna- the seizure of the UNIP headquarters—a massive, unfin- tionally—who hold these expectations have accepted that ished 17-story building which had been under construc- a multi-party election is only the first step toward build- tion since the mid-1980s. Lupunga said because the ing a new democracy. 3

May/June 19 9 2 IIHMJISEIJllffilllBY PATRICK LAURENCE COMPETITION

South Africa's March 17 ref- On the face of it, the whites-only erendum, in which the politi- cally ascendant white minori- referendum was a triumph for the ty voted overwhelmingly in favor of a negotiated settle- pro-negotiation forces ment with the black majority, has set the scene for a funda- comprising Presi- mental political realignment. l The pro-negotiation coalition brought together political dent F.W. de Klerk's forces which have traditionally opposed one another: the dominant, modernizing leadership of Afrikanerdom, the YES governing National English-speaking business establishment, and the central stream of African nationalism. FOR Party, English- These forces were represented by President F.W. de Klerk's governing National Party, the Democratic speaking whites, Party—which has long had close links to the giant Anglo American Corporation and which is led by a former direc- and the African tor of the corporation—and the African National Congress. FW Chorusing in unison, they exhorted the more than 3 National Congress. million white voters to cast their ballots in favor of negotia- tions. The only slightly discordant note came from the But there are sharp ANC. It prefaced its support for an affirmative vote with objections to the principle of a whites-only referendum. disagreements over Once pro-negotiation forces attained their decisive victo- ry by winning more than 68 percent of the votes cast, the the transition pro- question pondered by political pundits was whether the trio of triumphant actors would be able and willing to cedure, which will extend their cooperation into a post-settlement South Africa. probably see intense The answer was not immediately apparent in the after- math of the referendum. While the situation is not inauspi- political competition cious for the emergence of a coalition of centrist forces which would marginalize radicals of the left and the right in between the ANC the new South Africa, the formation of a tripartite centrist bloc, however, is not inevitable. and the National Whether the loose referendum alliance will solidify into a permanent formation, or end up as a historical footnote, Party to win the depends on the outcome of two overlapping, but separate developments: the jostling for hegemony in the Convention hearts and for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa) between de Klerk's NP and Nelson Mandela's ANC, and a trial of minds of strength between pragmatists and radicals within the ranks of the ANC and its two allies, the South African Com- South munist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Africans. Unions. Patrick Laurence is a specialist writer on the Johannesburg Star, South African correspondent y/The Economist, and a contributor to The Jon Jones/Sygma Guardian of London and The Irish Times. 64 OR COALITION?

Within two weeks of the referendum, the NP and the The NP proposed further that the new bicameral parlia- ANC introduced two opposing sets of proposals al Codesa, ment should fulfil two functions. Apart from serving as a outlining the way forward lo a new non-racial order. legislature for the transitional phase from the old to the The differences between the proposals were wide new orders, it should function as a forum where a "final" enough to signal the end of the period of cozy cooperation constitution for South Africa would be debated and drafted. between the NP and the ANC in the run-up to the estab- In a set of proposals presented at Codesa shortly after the lishment of Codesa last year and during the first few weeks referendum, Viljoen noted that decisions on the new con- of deliberations in Codesa's five working committees. They stitution should by taken by consensus. did not, however, preclude eventual compromise or, fur- The NP proposals aroused the ire of the ANC, which ther down the line, a de facto coalition. rejected them in scathing terms. Much—but not all—of its The NP proposals consist of two central ideas: establish- criticism was directed at the notion of transitional councils, ment of a transitional constitution and a transitional parlia- or, as they were later named, preparatory councils. ment—for which the black majority could vote for the first Noting that these councils would have advisory powers time in South African history—and the formation of transi- only, the ANC and its allies compared them to the Native tional committees to prepare the way for the transitional Representative Council of 1936-1950, a purely advisory government. institution which