Africa Yearbook

AFRICA YEARBOOK

Volume 9 Politics, Economy and Society South of the Sahara in 2012

EDITED BY

ANDREAS MEHLER HENNING MELBER KLAAS VAN WALRAVEN

SUB-EDITOR ROLF HOFMEIER

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013

i. Preface ...... vii ii. List of Abbreviations ...... ix iii. Factual Overview ...... xiii

I. Sub-Saharan Africa (Andreas Mehler, Henning Melber & Klaas van Walraven) ...... 1

II. United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa (Valerio Bosco) ...... 17

III. African-European Relations (Mark Furness) ...... 31

IV. West Africa (Klaas van Walraven) ...... 47 Benin (Eric Komlavi Hahonou) ...... 59 Burkina Faso (Alexander Stroh) ...... 67 Cape Verde (Gerhard Seibert) ...... 75 Côte d’Ivoire (Bruno Losch) ...... 81 Gambia (Alice Bellagamba) ...... 91 Ghana (Kwesi Aning & Nancy Annan) ...... 97 Guinea (Anita Schroven) ...... 107 Guinea-Bissau (Christoph Kohl) ...... 115 Liberia (Lansana Gberie) ...... 123 Mali (Martin van Vliet) ...... 131 Mauritania (Claes Olsson & Helena Olsson) ...... 139 Niger (Klaas van Walraven) ...... 147 Nigeria (Heinrich Bergstresser) ...... 157 Senegal (Vincent Foucher) ...... 175 Sierra Leone (Krijn Peters) ...... 187 Togo (Dirk Kohnert) ...... 195

V. Central Africa (Andreas Mehler) ...... 203 Cameroon (Fanny Pigeaud) ...... 211 Central African Republic (Andreas Mehler) ...... 219 Chad (Han van Dijk) ...... 227 © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-25599-9 vi • Contents

Congo (Brett L. Carter) ...... 235 Democratic Republic of the Congo (Claudia Simons) ...... 241 Equatorial Guinea (Alicia Campos) ...... 255 Gabon (Douglas A. Yates) ...... 261 São Tomé and Príncipe (Gerhard Seibert) ...... 269

VI. Eastern Africa (Rolf Hofmeier) ...... 275 Burundi (Stef Vandeginste) ...... 291 Comoros (Rolf Hofmeier) ...... 301 Djibouti (Rolf Hofmeier) ...... 309 Eritrea (Nicole Hirt) ...... 315 Ethiopia (Jon Abbink) ...... 325 Kenya (Nic Cheeseman) ...... 337 Rwanda (Susan Thomson) ...... 351 Seychelles (Rolf Hofmeier) ...... 363 Somalia (Jon Abbink) ...... 369 South Sudan (Peter Woodward) ...... 381 Sudan (Peter Woodward) ...... 389 Tanzania (Kurt Hirschler & Rolf Hofmeier) ...... 401 Uganda (Volker Weyel) ...... 415

VII. Southern Africa (Henning Melber) ...... 427 Angola (Jon Schubert) ...... 439 Botswana (David Sebudubudu & Maitseo Bolaane) ...... 451 Lesotho (Roger Southall) ...... 459 Madagascar (Richard R. Marcus) ...... 465 Malawi (Tiyesere Mercy Chikapa-Jamali & Lewis B. Dzimbiri) ...... 473 Mauritius (Klaus-Peter Treydte) ...... 481 Mozambique (Joseph Hanlon) ...... 487 Namibia (Henning Melber) ...... 497 South Africa (Sanusha Naidu) ...... 507 Swaziland (John Daniel & Marisha Ramdeen) ...... 521 Zambia (Henning Melber) ...... 527 Zimbabwe (Amin Y. Kamete) ...... 537

List of Authors ...... 549

The year in Congo was marked by a combination of tragedy and political intrigue. In March, a munitions depot exploded in the heart of Brazzaville, killing hundreds of Congo- lese citizens and displacing at least 15,000. The government pressed forward with parlia- mentary elections scheduled for July, which President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s ‘Parti Congolais du Travail’ (PCT) won overwhelmingly: of the National Assembly’s 139 seats, the political opposition now held less than 20. Sassou Nguesso reshufﬂed his government in September, and the appointments reﬂected both the intrigue surrounding the March explosions and the July election results. Congo’s foreign policy was marked by increas- ingly warm relations with China and Russia, reducing the regime’s vulnerability to West- ern diplomatic pressure. Dominant at home, Sassou Nguesso fashioned himself as an elder statesman of Central Africa, mediating in diplomatic crises throughout the sub- region. The Congolese economy continued to grow rapidly, buoyed by persistently high global crude prices. Yet these gains did little to improve the living standards of most Con- golese citizens, who remain among the world’s poorest.

