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

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ISSN 1871-2525 ISBN 978-90-04-25599-9 (paperback) ISBN 978-90-04-25600-2 (e-book)

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents

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 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 Preface

In May 2003, the Africa-Europe Group of Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS) encouraged some of its member institutions to publish an Africa Yearbook with a wider international appeal. The African Studies Centre in Leiden (ASC), the Institute of African Affairs in Hamburg (IAA) and the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (NAI) – all very active AEGIS centres sharing similar profiles – accepted this challenge and their joint efforts first bore fruit in the initial volume of the series in 2004. In 2007, the Dag Hammarskjöld Founda- tion in Uppsala (DHF) joined this international project, while the NAI ended its involvement with the fifth volume, published in 2009. For this current volume, Rolf Hofmeier once again joined us as sub-editor for the Eastern Africa section. We have always valued his solid input and remain grateful for his reliable services. The country-specific articles cover domestic politics, foreign affairs and socioeconomic developments in the states of sub-Saharan Africa during the calendar year under review. While we recognise the impossibility of finding fully objective indicators for the relative importance of each of the states covered by the Yearbook, the length of the country-specific articles aims to reflect the approximate weight of each country. The four sub-regions are also introduced by means of an overview article. Further overviews sum- marise general continental developments, European-African relations and the United Nations and Africa. The Yearbook is based on scholarly work, but is oriented towards a wider target reader- ship, including students, politicians, diplomats, administrators, journalists, teachers, practitioners in the sphere of development cooperation and business people. Without forcing the individual contributions too much into a straitjacket, the volume is primarily concerned with providing factual (though not necessarily neutral) information. Each issue, in focusing almost exclusively on developments during a particular calendar year, provides a completely fresh annual overview of events and thereby adds to the cumulative record of ongoing developments. We are proud to mention that in November 2012 the Yearbook received the prestigious biennial Conover-Porter Award for outstanding Africa-related reference works from the African Studies Association and the Africana Librarians Council in the United States. We view this as a sign that the Yearbook has become a permanent and appreciated feature in Africanist publishing. viii • Preface

We wish to express our gratitude to all the contributors for their collaboration in this endeavour; to the partner institutions in AEGIS for encouraging us to embark on this ambitious project; to Carol Rowe for her meticulous language editing; to Bas van der Mije for his unfailing coordinating assistance; and to Brill Publishers for their continued commitment. Last but not least, we note with appreciation and gratitude the ongoing support of our three institutions and their ongoing commitment to turning the original idea into reality.

The Editors (Hamburg, Leiden and Uppsala, June 2013) List of Abbreviations

ABN Autorité du Bassin du Niger (Niamey) ACP African, Caribbean, and Pacifc Group of Countries (Lomé/Cotonou Agreement) ADF African Development Fund (Tunis) AfDB African Development Bank (Tunis) AFD Agence Française de Développement (Paris) AGOA African Growth and Opportunity Act AI Amnesty International APRM African Peer Review Mechanism AU African Union (Addis Ababa) BCEAO Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Dakar) BEAC Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale (Yaoundé) CAR Central African Republic CBLT Commission du Bassin du Lac Tchad (N’Djaména) CEEAC Communauté Economique des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale (Libreville) = ECCAS CEMAC Communauté Economique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale CEN-SAD Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Tripoli) CEPGL Communauté Economique des Pays des Grands Lacs (Gisenyi/Rwanda) CFAfr Franc de la Communauté Financière Africaine (BCEAO; BEAC) COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Lusaka) CPLP Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa DAC Development Assistance Committee (Paris) DDR Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration DFID Department for International Development (London) DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo EAC East African Community ECA Economic Commission for Africa (United Nations; Addis Ababa) ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States (Libreville) ECF Extended Credit Facility (IMF) ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States (Abuja) ECOMOG ECOWAS Ceasefre Monitoring Group x • List of Abbreviations

EDF European Development Fund (Brussels) EIB European Investment Bank (Luxemburg) EPA Economic Partnership Agreement ESAF Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (IMF) EU European Union (Brussels) FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation (Rome) FDI Foreign Direct Investment FTA Free Trade Area GDP Gross Domestic Product HDI Human Development Index (UNDP) HIPC Heavily Indebted Poor Countries HRW Human Rights Watch ICC International Criminal Court ICG International Crisis Group ICGLR International Conference on the Great Lakes Region IDA International Development Association (Washington) IDP Internally Displaced Person IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development (Rome) IFC International Finance Corporation (Washington) IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Djibouti) ILO International Labour Organisation (Geneva) IMF International Monetary Fund (Washington) IOC Indian Ocean Commission (Ebène/Mauritius) IOR-ARC Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (Ebène/Mauritius) MDGs Millennium Development Goals MDRI Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative MRU Mano River Union (Freetown) NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development NGO Non-Governmental Organisation OAU Organization of African Unity ODA Offcial Development Assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris) OIC Organisation of the Islamic Conference (Jeddah) OIF Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie OPEC Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Vienna) PALOP Países Africanos de Lingua Ofcial Portugesa PPP Purchasing Power Parity PRGF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility PRSC Poverty Reduction Support Credit List of Abbreviations • xi

PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PTA Preferential Trade for Eastern and Southern African States (now COMESA) SACU Southern African Customs Union (Pretoria) SADC Southern African Development Community (Gaborone) SAF Structural Adjustment Facility (IMF) SDR Special Drawing Right (IMF) SSA Sub-Saharan Africa TI Transparency International UAE United Arab Emirates UEMOA Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest-Africaine (Ouagadougou) UMA Union du Maghreb Arabe UN United Nations (New York) UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Geneva) UNDP United Nations Development Programme (New York) UNEP United Nations Environment Programme (Nairobi) UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientifc and Cultural Organisation (Paris) UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Geneva) UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund (New York) UNSC United Nations Security Council USAID United States Agency for International Development (Washington) WFP World Food Programme (Rome) WHO World Health Organisation (Geneva) WTO World Trade Organisation (Geneva)

Factual Overview (as of 31 December 2012)

West Africa

Country Area Population Currency HDI Head of Prime (in sq km) (in m) (2012) State Minister

Benin 112,622 9.4 CFA Franc 0.436 Boni Yayi Pascal Irénée Koupaki Burkina Faso 274,122 17.5 CFA Franc 0.343 Blaise Luc-Adolphe Compaoré Tiao Cape Verde 4,033 0.5 Cape Verdean 0.586 Jorge Carlos José Maria Escudo Fonseca Pereira Neves Côte d’Ivoire 322,462 20.6 CFA Franc 0.432 Alassane Daniel Kablan Ouattara Duncan Gambia 11,295 1.8 Dalasi 0.439 Yahya Jammeh Ghana 238,500 25.5 Cedi 0.558 John Dramani Mahama

Guinea 245,857 11,5 Guinean Franc 0.355 Alpha Condé Mohamed Said Fofana Guinea-Bissau 36,125 1.6 CFA Franc 0.364 Manuel Serifo Rui Duarte Nhamadjo Barros

Liberia 111,370 4.2 Liberian Dollar 0.388 Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf Mali 1,240,000 16.0 CFA Franc 0.344 Dioncounda Django Sissoko Traoré Mauritania 1,030,700 3.6 Ouguiya 0.467 Mohamed Moulaye Ould Ould Abdel Mohamed Aziz Laghdaf Niger 1,267,000 16.3 CFA Franc 0.304 Mahamadou Brigi Rafni Issoufou Nigeria 923,768 170.1 Naira 0.471 Goodluck Jonathan Senegal 197,162 13.1 CFA Franc 0.470 Macky Sall Abdoul Mbaye

Sierra Leone 71,740 6.1 Leone 0.359 Ernest Bai Koroma Togo 56,785 6.0 CFA Franc 0.459 Faure Kwesi Gnassingbé Ahoomey- Zunu xiv • Factual Overview

Central Africa

Country Area Population Currency HDI Head of Prime (in sq km) (in m) State Minister

Cameroon 475,442 20.9 CFA Franc 0.495 Paul Biya Philémon Yang Central African 622,984 4.6 CFA Franc 0.352 François Faustin Republic Bozizé Archange Touadéra Chad 1,284,000 11.8 CFA Franc 0.340 Idriss Déby Emmanuel Nadingar Congo 342,000 4.2 CFA Franc 0.534 Denis Sassou- Nguesso DR Congo 2,344,855 69.1 Congolese 0.304 Joseph Kabila Augustin Franc Matata Ponyo Mapon Equatorial Guinea 28,051 0.7 CFA Franc 0.554 Teodoro Vicente Ehate Obiang Tomi Nguema Mbasogo Gabon 267,667 1.6 CFA Franc 0.683 Ali Bongo Raymond Ondimba Ndong Sima São Tomé and 1,001 0.2 Dobra 0.525 Manuel Pinto Gabriel Arcanjo Príncipe da Costa Ferreira da Costa Factual Overview • xv

Eastern Africa

Country Area Population Currency HDI Head of Prime (in sq km) (in m) State Minister

Burundi 26,338 10.6 Burundi 0.355 Pierre Nkurunziza Franc Comoros 1.862 0.8 Comorian 0.429 Ikililou Dhoinine Franc Djibouti 23,200 0.9 Djibouti 0,445 Ismail Omar Dileita Mohamed Franc Guelleh Dileita Eritrea 124,320 5.6 Nakfa 0.351 Isaias Afewerki

Ethiopia 1,121,900 87.0 Birr 0.396 Girma Hailemariam Wolde-Giorgis Desalegn Kenya 569,259 43.0 Kenya 0.519 Mwai Kibaki Raila Odinga Shilling Rwanda 26,338 10.8 Rwanda 0.434 Paul Kagame Pierre-Damien Franc Habumuremyi Seychelles 455 0.1 Seychelles 0.806 James Alix Michel Rupee Somalia 637,600 10.1 Somali n.a. Hassan Sheikh Abdi Farah Shilling Mohamud Shirdon Saaid

(Somaliland) 137,600 3.5 Somaliland n.a. Ahmed Mohamed Shilling Mahamoud ‘Silanyo’ Sudan 2,505,805 33.5 Sudanese 0.414 Omar Hassan Pound Ahmad al-Bashir South Sudan 619,745 9.4 South n.a. Salva Kiir Sudanese Mayardit Pound Tanzania 945,087 47.7 Tanzania 0.476 Jakaya Mrisho Mizengo Pinda Shilling Kikwete

Uganda 197,000 35.6 Uganda 0.456 Yoweri Kaguta Amama Mbabazi Shilling Museveni xvi • Factual Overview

Southern Africa

Country Area Population Currency HDI Head of Prime (in sq km) (in m) State Minister

Angola 1,246,700 20.9 Kwanza 0.508 José Eduardo dos Santos Botswana 581,730 1.9 Pula 0.634 Seretse Khama Ian Khama Lesotho 30,344 2.2 Loti 0.461 King Letsie III Thomas Motsoahae Thabane Madagascar 592,000 21.9 Ariary 0.483 Andry Rajoelina Jean Omer (contested) Beriziky

Malawi 118,484 15.9 Kwacha 0.418 Joyce Hilda Banda Mauritius 2,040 1.3 Mauritius 0.737 Rajkeswur Navinchandra Rupee Kailash Purryag Ramgoolam Mozambique 799,380 23.7 Métical 0.327 Armando Emilio Alberto Guebuza Clementino Vaquina Namibia 824,269 2.4 Namibian 0.608 Hifkepunye Hage Geingob Dollar Lucas Pohamba South Africa 1,219,090 51.1 Rand 0.629 Jacob Zuma Swaziland 17,364 1.2 Lilangeni 0.536 King Mswati III Sibusiso Dlamini

Zambia 752,614 13.7 Kwacha 0.448 Michael Chilufya Sata

Zimbabwe 390,580 12.6 Zimbabwe 0.397 Robert Gabriel Morgan Tsvangirai Dollar Mugabe (Population fgures are for mid-2012 according to Stiftung Weltbevölkerung, www.weltbevölkerung.de) I. Sub-Saharan Africa

The year was characterised by a major shift in perceptions of the continent abroad, now considered to be a promising outlet for external investors, which benefited from and triggered local development. ‘The Economist’ magazine most visibly represented this change of perspective and labelled Africa as “the continent of hope”, but, despite comparatively high annual growth rates, even in less resource-rich countries, which testified to a recovery from the minor dips caused by the international financial crisis, the trickle down effect, as measured in poverty reduction and employment creation, remained modest. The role of China and other new players remained under scrutiny, while Western interests maintained their influence largely unnoticed. Capital flight and loss of revenue through dubious practices by foreign-owned extractive industries remained a challenge. SSA continued to be vulnerable to unconstitutional power changes and other assaults on legitimate forms of government and again suffered from the effects of climate change in the form of natural disasters, albeit with less loss of life than in previous years. After two rounds of fierce competition, AU member states for the first time elected a woman, in the person of the South African foreign minister, to head the AU Commission. The ICC remained a contested institution and AU member states held differing views on the prosecution and indictment of several African leaders.

Africa in the Global Economy

The recession in Western economies and its effect on China continued to exert influence on the continent’s performance. China’s growth slowed, fuelling fears that demand for Africa’s resources and investment in its economies could decline. However, not all of these fears materialised and the picture of African performance was more nuanced. Later in the year, average sub-Saharan growth was calculated at 5.4%–5.5% (the growth rate for 2011 had been corrected downward to 5.1%). Middle-income countries such as South Africa were performing less robustly than low-income economies as a result of their firmer integration into the global economy. In October, the IMF predicted a growth rate of 6.6% for fragile countries (3.5% for middle-income countries). Oil-importing economies were rated at 4.2% and oil-exporting countries scored highest: 7.4%. At the World Economic Forum on Africa in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) in May, it was noted that seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies were on the African continent. By late 2012, it appeared 2 • Sub-Saharan Africa that several countries would reach impressive growth rates, not just oil- or mineral-rich economies but also countries such as Mozambique, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Eri- trea and post-conflict Côte d’Ivoire (all with IMF-calculated rates of over 7%). New oil producers such as Ghana and Niger scored even higher. Nevertheless, while the growth of the previous decade had reduced the level of poverty, the impact was more limited than had been hoped, with the continent was now home to a higher percentage (29%) of the world’s poor than 10 years earlier (21%). Although this was partly due to population growth, inequality remained a problem – the continent reportedly had 24 countries with greater inequality than China. High GDP rates resulted largely from capital intensive activities and therefore represented a growth in joblessness: a report by the AfDB, OECD, ECA and UNDP concluded that between 2000 and 2008 only 16 m new jobs had been created for the continent’s young, with youth representing 60% of Africa’s unemployed. The African Economic Conference held from the end of October to early November in Kigali (Rwanda) therefore focused especially on youth employment, while the World Bank and IMF stressed the concept of inclusive growth. With overall growth still good, governments began to express more reservations about their stake in its biggest driver – the extractive industries. At the Indaba mining conference in Cape Town (South Africa) on 6–9 February, dissatisfaction was expressed about Africa’s share in world mining production (still barely 10%), the lack of jobs and deriva- tive economic activity that mining companies created, and the slow pace at which some firms were said to be developing new resources. ‘Resource nationalism’, which advocated state control, became more popular. This undoubtedly had something to do with the effects of the global economic downturn: according to Ernst & Young, mineral production in 2011 declined in nine of the 13 most important African mining countries. New mining codes, such as in Burkina Faso, emerged, as did higher tax and royalties regimes. Mining companies, with their huge upfront investments ahead of profitable extraction, felt increasingly unhappy about these new attitudes, not least because of insecure legal regimes and investment climates and new disclosure requirements (on payments by firms to the countries in which they operated), enacted in the US and EU. FDI project figures had by 2011 almost returned to the level before the global crisis. However, multinational corporations stood accused of contributing substantially to illicit financial flows out of Africa and, on 18 February, the ECA launched a High Level Panel, chaired by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, to deal with this. Tax evasion, trade mispricing and over-invoicing were said to play a role in this capital flight. The biggest losers were Nigeria and South Africa. According to the Washington-based NGO ‘Global Financial Integrity’, the continent registered a 32.5% rise in illicit financial out- flows through trade mispricing in the period 2000–2009. The April meeting of the World Bank was dominated by the selection of a new president. For the first time, this turned into a competitive race, with African members voting for Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala but losing to the Korean-born Sub-Saharan Africa • 3

American Jim Yong Kim, partly as a consequence of the West’s greater voting powers. The outcome fuelled resentment about Western privilege, not least because the Nigerian candidate had solid credentials, in contrast to Kim, with his background in medicine and anthropology. Upcoming economies, however, were not unanimous, with India and China voting for Kim and South Africa and Brazil going for the Nigerian. A central development was the problem of high food prices against a background of a failed maize harvest in the US and famine in the Sahel. Global cereal prices began to rise to record levels in June and hit hard in West and Southern Africa, as well as in the Horn, which was just on the way to recovery from the 2011 drought. In West Africa, price rises were the result of the failed 2011 harvests, and the cost of locally produced grains such as sorghum and millet was by August 50% higher than in the previous year. In South Sudan, sorghum cost 220% more than in July 2011. Civil strife in countries such as Mali (though not in Somalia) exacerbated things. As a consequence, the G8 summit in Camp David (USA) on 18–19 May announced a new initiative called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, for which the G8 leaders pledged to encourage investment in sustainable agriculture; the private sector would be especially important for this (Japan promised to contribute a further $ 1 bn in this area, having reached its target set for this at the Gleneagles [UK] summit in 2005). The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio + 20), held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) on 13–22 June, stressed the importance of fighting hunger. On 14–15 June, the AGOA Forum was held in Washington (USA), focusing this time on infrastructure development. Since AGOA’s establishment in 2000, trade between the US and sub-Saharan Africa had trebled. Brazil continued its push in African markets, particularly in mining and oil (Vale and Petrobras having stakes in oil-producing countries and iron ore mining in Mozambique and Guinea). Trade relations with South Africa suffered from a row over chicken exports, with South African farmers accusing Brazil- ian colleagues of dumping practices. At their summit in New Delhi (India) in March, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) launched a plan for a new development bank called the South Bank. China’s foreign minister went on a three-country African tour in January (Namibia, Niger and Côte d’Ivoire), hailing Africa as “golden ground” for investors. Against the backdrop of African resentment of Chinese traders’ activities in Africa (China’s state media estimated the total number of Chinese living on the continent at 750,000), the Chi- nese government emphasised the importance of responsible entrepreneurship. The Fifth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was held in Bejing (China) on 19–20 July. Financial pledges to the tune of $ 20 bn were made (which would make China Africa’s largest financier, ahead of the IMF and the World Bank), while the China-Africa Develop- ment Fund would receive an additional $ 2 bn to encourage small Chinese companies to invest in Africa. With bilateral trade expected to reach around $ 180–$ 220 bn, China was still the continent’s largest trading partner. Japan pledged $ 1.3 bn in aid at the Tokyo 4 • Sub-Saharan Africa

International Conference on African Development held at ministerial level in Marrakech (Morocco) on 5–6 May. South Korea organised the Fourth Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Ministerial Conference in Seoul on 15–18 October, where inclusive and green growth was given emphasis; cooperation projects worth in the region of $ 590 m were announced, focusing especially on infrastructure. Early in the year, the AfDB, with its triple-A status, successfully issued a five-year $ 1 bn bond (oversubscribed to $ 1.2 bn). The Bank also made a grant through its ADF soft-loan arm, destined for agricultural research, and launched the African Guarantee Fund, easing access to credit for small and medium enterprises, 20% of which on average had access to financial institutions. South Sudan joined the AfDB at the Bank’s annual meeting in Arusha (Tanzania) in late June–early July.