was established during the era of trustee- The envisaged transitional government would consist ship and segregation. It was rejected by most blacks as a of two houses: an assembly, elected by a non-racial elec- "toy telephone" even before it was finally dissolved by torate on the basis of proportional representation; and a apartheid supremo Hendrik Verwoerd in 1950. regionally based senate, in which representation would be The ANC. however, was hardly less caustic in its dis- loaded in favor of minority parties. Referring to the sen- missal of the bicameral parliament. It asserted that the idea ate's composition, Gerrit Viljoen, de Klerk's minister of of a bicameral parliament serving as a constitution-making constitutional affairs, used the phrase "disproportionate body was unique, particularly the idea that an upper representation." house—in which delegates would be represented dispro-

65 M a y / J H it e 1 9 9 2 portionately—should have a veto. A first-year university cent for the ANC. In the black community, however, sup- student who made a similar proposal in an exam would fail, port for the NP was low: 5 percent against 67 percent for the ANC observed acidly. the ANC. The ANC's counter-proposals, introduced immediately The NP's campaign means that the pre-election phase, before and after the referendum, consist of two phases as whether for a transitional parliament or a constituent well. assembly, will be characterized by intense political compe- In the first stage, an interim but super-executive council, tition between the NP and the ANC (which has its own made up of representatives at Codesa, would be estab- plans to consolidate its dominance in the black community lished: Its role would be to oversee the activities of the de and increase its support in the Coloured and Indian com- Klerk administration and the present Parliament from munities) . which blacks are excluded. The duration of phase one But the looming political competition does not should be short, measured in months rather than years. exclude an eventual alliance between the NP—either in The primary task during phase one would be to prepare its present form or under a new name after possible for the election of a constituent assembly by all South amalgamation with the DP—and the ANC. By determin- Africans. The purpose of the popularly elected constituent ing the relative strength of the two organizations in the assembly, as its name implies, would be to draft a new con- newly elected parliament/constituent assembly, a politi- stitution for South Africa. cal contest could decide the balance of power within the The de Klerk administration rejected the ANC propos- projected alliance. als as a "simple majoritarian system." Their starting point Of greater importance than these political develop- was the "winner-take-all" system, the administration ments is the debate within the ANC over its commitment to argued. Since that was what the ANC hoped to achieve at nationalize the mines, the banks, and industry monopolies. the end of the negotiation process, the proposals amounted The commitment, made in the Freedom Charter of 1955, is to an attempt to "leapfrog" the negotiating process, it con- due for reconsideration at an ANC policy conference. cluded. If the pragmatists pressing for a revision of existing poli- The ANC countered by pointing out that its proposals cy win, the way would be open for some kind of alliance, contain three checks against a majority party imposing its however loose and informal, with the NP and big business. own constitution on the minority parties. They are: that the If the ideologues favoring socialism triumph, the chances constituent assembly should be elected by proportional of a major realignment would be reduced to minuscule pro- representation, a system which favors smaller minority portions. parties; that the constitution would have to be acceptable In the midst of maneuvering by the de Klerk administra- to at least two-thirds of the representatives in the con- tion and the ANC, realignment was emerging on the oppo- stituent assembly; and that the constitution should be draft- site flank as elements in South Africa's right wing position ed within the parameters of principles agreed to at Codesa, themselves to participate in the Convention for a Demo- a "simple, majoritarian system." cratic South Africa after their decisive defeat in the referen- The ANC's proposal is based in many respects on the dum. Namibian model. In Namibia, the ANC observed pointedly, Carol Boshoff, son-in-law of former Prime Minister Ver- the model had worked well: Not only had the constitution woerd and leader of Afrikaner Volkswag (People's Guard), been accepted unanimously but, as importantly, it led to an presented a written submission to Codesa arguing the case almost immediate cessation of the violence in Namibia. for a separate Afrikaner fatherland. These