Domestic Politics

On Sunday morning, March 4, a series of explosions at a centrally located munitions depot rocked Brazzaville, destroying large swathes of the Mpila, Ouenzé, and Talangai neighbourhoods. Although the government put the official death toll at 282, many observers suspected the true count was closer to 2,000. At least 15,000 refugees sought shelter in a handful of tent cities throughout Brazzaville. Despite support from the Red Cross, West- ern governments, and Congo’s other foreign allies, refugees lived in often appalling con- ditions. Inadequate sanitation facilities and water shortages contributed to a cholera outbreak, causing several deaths. And although the government promised indemnities to affected citizens, distribution was politically motivated. The area’s affluent – and politically powerful – residents were well compensated, while the impoverished were often neglected. The explosions destroyed the armoured military regiment adjacent to Sassou Nguesso’s private compound and coincided with his weekly retreat from Brazzaville’s presidential palace. Consequently, most observers regarded the explosions as the opening salvo in an aborted coup d’état. Notwithstanding its official denials, the regime apparently had sim- ilar feelings. Suspicion quickly settled on Colonel Marcel Ntsourou, National Security Council second in command and an ethnic Téké from Lekana, Plateaux. Ntsourou was incarcerated in late March and was still being held, without trial, at the end of the year; in one court submission, his lawyer, Hervé Ambroise Malonga alleged that Ntsourou had been tortured in April by order of General Jean Francois Ndengué, himself indicted in the Beach Massacre of 1999. The government’s investigation soon expanded to include Mathias Dzon, Sassou Nguesso’s minister of finance from 1997 to 2002 and fierce oppo- nent ever since, as well as André Okombi Salissa, a minister in each government since 1997. The three were suspected of forming a ‘Téké axis’, which would dislodge the Mbochi-dominated Sassou Nguesso regime. Although neither Dzon nor Okombi Salissa was detained, each was politically sidelined later in the year. By mid-April other opposition leaders, including Paul Marie Mpouélé, had also been incarcerated for inciting pro- tests against the “highest authorities of the state”. The government’s lack of action following the explosions and subsequent human rights violations generated widespread frustration in Brazzaville. As the country’s few indepen- dent newspapers amplified their criticism, the government responded. The High Council for Free Expression suspended ‘La Voix du Peuple’ for six months in May; after it published a new edition in September, the High Council added nine months to the suspension. ‘Le Glaive’ published its first two editions in August and September, and was promptly labelled “seditious” by the High Council; ‘Le Glaive’ was suspended for six months. Despite calls to delay the July legislative elections, the government pressed forward. The campaign officially commenced on 30 June, and the first round of voting was held on 15 July. Of the 139 seats in the National Assembly, 69 were won in the first round; of © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-25599-9 Congo • 237 those, 57 went to the PCT and a further ten to its allies. The PCT won 32 of the remaining 67 seats in the second round. In total, the PCT claimed 92 of the National Assembly’s 139 seats, gaining a 66% majority. Observers put voter turnout at roughly 20%. The largest opposition party, ‘Union Panafricaine pour la Démocratie Sociale’ (UPADS), claimed only seven seats, and the former opposition party ‘Rassemblement pour la Démocratie et le Développement’ (RDD), now allied to the PCT, did not win any. Sassou Nguesso’s fam- ily fared extremely well. His son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, and daughter, Claudia Sassou Nguesso, both won seats, as did his nephew, Jean Jacques Bouya, and his uncle, Aimé Emmanuel Yoka. Populated almost entirely by Sassou Nguesso’s loyalists, the National Assembly provided little check on executive authority. The legislative elections nevertheless generated far more frustration within Sassou Nguesso’s inner circle than those in 2007. With Sassou Nguesso’s second term set to expire in 2016, he would soon have to engineer a constitutional revision – requiring National Assembly approval – to retain power with a veneer of legitimacy. He had begun preparing for this in 2011, when he instructed aides to integrate their political parties – many of which Sassou Nguesso once funded – into the PCT. This restructuring targeted regime lieutenants who had developed particularly strong personal followings, and could, in principle, use their popular support to