African Union

Much of the AU’s time was taken up by wrangling over the election of the next Com- mission president, which was linked to the organisation’s marginalisation in the handling of the crises in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire in 2011. At its first annual summit, held in Addis Ababa on 29–30 January, stock-taking took place, with the Commission president, Gabon’s Jean Ping, making reference to the AU’s “humiliation” during the previous year. However, many observers felt that he was in part to blame and, with the Commission’s presidency up for renewal, South Africa was determined to make him a scapegoat and muster more influence within the continental body. Pretoria had been reticent about the AU line adopted on Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire, lukewarm about pushing out Kad- hafi in Libya and opposed to the Western intervention in both countries. Its campaign for a new Commission president was therefore also an attempt to make South Africa’s weight felt more strongly in the Pan-African institution (while the selection of its nominee, home affairs minister and ex-wife of President Zuma, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, also func- tioned as a means to neutralise a potential domestic rival). With South Africa embarking on an aggressive campaign for Dlamini-Zuma but numerous – especially West African and most francophone – countries supportive of another term for Ping, the election of the Commission president became a long drawn-out affair. SADC countries, the DRC and some East African members supported the candidature of Dlamini-Zuma, for which arguments about sub-regional rotation were advanced. Although this had never previously played such a prominent role, Southern Africa had so far not delivered a candidate for the job. Those in favour of Ping, among them all the CEEAC states, argued that it was customary for bigger member states not to claim the (O)AU’s highest post, although this was disputed by Pretoria, which argued it could not be expected to act as one of the largest contributors without reaping any benefits. Four rounds of balloting at the Addis summit delivered neither candidate the required two-thirds majority, although Ping came out (just) on top in all rounds. Since he was the Sub-Saharan Africa • 5 incumbent, however, this close result showed the weakness of his position, despite support from principal member states such as Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire. As South Africa had already staked too much in Dlamini’s candidature to pull out without losing face, it refused to withdraw its candidate (despite requests from several member states). After some pressure from Ethiopia, it was agreed to let Ping and his commissioners continue until the summit in Lilongwe (Malawi) in June, where a new attempt would be made. In the meantime, a committee of five member states (one per sub-region) plus Benin, Gabon and South Africa would try to sort things out. By contrast, the appointment of a new Assembly chair went smoothly, with President Boni Yayi from Benin taking over for one year from Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obi- ang. The inauguration of the AU’s new headquarters in Addis was another highlight, although it hardly reflected well on Africa’s capacity for autonomous action: built and entirely paid for by the Chinese, the huge $ 200 m headquarters was opened in the presence of a Chinese delegation that far outnumbered those of the West. The Chinese also pledged to pay for its upkeep. On 17 March and again on 14 May, the eight-member committee set up to resolve the Commission presidency election failed to break the deadlock in meetings in Cotonou (Benin). South Africa rejected Gabon’s suggestion that both candidates be withdrawn. By now it was clear that the issue would be decided by West African states. On 15 July, at the next summit and after a four-round battle, Dlamini-Zuma became the first woman Com- mission president – countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Ethiopia having too many domestic problems to continue their opposition to South Africa. The election battle left misgivings about the dirty campaign, with accusations of bribery and arm twisting and anxieties that South Africa’s bullying heralded a new drive for hegemony. The venue for the second summit, held on 9–16 July, was moved to Addis Ababa after Malawi refused to host it in Lilongwe, as originally scheduled. Malawi had made it clear that it felt bound by its ICC obligations to arrest President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, indicted by the ICC, if he attended the summit. While Malawi, vulnerable to West- ern donor pressure, asked the AU Commission not to invite al-Bashir, the Commission retorted that host countries had no right to bar state leaders from attending. Meanwhile, the AU pushed forward with its plans for its own African criminal court (continuing to accuse the ICC of focusing too much on African cases); a draft protocol was completed on 15 May. In another development in international criminal justice, Senegal, now led by newly elected President Macky Sall, agreed in July to an AU plan to try former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré at a special court whose judges would be appointed by the AU. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance came into force on 15 February, having been ratified by 15 member states. One of the challenges for the new Commission chair was, as usual, the AU budget. With arrears in contributions totalling $ 43 m in 2010 (including Libya’s, which under Kadhafi had paid most of the bills), a high-level panel recommended diversification of the 6 • Sub-Saharan Africa funding base. It was hoped that some of the wealthier middle-size powers such as Angola and Kenya would be prepared to boost their contributions in return for greater influence, whilst private-sector finance and taxes on extra-African imports and air travel were advanced as other sources of funding. The budget for 2013 was projected at $ 278.2 m of which more than half was expected from foreign (Western) sources. Such dependence, however, was anathema to South Africa’s leadership. Several security issues occupied the organisation’s agenda. On 14 February, AU leaders met in Cotonou to discuss, among other things, developments in Mali, tensions between Sudan and South Sudan and the violence of Boko Haram Islamists in Northern Nigeria. The day after the coup d’état in Mali on 22 March, the country’s AU membership was suspended. The Peace and Security Council on 31 July called for the formation of a new government, but otherwise the pursuit of a peaceful solution was left to ECOWAS. In a more tangible development, the UNSC approved boosting troop levels of the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to 17,000 men. Economic issues also made their way onto Pan-African agendas, though they retained a surreal dimension. It was agreed to set 2017 as the target year for a Continental Free Trade Area (to be implemented step by step through integration of sub-regional free trade areas). In a Declaration on the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, the AU appealed for support for Africa’s infrastructure needs, calculated to require around $ 60 bn in the coming decade. An African Monetary Institute would be created to study policies for the establishment of a single continental currency and African Central Bank.

Governance

Despite having been incorporated officially into the AU as a predominantly economic instrument and titled a ‘technical body’ of the AU, NEPAD continued to operate from its headquarters in Midrand (South Africa), where the Pan African Parliament is also located. Considered as a strategic framework for pan-African socioeconomic development, NEPAD coordinated programmes and projects in the areas of agriculture and food security, climate change and national resource management, sub-regional integration and infrastructure, human development, and economic and corporate governance. Over 40 countries were actively engaged in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Develop- ment Programme (CAADP) at various levels. CAADP focused on food security, nutrition, and increasing incomes in Africa’s largely agricultural economies. NEPAD’s tenth anniversary was celebrated in Addis Ababa on 30 March with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as the keynote speaker. NEPAD had created the APRM as a mutually agreed programme, voluntarily adopted by AU member states to promote and reinforce high standards of governance. As a self- monitoring mechanism, it was mandated to ensure that the policies and practices of participating countries conformed to agreed values in democracy and political governance, Sub-Saharan Africa • 7 economic governance, corporate governance and socioeconomic development. Periodic reviews of the participating countries assessed progress, with a Panel of Eminent Persons to oversee the process to ensure integrity, consider reports and to make recommendations. During the year, Niger became the 31st of the APRM countries. The others were Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. Cape Verde, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and Tunisia expressed interest in joining the APRM. While 15 countries had been peer-reviewed, procedures were delayed in several cases and a backlog had accumulated. The 16th APRM Summit of the Committee of participating heads of state and government was held in Addis Ababa on 28 January. It reviewed the APRM Forum and adopted new Operating Rules of Procedure. At the meeting, President Ernest Bai Koroma presented the country review report for Sierra Leone. The new Operating Rules of Proce- dure were presented at an APRM meeting on 14 March in Nairobi (Kenya). South Africa hosted a meeting of the APRM Focal Points on 13/14 April in Durban, which discussed the operationalisation of the newly adopted Operating Procedures and considered the Revised Country Self-Assessment Questionnaire. The APRM Focal Points were ministers or high-level government officials, appointed soon after a country acceded to the Mechanism, who were responsible for managing the process and reported directly to their respective heads of state and government. On 21/22 May, ahead of the AU 50th anniversary Summit in Addis Ababa, a two- day APRM Summit celebrated the tenth year of the APRM’s existence. At the opening, former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano declared that for too long African states had been assessed and condemned by outsiders. It was now time to ask whether the APRM had played a role in ensuring good governance in Africa. According to the APRM Secretariat’s Chief Executive Officer Assefa Shifa, 17 states had completed their self-assessment and had been peer-reviewed with regard to their policies and practices on democracy, political governance, economic governance and corporate governance. But, as outgoing UNDP Africa Bureau Director Tegegnework Gettu cautioned, there was still a lack of awareness about the APRM on the part of many. The 44th NEPAD Steering Committee took place on 12 July, with APRM meetings on 11 to 14 July, and the 17th Summit of the Committee of Heads of State and Government participated in the APRM Forum on 14 July at the AU Commission Headquarters in Addis, with 10 heads of state in attendance. The Summit was preceded by the 56th meeting of the APR (African Peer Review) Panel (11 July), the sixth meeting between the APRM and its strategic partners (UNDP, UNECA and AfDB), meetings of APRM Focal Points Committees (12–13 July) and the Pre-Summit meeting between the APR Panel and the National Focal Points of the APRM (13 July). 8 • Sub-Saharan Africa

Algeria, Burkina Faso and Uganda presented periodic progress reports on the implementation of their National Programmes of Action (NPoA). President Yoweri Museveni presented the Second Progress Report for Uganda. He informed the Forum that his country’s socioeconomic transformation called for private sector promotion, increased markets for local products, and infrastructure development. He stressed the need for building up the army to control insurgencies and other destabilising tendencies. President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso presented his country’s Third Report on Implementation of the NPoA. He highlighted Burkina’s mediation efforts in the area of conflict resolution in West Africa, as well as the government’s initiatives aimed at promoting accelerated economic growth, especially in the export sector. The Forum discussed the fast tracking of the integration of the APRM into the AU as well as the renewal of the Host Country Agreement between the AU Commission and the government of South Africa. It called for a speedy integration process that would guarantee the status of the APRM as an autonomous entity within the AU system and structures. The APR chair and lead panelist for Kenya, together with members of the Country Review Team, held dialogues with the select Inter-Ministerial Committee on the APRM on 10–11 November. A decade after its establishment, the APRM had not yet convinced the sceptics that it did in fact play the role it claimed in enhancing good governance. Shortcomings included a lack of political will by some of the cooperating states under the purely voluntary review exercises, lack of subsequent implementation of recommendations and insufficient financial and human resources for the fulfilment of the Mechanism’s mandate. Some NPoAs were mere carbon copies of pre-existing development initiatives. The APRM process reports had also at times failed to give sufficient attention to early warning signs of an emerging crisis, as in Mali and Kenya. The African Governance Outlook (AGO), a collaborative initiative between the AfDB and the African Capacity Building Foundation was piloted in phases in selected African countries based on accession to the APRM. The first pilot phase covered Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania and Rwanda, and the second included Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda. Following the pilot phase, the AGO would be implemented throughout the continent. The AGO Phase II inception workshop was held on 23 February in Accra (Ghana) with national partners involved in a review of AGO implementation arrangements, methodology and practical lessons.

Democracy and Elections

Arguably, only the presidential elections in Senegal represented a watershed. President Abdoulaye Wade, once voted into office as the flag-bearer of liberty in his country, had lost much of his appeal as his rule became increasingly tainted by corruption affairs. Backed by a favourable ruling of the Supreme Court, he was standing for election for a Sub-Saharan Africa • 9 third seven-year term. Wade received a relative majority in the first round of elections, but the main opponents united behind the best-placed opponent, Macky Sall, who won the second round with nearly two-thirds of the vote. Wade was gracious in accepting his defeat immediately after the announcement of still provisional results and was praised for this gesture, both domestically and internationally. This made the presidential elections a decidedly positive event in the history of Senegalese democracy, which had been marked by many ups and downs. The ensuing legislative elections saw a massive win for the ‘Benno Bokk Yakaar’ alliance, newly formed around the new president, which took 119 of the 150 seats; Wade’s party won a mere 12 seats. Presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone and Ghana, scheduled towards the end of the year, had created some nervousness that the campaigns might degenerate into violence, but both managed largely to avoid this. In Sierra Leone, the final outcome and wide gap between incumbent Ernest Koroma (59%) and his main challenger, former military ruler Julius Maada Bio (37%), left little room for argument. Koroma’s party was also able to win some additional seats in the elections to the House of Representatives, where it now controlled 67 of the 124 seats, a viable, but tight majority. The voting pattern was extremely regionalised. By contrast, in Ghana, incumbent John Mahama, vice-president until the death of John Atta Mills and promoted to become head of state when the latter died in July, won by a very slim margin in the first round of elections (with 50.7% of the votes), immediately provoking accusations of manipulation. In fact, Mahama’s opponent, Akufo Addo, submitted a legal challenge and by year’s end was still not ready to accept the declared results, although tensions abated somewhat after the elections. Legislative elections in the formal, but in reality ‘guided’, democracies of Burkina Faso and Congo produced largely expected results. In Burkina 70 of the 127 seats went to the ruling party, and in Congo (Brazzaville) 92 of 139 – with additional seats held in each case by alliance partners. Even less open were elections in the authoritarian countries of Angola and, above all, Gambia, where the president’s party secured 43 of the 48 seats, independent candidates taking four and only one seat going to an opposition party; 25 seats were uncontested and automatically went to the president’s camp. Angola’s legislative elections saw the ruling party taking 175 of the 220 seats and – in line with the new constitution – the leader of the strongest party was automatically elected president, i.e. Dos Santos again. In spite of clearly limited state capacities, elections also had to be held in Guinea-Bissau after President Malam Bacai Sanhó died in office in January. A first round of presidential elections pitted ex-prime minister Carlos Gomes Júnior against veteran politician Kumba Yála, with the former receiving close to 49% of the votes; Gomes was clearly set to win the race in the second round. High on his agenda was a reform of the military. However, on 12 April, some elements of the armed forces staged a further coup d’état, interrupting the electoral process. In somewhat similar fashion, upcoming elections in Mali were prevented by a coup. Even more problematic were the conditions for conducting presidential 10 • Sub-Saharan Africa elections in Somalia. A consensus was found for the indirect election of a head of state by members of a transitional parliament that was not popularly elected. Although former university professor Hassan Sheick Mohamud received 190 of the 271 votes in the second round of elections (but only 60 in the first), his popular legitimacy remained hypotheti- cal. This did not prevent governments around the world from calling his election a major breakthrough.

Coups and Unconstitutional Rule

Two successful military coups were on record this year. On 21–22 March, Mali experienced its first coup since 1991. At that time, the coup marked a return to multiparty politics (achieved in 1992), but now it was in the context of rebel advances from the north to the heartland of the country. At first sight, toppling President Amadou Toumani Touré, popularly known as ATT, made little sense as he was not standing for a third term, and the conduct and outcome of the coup made it clear that it was not well planned. When ATT agreed to step down and go into exile, it by no means cleared the air. The transitional phase that followed saw chaotic twists and turns, with the junta accepting a civilian government three weeks after the coup, but only reluctantly, and maintaining more informal power positions. Rebels in the north, partly ethnic Tuareg, did not interpret the coup in any way as a sign that the national army had regained its will to fight, and made further progress. On 6 April, Tuareg rebels declared the independence of the so-called ‘Répub- lique d’Azawad’. ECOWAS, clearly challenged by both the coup leaders and the Tuareg rebellion, found it hard to react appropriately and faced criticism in Bamako for its allegedly intrusive stance. In Guinea-Bissau, a coup d’état was staged only two weeks before the scheduled second round of presidential elections. Both candidates in the run-off were arrested by the coup leaders. One plausible partial explanation for the coup put forward by the junta itself was that the government was about to call in Angolan troops to conduct a reform of the military. This would obviously have diminished the room for manoeuvre available to the various sections of the armed forces, some of them believed to be deeply involved in drug trafficking. The coup was immediately condemned internationally, and sanctions were put in place against leaders of the junta. The reaction to this pressure was an agreement that made the third-placed candidate in the elections, Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, interim president; a national transitional council functioning as an interim parliament was set up. This did not prevent the suspension of Guinea-Bissau from the AU, while the UNSC voted unanimously for a resolution to restore constitutional rule and imposed travel bans on the five members of the junta. On a lower level, some African governments were again facing challenges from within their armies. The most consequential army mutiny took place in the DRC in April, but had already been preceded by individual defections from the Congolese army. The mutiny Sub-Saharan Africa • 11 developed into an outright rebellion, led by the so-called M23 movement, named after the date of the signature of an agreement with a Tutsi-dominated rebel movement. This was the start of a new bloody episode in the DRC’s only intermittently interrupted civil war. Coup plots were also reported twice in the CAR, in one case allegedly involving one of the most powerful politicians and a nephew of the president. A coup attempt was allegedly foiled in Sudan in November and a former head of the National Intelligence and Security Services was arrested; at year’s end, the government accused the Umma Party of al-Sadiq al-Mahdi of being complicit in the attempt. Côte d’Ivoire looked more stable than in recent years, but a series of deadly attacks on police and military bases, usually attributed to followers of deposed president Gbagbo, occurred during the year.