differences in approach between the NP and the Another pointer to the turmoil in the right wing was the ANC at Codesa are not, however, unbridgeable. They have resignation of four city councillors in Germiston, on the one central point in common: The constitution-making eastern edge of Johannesburg, from Andries Treurnicht's body, whether it was labelled a transitional parliament or a Conservative Party (CP). "We will only attain our goals by constituent assembly, should be elected by popular vote. going into Codesa," they said. On that important point, the two sides had moved closer to More important was the expulsion from the CP of Koos one another. Botha, one of its 42 members of Parliament. He was Within three weeks of the March 17 referendum, de expelled for publicly challenging the party line by advocat- Klerk's NP took another important step. Having consoli- ing the need for a smaller Afrikaner fatherland. Botha's dated most whites behind it, the NP moved to start a major expulsion brought to a boil the simmering tensions in the recruitment drive among the Coloured, Indian, and black CP Like Koos van der Mer we, leader of the pro-negotiation communities. It planned to use de Klerk's personal popu- faction in the CR Botha argued that the time had come to larity and prestige to garner support for the party in a negotiate with the ANC on the future. series of spectacular forays into these communities by de Against that, however, the paramilitary Afrikaner Weer- Klerk himself. standsbeweging, or Resistance Movement, openly boasted The NP was poised to pick up Coloured and Indian that it would physically resist a "take-over" by the African support. According to surveys conducted by the Human National Congress. Science Research Council, support for the NP stood at 54 Even allowing for its proclivity for bombast and the cri- and 52 percent respectively, against a mere 7 and 8 per- sis within its ranks over the sudden resignation of its gen-

Africa Report 66 eral secretary, Piet Rudolph, it could The defense force is perhaps less not be assumed that the AWB—as the loyal to de Klerk in the aftermath of neo-fascist organization is known— the referendum. Some upper echelon was merely indulging in idle boasting. officers were disgruntled with the But the military capabilities of way in which the defense force has White Dreams, AWB roughnecks, with their been downgraded since de Klerk grandiose uniforms and Boer-style became president: There have been Black Africa commandos, are essentially limited. cuts—in real terms—in defense The Antislavery Expedition to the They might be able to plant a few spending; military service was Niger, 1841-1842 bombs and terrorize civilians, but reduced from two years to one; and, Howard Temperley their ability to sustain a full-scale critically, President P.W. Botha's "A bizarre, juicy 'Heart of Darkness' revolt—let alone seize power—is, at national security management sys- tale: the true story of 19th-century best, extremely dubious. tem, in which the military played a abolitionists who steamed up the pivotal role in controlling the lives of Niger River and accidentally Unless the AWB's brown and established...a slave plantation.... black-shirtcd storm troopers can win South Africans, was dismantled. Details from diaries of expedition the support of the security forces, or a Jan Breytenbach, a former com- members, combined with Temper- significant section of them, its revolt mander of South Africa's special ley's lively storytelling, bring us close will be short though perhaps ugly. forces in Angola and Namibia, includ- to the special culture of British explorers in pre-colonia! Africa."— Until fairly recently, the police ing the formidable and feared Battal- Mary Talbot, Newsweek Illus. $35.00 rather than the military were seen as ion 32, reflected the dissatisfaction in the mostly likely source of support for sections of the officer corps. In a pre- an AWB-led counter-revolution refcrendum message to soldiers who The World against an ANC government or one in fought in Angola and Namibia, he of the Swahili which the ANC formed an important said; "You did not lose in Angola.. .You An African Mercantile Civilization component. did not lose in Namibia. You were John Middieton But that changed in the past year betrayed by politicians under foreign when police twice fired on AWB pressure." A leading Africanisl presents the first full-length anthropological account zealots: once last May when they shot In a clear reference to de Klerk's of the Swahili. and wounded two farmers who were reform policies, Breytenbach pointed- "This book is dearly destined to be part of a group of men threatening to ly noted that the same politicians thebook on the Swahili for many evict blacks from disputed land in the might again be preparing to submit to years.... No other book remotely western Transvaal; then again in "foreign