contest Sassou Nguesso’s constitutional revision. Most aides complied and were rewarded with leadership positions in the PCT. But Okombi Salissa, Serge Blanchard Oba, Edgard Nguesso and César Wilfrid Nguesso did not, and their political parties were duly virtually excluded from the National Assembly, a result that most observers put down to electoral fraud. A ministerial shuffle in September reflected the intrigue surrounding the March explosions and the July election results. The Defence Ministry was given to General Charles Richard Mondjo, chief of staff of the military since 2002. Despite Ntsourou’s incarcera- tion, the government continued to insist that the March explosions were accidental, and former defence minister Charles Zacharie Bowao was made the scapegoat. Okombi Salissa was denied a ministerial portfolio for the first time since Sassou Nguesso’s return to power in 1997 and, fresh off the RDD’s disastrous showing in the legislative elections, party leader Matthieu Martial Kani lost the Ministry of Tourism. But these public dismiss- als were exceptions. Of 38 ministers, Sassou Nguesso reappointed all but six. The legislative election results underscored the persistent weakness of the political opposition. Mathias Dzon, often regarded by the international community as the government’s chief critic, remained the subject of popular distrust after serving as Sassou Ngues- so’s finance minister between 1997 and 2002. After losing his third consecutive National Assembly election in the Plateaux region, Dzon retreated to Paris for the remainder of 2012. The ‘Union pour la Démocratie et la République-Mwinda’, which had maintained a loyal constituency in the Pool region and southern Brazzaville until the death of former prime minister André Milongo in 2007, was excluded from the National Assembly alto- gether. President of the ‘Conseil National des Républicains’ Frédéric Bintsamou, once © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-25599-9 238 • Central Africa regarded as a viable opposition leader after leading a rebellion in Pool, lost his bid to rep- resent Mayama district. Reflecting Bintsamou’s irrelevance, Aimé Emmanuel Yoka, Sas- sou Nguesso’s uncle and a Cuvette native, won a National Assembly seat in neighbouring Vindza, Pool, sparking accusations of fraud. And despite pressure from former president Pascal Lissouba, UPADS remained unable to resolve its leadership struggles. Shortly after Pascal Tsaty Mabiala was suspended from the party and removed as its secretary-general, UPADS supporters violently disrupted a November leadership meeting in Dolisie. Even political parties that had recently signed electoral alliances with the PCT appeared weakened. In Pointe-Noire and Kouilou, the once dominant ‘Rassemblement pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social’ (RDPS) now controlled only four of the region’s 19 seats, with the PCT and its satellite parties controlling 14. In 1993, the last National Assembly elections before Sassou Nguesso’s 1997 return to power, the RDPS had claimed more than two-thirds of the region’s Assembly seats, with the PCT shut out. The RDD was once a legitimate rival to the PCT in the Cuvette region, especially Owando, but after failing to claim an Assembly seat, the party underwent a protracted leadership struggle. Although the ‘Mouvement Congolais pour la Démocratie et le Développement Intégral’, founded by former prime minister Bernard Kolélas (who died in 2009), won seven seats in the National Assembly and boasted three ministers in Sassou Nguesso’s new government, most Congolese citizens viewed the current party leaders as opportunists, eager to com- promise their democratic principles for ministerial perquisites. The year witnessed the deaths of two prominent members of Congo’s political class. In July, Charles David Ganao died in Paris, aged 85. Upon independence, Ganao was named the country’s first ambassador to the US and first permanent representative to the UN; he then served as foreign minister from 1963 to 1974. After playing a prominent role in the 1991 National Conference, Ganao served as prime minister in president Pascal Lis- souba’s penultimate government, from 1996 to September 1997. Like many of his col- leagues, Ganao fled into exile in Gabon when Sassou Nguesso reclaimed Brazzaville in October 1997. Although he returned to Congo in 2005, he abstained from politics until his death. Gerard Bitsindou died in August, also in Paris, aged 71. Among Sassou Nguesso’s most loyal allies from the Pool region, Bitsindou served as president of the Constitutional Court from 2003 until his death. He was secretary-general of the Presidency during Sas- sou Nguesso’s first period in office, from 1980 until 1991, and served as minister between 1997 and 2002.