Peace and War

In Mali, the DRC and the CAR, the political unease was not unrelated to the unfolding of outright civil war. The CAR turned a new page in its history of rebellions when a new coalition of movements started surprisingly effective attacks on provincial capitals in December and quickly moved towards the capital Bangui, where panic broke out. The national army and regional peacekeepers put up little resistance and hectic diplomatic efforts started at the end of the year to keep the rebellion at bay. In the DRC, an off-shoot of an older rebel movement was created when troops formally integrated into the national army complained about the failure to fully implement the 23 March 2009 peace agreement with the ‘Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple’ (CNDP). The M23 movement had to be seen in light of the attempt to arrest CNDP leader Bosco Ntaganda, who had been indicted by the ICC in The Hague. The Kabila government, for its part, felt forced to act after Western donors, unhappy with the conduct of the 2011 elections, exerted considerable pressure on Kinshasa. The apparent ethnic nature of the revolt, with rebels pointing openly to the harming of Tutsi interests by the Kabila government, had even wider repercussions. Rwanda, and to a lesser extent Uganda, were supporting the new rebellion behind the scenes. This meant that a new round of interna- tionalisation of the Kivu-centred conflict had begun. Sub-regional organisations – both the ICGLR and SADC – felt compelled to propose conflict resolution mechanisms and Uganda finally engaged in bilateral negotiations between the M23 and the government, but with no tangible results by year’s end. Sudan and South Sudan were on the verge of an inter-state war, unable to agree on mutually acceptable transmission procedures for oil produced in South Sudan but transported via a pipeline to Port Sudan. As a consequence, the flow of oil was halted for most of the year and international mediation was needed before an agreement was reached. In January, a series of coordinated attacks started a new civil (but also transnational) war in Mali. Initially, the most important actor was the ‘Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad’ (MNLA), which openly fought for the independence of this 12 • Sub-Saharan Africa northern region. It was supported by several other organisations with a more religious agenda. By April, the entire north was under rebel control and the MNLA declared Azawad independent. Subsequently, Islamist groups, partly based in and supported from abroad, but clearly also recruited in Mali, came into conflict with the separatist-inclined MNLA fighters and ousted them from the region. They also soon found themselves in conflict with each other, as well as with the local populace. There were military confrontations throughout the year, particularly around the city of Gao. Efforts on the UN level to reach a consensus with regard to multilateral military intervention were triggered by the destruction by Islamists of some of Timbuktu’s historic religious monuments and arte- facts, including tombs of Islamic saints, which they held to be idolatrous.

Terrorism and Piracy

The crisis in Mali involved groups partly identified as Tuareg rebels, but also, in the case of the ‘Mouvement pour le Tawhîd et le Jihad en Afrique de l‘Ouest’ (MUJAO), as clearly related to al-Qaida-in-the-Islamic Maghreb. Before breaking away, MUJAO’s leader Omar Ould Hamaha had been spokesperson of ‘Ansar Eddine’, led by Iyad Ag Ghali, one of the main Tuareg rebel leaders during earlier hostilities. The threat that the confrontation between the Nigerian security forces and the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram would develop into an inter-religious civil war increased considerably. At the beginning of the year, Boko Haram issued a communiqué asking Christians to leave northern Nigeria, and only a few weeks later started a series of deadly terrorist attacks. President Goodluck Jonathan stated that Nigeria’s security apparatus was in danger of being undermined by Islamists. At times, the security forces seemed to panic and certainly overreacted in their retaliatory attacks, killing suspects indiscriminately and thereby escalating the situation even further. Terrorist attacks focused on Christian churches, police stations and mobile phone company installations. Attacks and retaliatory actions possibly cost over 1,000 lives, but figures were highly disputed, with the government keen to report lower numbers. About 20,000 Christians fled the city of Maiduguri. The Nigerian security forces managed to kill Boko Haram leader Ibn Saleh Ibrahim in November, but a new leader immediately took over as his successor. Boko Haram reportedly expanded its activities to neighbouring countries, including Cameroon. The relative strength of the al-Shabaab movement in Somalia continued to decline, but some radical Islamist groups still controlled territory, enabling them to launch attacks on government-controlled areas and installations as well as targeting individuals. Eritrea continued to support al-Shabaab and was therefore partially responsible for the continuation of acts of terrorism in Somalia, and also potentially in Kenya after that country’s intervention in Somalia in 2011. During the year, a number of smaller bomb attacks were recorded, both in the capital Nairobi and in the area bordering Somalia. On the other hand, Sub-Saharan Africa • 13 an Islamic cleric suspected by the UN of supporting al-Shabaab (and as a consequence under sanction) was shot in Mombasa in late August in unclear circumstances, producing outbursts of violence in several neighbourhoods of the port town. From a global perspective, the number of acts of piracy at sea fell from 439 reported attacks in 2011 to 297, according to the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) global piracy report for 2012; this trend was most visible in eastern Africa and the Gulf of Aden, where 75 ships reported having come under attack (compared with 237 in 2011). Accord- ing to the IMB, this reduction was mostly due to the massive presence of naval vessels (inter alia conducting pre-emptive strikes on pirate mother-ships) and improved security management practices on board the targeted ships. The picture was less positive in West Africa, where piracy was rising in the Gulf of Guinea, with 58 incidents recorded (up from 38 in 2011). The pirates in this area were mostly heavily armed and used violence against crew members when hijacking vessels or crews. Nigeria-based pirates, helped by nationals of various other countries, extended their zone of operations, with five incidents reported as far west as Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire). Profit-driven commercial networks behind piracy in Somalia apparently found it increasingly less financially rewarding to engage into this risky business. The various joint maritime commando units operating in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden were therefore able to claim success, but probably at a high price; the true costs of these missions remained hidden, but calculations of the overall costs generated by piracy (including opting for longer transport routes, on-board security systems and ransom payments) pointed to extraordinary costs to the world economy.

Epidemics and Disasters

On 27 March, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and NEPAD signed a memorandum of understanding calling for strategic collaboration to advance sustainable responses to HIV, health and development. UNAIDS and NEPAD would jointly: develop common African positions on the AIDS response, with an emphasis on sustainable financing; address constraints in access to HIV medicines; facilitate policies and partnerships to eliminate new HIV infections in children and improve the health of mothers; enhance country ownership and accountability; and encourage South- South cooperation. SSA carried the highest HIV burden of any region in the world. In 2010, about 68% of all HIV-positive people resided in Africa south of the Sahara, a region with only 12% of the global population. About two-thirds of all AIDS investment came from external sources. According to UNAIDS estimates, Africa would require between $ 11 bn and $ 12 bn for its regional AIDS response by 2015, about $ 3 bn-$ 4 bn more than the current expenditure. Malaria was the leading cause of death among children under five. On 15 July, the agenda of the AU Summit included the African Leaders’ Malaria Alliance Forum, wherein 14 • Sub-Saharan Africa

African heads of state and government committed themselves to utilise their individual and collective power to keep the scourge of malaria high on the agenda at all levels and provide a forum to share best practice, review progress and address challenges in meeting malaria eradication targets. South Africa had the highest tuberculosis death rate per capita in the world, followed by Zimbabwe and Mozambique. During the year, a focus was put on Neglected Tropi- cal Diseases (NTD) through the ‘Accra Call to Action on NTDs’ adopted in June, which urged countries to use integrated and cost-effective approaches with a view to eliminating NTDs as public health threats by 2020. Further outbreaks of the rare nodding disease, which has since been discovered to be limited to just a few East African countries, were registered early in the year in South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. Effects of climate change impacted negatively on the continent as one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to the environmental and ecological consequences. Heat waves, storms, exceptionally heavy rainfalls and droughts, as well as unusual snowfall and cold, were all features on the increase. The continent registered a record number of 8.2 m new IDPs as a result of natural disasters and conflicts, according to the Internal Displace- ment Monitoring Centre. In May, famine hit countries in West Africa’s Sahel region. More than 18 m people faced hunger across western Africa, mainly in Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso. East Africa faced continued drought, which hit two of the continent’s poorest countries, Somalia and South Sudan. Extremely heavy tropical rainfall after May caused the worst floods for half a century in many parts of Nigeria, which were declared a national disaster by President Good- luck Jonathan. An estimated 300 to 400 people were killed, hundreds of thousands were uprooted and tens of thousands of hectares of farmland were submerged. This raised concerns about food security. The northern state of Kogi and the populated areas of the vast river plains of the Benue and Niger were worst affected. Heavy rainfall and floods (most notably in the Eastern Cape in October), unusually cold temperatures and snowfall during July and August, storms and a tornado also resulted in massive economic damage and loss of life in South Africa. The continent possessed a unique hazard risk profile, but preparedness planning often existed only to address drought or flooding as the two major natural phenomena that most affected Africa. There was little or no focus on the need to address smaller crisis events. Inadequate financial resources were usually allocated to disaster planning, either because there was no funding available or because preparedness planning was not a main national budget concern. At the Understanding Risk Forum in Cape Town on 3 July, disaster risk practitioners, engineers and other scientists outlined a series of tools that could be used to manage the risks associated with floods and droughts. These included open data, early warning systems, GIS mapping, SMS technology, and social safety nets. Disaster risk reduction had been tackled at both regional and sub-regional levels but many coun- Sub-Saharan Africa • 15 tries had failed to craft strong policies and response systems at the national level. The 2012 world risk report noted that 13 of the 15 most vulnerable countries worldwide were African, solely because of their low coping and adaptive ability in the event of disasters. Only 25 African countries had established national policies and strategies for risk reduction and worse, only 13 had set aside funds from their national budget for this purpose.

Andreas Mehler, Henning Melber & Klaas van Walraven

II. United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

The election of Dlamini Zuma as Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) in May ended the institutional deadlock that had seemed to paralyse AU action on the international stage. Along with key senior appointments made by UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-Moon with regard to the UN presence in Africa, the investiture of Mrs Fatou Bensouda from Gambia as Chief Prosecutor of the ICC reshaped the dynamics of UN-AU interaction and created expectations for a new era of enhanced cooperation. The African dimension in the work of the UN emerged mainly through events such as the historic elections in Libya, the crisis in the Sahel region and Mali, the end of the transition period in Somalia, the new wave of violence in the DRC and the persisting tensions between Sudan and South Sudan. Cooperation between the UNSC and the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) was strengthened. Furthermore, trilateral and peri- odical consultations between the UN, the AU and ECOWAS took place on Mali, the Sahel crisis and the situation in West Africa. With the AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, and the African Charter on Elections, Democracy and Good Gover- nance, two crucial instruments were adopted. UN agencies launched massive humanitarian operations in the Sahel region, and new emergencies occurred in Sudan/Darfur, Somalia and eastern DRC. The Rio+20 Conference and the Climate Change Conference in Doha (Qatar) provided the AU with the opportunity to speak with one voice, though the former prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, who died at the age of 57 in August, had represented Africa at major international conferences on climate change during the past years. The UN played a crucial role in supporting the African common position – whose priorities and concerns were clearly articulated in the African Consensus State- ment to Rio+20 – at international meetings and initiatives on the environment, sustainable development and the post-MDGs agenda.

Africa in the UN

The AU posture in the international arena and its interaction with the UN was partially affected by the deadlock in the election of the chairperson of the AUC. At the 18th AU Summit (27 January–2 February); both Dr Dlamini-Zuma and Dr Ping failed to secure the required two-thirds majority. South Africa, backed by SADC, showed strong determination 18 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa in breaking the customary rule that had traditionally prevented powerful AU member states from nominating nationals for this post. An intense diplomatic campaign by South Africa ultimately led to the election of Dr Dlamini-Zuma as the first woman to lead the organisation. She took office on 15 October. Pledging her commitment to a “united, pros- perous and peaceful Africa”, she highlighted the need to revitalise the tripartite partnership between the AUC, UNECA and the AfDB and further strengthen cooperation with the UN and regional economic communities (RECs) in the field of peace and security. At the end of January, the UNSG presented a Five-Year Action Agenda centred on sustainable development, conflict prevention, enhanced international security (essentially through peacekeeping, and increased nuclear non-proliferation efforts), and support to nations in transition. UN engagement in Africa followed these priorities. As a part of a wider process of renewal of high-level posts within the UN Secretariat, Ban Ki-Moon announced important appointments linked to the UN presence in Africa. In March, Car- los Lopes was appointed as the new executive secretary of UNECA. He took office in August and launched a massive review exercise, which culminated in the presentation of a restructuring proposal aimed at repositioning the regional body as the “only UN agency mandated to operate at the regional and subregional levels to harness resources and bring them to bear on Africa’s priorities”. The intention was to re-focus UNECA action on policy research and knowledge delivery and strengthen its role as a continental think-tank focusing on macroeconomic policy, regional integration and trade, social policy development and statistics. The appointments of two UNSG Special Representatives partially reconfigured sub- regional and thematic priorities of UN engagement in Africa. Maged Abdelaziz, former Egyptian ambassador to the UN and former Africa representative at the Bureau of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, was appointed Special Adviser to the UNSG on Africa in May. The mandate of the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) which was created by General Assembly Resolution A/RES/57/7 of 4 November 2002, mainly focused on enhancing international support for Africa’s development and security through its advocacy and analytical work, and assisting the UNSG in improving the coherence and coordination of UN support to Africa. The appointment of a veteran Egyptian diplomat as Special Adviser on Africa indicated the increased relevance of the North-African dimension of UN engagement in the continent following the Arab Spring. In October, former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi was appointed Special Envoy of the UNSG for the Sahel region, the large territory covering parts of Senegal, Mau- ritania, Mali, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Eritrea. Prodi’s mandate was to carry out good offices on behalf of the UNSG, particularly in support of national, regional and international mediation efforts in the sub-region, and especially regarding cross-border and transnational issues. He was also tasked with coordinating UN-wide efforts to finalise United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 19 and implement the UN Integrated Regional Strategy for the Sahel. In early Novem- ber, Prodi informally briefed UNSC members on his shuttle diplomacy between Bamako (Mali), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Cairo (Egypt) and Algiers (Algeria) aimed at coordinating a long-term approach to the multiple crises affecting the Sahel region. On 1 July, the ICC marked its tenth anniversary. High expectations for an improvement in the relationship between the AU and the ICC were raised by the appointment of Mrs Fatou Bensouda from Gambia as the new ICC chief prosecutor. The departure of former prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo – which had been announced in late 2011 – was received with much relief in Addis Ababa. Moreno-Ocampo’s supposedly exclusive focus on Africa had drawn extensive criticism and the ICC had been consistently accused by AU leaders of deliberately ignoring opportunities to investigate abuses in other countries, such as Afghanistan or Iraq. The AU’s response to the ICC’s “exclusive and discrimina- tory” focus on Africa reached a new stage in May, when African ministers for justice and attorneys general adopted the Draft Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. The protocol extended the jurisdiction of the African Court on international crimes, but this had specific financial and structural implications, which required review by AU organs. Mrs Bensouda took office in the days following the arrest in Libya of four members of the court’s defence team, who were visiting Muammar Kadhafi’s son, Saif al-Islam – an episode that seemed to mark a new low in the court’s history. Besides the Libyan case, referred to the ICC by the UNSC, Bensouda inherited two cases instigated by Moreno- Ocampo at his own discretion, namely the violations by forces loyal to former president Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire, and the prosecution of six prominent figures for post-election violence in Kenya in 2007–8. Both cases proceeded slowly and attracted controversy for their political ramifications. The ICC arrest warrant against Sudan’s President Omar Hasan al-Bashir, as well as the issue linked to the cooperation with the Court by African signatories to the Statute of Rome, were once again at the centre of a delicate political crisis within the AU. The 19th AU Summit was expected to take place in Lilongwe (Malawi) in July. Al-Bashir had already been allowed to visit Malawi in 2011. However, President Banda, who succeeded President Bingu wa Mutharika after his death in April, announced that the Sudanese leader was not welcome at the summit given his pending ICC arrest warrant. Her strong stance in support of the ICC was supported by national and African civil society organisations and compelled the AU to move the venue of the Summit at very short notice to Addis Ababa. On 18 July, the minister of justice in the transitional government of Mali, Malick Coulibaly, formally requested the ICC to investigate atrocities being committed by the various Islamist and rebel groups in the north of the country. The request stated that the crimes committed in northern Mali since January involved “grave and large-scale violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law”. 20 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

Preceding the 67th UN General Assembly, a high-level meeting on the rule of law took place at UN Headquarters on 24 September. Several African heads of state confirmed their countries’ commitment to the concept and were proportionally more active and visible in the discussion than representatives of any other continent.