pressure." equals this one in the breadth of the August when AWB men tried to dis- But these factors should not be account, sensitivity and acuity of analysis, and general sensibility." rupt a meeting addressed by de Klerk over-stressed. Analysts of the defense —T.O. Beidelman $30.00 in Ventersdorp. force at the time of the referendum The incidents changed South did not sustain the notion of it as an Now available in paperback Africa's political landscape: They instrument for a right-wing coup. The showed that the assumption that the defense force is not the last outpost of police would not fire on their kith and apartheid in South Africa. It took the kin, that they were more likely to turn lead in breaking down segregation in their guns on their commanders, was its ranks. The defense force, more- false. over, has been traditionally obedient A subsequent development helped to civilian authority. to reduce further the possibility of Like the police, the defense force's A History police support for an AWB revolt. composition militates against rebel- of South Africa With the appointment of Hernus Kriel lion. Of the estimated 35,000 men who Leonard Thompson as minister of law and order in place of are now being trained as soldiers, less "An admirably objective history of Adriaan VIok, civilian authority was than half are white conscripts; the South Africa."—Lorna Hahn, New firmly reasserted over the police. remainder are volunteer soldiers from York Times Hook Review The composition of the police force the black communities. "A fair and accurate account of a is, as observers pointed out, inimical The loyalty of neither the black vol- beautiful land and Us people.... A to police support for a right wing. Of unteers nor the white conscripts—the history that is both accurate and the 94,000 active policemen immedi- majority of whom are likely to sympa- authentic, written in a delightful literary style."—Archbishop ately after the referendum, 90 percent thize with de Klerk or leaders to the Desmond Tutu Illus. $15.00 are black, Coloured, or Indian. Their left of him—can be assumed by offi- loyalties lie with de Klerk or Mandela cers who might plan a coup to fore- Yale University Press and they are unlikely to support a stall a "black communist government" 92A Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 police-backed putsch. from taking power. O

67 May/June 19 9 2 BY PHILIPPA GARSON THE THIRD FORCE

ullets whizz overhead. Groups of people Inkatha supporters "who the police bring there at night." throng the side streets a few hundred And now the battle lines are drawn. The once remarkably yards from the battleground, watching organized, united community is at war. Peaceful Inkatha anxiously for falling bodies, for a house or supporters have been forced to move into "Zululand"—a shack to burst into flames, or for armored zone of a few streets which is now an Inkatha stronghold. police vehicles to come thundering down Non-aligned residents have fled their houses sur- the streets, firing birdshot and teargas. rounding the hostel. Their possessions have been stolen, their shacks set alight by the Inkatha warriors who have between Inkatha-supporting hostel dwellers and resi- moved into the area. Women and children huddle in dents led by "comrades" of the African National refugee camps around the township while their men do Congress in the slum-like township of Alexandra, South battle. i Africa's own little Beirut. Bordering Johannesburg's One man with a gun in his pdcket explains how he has wealthy northern suburb of Sandton, densely populated to stay away from work to protect his house which, as Alexandra is overflowing with squatter camps, criminals, luck will have it, is a few yards from the battle zone. He, and the unemployed. like all the other residents, has not slept for days. Ask On a day like this, no one goes to work, and for once him why people are fighting and he'll tell you he doesn't the jobless have something to do. Men and youths armed know. All he knows is that Inkatha is trying to take over with pistols of every description, AK-47s, and petrol the township, street by street. bombs are staked out behind shacks, firing with reckless Scenes like this have become commonplace is South energy at Inkatha warriors holed up in a couple of shacks Africa's Reef townships. Gun battles, ambushes on taxis 50 yards away. and crowded places, and attacks on train commuters The Zulu-speaking Inkatha supporters have gained have become a way of life over the past 18 months. control of the once-peaceful Madala men's hostel, once Every now and again, as happened in Alexandra in an integral part of the Alexandra community. Former March, a township literally erupts in an orgy of violence occupants of Madala hostel tell how they were hounded and death. Political violence claims more than 10 lives out of their home in recent months to make