Foreign Affairs

In the ﬁrst months of 2012, Brazzaville’s political class eagerly awaited the ﬁrst feasibility studies of the government’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) initiative. Following presidential visits to Singapore and Mauritius in 2011 – and with the blessing of the Chinese – Congo’s government selected four regions as SEZs: Pointe-Noire, Brazzaville, © 2013 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978-90-04-25599-9 Congo • 239

Oyo-Ollombo and Ouesso. The government contracted the feasibility studies to two international consortia: Gazprom and Bain & Co. were charged with the Brazzaville and Ouesso feasibility studies, while Singapore Cooperation Enterprise undertook the Pointe- Noire and Oyo-Ollombo studies. The government envisioned these four SEZs as the foun- dations of Congo’s post-oil economy. Lured by a combination of tax breaks and quality infrastructure, the government believed, international investors would position Congo as the economic capital of Central Africa, a hub of production and distribution. The government’s grand ambitions were not entirely quixotic. The Chinese government committed financial support and technical expertise; Brazilian, Indian, Singaporean, and Russian investors displayed genuine interest; and the Congolese government began upgrading its power and transportation infrastructure. But Congo’s security environment remained tense, and domestic political interests consistently shaped SEZ policy. Perhaps reflecting investor scepticism, the Congolese government did not release the SEZ feasibility studies, even though drafts were submitted in April 2012. On 11 November, Sassou Nguesso travelled to Russia for a long anticipated state visit. Following two days of negotiations, the Russian government agreed to build a pipeline between Pointe-Noire and Ouesso, by way of Brazzaville and Oyo, within the next three years. With the rate of oil extraction off the Pointe-Noire coast now declining, this move was part of the government’s broader efforts to expand oil production to the Cuvette basin, though the quantity of reserves remained uncertain. The agreement also reflected the regime’s efforts to foster international competition within the oil sector. The agreement generated particular consternation in Paris, where the French minister of foreign affairs registered his disappointment to Congo’s long-serving ambassador, Henri Lopès. Sassou Nguesso’s efforts to gain leverage against Paris had also to be understood in the context of the ongoing French judicial investigations into his real estate holdings, dubbed the ‘biens mal acquis affair’. Successive French presidents had refused to block the investigation, and Sassou Nguesso appeared determined to punish them for it. Throughout 2012, Sassou Nguesso reinforced his position as regional elder statesman. Following the Summit of the Three Rainforest Basins in June 2011 – a gathering that attracted leaders from more than 35 nations in the Amazon, Congo, and Borneo- Mekong forest basins – Brazzaville hosted the 11th CEMAC summit in July. Some seven weeks after the summit’s conclusion, Pierre Moussa, Congo’s long-serving minister of planning, was inaugurated as president of the CEMAC commission, which governs the body’s operations. Proposed by Sassou Nguesso and appointed by Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Moussa was regarded as among Sassou Nguesso’s most trusted confi- dants. In September, following several weeks of violence in eastern DRC, Sassou Nguesso emerged as mediator, first receiving President Joseph Kabila of the DRC at Oyo and then meeting President Paul Kagame of Rwanda in Kigali. It remained unclear whether Sassou Nguesso’s intervention facilitated the peace process.

Socioeconomic Developments

Congo’s economy continued its rapid growth, driven almost entirely by global crude prices. GDP grew at a rate of some 4.9% during the year, reaching $ 19.3 bn (PPP adjusted). Though Congo’s oil production fell for the first time since 2007, global crude prices offset the decline, yielding a growth rate equal to the country’s five-year average. The oil sector accounted for nearly 90% of Congolese exports, with timber generating the balance. Congo’s total exports reached $ 12.4 bn, roughly identical to the 2011 level, with nearly 60% of exports going to China and the US. With imports worth $ 4.75 bn, Congo enjoyed a trade surplus of over $ 7.5 bn, and foreign exchange reserves rose to $ 6.0 bn from $ 5.7 bn in 2011. After reaching the HIPC completion point in 2010, Congo’s external debt was largely forgiven by bilateral and multilateral creditors. The country’s external position was now strong, with total debt of $ 4.2 bn. Accordingly, Congo’s national budget continued its expansion. In the budget passed at the end of 2011, the government projected revenues of CFAfr 3,645 bn ($ 8 bn). Some CFAfr 2,407 bn ($ 5.2 bn) came from oil receipts, with domestic taxation and external grants/loans each generating roughly CFAfr 600 bn ($ 1.3 bn) in revenue. The budget’s line items were characteristically opaque, and it remained unclear whether the government complied with projections. The capital investment budget for 2012 rose by nearly 50% to CFAfr 1,445 bn ($ 3.2 bn). The government’s operating budget grew equally dra- matically, from CFAfr 772 bn ($ 1.7 bn) in 2011 to CFAfr 1000 bn ($ 2.2 bn). Reflecting its bloated bureaucracy, the government’s personnel budget reached CFAfr 248 bn ($ 540 m). Notwithstanding the government’s recent infrastructure investments, Congo’s business climate remained unattractive. The World Bank’s Doing Business report judged Congo the second worst business climate in the world. Aspiring entrepreneurs required, accord- ing to the World Bank, nearly 165 calendar days on average to start a business and another 135 days to acquire electricity from the ‘Société National d’Électricité’, and ultimately paid an effective total tax rate of nearly 65% of total profits. Reflecting this, the informal sector accounted for some 80% of total employment in Congo and public sector jobs accounted for some 67% of formal employment. The oil sector, which contributed so much to the county’s GDP, provided only 1,200 formal sector jobs. Congo’s banking sector was similarly weak, with assets accounting for 21% of GDP. There were few micro finance institutions to serve economic agents who lacked collateral. The booming economy generated few tangible improvements in the lives of Congo- lese citizens. The country’s HDI score crept up to 0.534, from 0.531 in 2011. Although Congo’s HDI score had now risen steadily since 2000, its rate of HDI growth had been noticeably lower than the African average.