Peace and Security

On 12 January, the UNSC discussed the partnership between the UN and regional organisations in promoting peace and security. Special focus and emphasis was given to the UN-AU strategy in the field of peace and security. The resolution adopted (UNSC/ RES/2033) called upon the UN Office to the AU to further strengthen cooperation between the UN Secretariat and the AUC in the area of mediation, and accelerate the implementation of the Ten-Year Capacity Building Programme for the AU in order to ensure the full operationalisation of the AU Peace and Security Architecture. The UNSG was also asked to ensure that the UN Office to the AU, UNECA and UN agencies working with the UN Regional Coordination Mechanism for Africa deliver support to the AU in a more coordinated manner. On 13 June, the UNSC and AUPSC held their sixth consultative meeting at UN Head- quarters and reviewed the situations in West Africa, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Somalia and Sudan. The members of the two councils encouraged the improvement of their regular joint interaction, consultation and coordination on matters of mutual interest. They also expressed support for further interaction between the UN Secretariat and the AUC in order to exchange information, coordinate the preparation of recommendations, and set up joint assessments missions, aimed at assisting the two councils in formulating cohesive positions and strategies. As the case of Mali showed, enhanced interaction between the councils and secretariats of the two organisations had been crucial in ensuring a coordinated crisis management process that led to the authorisation of the Africa-led stabilisation mission in the country. Relations between UNSC members and ECOWAS were also strengthened. As the key event of the UNSC mission visit to West Africa (19–23 May), taking in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone, a high level meeting between UNSC members and ECOWAS took place in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) on 21 May. This was the first such meeting between UNSC members and ECOWAS. Participants included Special Representative for West Africa Said Djinnit, ECOWAS Commission Chair Kadre Désiré Ouédraogo, and the foreign ministers of Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. Benin also attended as the current chair of the AU. With regard to Cote d’Ivoire, the UN continued to play its supportive role in stabilising the security situation, protecting civilians, restoring state authority, promoting reconciliation, and undertaking post conflict development assistance. The crisis in theSahel region United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 21 and the situation in Mali were at the centre of the UNSC agenda. The Morocco delegation played a key role in persuading key members to dedicate increasing attention to the Sahel crisis. The possibility of creating a UN special envoy for the Sahel or, alternatively, the expansion of the mandate of the UN Office for West Africa in order to cover the region, was discussed in the UNSC during the first half of the year. On 22 March, the civilian government of President Amadou Toumani Touré in Mali was overthrown ahead of the presidential elections scheduled for 29 April. A UNSC presidential statement condemning the coup was approved by the UNSC on 26 March. The political and military chaos prevailing in the country caused serious concerns in the UNSC and the international community as a whole. On 15 June, Burkina Faso For- eign Minister Djibrill Yipènè Bassolé, who was leading ECOWAS’ mediation efforts, provided the UNSC with an update on his work and requested a UNSC mandate for the launch of an ECOWAS military deployment in Mali. UN-AU-ECOWAS consultations on the crisis continued and facilitated the adoption of UNSC-resolution 2056 (5 July). The UNSC expressed support for the joint efforts of ECOWAS, the AU and the transitional authorities to attempt to re-establish constitutionality and the territorial integrity of Mali. The resolution declared the UNSC’s readiness to consider backing a military deployment in Mali as proposed by ECOWAS “once additional information has been provided regarding the objectives, means and modalities of the envisaged deployment”. While focusing on Mali, resolution 2056 also asked the UNSG to “develop and implement, in consultation with regional organisations, a United Nations integrated strategy for the Sahel region encompassing security, governance, development, human rights and humanitarian issues, including through the involvement of the United Nations Office for West Africa”. With regard to the situation in the entire Sahel region, a mini-summit and a high-level UNSC meeting were held in September at the margins of the UN General Assembly, and in early December, respectively. Both meetings involved the AU and ECOWAS leadership and focused on security, humanitarian affairs, governance and development. The UNSC was briefed on 8 August on developments in Mali by Ban Ki-moon and Commissioner for Political Affairs for Peace and Security of ECOWAS Salamatu Hus- saini-Suleiman. While the UNSG strongly encouraged the government of Mali to develop an overarching political strategy to return the country to constitutional order and re-establish state authority in the north, Hussaini-Suleiman noted that “terrorists and criminal networks” were committing “atrocious war crimes” in the north of the country. She added that the “objective of those terrorist groups was to create a safe haven and a coordinating centre in the north of Mali for continental terrorist networks, including Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb”. The UNSC adopted UNSC-resolution 2071 (12 October), which asked the UNSG to “immediately provide military and security planners” to assist ECOWAS and the AU with a view to examining more in-depth options for deployment of a military stabilisation force in the country. 22 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

Following the UNSG’s report on the “continued action on the political and security tracks for a comprehensive solution to the crisis in Mali” on 28 November, which integrated comments, views and concerns raised by the AU and ECOWAS, UNSC-resolution 2085 was adopted under Chapter VII on 20 December. It authorised the deployment of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) for an initial period of one year. The mission was asked to take “all necessary measures as appropriate” to carry out its activities, namely assistance in the re-establishment of national defence and security forces, and support to the national authorities’ efforts aimed at recapturing areas in the north of the country under the control of terrorists and separatist forces. Furthermore, AFISMA was called upon to assist the authorities in their primary responsibility to protect their citizens and create a secure environment for civilian-led delivery of humanitarian assistance, as well as to help stabilise the country after the completion of military operations. The UNSC also expressed its intention of considering providing a UN-funded logistics support package for AFISMA, including equipment and services, for an initial period of one year. It took note of the UNSG’s funding options for AFISMA, and requested him, in coordination with the AU, ECOWAS and Mali, to “further develop and refine options for a voluntary and UN-funded logistics support packages”. Important developments also took place in Somalia, where the end of the transition in late August opened the way for the creation of a new and more legitimate government. Sensible progress on the political and security fronts followed the adoption of UNSC- resolution 2036 (22 February), which authorised an increase in the troops ceiling of the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as well as an expansion of the UN support package. Resolution 2036 adopted the new strategic concept for AMISOM endorsed by the AUPSC on 5 January and allowed the launch of new operations in various areas of the country. An increased stabilisation of the areas outside Mogadishu and in the southern part of the country was therefore facilitated by the pro-active role played by AMISOM, whose forces received crucial support from Kenyan and Ethiopian troops. On 10 September, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected president of Somalia by the newly appointed parliament. This election was the final step required for the completion of the transitional period in Somalia, which was intended to end on 20 August. At the end of Septem- ber, both the UNSC and the mini-summit on Somalia, which took place at the margins of the UN General Assembly, welcomed the latest developments and encouraged Ban Ki-Moon to review the role of the UN political office and to present recommendations for an increased UN presence in the country. In early October, during a UNSC debate on the situation in the country, UNSG Special Representative Augustine Mahiga emphasised the need to take into account the views of the new Somali authorities with regard to the ongoing strategic review of the future UN presence. On 17 October, the Somali parliament endorsed Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid as prime minister. On 7 November, the UNSC renewed the AMISOM mandate for four months and further extended the UN logistical United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 23 support package to the mission’s civilian personnel to a further 50 units (S/RES/2073). While the security situation remained extremely volatile due the continued presence of al-Shabaab militias, which were carrying out targeted attacks in the capital, the UN Sec- retariat started implementing its incremental approach based on the gradual relocation of an increased number of UN personnel in Mogadishu and other parts of the country. Nev- ertheless, the increasing international attention given to the crisis in Mali, combined with the insufficient levels of commitment and support for AU efforts in Somalia by the international community, raised growing concerns in the AU and AMISOM troop contributing countries. South Africa, speaking at the UNSC meeting of 7 November 2012, regretted that a more sustained extension of the support package was not approved and criticised the UNSC for not having agreed on the establishment of a maritime component to be included in AMISOM, as requested by the AU, in order to allow the mission to take a more robust approach to al-Shabaab and piracy off the Somali coast. In the DRC, the action of the M23 militias, which took control of the city of Goma, prompted a new political, security and humanitarian crisis. The UNSC was periodically briefed by UN officials on the effects of the actions perpetrated by M23. On 20 November, as the M23 rebels captured Goma, the UNSC adopted resolution 2076, expressing its intention to consider additional targeted sanctions against the leadership of the M23 and those providing it with external support. The regional dimensions of the crisis, in both its political and its humanitarian aspects, were evident in light of the findings of the report issued by the Group of Experts of the DRC Sanctions Committee, which accused both Rwandan and Ugandan officials, of having provided the rebels with various kinds of logistical and technical support (S/2012/843). The ICGLR, SADC, and MONUSCO held several rounds of consultations on ways to solve the new crisis in Goma. In December, informal and preliminary debates on a possible re-adjustment of MONUSCO’s mandate in order to allow it to better cope with the M23 crisis were held within and outside the UNSC. The option of an international neutral force to be integrated into MONUSCO or eventually kept separate as an over-the-horizon )presence was also discussed. Relations between Sudan and South Sudan were extremely tense. In January, South Sudan halted its oil production in response to a controversy with Khartoum over oil transit fees. Under the auspices of the AU and the UN, intense negotiations took place in order to normalise relations between the two countries. Tensions remained high over other unsolved issues of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), namely the disputed Abyei area and border delimitations. Heavy fighting took place during the year in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. On 2 May, the UNSC adopted resolution 2046, which addressed the deteriorating relations between Sudan and South Sudan and supported the AUPSC’s communiqué of 24 April, which called for an end to hostilities between the parties, including aerial bombardments, within 48 hours. On 27 September, an agreement on oil, border security, trade, nationality rights and other issues was finally reached. 24 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

Thabo Mbeki, the chair of the AU High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan and South Sudan, and UN Special Envoy Haile Menkerios continued working together to facilitate dialogue and cooperation between Khartoum and Juba. With regard to Darfur, encouraging political developments were indicated by the implementation of the first phase of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, the establishment of the Darfur Regional Authority and the division of the region into five states. On 31 July, the UNSC adopted resolution 2063, renewing the mandate of the UN-AU hybrid force (UNAMID) for an additional year. The UNSC reconfigured UNAMID with a maximum authorised troop strength of 16,200 military personnel (3,355 fewer than previously), 2,310 police personnel (1,462 fewer than before), and 17 police units (two units fewer than before, each unit consisting of up to 140 police). The reconfigured mission was expected to focus its work and operations in areas “with the highest security threats”. The UN, AU and ECOWAS also dealt with a crisis in Guinea Bissau. The death of President Sanhá in Paris (France) and the military coup perpetrated by soldiers led by General Antonio Indijai opened a new delicate phase of political instability. The AUPSC reacted by suspending Guinea-Bissau from the AU with immediate effect, until constitutional order was effectively restored. The UNSC issued a presidential statement on 21 April, strongly condemning the coup and calling for the “immediate restoration of the constitutional order as well as the reinstatement of the legitimate government”. On 18 May, UNSC-resolution 2048 imposed a travel ban on five senior officers who led the 12 April coup d’état. A contingent of ECOWAS troops arrived in Guinea Bissau in May with a view to helping with military and security sector reforms. Nevertheless, despite the support provided by the UN integrated peace-building mission, the AU, and the EU, ECOWAS efforts to mediate did not secure a long-term solution to the crisis.

Governance and Human Rights

The African Charter on Elections, Democracy and Good Governance came into force on 15 January, following the deposit of the 15th instrument of ratification by Cameroon. The very long ratification process had started in 2007. The Charter provided the continent with probably the most important juridical and political instrument for the advancement of good governance, democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights. In light of its emphasis on the need to promote citizen participation, a culture of democracy and peace, and gender balance, the Charter was expected to promote a more advanced and progressive agenda than the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other similar international instruments. In April, a landmark verdict was issued by the Special Court for Sierra Leone against Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, who was found guilty of aiding and supporting two non-state armed groups in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict in Sierra Leone (1991–2002). In presenting his latest report United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 25 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflicts (S/2012/278), Ban Ki-Moon noted that the verdict marked the first conviction of a former head of state by an international criminal tribunal for planning, aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity, and therefore sent a strong signal that heads of state would be held accountable for their actions. In Libya, successful elections on 7 July marked a significant step forward for democratic transition. As requested by the Libyan authorities, and under the auspices of UNSC resolution 1240 (12 March), the UN Electoral Support Team, comprising the UN Sup- port Mission in Libya (UNSMIL and UNDP provided substantive and crucial advice, as well as technical assistance and operational support to the National Electoral Commis- sion throughout the electoral process. UNSMIL continued to support efforts to promote national reconciliation, inclusive political dialogue, security sector reform and Disarma- ment Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programmes. The UNHCR condemned gross human rights abuses, including summary and extrajudicial executions, sexual and gender-based violence, torture and other violence and human rights violations, committed by the rebels in northern Mali in July 2012. On 3 July, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mrs Navy Pillay briefed the UNSC on violations occurring in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan. Regarding South Sudan, the High Commissioner commended the efforts of the Juba-based government with respect to DDR but also noted that sporadic human rights violations by South Sudanese soldiers had been reported during the disarmament process in Jonglei state. UN Independent Expert on human rights in the Sudan Mashood A. Baderin submitted his latest report to the UN Human Rights Commission on 27 August (A/HRC/21/62). It highlighted the need for all stakeholders to commit to the implementation of the Doha Document, especially with regard to the chapters on human rights, fundamental freedoms, and justice and reconciliation. On 13 December, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, briefed the UNSC on the situation in Darfur and argued that Sudan’s “actions on the ground showed an ongoing commitment to crimes against civilians as a solution to the government’s problems in Darfur”. An important continental initiative aimed at promoting good governance on the continent was the Eighth African Governance Forum (AGF), jointly organised by the AUC, UNECA and UNDP, held in Gaborone (Botswana) on 18–20 October. Government officials, African leaders, policy makers, civil society organisations, RECs, leading African and international think tanks on governance and development partners participated. The event highlighted progress by African countries in nurturing and consolidating participa- tory democracy and showcased best practice and lessons learned in democratic processes, elections and management of diversity. AU institutions, RECs, member states, African civil society organisations and UN agencies were encouraged to enhance institutional capacity for Africa towards democracy promotion, electoral integrity and constructive management of diversity. Policy recommendations aimed at promoting youth and women’s empowerment in the political processes were also adopted. 26 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

The AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) came into force on 6 December, 30 days after the deposit of the 15th instrument of ratification on 6 November by the Kingdom of Swaziland. The Office of the UNHCR played a crucial advocacy role in accelerating the ratification process of the Convention. At 31 December, the Convention had been signed by 36 member states, with instruments of ratification deposited by 15. The Kampala Convention, which integrates international humanitarian law, international human rights law and guiding principles on internal displacement, represented the first legally binding instrument aimed at preventing internal displacement and ensuring protection and assistance for IDPs.

Humanitarian Assistance

A mix of factors dramatically confirmed the economic and social vulnerability of the Sahel region. The crisis was further exacerbated when the rebellion in the north of Mali forced over 400,000 people to flee their homes. According to UNHCR, this figure included 210,000 refugees who moved to Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger and Togo. An additional 200,000 were internally displaced. A huge relief operation was launched by UN agencies and covered a vast area of the Sahel, including Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Mauritania. Data produced by the Office for the Coordi- nation of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicated that, as of October, more than 5.8 m individuals had been assisted across the region through programmes focusing on restoring and building resilient livelihoods for vulnerable farmers and pastoralists; more than 700,000 children had been admitted to treatment centres for malnutrition, which were supported by UNICEF. The situation of the civilian population affected by fighting in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan was a source of concern. An estimated 695,000 people fled the region because of conflict and hunger. On 16 July, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres called upon international donors to support humanitarian assistance in order to serve the needs of the more than 200,000 refugees from Sudan now residing in South Sudan and Ethiopia. Darfur continued to be the site of one of the world’s largest humanitarian operations. Nine years after the crisis began, over 3.5 m people in Darfur, nearly 40% of the population, received humanitarian assistance. They included 1.7 m people registered in camps for IDPs. The data related to the overall amount of humanitarian aid carried out during the year in Sudan were shocking: 238,000 children received education materials and supplies; 3 m people were supported with food aid and 500,000 households received livelihood support. In addition, 330,000 children were vaccinated against measles and 130,000 were treated for malnutrition. Over 3 m people were assisted with supplies of water and 4 m with water-sanitation-hygiene programmes. Humanitarian relief operations carried out United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 27 by UN agencies received funding of $ 556 m, only 53% of the total funding requirement identified by the OCHA in its 2012 Work Plan for Sudan. Despite the improvements in the security and political situation in Somalia, the country continued to experience one of the most intense humanitarian crises. According to UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Mark Bowden, the famine that had affected Soma- lia in 2011 disappeared completely in early 2012 as a result of an exceptional harvest and innovative approaches to food security. However, the humanitarian situation remained extremely critical with 2.5 m people in urgent need of aid and a further million at risk of sliding back into crisis. As of October, roughly 1.3 m Somalis were internally displaced and over 1 m refugees were living in neighbouring countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. According to UNHCR, 3.7 m Somalis were still in need of urgent humanitarian assistance at the end of the year. The conflict in eastern DRC prompted a new humanitarian crisis. As of November, more than 2.4 m Congolese were internally displaced and more than 460,000 were living as refugees in neighbouring countries. The fighting between the M23 and DRC armed forces in Goma caused the displacement of more than 140,000 people. South Kivu became home to the largest number of IDPs, absorbing over 800,000, while North Kivu recorded the highest number of new displacements. In a statement delivered on 3 December, Humanitarian Coordinator for the DRC Mustapha Soumare, noted that funding levels for humanitarian operations in the country remained low and that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ 2012 plan for the country had received only 56% of the $ 791 m required. Despite the funding challenges, the Rapid Response to Movement of Populations programme, run by UNICEF and OCHA through international NGO partners, had multiplied interventions in the Kivus in order to provide critical non-food items, emergency shelter assistance, water, sanitation, and education aid. UNCHR and the World Food Program also provided short-term assistance to IDPs with activities for protection, shelter and food.