way for every day. Since the National Peace Accord was signed by the ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Party, and the govern- Philippa Canon is a reporterforThe Weekly Mail in Johannesburg. ment in September last year, violence has escalated rather than decreased and close to 1,500 people have In January this year, the same newspaper published died. lengthy interviews with an ex-Inkatha official, Mbongeni Is the ongoing war in Nata! and the eruption of vio- Khumalo, who decided to "come clean" about Inkatha's lence on the Reef a revival of ethnic warfare arrested by involvement with the police and South African Defense white settlement centuries ago? Or simply a political Force (SADF). He described Inkatha as no more than a power struggle between the Zulu nationalist Inkatha "front" for the SADF and told how 200 Inkatha hit-men Freedom Party and the Xhosa-dominated African Nation- had been trained in the Caprivi Strip, Namibia, by the al Congress? SADF's Department of Military Intelligence in 1986. To deny the importance of these components in fueling These men, he said, were now being deployed to the the warfare would be short-sighted. Yet the overwhelming Transvaal and Natal for hit squad activities. He recalled evidence of police partiality toward Inkatha, of the faceless how Inkatha recruited youngsters from the Eastern nature of the violence—for the most part claiming random Transvaal township of Wesselton and brought them to victims regardless of their political allegiance—and the the homeland of KwaZulu, of which Chief Gatsha escalation of violence at historic moments in the country's Buthelezi is chief minister, for training. He also remem- history, gives credibility to theories that the carnage is bered a funeral incident in August 1990, when members being fueled by the "third force," or a hidden hand. Cou- of the SADF-trained hit-squad led an ambush on an ANC pled with this is mount- funeral in Wesselton, then ing evidence of security returned to their head- force involvement in the quarters in the KwaZulu violence by more and Violence rages in many of the town- capital of Ulundi to boast more "turned11 vigilantes about how they killed pall- who are coming for- ship slums in the Reef and Natal, but bearers and fired shots ward to tell their stories. into the coffins aban- Government funding is it ethnic warfare or a political doned by fleeing mourn- of Inkatha in the past is well-known. In July last struggle between the Inkatha Free- The Weekly Mail inves- year, The Weekly Mail tigation into third force newspaper broke the dom Party and the African National attempts to fuel the vio- Inkathagate scandal, lence came full circle where a leaked police Congress? Or could it instead be when a few weeks later, document confirmed renegade members of the what had long been "domestication of low-intensity vigilante Black Cat gang suspected in many cir- from Wesselton came for- cles: The government conflict" that Pretoria perpetrated in ward to confirm some of was funding the conser- Khumalo's allegations. vative, Zulu-based orga- Mozambique, Angola, and Namibia? One of the gangsters nization. described how he and about 20 other Black Cats were sent to Mkhuze, a well- The scenario in Wesselton, where a sudden, seeming- hidden Inkatha camp in Natal's Lebombo mountains, in ly imported Inkatha presence strengthened by police September 1990, where they received military training backing transforms the township into a war-zone, is mir- by the notorious members of the Inkatha hit-squads. The rored in many others, like Alexandra, Soweto, and the two gangsters told how they had been spurred on by townships east of Johannesburg. But the million-dollar local Inkatha leaders in Wesselton to attack members of question is whether policemen like those from Wessel- the pro-ANC civic organization and generally create con- ton, now compelled to testify before the Goldstone Com- flict in the township. They told how a Caprivi-trained hit- mission, are acting on the orders of a government that squad member, "Sugar," based himself at Wesselton to has a vested interest in the violence or whether they are lead the gang. renegade right-wingers attempting to destabilize the Furthermore, the gangsters sketched a horrifying townships to thwart progression toward an interim gov- scenario of the direct involvement of certain white police- ernment. men stationed at the local police station in the adjoining The "pact" signed between the militant right-wing Conservative Party-led white town of Ermelo. They told Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and Inkatha's Transvaal how these policemen had met frequently with gang lead- branch days before the white referendum was a chilling ers, instructed them to petrol bomb the offices of a local warning of a possible open alliance between the two ANC-aligned lawyer, attack activists, destroy their hous- groups in the future, on the basis of the common goal of es and property with hand grenades and petrol bombs, ethnic self-determination. Although Inkatha leader Man- and then rewarded them with alcohol, cigarettes, and gosuthu Buthelezi denied having authorized the meet- even money. The Goldstone Commission, the standing ing, an Inkatha central committee member, Musa Myeni, commission of inquiry into political violence, set up as signed the pact. the judicial arm of the National Peace Accord, is current- AWB involvement in "faceless violence" was corrobo- ly hearing evidence on Khumalo's and the Black Cats' rated when two AWB members were found guilty on claims. seven counts of murder last year after an ambush on a More Black Cats have since come forward with grue- busload of black commuters near Durban in 1990. some stories of their activities. They have also told how Scores of people reported seeing armed white men certain white policemen have met with them since their with blackened faces taking part in the conflict in the colleagues broke their silence to The Weekly Mail, to dis- Transvaal when it first broke out in July 1990. Now, how- cuss their elimination. ever, the "blackened face" story is little more than an The deputy chairman of the local Wesselton Inkatha urban legend. Those who board trains or storm she- Youth Brigade, "John," has boasted about his brazen par- beens, firing random shots in an attempt to kill as many ticipation in at least four murders this year—several of people as possible, are black, according to eyewitnesses. them in broad daylight and witnessed by many—of peo- Countless unemployed criminals are ready and waiting ple whose" faces I did not like." to be harnessed for such purposes, but just who pays Yet today, he walks free and a "comrade" in jail for bur- them has yet to be answered. glary faces four murder charges he says he knows noth- Progress at the Convention for a Democratic South ing about. "If it was not for Captain Marais, we would Africa (Codesa), negotiating the country's transition to long since have been in prison," says John. democracy, has slowed down in recent weeks, even "We never appeared in court, we were taken to the reached an impasse, with the government pulling the rug police station for a few hours only and the cases were out from under the ANC and demanding a resolution to closed. We knew when we were taken in we would be the problem of political violence before concrete moves released. For the more simple cases, he would make us toward a transitional government are made. go to court because he knew we would be acquitted. If Two non-governmental organizations, the Community you go to Ermelo, they will tell you there that the Black Agency for Social Enquiry (Case) and the Human Rights Cats are never arrested." Commission (HRC), closely monitor the violence. On March 28, they put their materi- al before the International Com- Democratization and Structural Adjustment mission of Jurists visiting South in Africa in the 1990s Africa to assess the extent and underlying causes of the politi- Edited by I.UAI. DL:NG, MARKUS KOSTNER, CRAWFORD YOUNG Includes over 20 papers developed from 1991 colloquium cal violence. on structural adjustment held in Madison, Wisconsin After touring the trouble $15.00 paper, 218 pages spots, the ICJ said in a prelimi- Order from: African Studies Program, 1454 Van Hise, Universily of Wisconsin nary report that the ANC had Madison, Wl 53706; Call 608/262-2380; FAX 608/262-4747 without doubt stepped up attacks against Inkatha since University of Wisconsin-Madison African Studies Program September last year. "[But] in the absence of effective enforce-

Africa Report 70 ment of the law, this is perhaps inevitable." After touring benefits from the violence. And Inkatha, which accord- the hostels in the Transvaal, the ICJ team concluded they ing to most polls commands somewhere between 1 and were bring used as Inkatha barracks. "It is our view that 3 percent of black support, has, by virtue of the vio- Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi carries a heavy responsibil- lence, been able to elevate its status as one of the "big ity for the escalation of violence," the group said. three," along with the government and the ANC. The Both Case's deputy director, David Everett, and 1IRC prevailing, and no doubt current perception, is that coordinator Safoura Sadek argue that the government without the appeasement of Inkatha and its leader, and Inkatha benefit from the Transvaal violence which Buthelezi, the country's unrest problems will never be erupts at times when it most weakens the ANC and its solved. allies and subsides at times when it would be most harm- Tripartite attempts to stem the conflict, embodied in ful to the government. the National Peace Accord, have on the face of it proven The violence, say Everett and Sadek, is