Sustainable Development and Environment

Concrete efforts were made to define the contours of the post-2015 development agenda for Africa. The report ‘Assessing Progress in Africa towards the Millennium Develop- ment Goals 2012’ was issued by UNECA in February. Its central message was that Africa had made significant progress towards the MDGs, but it was uneven and too slow. The report noted that Africa was off-target for halving poverty and called for increased efforts. The rise in primary school enrolment was reported as pronounced, with enrolment rates up by more than two-thirds. Africa made slow progress in reducing the under-five mortality rate. Only 11 countries had been able to reduce child mortality by at least 60% since 28 • United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa

1990. Nevertheless, substantial progress was achieved in the fields of maternal health and combating HIV, malaria and other diseases. The document was endorsed by the 19th Summit of the AU. Consultations between African governments indicated continental agreement on a new development agenda that adapted current frameworks to new and emerging development challenges, and focused in particular on the promotion of resilience of African countries to socio-economic and climate related shocks. Consultations with a wide range of stakeholders were launched by UNECA to collect inputs and views, with the aim of promoting an inclusive regional perspective on the post-2015 agenda. The 18th Extraordinary Summit of the AU endorsed Africa’s common position for the Rio+20 Conference and called upon African negotiators and ministers to speak with one voice. The so-called ‘consensus statement’ articulated common concerns, priorities and agreed policy options with regard to green economy, poverty eradication, sustainable development goals and means of implementation, as well as the strengthening of UNEP and its presence in Africa. The UN as a whole – mainly through UNECA, OSAA and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs – played a crucial role in facilitating Africa’s effective participation in the conference. The outcome document largely addressed Africa’s concerns and priorities as articulated in its consensus statement. ‘The future we want’ dedicated a specific section to Africa, by calling on the international community to enhance support and fulfil commitments to advance sustainable development and green economy on the continent. Specific reference was also made to NEPAD as a key instrument for promoting growth and sustainable development. However, African delegations generally criticised the tendency of many developed countries to soften all earlier commitments on poverty reduction, economic development and support for the green economy in Africa. The 14th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) was convened in Arusha (Tanzania) in November. Forty African countries adopted a set of programmes to boost sustainable development on the continent, agreeing to fully engage with the implementation of the outcome document of the UN Rio+20 Con- ference. Ministers requested additional measures beyond the Rio+20 Agreement, including upgrading regional UNEP offices and establishing five sub-regional offices in Africa, as well as the establishment of a universal membership body to be known as the Environ- ment Assembly, with a ministerial segment called the Ministerial Conference on Environ- ment. Other agreements included the launch of the African Green Economy Partnership to eradicate poverty and an agreement to fight soil degradation in the Sahel region. In December, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution strengthening and upgrading UNEP and establishing universal membership of its governing body. In line with the AU’s position, the landmark resolution increased the role of UNEP as the leading environmental authority for setting the global environmental agenda. It also called for UNEP to receive secure, stable and other increased financial resources from the regular UN budget. United Nations and Sub-Saharan Africa • 29

The 17th session of AMCEN also endorsed an updated common position on climate change as a basis for negotiations by African states on strengthening the international climate change regime. AMCEN affirmed that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol represented the fundamental global legal framework on climate change. It called for outcomes of the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, scheduled to take place from 26 November to 8 December, to be based on “science, equity, and common but differentiated responsibilities”. Developed countries were asked to scale up support for the implementation of adaptation measures and plans and to provide additional resources to the climate change funds established by the Convention, namely the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund. However, the Doha conference achieved only modest results. Despite AU pressures, no new agreement was reached in Doha on a firm commitment related to carbon emissions reduction or climate change aids.

Valerio Bosco

III. African-European Relations

Africa experts have long bemoaned the rest of the world’s tendency to focus on Africa’s troubles while ignoring positive developments on the continent. In 2012, Europeans who relied primarily on media reports and press releases for news about African affairs could have been forgiven for having security-related concerns uppermost in their minds. Exam- ples included the runaway success of the YouTube sensation, Kony 2012, which was watched by millions in Europe and North America, sparking wide-ranging debates not only about brigandry, blood diamonds, child soldiers and foreign intervention, but also about images of Africa and how these are interpreted in the ‘West’. The massive attention generated by the video prompted EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Catherine Ashton to issue a statement reminding everyone that the EU fully supported international efforts to end the terror campaign being carried out by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resis- tance Army (LRA). Coverage of the crisis in Mali following the 21 March coup d’état probably did not spark as much activity in the blogosphere as did Kony 2012, but the crisis’ regional dimensions and perceived potential to incubate threats to Europe itself soon prompted many European policymakers and pundits to beat the drums for intervention. In East Africa, violent flare-ups between Sudan and the newly-independent Republic of South Sudan occupied many column inches in the first half of the year. West Africa’s conflicts were remembered in coverage of appearances before international tribunals in The Hague by former Liberian president Charles Taylor and former Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo. Meanwhile, Africa’s pirates were never far from European television screens. On a more positive note, the sharp contrast between economic growth in Africa and Europe’s struggles with the euro crisis and banking sector liquidity did not escape many African observers. Some Africans may even have felt a sense of Schadenfreude at the challenges faced by former colonial powers. Perhaps in response to this, several EU delegations across the African continent used the occasion of Europe Day (9 May) to organise events to raise awareness and visibility for EU projects and let Africans know more about the happy side of life in Europe. The EU delegation to the AU in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) released a striking Europe Day flyer stressing the benefits of the Africa-EU partnership, which was published in the two major Ethiopian newspapers. Africa’s interconnection with Europe was further stressed by the IMF, which said in October that Europe’s woes were preventing Africa from experiencing even greater economic growth than the Fund’s 5% forecast for the continent. The Fund also noted that even a sharp worsening of the 32 • African-European Relations euro crisis would be unlikely to choke off Africa’s growth entirely. Among private sector actors, recognition continued to grow in Europe that Africa was fast becoming a continent of opportunity for European business interests. Official European responses to the deaths in office of four African heads of state in 2012 were mostly muted and respectful. Two of the leaders, Guinea-Bissau President Malam B. Sanha and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zanawi, died in European hospitals. Less officially, four such passings in one year raised some eyebrows in Europe. The BBC noted that, of 13 national leaders who had died in office since 2008, ten had been African. The BBC was not able to come up with a clear reason for this: although the average age of African leaders (61) was older than of European leaders (55), none of the heads of state who passed away in 2012 died of old age. And although Prime Minister Zenawi (who died aged just 57) had been in office for many years, the other three were well within their constitutional terms and so could not be accused of clinging on to power until they could no longer function. More importantly for Europeans, the potentially dangerous transition processes were handled smoothly in three cases – only in Guinea-Bissau was the president’s death followed by a coup. In Malawi, by contrast, the late president Bingu Wa Mutharika’s successor, Joyce Banda, quickly began to implement political and economic reforms that prompted several European donors to re-introduce direct budget support programmes that had been suspended in 2011.

European Reactions to Events in the Sahel

Events in the Sahel occupied the minds of European policymakers and media throughout the year. When Western powers intervened to support the Libyan rebellion that toppled the Kadhafi regime in 2011, they could not stem the flow of weapons freely pouring out of Libya into the desert regions, strengthening rebel movements already well financed by the drugs trade, cigarette smuggling and people trafficking. These groups soon used their new-found strength to launch attacks in Niger, Algeria, the CAR and especially Mali. Increased violence further aggravated the food crisis that had affected more than 18 m people throughout the Sahel region during 2011. Several political leaders and commentators argued that it was only a matter of time before these groups used their increased capabilities and energy to organise attacks on Western targets in the region and ultimately Europe itself, potentially through the influence of extremists and terrorists networks in the diasporas. There were reports that European intelligence agencies had thwarted attempted attacks on European territory. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia-Margallo called the situation in the Sahel “extremely serious” and said that Mali was turning into “a terrorist territory like Somalia and Afghanistan”. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was reported to be operating in Mali and was linked to the deadly attack on US consulate sites in Libya. The potential for the region’s instability to act as a push factor for illegal migration across the Mediterranean was also noted. African-European Relations • 33

European political leaders and media led international condemnation of the 21 March coup in Mali. They lamented that a country long lauded as one of the most stable democracies in Africa could descend into conflict and chaos. In a joint statement, EU foreign ministers “firmly condemned attempts to seize power by force in Mali” and called for “an immediate end of violence and the release of state officials, the protection of civilians, the restoration of civil, constitutional government and for the holding of democratic elections as planned”. Ousted Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure fled into exile in France following the coup. The European Commission acted swiftly to suspend development programmes in Mali, while expressing hope that this would only be a temporary measure in a region where drought and conflict had pushed millions of people to the brink of star- vation. The EU issued a statement saying that it had stood by Mali since the crisis began with the rebellion in the north in January and the March coup, and that it was actively supporting ECOWAS and the AU in their efforts to find a solution. The EU promised that it would resume development cooperation with Mali “as soon as progress towards a return to constitutional order permits”. Europeans were fascinated and horrified in equal measure by the Malian rebels’ militant Islamism. The rebels’ introduction of Sharia law in the towns and cities they occupied, including the ancient cultural centres of Timbuktu and Gao, was extensively reported. The wanton destruction of world heritage sites in Mali was widely condemned by media and political leaders all around the world. The German foreign ministry called the destruction of mausoleums in Timbuktu a “barbaric act”. Others argued that such actions constituted war crimes justifying international intervention. In early April, the Geneva-based UN WFP reported that 200,000 civilians had fled the fighting. EU humanitarian aid to refugees in northern Mali was increased in April by € 9 m, bringing to the EU’s emergency assistance to those affected by the Sahel food crisis to € 280 m. Most of this aid was channelled through UN agencies, the International Com- mittee of the Red Cross and international NGOs. Humanitarian assistance was, however, hindered by major obstacles. EU Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner Kristalina Geor- gieva expressed her concern that the prospect of a major humanitarian disaster was high because supplies of food and medicines to northern Mali would not be able to reach the people who needed them. Later in the year, events in the Central African Republic caused concern in Brussels. On 21 December, High Representative Ashton issued a statement that lamented attacks by armed groups and their occupation of several towns in the north-east of the country. She called on the armed groups to immediately cease all hostilities and to respect the Libre- ville Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Ashton urged all parties, including the CAR government, to engage in a structured dialogue to identify peaceful and lasting ways out of the current crisis and to reiterate their commitment to the national reconciliation process. The EU renewed its support to the MICOPAX mission, bringing overall EU funding to € 102 m from 2004 till the end of 2012. In late December, France boosted its pre-existing 34 • African-European Relations

250-troop deployment in the CAR to nearly 600. French President François Hollande said that the deployment was to protect 1,200 French citizens in the country and that France had no intention to interfere in the CAR’s internal affairs.

EU-AU Relations

Effusive congratulations were extended to Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma following her election as AU chairperson in July. Commission President José Manuel Barroso said that he was looking forward to further strengthening his organisation’s partnership with the AU Commission under her leadership. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that the AU would continue to have Germany’s support as Africa “takes its fate into its own hands”. The EU officially welcomed the election of the AU’s first female chairperson at the 19th ordinary session of the AU summit. During the summit, the EU was represented by Nicholas Westcott, managing director for Africa in the European Exter- nal Action Service (EEAS). Several pundits expressed hopes that the Joint Africa-EU Strategy (JAES) would benefit from Dlamini-Zuma’s election, because this had raised the prospects of more interest in stronger AU-EU relations and stronger ownership of processes at the highest levels. The EU Delegation to the AU in Addis Ababa welcomed the entry into force of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance on 15 February. The EU called the Charter an important milestone in the process of embedding the principles of democracy, rule of law and human rights at continental and national levels, and said that it had improved the prospects for peace and stability across the continent. The 15 countries that initially ratified the Charter were praised for showing an example to the rest of the continent, and the EU Delegation expressed hope that other countries would follow suit. The EU Delegation said that it was ready to assist the AU in implementing the charter and promised support for the organisation and monitoring of African elections to help ensure their transparency and credibility. Africa-EU cooperation in international forums was intensified with the organisation of a workshop on the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in Geneva. The workshop, held in conjunction with the June Human Rights Council (HRC) session, provided an informal space for discussion between the EU, the AU and their respective member states. The workshop also identified potential areas for cooperation not only on racism but also on other human rights issues such as the right to development, economic, social and cultural rights, rights of the child and the human rights of women. It concluded that enhanced cooperation would begin with a joint meeting of EU-African ambassadors, who would discuss ways of enhancing EU and African initiatives in the regular HRC sessions. The future of the frameworks for structuring Europe’s relations with Africa was a major topic of discussion throughout the year. General disquiet about the added value provided African-European Relations • 35 by certain aspects of the Joint Africa Europe Strategy was aired following the European Commission’s December 2011 proposal to create a new Pan-African Programme with a dedicated financial instrument to finance the JAES. The Commission proposed that the Pan-African Programme would prevent duplication and overlap with other financial instruments (the European Neighbourhood Instrument, the European Development Fund and thematic programmes under the Development Cooperation Instrument). The Pan-African Programme was to be used to provide specific support for the objectives of the JAES, especially those of a trans-regional, continental and trans-continental nature, as well as relevant JAES initiatives in the global arena for which no alternative funding could be mobilised under the complex legal framework governing the EU’s external relations instruments. Some observers noted that the proposed Pan-African Instrument was the first actual commitment by the EU to devote resources to implementing the JAES, and lauded the prospect that earmarking € 1 bn for AU-EU cooperation could boost the EU’s credibility with the new AU leadership. Although the proposal for a dedicated budget line for financing relations at continent level appeared to solve the long-standing practical problem of how to financially support intercontinental cooperation, it also brought other, more political, issues into focus that had surfaced since the JAES was launched in 2007. These shortcomings included the weakness of political dialogue, the inadequate institutional architecture for managing the JAES, the challenge of going beyond Commission to Commission relations and engaging member state politicians and bureaucrats in the process, and the uneasy co-existence of the JAES with other policy frameworks, such as the Cotonou Partnership Agreement and the European Neighbourhood Policy. The 14th meeting of the Africa-EU Joint Task Force was held on 8–9 March in Brus- sels. The JAES was reaffirmed as the overarching framework of cooperation between the two continents. However, there was a general agreement that the implementation of the JAES Action Plan in the eight thematic partnerships had not met expectations. Participants had a first exchange of views on possibilities to review and improve the current JAES architecture and the contents of its partnership, as well as on monitoring and evaluation. Discussions started in Brussels on options for reforming the JAES, potentially by streamlining, or even by reducing the number of cooperation partnerships from eight. Some experts noted that the EU’s efforts to simplify the JAES and to make it less bureaucratic had the potential to create more interest among the new AU leadership, enabling the AU to push for a more ambitious political agenda of cooperation with the EU based on a more focused joint strategy.

Progress in the JAES’ Partnerships

A document published in July by the European Commission sought to identify some of the JAES’ key deliverables and the extent to which they had been achieved in the context 36 • African-European Relations of the strategy’s Second Action Plan for 2011–13. The paper noted progress in moving some of the partnerships forward and making them deliver concrete outcomes. Examples included the Africa-EU Partnership on Migration, Mobility and Employ- ment, which held a technical meeting on ‘Access to International Protection for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons’ in Barcelona (Spain) in October. The meeting, which was organised under the co-chairmanship of Spain, Libya and the two Commissions, analysed the basic concepts that underpin international protection as well as existing current challenges and possible improvements. Participants noted that the complex issues that had affected North Africa, East Africa and especially the Horn of Africa justified the importance that the EU, the AU and their respective member states were giving to the search for effective solutions to problems that caused the displacement of millions of people. Reference was also made to security challenges during mass population flows and the problem of refugee camps that became permanent, such as the Dadaab camp in Kenya. Note was also taken of the EU’s efforts to harmonise national procedures through the Common European Asylum System. The Barcelona meeting allowed international institutions, such as UNHCR, to identify current challenges in the protection of migrants, while national governments were able to share their concerns regarding an increasingly important issue in African-European relations. A second key example noted in the document was the EU-Africa Partnership for Infrastructure. The fourth meeting of the infrastructure partnership’s steering committee took place in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) on 29 March. Committee members were informed about the adoption of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) and on-going implementation activities. They considered several issues, including the governance of the Partnership, how to harmonise procedures, how to build the capacity of regional organisations and actors in Africa, the reinforcement of project preparation activities, ensuring resources for implementation of the PIDA Priority Action Plan and the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund, implementation of African Development Fund actions in support of the EU-Africa Infrastructure Partnership, and the monitoring and evaluation of projects. The steering committee adopted a joint declaration and a roadmap for its implementation and agreed to ensure adequate dissemination of information about the Infrastructure Partnership to stakeholders and, where relevant, to the wider public.

Bilateral Relations

The 5th EU-South Africa Summit was held in Brussels (Belgium) on 18 September. The EU was represented by its two presidents, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. South Africa was represented by President Jacob Zuma. The official press release said that the meeting “marked a new stage in consolidating the strategic partnership”, but there remained no consensus on the stalled EPA negotiations between South Africa and the EU. The meeting African-European Relations • 37 highlighted that EU investors were the source of around 77% of FDI into South Africa. Zuma assured investors that the South African Government was fully in control of the Marikana crisis following the massacre of striking miners by police on 16 August. Commission President Barroso made two multi-stop trips to Africa during the year. In July, he travelled to Mozambique together with Development Commissioner Piebalgs, who signed three new project agreements totalling € 37 m. The EU officials also visited the EU-funded Beira port and corridor project, a key infrastructure project which when completed would unlock trade with the interior of Mozambique and its hinterland – Zim- babwe, Zambia and Malawi. Barroso also visited Tanzania, where he praised the country’s efforts to strengthen its constitutional and democratic system and commended President Kikwete for his strong leadership and present and past roles in advancing regional peace and security. In October, Barroso visited three West African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Cape Verde. His meetings with Ivorian President Ouattara and Benin’s Boni Yayi, chairs of ECOWAS and the AU, respectively, focussed on the role that the three organisations could play in resolving the crisis in Mali. In March, it seemed as though the Republic of South Sudan was on its way to becoming the 80th member of the ACP. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir visited Brussels in March, announcing that his country’s accession to the Cotonou Agreement would be beneficial to the new state and its coming generations. President Barroso replied that South Sudan’s signature would enable the new country to access development assistance from the EU for the 2014–20 period and to benefit from better market access to Europe. South Sudan’s request to accede to the ACP-EU partnership was approved at the ACP Joint Council of Ministers meeting in Vanuatu, but it missed a 20 November deadline to lodge its Act of Accession. The main obstacle was that South Sudan, like its northern neighbour, had a problem with the Cotonou Agreement’s clause that all members also accede to the Rome Statute recognising the ICC in The Hague. South Sudanese officials said that they would not sign either agreement if this meant that they would be obliged to arrest Suda- nese President Omar al-Bashir were he to visit Juba. Allegations from the UN that the Rwandan government had supplied weapons and money to rebel groups in the DRC prompted several European donors to suspend aid to the country in July. The Netherlands, Germany and the UK all stopped their budget support programmes, a move that German Development Minister Dirk Niebel said was “an unmistakable signal to the Rwandan government”. The UK’s position was more ambiguous: after initially freezing £ 16 m of general budget support to the country in July, it unblocked half that amount two months later. This decision, taken on UK Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell’s last day in office, created a mini-storm of controversy, especially in sections of the British press that had loudly opposed the ring-fencing of the UK’s aid budget while the Conservative government made deep cuts elsewhere. The EU Com- mission initially continued its budget support programme in Rwanda before partly suspending its aid in September. Rwandan President Paul Kagame responded by setting up a 38 • African-European Relations new “solidarity fund” to reduce the country’s dependence on aid. Rwandan diasporas in Belgium and the UK were among those tapped for contributions. In October, a UK launch event for the Agaciro fund took place in Coventry, under the banner “let’s drive our own development”. Kitoko, a popular Rwandan singer, performed at the event, which was organised by the West Midlands Rwandan Community Association.