effectively pre- futile. The NPA made way for the setting up of peace venting the ANC from translating black support into structures at local, regional, and national levels, com- organized membership. This is simply compounded by prised of representatives of the ANC, IFP, and govern- the ANC's inability to respond to calls by township resi- ment, together with police, outside mediating bodies, dents for defense against the onslaught. Although the and other interest groups. The fact that many structures ANC has strengthened its defenses in both the Transvaal in war-torn areas have been established is hopeful, says and Natal (members of its military wing, Umkhonto we Democratic Party spokesman for law and order Peter Sizwe, reportedly helped residents ward off Inkatha in Gastrow: "In many instances, people are communicating Alexandra recently), disillusioned and fearful township for the first time. But it doesn't mean that committees are dwellers no longer come out in open support of the ANC ready to settle violence from the moment of creation. The as they did after the organization was unbanned in structures are fragile to start with and there is a high February 1990. level of mistrust." Scores of residents in Alexandra said they were nei- Meanwhile, some see the peace bodies as incapable of ther ANC nor Inkatha, but "ordinary people" caught in dealing with orchestrated violence. Not only do they con- the crossfire. The ANC, which according to most polls cern themselves with bickering between above-board commands about 70 percent of black support, has every- political groups, but they do not have the mechanisms to thing to lose from the violence. investigate agent-provocateur activity or violence perpe- Pome Nkosi, ANC representative in the strife-torn trated by unknown people. While the NPA details a police township of Thokoza. east of Johannesburg, describes code of conduct and makes provision for the setting up of the effect of the violence on political activity in his com- special police investigating units at regional level, the munity. The third force, he says, is waging "a campaign usual complaints of "police investigating police" abound. so that people are gripped by fear and unable to partici- Two other police watchdog bodies—a police board, an pate in peace initiatives or polities. 'Hiis is the desire of advisory body dealing with complaints against the police, the third force. So people lose hope completely and so and the appointment of police reporting officers or indi- that organizations, like ours, which depend on mass viduals whose sole task is to look into allegations against action will not be vocal or come out in public. A free polit- the police—were set up by the NPA. Neither structure is ical climate is being killed and our organizations cannot up and running yel. work on the ground." The Goldstone Commission, the NPA's judicial arm, is People are literally begging for peace, says Nkosi. at present bogged down with hearing evidence on more "They have been driven to the point where they will take violence related issues than it can cope with. whatever is being handed down to them." And no amount of goodwill among representatives of The violence tends to escalate dramatically in tandem the warring parties around the peace table will end the with political events like the Pretoria Minute, signed in violence. Already, leaders of the ANC and Inkatha August last year, the National Peace Accord, signed in involved in peace initiatives have been the targets of third September last year, and the referendum in March. force attacks, Independent monitoring groups say at least Around these three periods, the violence has flared at 20 people have either been gunned down, assaulted, or unprecedented levels, casting an ominous shadow on their property destroyed since they became party to negotiations. Yet during several of President F.W. de peace initiatives. Klerk's anti-sanctions tours, the level of violence has Director of Independent Mediation Services of South dropped dramatically. Everett and Sadek describe this Africa Charles Nupen plays a crucial role in mediating relationship between violence and the political calendar peace meetings at every level and his organization teach- as "near-symbiotic," and as confirmation of its orches- es mediating skills lo all parties involved. Says Nupen: trated origins. They view the violence as "the domestica- "We have been unable to contain and address incidents of tion of low intensity conflict that the South African gov- unexplained violence (by means of the NPA) and I doubt ernment perpetrated in Mozambique, Angola, and whether peace structures themselves can do this. At Namibia." best, though, they can prevent violence from escalating By weakening ANC support, the government clearly as a result of these particular incidents." O

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