France

The unrest experienced by several of France’s former West African colonies made for an eventful year in French-African relations. Inevitably, French entanglement with and intervention in the Sahel sparked an intense debate in France about neo-colonialism. Both of the men who held the office of president of France in 2012 were at pains to distance themselves from accusations that they were meddling in West African affairs. At a January press conference with Ivorian President Ouattara in Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the period of colonial rule in Africa was over for good, and that France “has no candidates in Africa”. Sarkozy’s successor, François Hollande, was just as careful to say that the colonial era was over when he announced the French deployment to the CAR at the end of the year. In an address to the Senegalese parliament in Dakar in October, Hollande expressed his determination to update the relationship between France and Africa. “The age of what was once called ‘Françafrique’ is over”, he said.

Germany

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle maintained his country’s profile in Africa, visiting Senegal, Mali and Nigeria in late October and early November. In Nigeria, Westerwelle and Nigerian Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru opened the first meeting of the German-Nigerian Bi-national Commission. Westerwelle also held talks at ECOWAS headquarters on the resolution of the crisis in Mali. When his diplomatic duties were completed, Westerwelle met representatives of the Muslim and Christian communities to discuss issues relating to freedom of belief and religious tolerance. The German Develop- ment Ministry (BMZ) published a Christmas message to Africa in several German newspapers. The full-page greeting, which featured a grass hut lit by Christmas lights and a neon reindeer, sparked a debate in Germany about images of Africa and how the continent should be portrayed and perceived. Commentators noted that most non-Christian Africans would not have celebrated Christmas anyway.

The United Kingdom

The British government suspended all direct aid to the Ugandan government in November following allegations of fraud. In August, DFID froze money to Ugandan Prime Minister African-European Relations • 39

Patrick Amama Mbabazi’s office amid reports that funds from several European countries had been funnelled into officials’ private bank accounts. The ‘Daily Mail’ reported that questions were raised when the Irish government was told by Ugandan auditors that its € 12 m contribution to a trust fund with Norway, Denmark and Sweden had ended up in accounts belonging to the prime minister’s aides instead of going to pay for a peace recovery and development programme in northern Uganda. An independent forensic audit was ordered, the outcome of which persuaded new International Development Secretary Jus- tine Greening to suspend other bilateral aid to Uganda, including budget support.

Development Cooperation

The annual European Development Days conference was held in Brussels in October, the first time the event had not taken place in the capital of the country holding the rotating EU Council presidency. The event’s broad focus was on how to promote inclusive and sustainable growth in EU development policy, both environmentally and socio-economically. German technology and infrastructure giant Siemens sent their chief executive officer for Africa to European Development Days, signalling the company’s interest not only in expanding its operations in Africa but also in cooperation with the EU in line with the Commission’s expressed intent to engage more closely with private sector actors. Several African leaders attended the event, including Malawian President Joyce Banda and Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi, who both took part in a lively panel debate with Commissioner Piebalgs and academic experts on how to focus EU development policy on confronting the problem of rising inequality in developing countries. Banda argued that the EU needed to do more to support African countries in reducing gender-based forms of inequality, while Boni Yayi noted that there were still major inequalities between Euro- pean and African countries as well as within them.

Sustainable Development: Rio+20

On 27 March, African ambassadors met in Brussels to discuss their common position ahead of the June Rio+20 Conference. The AU organised the meeting to promote African positions, exchange views and define common interests with representatives of the EU, UN and other stakeholders. The African common position called for developed countries to fulfil previous commitments and pledges to help Africa achieve sustainable development. Other proposals were for Rio+20 to strongly urge the international community to support African countries to benefit fully from the sectors in which there was a compara- tive advantage, such as agriculture and raw materials. Africans also wanted the conference to adopt concrete measures, supported by adequate means of implementation and financing, to ensure that sustainable development commitments would be observed. Most importantly for Europeans, the African ambassadors called for developed countries to 40 • African-European Relations commit to a second period under the Kyoto Protocol from 2013 to 2017, and deeper cuts in CO2 emissions. Some prominent African and European figures – notably French Presi- dent Hollande and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – were united in calling for the implementation of a financial transactions tax to finance the sustainable development goals. Following the Rio+20, event African and European leaders expressed their unhappiness at the watered-down agreement and the lack of ambition in the text of the outcome document. Cooperation between Europeans and Africans on climate change continued nonetheless. In April, a contribution agreement of approximately € 6.5 m for the ClimDev Africa programme was signed between the EU and ECA. The Agreement aimed to enhance the capacities of the African Climate Policy Centre at ECA and the Climate Change and Desertification Unit at the AU Commission to carry out their activities for the next three years.

Energy

Developments in the African energy sector were high on the European agenda throughout the year. The 7th Joint Expert Group meeting of the Africa-EU Energy Partnership was held on 9–10 February at the BMZ in Bonn (Germany). Around 80 people attended the meeting, including key policy makers, private sector and civil society representatives, and researchers from Africa and Europe. The highlight of the meeting was discussion on the Strategy 2020 for the Africa-EU Renewable Energy Cooperation Programme, which had been launched in 2010 with financial support from the European Commission to accelerate the use of Africa’s vast potential for renewable energy. Stakeholders discussed the conceptual development of the programme, comprising four different action areas addressing constraints to renewable energy development in Africa. Several major projects were announced. The European Investment Bank (EIB) agreed to provide € 29.5 m in long-term funding for the Kribi power station in Cameroon, the country’s first natural gas power plant. The project included a new 216 MW power plant, a new 100 km high-voltage transmission line, new substations and transformers. The project was hailed for its potential to add more than 20% to Cameroon’s electricity generating capacity, particularly during the dry season when hydropower cannot be guaranteed. The Kribi Power Development Company was established by the Cameroon government and the AES Corporation, and the EIB loan was estimated to cover about 10% of the total financing required. The rest was expected from several development banks, including the Netherlands Development Finance Company. It was envisaged that 680 households would have to be resettled with appropriate compensation for loss of land, crops and housing. On 14 November, Commissioner Piebalgs announced that the EU would support the construction of Africa’s largest photovoltaic power plant at Zagtouli in Burkina Faso. It was envisaged that the plant would comprise 96,000 solar panels and would generate African-European Relations • 41

32 gigawatt hours per year, the equivalent of 6% of the country’s electricity production and enough to cover the energy consumption of around 400,000 people. Piebalgs made the announcement before leaving for Addis Ababa, where he attended the Conference of African Energy Ministers and the All Africa Energy Week. He said that the fact that half a billion Africans did not have access to electricity was one of the greatest brakes on Africa’s development, and promised that the EU would “put our money where our mouth is” to help unlock this huge potential. The Commission provided € 25 m in support for the power plant project, while the EIB and the AFD provided loans totalling € 38 m.

Security and Development

The Political and Security Committee of the European Union (EU-PSC) and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU-PSC) held their 5th joint consultative meeting in Brussels on 29 May. The meeting took place at a time marked by challenging developments in the Horn of Africa and grave political, security and humanitarian crises in the Sahel. Discussions focused on Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, Guinea Bissau and Mali. Other issues, such as the AU regional initiative against the LRA, counter-terrorism and coordination on global security cooperation, were also discussed. The achievements of the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were commended and tribute was paid to the African countries contributing police and troops to the Mission. The EU’s substantial support for AMISOM and the EU Training Mission for Somalian soldiers in Uganda (EUTM) were also praised. Both sides called upon other donors to increase contributions to AMISOM so that the Mission’s sustainability could be enhanced along with its capacity to protect civilians. As part of the EU’s comprehensive approach to Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa region, the AU-PSC welcomed the appointment of an EU special representative for the Horn of Africa, the contribution of the EU’s maritime mission EUNAVFOR Atalanta to the fight against piracy, and the EU’s decision to deploy a new regional maritime capacity building mission, EUCAP Nestor. The EU-PSC responded by welcoming the development of an AU comprehensive strategy on maritime security and safety. The meeting’s communiqué highlighted the need for continued cooperation on peace and security while promoting democratic governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law. The EU took several concrete steps early in the year towards implementing its 2011 Horn of Africa Strategy. In January, the EU Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions activated the EU Operations Centre for the Horn of Africa. The Council also announced that operational planning had commenced to launch the EUCAP-Nestor mission to strengthen regional maritime capacities to fight piracy and instability in Somalia and in the wider Horn region. The Conclusions noted that the simultaneous conduct of three EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) actions in the region (the other two being the aforementioned Atalanta and EUTM Somalia missions) required better coordination 42 • African-European Relations and interaction, including between military and civilian actors. The Operations Centre was tasked with reinforcing the EU’s comprehensive approach, the intent of which was to mobilise the various tools at the EU’s disposal and thereby improve the performance of EU CSDP structures, missions and operations. A core objective of the Operations Centre was to facilitate interaction between operations in the Horn of Africa and the Brussels- based structures. In keeping with the ‘comprehensive approach’ promised by the Horn strategy, the Commission added € 22 m to its humanitarian aid programme to help the region recover from the disastrous 2011 drought and increase Somalian and Kenyan resilience to future disasters. The new aid brought the Commission’s humanitarian aid contribution to the Horn of Africa since the start of the hunger emergency to € 313 m. The EU announced that its financial contribution to AMISOM amounted to a total of € 411 m from 2007 to the end of 2012. Those funds mainly covered costs related to troop allowances, civilian staff and AMISOM police, as well as operational costs such as ground transportation, medical services, the organisation of workshops and the maintenance of facilities in Somalia. The implementation of the 2011 Sahel Strategy also progressed during the year. Around € 660 m was allocated to the region under the 10th EDF (2007–13) complemented by additional financial resources for development and security related projects worth € 167 m. ECHO (EC Humanitarian Aid) more than tripled its funding for the Sahel in 2012 to € 172 m. In the framework of the Strategy, the EU launched a civilian CSDP capacity-building mission, EUCAP Sahel, in July. The mission, which was launched following an invitation from the Nigerien government, was to contribute to the fight against crime and terrorism in Niger and its neighbours. The mission’s objectives were to provide advice to the various Nigérien security actors on the implementation of their country’s security strategy, to support regional coordination on combating terrorism and organised crime and to assist in developing a penal process based on the rule of law. It was also envisaged that the mission would contribute to identifying projects in the security field that could be financed from EU assistance. It was not to have any executive responsibilities. EUCAP Sahel’s Nigérien mandate was initially set at two years, with a team of around 50 international and 30 local staff to be based in the headquarters of the mission in Niamey (Niger), with liaison officers in Bamako (Mali) and Nouakchott (Mauritania). A budget of € 8.7 m was allocated for the first year.

Preparations for an EU Mission to Mali

In July, EU foreign ministers expressed alarm over the deteriorating situation in Mali and tasked EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton with drawing up concrete proposals on how the EU could help. EU officials began to plan for an intervention in Mali based on the model provided by the EU’s contributions to AU-led efforts to rout Islamist forces in Somalia. In September, Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra’s call African-European Relations • 43 for the UNSC to approve international military intervention in his country was strongly supported by French President Hollande, who called for the UNSC to approve African military intervention in Mali as quickly as possible. When Hollande told a UN ministerial meeting on the Sahel region that “there is no question” of negotiating with the militants, it seemed that an international intervention against the Islamists was becoming more probable. On 19 November, the EU Council welcomed a proposal from the EEAS’ crisis management branch for a possible EU training mission for Mali, paving the way for the launch of a CSDP operation replicating the work done in Uganda with Somali troops. The idea was to help Mali’s army form battle groups to take on the militias while the EU team provided technical assistance. The EU also offered financial, logistical and planning support to a 3,000-strong ECOWAS force, although this had not materialised by year’s end. Brussels officials expressed hope that the USA would also get involved after the presidential elections. Meanwhile, French preparations for military intervention to remove the Islamist rebels in northern Mali and restore control of the country to the coup leaders in Bamako took place behind the scenes. Germany’s position was more ambiguous: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Westerwelle and Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziére declared Germany’s readiness to take part in a military mission. The German military, perhaps chastened by its experience in Afghanistan, expressed reluctance to become involved in a Malian adventure. A senior parliamentary spokesman told the newspaper ‘Die Welt’ that he feared that the German military would once again be sent unprepared into a mission where the political strategy was only partly complete. In border conflicts between Sudan and South Sudan from April to June, European leaders joined the US and the UN in condemning South Sudan’s seizure of the town of Heglig, saying it was a dangerous and illegal act that went beyond self-defence. The EU Council called on the governments of Sudan and South Sudan to stop attacks on each other’s territory and to establish a joint border verification and monitoring mechanism without delay. Danish Development Minister Christian Friis Bach, who was representing the rotating EU presidency in the first half of the year, expressed the EU’s “deep concern” about the tensions between Sudan and South Sudan and their border regions. Bach condemned the acts of violence and aggression on both sides, and called for both countries to end hostilities and return to the negoting table. In December, the EU Commission boosted its humanitarian assistance by € 30 m for both countries. The main concern was the increasing number of refugees and displaced people fleeing the South Kordofan and Blue Nile States in Sudan, mainly to South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Europe-Africa Trade Cooperation

The European Commission released its Communication ‘Trade, Growth and Develop- ment’ on 27 January. The policy document, which was mostly written by officials at the 44 • African-European Relations

Directorate General for Trade, presented a blueprint for “tailoring trade and investment policy for those countries most in need”. The document argued that, while the notion of ‘developing countries’ had become less relevant from a trade perspective, there was an increasing need to enhance synergies between trade and development policies. Accord- ing to the document’s authors, this was demonstrated by growing disparities between countries such as China, India and Brazil, which had reaped the benefits of open markets, and least developed countries (LDCs), mainly in Africa, which continued to face difficulties. The main thrust of the document was to make development policies more amenable to free trade in goods, services and capital, and to boost the capacity of LDCs to take advantage of the EU’s trade policy measures such as EPAs, the new Generalised System of Preferences and new rules of origin. More tailor-made trade and development policies were called for that would go beyond reducing customs duties and do more to improve the business environment. To achieve this goal, the proposal pointed out that developing countries’ leaderships should face up to their responsibilities and undertake domestic reforms to ensure that the poor benefited from trade-led growth. The Communication promised that the EU was ready to offer “aid for trade” to help partners open up markets, and to use instruments such as sector-wide programmes or budget support to incentivise economic reforms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Communication was criticised by some development experts for its narrow focus on trade liberalisation, its open promotion of corporate interests and its emphasis on development at the service of trade, rather than trade as a tool for development. The statement did not address concerns about the way the EU had handled the EPA negotiations with ACP countries. September marked ten years since the start of EPA negotiations in 2002. Most experts agreed that progress had been disappointing, especially in Africa. At year’s end, only 36 ACP countries had concluded some type of agreement; of those, eight had still not signed anything and 15 of those that had signed had not started their ratification processes. A European Centre for Development Policy Management commentary noted that much had changed since 2002: emerging developing countries such as Brazil and China had become some of the world’s largest trading nations, while ACP countries had also diversified trading partners and donors and many were far less dependent on Europe. On the other hand, Europe’s struggles with the euro crisis and self-imposed austerity measures in several EU member states were forcing a rethink of international and development relationships. For many ACP countries, preferential market access to the EU had been eroded by internal reforms and by EU bilateral trade agreements. On 13 September, the European Parliament voted to extend the EPA negotiations deadline proposed by the Commission from 2014 to 2016. Experts were not sure that the deadline really mattered and expressed doubts about what negotiators would be able to achieve in two years that they had not been able to achieve in the last decade. African-European Relations • 45

Africa’s mineral resources were in the spotlight, with several high-level efforts to improve transparency in line with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as well as encourage fairer distribution of returns. The EU-Africa Partnership on Raw Materials held a high-level conference called ‘Translating Mineral Resource Wealth into Real Development for Africa’ on 26 January. The conference provided an opportunity for Europeans and representatives from 22 African countries to exchange views on implementing raw materials aspects of the 2011–13 JAES Action Plan. The conference recognised the potential for the contribution of mineral wealth to development and underlined the importance of transparency in improving governance, with regard both to contract payments and to strengthening the capacity of governments and parliaments in contract negotiations. Discussions centred around three main themes of the JAES Action Plan: good governance, investment and infrastructure, and geological knowledge and skills. On investment and infrastructure, it was underlined that Europe could support Africa in improving the potential of mining development corridors and support the policy and regulatory framework on issues such as the environmental impacts of mining, including through corporate social responsibility approaches where Europe had long experience. The Conference adopted recommendations on transparency of revenues and best practices in mining contracts.

Mark Furness

IV. West Africa

The collapse of state authority in northern Mali and the undeclared civil war between Boko Haram Islamists and the federal government in Nigeria constituted the most dramatic events in the sub-region. The worsening violence in Nigeria and the international community’s inability to come up with an undivided response to the capture of northern Mali by an assortment of Islamist and separatist fighters had potentially serious consequences, especially for states in the Sahelian region. By contrast, presidential elections in two countries had the potential to effect relatively peaceful regime change. They were Senegal and Ghana, although in the latter it was a new president, rather than a new ruling party, that was elected. However, the election of a new president failed completely in unstable Guinea-Bissau, where a coup d’état blocked the presidential run-off and met with divided responses from ECOWAS and the rest of the international community. The 50-year 48 • West Africa prison sentence passed on Charles Taylor brought to a conclusion one of West Africa’s older conflicts, while in Côte d’Ivoire the new government of President Ouattara oversaw a remarkable degree of economic recovery but could not repair relations with supporters of former president Gbagbo, which were marred by occasional violence. Political calm reigned in Niger and to some extent also in Mauritania. Most oil and mineral producing countries (Sierra Leone, Ghana, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria) boasted high growth rates, but others, such as Benin, Gambia and even mineral-rich Guinea, had to content themselves with more modest figures. Floods hit Benin, Nigeria and Niger, and several Sahelian countries were confronted with food shortages. In Mali, this compounded a war- induced humanitarian crisis.

Coups and Electoral Politics

Two coups d’état took place in the sub-region. President Touré of Mali was ousted by the military in chaotic circumstances in March, just weeks before the presidential elections. Disgruntled over how the regime had treated the military (especially the lower ranks) and over the rebellion in the north, the coup plotters could not halt the further collapse of state authority in the north, where all state officials fled the principal cities in the face of attacks by separatist Tuaregs and Islamist fighters. InGuinea-Bissau , the sudden death of Presi- dent Malam Bacai Sanhá forced new elections. Prime Minister Gomes, amidst controversies over alleged fraud and the supposed unconstitutional nature of the suspension of his prime ministerial mandate, topped the first round in March with 48.9% of the votes, necessitating a run-off scheduled for later in April. In the meantime, on 12–13 April, the military attacked Gomes’ residence, arresting him and interim president Pereira, and con- vening the opposition parties in order to form a transitional government with army officers in control of key ministries. After pressure from ECOWAS, Gomes and Pereira were released from custody on 27 April, and when the junta accepted the stationing of an ECOWAS force in the country, the sub-regional body proposed a 12-month transition period, with a new interim government and president. This was accepted by the military but criticised by the international community and parts of local civil society. The junta and former opposition parties nevertheless proceeded and signed an accord in May on a one- year transition period that sidelined several parties and guaranteed army control of the ministries of the interior and defence. The most spectacular elections took place in Senegal, where President Wade persisted in maintaining his constitutionally dubious view that he could run for a third term. In the run- off in March, however, he succumbed to the challenge of former prime minister Macky Sall, who thereby put an end to more than a decade of Wade rule. The election campaign was marked by serious internal divisions in the Wade coalition and a high degree of mobilisation on the part of opposition parties and civil society actors, who fiercely opposed Wade’s controversial bid. Legislative elections in July led to the decimation of the former West Africa • 49 president’s party. In Ghana, the presidential and parliamentary elections in December led to victory for the incumbent party in both, although with a change in the person of the president, as the incumbent President Atta-Mills died a couple of months before the elections were due, forcing the ruling party to choose as their candidate his vice-president, John Dra- mani Mahama. In addition to clashes between supporters of Ghana’s two main parties, the elections were to some extent marred by violent speeches, appeals to regional sentiment and the opposition’s rejection of the outcome of the presidential election. In other countries, scheduled electoral contests were either delayed for various reasons or produced unspectacular results. In Sierra Leone, presidential and parliamentary elections in November allowed incumbent President Koroma to claim victory in the first round, thereby avoiding a run-off, and his party took most of the seats in parliament. With voters also able to choose mayors and local councils, these were the first elections organised by Sierra Leone’s own government since the end of the civil war (1991–2002). Most observers considered them peaceful and well conducted, although the EU expressed concern that the ruling party was able to use its control of government to its own advantage. In Burkina Faso, legislative and municipal elections in December were also conducted peacefully, with the ruling party gaining an absolute majority in the National Assembly and two-thirds of local council seats. A newly computerised and updated electoral roll was used, which, together with the independent electoral commission, resulted in greater popular confidence in the elections – in contrast toBenin where the computerised electoral register continued to engender controversy, though the issue was clearly exploited for political purposes. The volatile nature of Benin politics was demonstrated in the announcement of an anti-government plot involving a former minister and the president’s personal doctor, who were planning to poison the head of state, although opposition parties expressed their doubts as to the veracity of these allegations. In Cape Verde, the opposition won the municipal elections in July. In several other countries elections were delayed for a variety of reasons. In Guinea, legislative elections, which would have concluded the transition process towards civilian government, were rescheduled several times (and finally beyond year’s end) as government and opposition disagreed over a range of electoral technicalities including voter registration and the election timetable. The same happened in Togo, where legislative and municipal elections were again adjourned (now to 2013) and there was controversy not only over the electoral register but also over allegedly biased constituency boundaries and the composition of the electoral commission. Local and legislative polls were also postponed beyond year’s end in Mauritania, where the credibility of the electoral commission was called into question by the opposition.

Human Rights and the Rule of Law

In Guinea-Bissau, human rights violations increased immediately after the coup. Journal- ists and politicians were threatened, freedom of movement was restricted and the media 50 • West Africa exercised self-censorship. Some opponents to the coup were tortured by the military, while another person was kidnapped and murdered. The UN criticised the use of torture and maltreatment in Togo, where the government altered the text of a critical report on torture by the security services and the head of the human rights commission was forced to flee the country. In Gambia, nine death sentences were carried out. AI and other organisations requested a suspension of others, which was granted in September. By contrast, in Nigeria death sentences were commuted (although two new death sentences were passed on officials in the regime of military dictator Abacha in the 1990s), and inmates were released from prisons in efforts to tackle overcrowding. In northern Mali, Islamist fighters introduced Shari’a law; several people were tried in Islamic courts without access to proper defence and amputations and executions took place. In Burkina Faso, the ruling coalition was able to push through constitutional reform, which provided for, amongst other things, improved access for citizens to the Constitu- tional Court. In Benin, the government withdrew a project for constitutional reform, which it was suspected would enable the president to run for a third term in office, although the proposed reform was in any case later declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. Constitutional amendments in Mauritania improved the rights of women. The Gambian government continued its hostile campaign against homosexuality; several people were arrested and some beaten up for allegedly having taken part in a transvestite party. Nigeria’s parliament approved a bill banning same-sex marriage, although the president delayed signing it into law. Activists protesting against the continuation of slavery in Mauritania were arrested for supposedly threatening state security. Investigations with regard to high-ranking military officers involved in the 2009 stadium massacre in Guinea continued to be stalled as a result of non-cooperation on the part of government agencies. By contrast, the Special Court for Sierra Leone in session in The Hague sentenced former Liberian president Taylor to 50 years in prison for aiding and abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone’s civil war. In Mali, the destruction by Islamist rebels of holy shrines in the city of Timbuktu was denounced by UNESCO. The fight against corruption continued to make the headlines in several countries, especially Benin, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea. In Benin, several officials were dismissed for alleged involvement in corrupt practices that affected not only the Port of Cotonou (important for the sub-region), but also the forestry sector, among others. Just how dangerous the fight against corruption can be was demonstrated in Guinea, where the treasury director was murdered after uncovering a major embezzlement scheme. In Niger, the justice ministry went up in flames as arsonists allegedly tried to prevent investigations into corruption in the judiciary. The Liberian government became the object of allegations about nepotism as several relatives of President Johnson-Sirleaf were appointed to positions in state agencies. While minor corruption cases were prosecuted, the government took little action with regard to more important people and audits of public institutions. Cases submitted to the justice ministry by the national anti-corruption commission were West Africa • 51 left unprosecuted. Similarly, in Nigeria action with regard to massive fraud in the petroleum industry became mired in disagreement between officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. With the inauguration of President Sall in Senegal, that country’s anti-corruption apparatus was shored up. In Niger, the government of President Issoufou continued its crusade against corruption, which according to TI had actually worsened since 2011. Media freedom experienced its usual ups and downs. In Benin, observers questioned the impartiality of the government media watchdog as press conferences were banned, the director of state TV was fired and a private station’s broadcasts were suspended. ‘Report- ers sans Frontières’ noted a significant decline in press freedom there. In Niger, however, media freedom improved substantially. The government committed itself to decriminalis- ing defamation, while the number of private TV stations and newspaper publications increased markedly.

Conflict, Instability and Violence

If the collapse of state authority in large parts of Mali was the year’s most spectacular development, Nigeria topped the list in terms of casualties. It was estimated that around 1,000 people fell victim to the activities of Boko Haram and its clashes with the security forces, including through bomb attacks, indiscriminate killings, suicide bombers and raids on all manner of targets such as police stations, bars, prisons, churches, mosques, schools, foreign development and construction workers and entire villages. Some of these incidents were marked by terrible atrocities, such as the butchering of girls wearing miniskirts, and of villagers near Maiduguri, who had their throats cut. The security forces responded heavy-handedly, resulting in the deaths not only of Boko Haram fighters but also of innocent civilians. All 12 northern states were hit, and the high death toll came on top of the casualties of other violence involving remnants of Niger Delta militias, organised criminal gangs, and the sectarian clashes that again rocked ethnic communities (pastoral versus sedentary) and Christians and Muslims in the country’s Middle Belt. The inability of the federal authorities to contain the Boko Haram challenge ran the particular risk that it would spill over the country’s borders (into Niger, Chad and Cameroon). It had already been noted that Boko Haram had been in touch, through Nigérien territory, with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb activists in Mali, but the collapse of state authority in the northern parts of that country represented by far the greatest threat to the security and stability of the sub-region. What had initially seemed to be a successful separatist challenge to the Malian state became even more serious as fighters with an allegedly Islamist agenda (and, therefore a geographically much broader strategy) wrested control of north-eastern Mali from separatist Tuaregs. The core of the Malian state was powerless to affect this situation because it was itself racked by internal power struggles, and because the military junta that had toppled President Touré retained its influence in the civilian transitional 52 • West Africa government and resisted sub-regional efforts to end the conflict by the deployment of a peacekeeping force. Clashes between military loyal to the former civilian administration and the junta led to several casualties and, together with fighting between various sections of the police and mobs attacking the presidential palace and molesting the interim head of state, underlined the extreme volatility of the situation. Although taking place at a markedly lower level, the violent clashes that erupted regularly in Côte d’Ivoire between Gbagbo supporters and those of the current government demonstrated that the overall political situation remained highly polarised and susceptible to further destabilisation. Confrontations and attacks by unidentified groups took place almost every month, but the situation deteriorated markedly during the second half of the year, including in the Abidjan area and the frontier region with Ghana – not just in the volatile west where Gbagbo’s party had strong local support and benefited from the proximity of the Liberian border and the help of Liberian mercenaries. A government announcement of the discovery of an anti-government plot underlined the precarious nature of the ‘peace’. Presidential elections in Senegal were marred by a couple of violent incidents that resulted in some fatalities, but it was the separatist conflict in the southern Casamance region that produced the largest number of casualties, including among the security forces. Operations by various guerrilla factions took place several times during the year. More centrally in the south-western forest zone, Guinea-Bissau proved by far the most unstable country. Although both Liberia and Sierra Leone (despite some violent incidents between supporters of the ruling and main opposition parties in the run-up to the general elections) continued to enjoy political calm, this former Portuguese colony generated sub- regional and international concern, not least because it was the sub-regional hub in the international cocaine trade. Over and above the coup d’état in April and the precarious alliance between the military junta and the new transitional government, Bissau was shaken by, among other things, the high-profile assassination of the former head of the military intelligence service in March and a gun battle in October that left six people dead and which the transitional government claimed had been masterminded by deposed prime minister Gomes and Portugal. Political deadlock in Guinea, as manifested by the postponement of parliamentary elections, had a negative effect on relations between the government and the opposition. In the second half of the year, opposition leaders came under attack from security personnel. Amidst increasingly ethnicised rhetoric, relations between government and opposition loyalists (Malinké and Susu versus Peul) deteriorated sharply, leading to violent clashes in the capital, Conakry, and in the eastern forest region, which left several people dead. Several violent incidents, including clashes that led to a couple of fatalities, also to some extent marred the run-up to the general elections in Ghana. Those involved were supporters of the government and the main opposition party. This violence came nowhere near what occurred in the south-western forest region and Ghana remained one of the more stable countries in the sub-region, but it was nevertheless a stain on the country’s West Africa • 53 image (especially coupled with the opposition’s refusal to accept the outcome of the presidential election). Politics in Benin and Togo continued to some extent to be impaired by the uncompromising attitudes of ruling and opposition parties. Anti-government demonstrations in the latter were violently suppressed. By contrast, political calm reigned in Burkina Faso (especially as compared with the previous year) and Niger, whose new government had a more constructive posture and reputation than the previous regime, although its position − hemmed in between Boko Haram’s violence in northern Nigeria and that of Islamists in north-eastern Mali − gave reason for concern. Finally, Mauritania also enjoyed reasonable stability for the time being – also in spite of the Islamist and extremist challenges threatening the whole of the Sahelian region.

Socioeconomic Developments

Economic performance varied considerably between countries, depending on such factors as stagnant Western demand, political instability and insecurity, and the existence or absence of a mining or oil sector. Countries that scored low growth rates included Benin (3.4%), as a result of structural bottlenecks in its sub-regional port facilities and cotton production; Gambia, where the economy contracted by around 1.7% owing to the global slowdown and the negative effects of the failed 2011 harvest; and even Guinea, whose growth halted at an estimated 3.9% as a result of the global crisis and political instability, notwithstanding its mineral riches and the cut in external debt. The importance of a quiet political environment could be particularly clearly seen in neighbouring Mali, where the economy declined by some 1.5%, and Guinea-Bissau, where small-scale farmers were also hit hard by a decline in cashew kernel exports, caused by a drop in imports by India. Togo saw GDP growth of 4.5%, which it partly owed to donor assistance. Countries with large oil and mineral reserves usually did better. Burkina was estimated to have grown by 6%–8% thanks to gold and cotton production, and recovery in Côte d’Ivoire was simply remarkable: foreign public debt was slashed, a beginning was made to reforming the cocoa sector (which had suffered from the extractive activities of political leaders), and growth attained some 8% according to the IMF, set against a contraction of 4.7% the previous year. Ghana experienced GDP growth of around 7.1%, owed not only to the oil sector but also to services; Liberian GDP stood at around 6%, also thanks to investment in oil and services; and GDP in Mauritania was 6.2% (mining, as well as oil, played its part). Record rates of GDP were reached as a result of capital investment and oil and mineral production in Niger (estimates varied between 9.4% and 14.5%) and Sierra Leone (well over 20%). Finally, Senegal’s growth rate picked up as a result of pre-electoral spending and a rise in agricultural and fisheries output (3.8%). For most West Africans, of course, the agricultural sector remained all important. Principally as a result of abundant rains, and despite the civil war, Mali’s agricultural output rose by some 14%. Niger, too, benefited from sufficient rain, and harvests exceeded 54 • West Africa demand. The government’s new agricultural programme saw a significant boost in investment aimed at accumulating larger cereal reserves and attaining food self-sufficiency in the future. Less positively, it was revealed that the Liberian government had signed massive numbers of secret logging contracts with foreign companies, which could damage the country’s forest reserve. Land concessions to foreign firms (working in the palm oil sector, among others) threatened smallholders. Similarly, in neighbouring Sierra Leone small farmers faced dismal prospects as a result of declining cocoa exports, while significant investments were made in agribusiness (rice and rubber). Cotton production recovered in Burkina Faso and Togo but stalled in Benin because of poor sector management. Despite the good harvests in Mali and Niger, food security remained one of the structural problems of the Sahelian region. Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania and Niger all faced food shortages in the first half of the year (as a result of the poor 2011 harvest), compounded for some of them by the arrival of large numbers of Malian refugees. This forced a variety of humanitarian agencies such as UNHCR and FAO to take action to supplement the emergency programmes of some national governments (such as Niger). Large parts of northern Mali remained closed to humanitarian agencies, forcing locals to fend for themselves or flee. Refugees and IDPs also remained a problem in Côte d’Ivoire, where clashes between government and opposition loyalists, as well as land conflicts, led to more people being displaced. Among the more remarkable infrastructural investments, a notable project was the toll bridge in Abidjan to improve communications in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital – it was the first private sector operation by the AfDB in the country for over a decade. Niger received high rates of FDI as a result of construction and road repair programmes, investment in a new sugar refinery and capital outlays in the country’s oil and mining sector. Some improvements were made to the power sector in Guinea and Liberia, but Nigeria and Senegal continued to suffer from structural bottlenecks in this sector. Sierra Leone announced plans for a new international airport. Among other things, this was expected to help rebuild the country’s tourist sector (which had halved in terms of visitor numbers as a result of the civil war). While tourism expanded in Cape Verde, apparently unaffected by the economic crisis in Europe, it collapsed completely in Mali because of the war (most tourist attractions being located in the country’s northern region). Mauritania was also hard hit in this respect. The mining sector continued its activities in many countries, though not always unaffected by the slump in the world economy and other problems. For example, while bauxite production went up by 13% in Guinea, several mining firms were becoming reluctant to operate in the country because contracts were being renegotiated (and demand for iron ore and aluminium was declining); a new mining code was introduced. Sierra Leone and Togo took steps towards greater transparency in the sector. Gold production rose in war-torn Mali and in Burkina, and production at two uranium mines in Niger also increased, although construction of a new large mine continued to slow down as a result of losses by West Africa • 55

French nuclear giant Areva (prices of yellow cake had plummeted in the wake of the Fukushima disaster). Oil production continued unabated in Ghana, where new off-shore discoveries were announced. In Mauritania, however, production declined, while in Côte d’Ivoire, where vast off-shore reserves were said to remain untapped (although many new boreholes were planned), Atlantic crude accounted for 30% of exports. Production of crude continued without too many problems in Niger and Nigeria, although in the former the national refinery suffered from a shortage of storage facilities, forcing it to reduce capacity by half at year’s end. This was essentially caused by the problem of subsidised fuel prices, which were lower in Nigeria as a result of government intervention. This led to protests in Niger and made competing with Nigerian fuel more difficult. Niger’s government was forced to accept cuts on a number of occasions. Similarly, in Nigeria the government had to withdraw its decision to scrap fuel subsidies after several violent incidents. In Benin, the government faced many difficulties in its attempts to stem the trade in ‘informal’ fuel smuggled across the border from Nigeria and making up 90% of the domestic oil market. Social protests occurred in numerous countries. Teachers staged repeated strikes in Benin and Senegal, while in Guinea-Bissau they stopped work for several months (and health workers went on strike in July). Mauritania’s mining sector was hit by work stop- pages, as was that in Niger, where magistrates and civil servants also halted work on a number of occasions. That country was hit by the worst floods in decades, as was Nigeria, where some 3 m people were affected, and northern Benin also suffered. Sierra Leone was confronted with a severe cholera outbreak as a result of the rainy season.

Sub-regional Organisations: Cooperation and Conflict

The ECOWAS record for 2012 was representative of the organisation’s entire existence: little to no progress in the field of economic cooperation, with the familiar reiteration of common standpoints and ‘roadmaps’ for the way ahead, while in practice its most substantial actions were forced upon it by urgent political and security issues. Guinea-Bissau and Mali constituted the two most important problems, which were characterised by intractable conflicts and disagreements between ECOWAS and the rest of the international community as to the best approach to take. Initially, ECOWAS condemned the coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau, referring to its ‘zero tolerance’ posture towards unconstitutional regime change and dispatching a mission together with AU and UN officials to the country in late March for talks. At a summit in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) on 26 April, ECOWAS leaders authorised the deployment of a 600-strong contingent of the ECOWAS Standby Force, drawn from a range of member states (Burkina, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Togo and Senegal). The coup leaders were given 72 hours to agree or otherwise face targeted sanctions (diplomatic, financial and economic, as well as a recommendation of prosecution by the ICC). A seven-member contact 56 • West Africa group (Nigeria, Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Togo and Senegal) was mandated to coordinate matters further. Faced by the lack of progress, ECOWAS imposed sanctions on 29 April. A summit in Dakar (Senegal) then confirmed the authorisation of troop deployment and the ECOWAS chiefs of defence staff agreed on the details concerning what was called the ECOWAS Mission to Guinea-Bissau (ECOMIB). In May, police and military units began to arrive from Nigeria, Burkina Faso and, surprisingly, Senegal – neighbouring Senegal has historically not been popular in Guinea-Bissau, but apparently there was no practical alternative to including a Senegalese contingent. ECOMIB had to replace Angolan troops in the country (which had become increasingly unpopular), support the restoration of constitutional rule, and protect political leaders (assassinations having been a recurrent phenomenon), amongst other things. In November, the mission was extended for six months and, in order to formalise ECOMIB’s deployment, a Mission Agreement and MoU entailing security sector reform were signed with the new transitional authorities. ECOWAS had accepted the latter’s one-year mandate to govern the country ahead of new elections in exchange for the junta’s acquiescence to the ECOMIB deployment (and sanctions had been lifted in the wake of this accord). This ran counter to the position taken by the rest of the international community towards the junta, which retained influence over key ministries. Similarly in Mali, ECOWAS managed to press the military into accepting a transitional government after its sharp condemnation of the “usurpation of power by the military junta” at a one-day extraordinary summit in Abidjan, on 27 March, where the actions of the northern rebels were also condemned. But progress towards deploying a military force (which, at a strength of 3,300 troops, would be much larger than ECOMIB) was far more protracted, because not only was the junta opposed to it but also several outside powers (Algeria, the US) and the UNSC dragged their feet over the issue, because of doubts about either the feasibility of a military solution to the collapse of state authority in the north, or the ability of ECOWAS contingents to operate in desert-like conditions. Nevertheless, on 25 July ECOWAS chiefs of staff finalised plans for a sub-regional force to be based in Bamako and possibly poised for action in the north of Mali, asking for endorsement of the plan by the UNSC. Early in September, Mali’s transitional government formally requested the stationing of the troops (a precondition for deployment); its idea was that the contingents should be based only in Bamako and provide logistical and air support for the recovery of the lost northern regions by the Malian army. On 17 September, ECOWAS defence chiefs discussed the troop deployment, and on 12 October the UNSC gave the AU and ECOWAS 45 days to work out the modalities before UN endorsement. On 11 November, ECOWAS formally accepted the strategy of military intervention and called on outside help for swift deployment. UNSC endorsement came just before year’s end, but together with a request for further planning and without a timeline. On the ground, meanwhile, the security situation had deteriorated spectacularly. West Africa • 57

The Abidjan summit on 27 March also appointed President Compaoré of Burkina Faso as official mediator in the Malian crisis, while this year’s ECOWAS chair, President Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, travelled with a high-level delegation to Bamako. Besides dealing with several Malian stakeholders (political and military), Compaoré kept in touch specifically with the leader of Ansar Eddine, a Tuareg fighting group who were aiming to introduce Shari’a law, while President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria (the outgoing ECOWAS chair) focused on the leader of the radical Islamist group ‘Mouvement pour le Tawhîd et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest’. Immediately after the coup d’état in Bamako, ECOWAS imposed sanctions, forcing the junta to accept a transitional government that included people close to mediator Compaoré (although key positions went to people close to the coup plotters). In late April, ECOWAS unilaterally extended the transitional government’s mandate to one year, much to the chagrin of several Malian stakeholders. The rebel forces in the north were warned that all necessary measures would be taken to end the rebellion and restore Mali’s territorial integrity. ECOWAS also called on the ICC to investigate war crimes committed in northern Mali. In September, the ECOWAS Media- tion and Security Council recommended the immediate imposition of “punitive and targeted sanctions on individuals and groups found to be obstructing the political transition in Mali”. While ECOWAS regularly reiterated its position that members of the transitional government would not be eligible to stand in the proposed elections, which were meant to put a stop to the fighting and Mali’s territorial disintegration, by year’s end the politico- military stalemate had not been resolved. Numerous summit meetings had by then already been held to deal with the sub-region’s worst crisis. In 2012, the sub-regional bloc saw the appointment of a new ECOWAS Commission, headed by Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo, who assumed office in March. A former prime minister of Burkina Faso, Ouedraogo was given only a four-year term, after member states could not agree on a replacement for outgoing Commission president, the Ghanaian James Victor Gbeho. Benin and Burkina Faso both wanted the position to go to one of their nationals. Ouedraogo boasted a considerable track record, however, as ambassador of Burkina Faso, cabinet minister and deputy governor of the BCEAO (in addition to having been ECOWAS deputy executive secretary in the late 1980s and early 1990s). The other commissioners were also appointed, with the important portfolio of political affairs and security issues going to a Nigerian (a woman, Salamatu Suleiman), the vice-presidency to a Liberian (Toga Gayewea Mcintosh) and trade, customs and free movement to Hamid Ahmed, from Niger. Macroeconomic policy went to a Malian (Ibrahim Ba), and sub- regional infrastructure to Ebrima Njie from Gambia. Member states committed themselves to harmonising their budgetary and fiscal policies to make progress towards greater macroeconomic convergence. Much talk went – again – into the establishment of the Common External Tariff, one of ECOWAS’s key but elusive long-term objectives ever since the organisation’s founding. A joint ECOWAS-UEMOA committee agreed on a 58 • West Africa

‘roadmap’ that should lead to the completion of the full customs union, which was also important for other purposes, including negotiations with the EU for a new EPA. The ECOWAS Commission and the West African Monetary Institute (established to create a monetary zone between countries outside the CFAfr monetary area) reached an agreement on a template for studies to improve the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme. Other ECOWAS agenda issues concerning economic cooperation included illegal fishing practices and attempts to boost the trade in fish products, sustainable energy, and improving West Africa’s business environment. On 24 October, finally, ECOWAS and the People’s Republic of China signed an agreement to boost their trade and investment cooperation. The accord covered, among other things, collaboration in infrastructural development, which was a serious bottleneck for further economic growth. At a meeting in Yamous- soukro (Côte d’Ivoire) in November, ECOWAS infrastructure ministers recommended that a 0.5% levy on imports from outside the sub-region used to finance ECOWAS, be targeted at infrastructure projects.

Klaas van Walraven Benin

Economic growth was slower than expected despite important investments in the two main drivers of the economy: the Port of Cotonou and the cotton sector. Poor performance in both resulted in political tension between President Boni Yayi and private investor Patrice Talon. This caused a shift in policies regarding private-public partnerships. Politi- cal debates were dominated by two contested legislative proposals: the revision of the electronic electoral register and a reform of the constitution. An alleged conspiracy against the president at year’s end aggravated the political and economic situation further.

Domestic Politics

Despite his large parliamentary majority and a dismantled opposition, President Boni Yayi encountered serious resistance when pushing through two major controversial reforms: the revision of the constitution and the audit and correction of the much-contested computerised electoral register called the ‘Liste Electorale Permanente Informatisée’ (LEPI). On 22 January, former presidential candidate Bruno Amoussou resigned from the presidency of the ‘Parti Social Démocrate’ (PSD) but retained his chairmanship of the coalition ‘Union fait la Nation’ (‘UN’). The ‘Renaissance du Bénin’ officially quit the ‘UN’ on 6 February. Adrien Houngbédji was re-elected president of the ‘Parti pour le Renouveau 60 • West Africa

Démocratique’ (PRD) on 11 February. Although he declared the PRD to be part of the opposition, he stated that his party was willing to collaborate with the ruling party. This move weakened the opposition. On 20 April, the ‘Mouvement Africaine pour le Dével- oppement et le Progrès’ announced its engagement in the ‘UN’ together with Issa Salifou’s ‘Union Pour la Relève’, ‘Force-Clé’ and the PSD. On 17 June, the PRD’s president said he was ready to join a unity government; meanwhile, the PRD was distancing itself from fierce government critics. Subsequently, a ‘Front Unifié pour la Défense de la Démocratie’ was created by the ‘UN’, ‘Sursaut Patriotique’, the ‘Alliance pour un Bénin Triomphant’ (the party created by Abdoulaye Bio Tchané, former president of the West African Devel- opment Bank) and other opponents of the president, together with civil society groups and trade unions. From mid-August to September, various government ministers organised support meetings for the president, while political allies called on Yayi to stay above contentious debates. On 6 October, MP Issa Salifou announced that he had joined the ‘mouvance présidentielle’ (alliance of parties supporting the president), but this strategy did not prevent the government from prosecuting him for corruption. After MP Atao Hinnouho resigned from the PRD, the ruling party “Force Cauris pour un Bénin Emergent” transferred MP Cyriaque Domingo to the PRD in order to maintain that party’s status as a parliamentary group (needing a minimum of nine members), with the aim of drawing the PRD closer to the ‘mouvance’ and away from the ‘UN’ coalition. On 12 March, the government introduced a proposal for constitutional reform. As it was suspected that this was intended to enable Yayi to continue in office for a third term, it met with strong opposition. On 22 March, a movement called the ‘Front Citoyen pour la Sauvegarde des Acquis Démocratiques’ was created and on 28 March Bruno Amoussou, president of the ‘UN’, announced that he would call on MPs to vote against the constitutional revision. This initiative was supported by 28 MPs from both the opposition and the ruling party. On 28 April, Yayi withdrew the revision project, which the Constitutional Court in any case later declared unconstitutional. On 18 January, Boni Yayi announced an audit of the LEPI by the OIF, whose evaluation report recommended the revision of the electoral law, the publication of electoral lists in all villages and the creation of a permanent institution in charge of the LEPI. On 26 July, a parliamentary working group, which included opposition MPs, organised a consultation of political and social sectors not represented in the National Assembly, and in this context, the Catholic Church criticised the exploitation of the LEPI for political purposes. On 6 August, the parliamentary working group announced that corrections to the register would be finalised before the 2013 local elections. On 4 September, the Friedrich Ehbert Foundation organised a workshop, at which stakeholders underlined the LEPI’s method- ological shortcomings and inconsistent technical choices. Observers worried that the mul- tiplication of workshops, seminars and other meetings around the process of revising the LEPI were making little progress and that the register might not be ready for the 2013 elections. Benin • 61

Media freedom faced severe restrictions. On 23 February, the Constitutional Court condemned the government for having violated the constitution by disrupting the local retransmission of ‘Radio France International’ in 2010. Rafiatou Karim, former minister of education, had a press conference banned in early July and on 16 July she denounced the government’s attitude towards press freedom. On 5 September, following the tensions generated by the reaction to the president’s speech on 1 August, the mass media regulatory body ‘Haute Autorité de l’Audiovisuel et de la Communication’ (HAAC) took a decision to restrict press freedom in the name of keeping the peace; media professionals questioned HAAC’s impartiality. Lionel Agbo, former adviser to the president, openly criticised Boni Yayi on 16 September on the private television channel ‘Canal 3’, owned by opposition MP Issa Salifou and Patrice Talon; HAAC suspended ‘Canal 3’ broadcasts for two weeks after a complaint was made by the president and a letter received from the minister of interior. The director general of the ‘Office Radio Télévision du Bénin’ (ORTB) was fired on 3 October, with the government condemning the contract between ORTB, ‘Canal 3’ and ‘Bell Bénin’ (also owned by Issa Salifou). Issa Salifou and ORTB’s ex-director were prosecuted for corruption and embezzlement. The HAAC’s partiality, as well as other cases of interference with the media, led to concerns about press freedom. According to Reporters Without Borders, Benin was ranked 91st of 179 countries worldwide (down from 70th in 2011), indicating a significant decline in media freedom. After trusted chief of defence staff General Mathieu Boni retired on 1 April, Boni Yayi carried out a cabinet reshuffle on 10 April, making himself minister of defence and appointing Issoufou Kogui N’Douro, his trusted right-hand man, to a new post of minister of state for presidential affairs. On 28 June, Emmanuel Akpona was appointed army chief- of-staff; three generals had been appointed since April. Despite the priority given to the fight against corruption in Boni Yayi’s new-year speech, and the launch of an awareness campaign by the government on 2 January, a number of cases arose during the year, especially in the two main economic sectors (cotton and the port of Cotonou). A number of civil servants, officials and members of the government were dismissed and became subject to legal proceedings. After the exposure on 21 June by opposition MPs of a case of corruption among civil servants in the forestry sector, the government recognised the need for the sector to be reformed and trafficking of timber to be stopped. On 13 September, several directors of state agencies and members of the government were dismissed following allegations of accepting bribes (in connection with the dry port of Tori-Bassito). On 12 October, the president appointed the well-trusted Barthé- lémy Kassa as minister of energy, mining and water supply, while Sofiath Onifadé became minister of industry, commerce and small businesses. In August, the complex inter-relations between political interests and the country’s economic management led to new tensions. On the anniversary of the country’s independence on 1 August, Yayi gave a controversial speech in which he criticised the ‘UN’, Sébastian Ajavon (director general of an import-export company) and Patrice Talon, with whom his 62 • West Africa government was already embroiled in controversy over the management of the cotton sector, despite the fact that Talon was one of Yayi’s financial backers in the 2011 presidential elections. The president directly accused the entrepreneurs of destabilising the government as well as of financing opposition parties and controlling media outlets. Negotia- tions between Yayi, Talon and Ajavon on 8–9 August failed. On 21 August, Minister of Interior Benoit Dégla denounced an anti-government plot organised by politicians working together with private investors and unions. On 21 October, the president’s doctor Ibrahim Mama Cisse, the president’s niece Zouberath Kora-Seke and former minister of commerce Moudjaidou Soumanou were arrested and charged with attempted murder and conspiracy. According to the state prosecutor, the niece had been in contact with Talon while Boni Yayi was on a visit to Brussels and had been asked to poison the president with the help of his doctor, for which they would each be paid CFAfr 1 bn. Members of the opposition challenged the conspiracy allegation, but an international arrest warrant was issued on 23 October against Patrice Talon, as the suspected instigator of the plot. On 5 December, Talon was arrested in Paris but released the same day.

Foreign Affairs

On 29 January, Boni Yayi was elected chairman of the AU and on 18 February he invited 20 African heads of state to Cotonou to discuss the security situation in Mali. This was also the subject of discussions with France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, who visited on 25 February. He and Yayi also discussed bilateral cooperation. On 6 March, Yayi received Algeria’s minister of African affairs and on 12 March visited Nigeria’s president in Abuja. On 17 March and 14 May he invited an ad hoc committee of eight African heads of state to Cotonou. Following the coup d’état in Mali on 21 March, Yayi issued a condemnation of the coup and urged the coup leaders to return the country to constitutional rule. Officials from Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso visited Benin on 17 April to discuss the situation in Guinea-Bissau. Boni Yayi also welcomed the presidents of Gabon on 5–6 April and Burkina Faso on 8–10 April. On 18 May, he participated in the G8 summit in the US to discuss food security and he met newly elected French President François Hollande in Paris on 29 May–2 June. On 29 June, Yayi took part in the ECOWAS summit in Côte d’Ivoire to consider military solutions to the Malian crisis and, on 15–16 July, he attended the AU summit in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). Energy issues were discussed with Ghana, Benin’s main electricity provider, when Yayi visited Ghana on 11 May. The president also went to Turkey on 8–10 July and Tunisia on 11 July in search of new cooperation agreements and financial aid. Energy issues were also discussed with Nigeria on 16 September, together with issues of trans-border security, customs agreements and transportation facilities. President Yayi visited China on 18–23 July and attended the 5th Forum on China- Africa Cooperation. He returned with an additional $ 184 m in grants (for road construction) Benin • 63 and $ 34 m in loans (to combat piracy and promote development). China’s ambassador confirmed that his country would provide an interest-free loan of CFAfr 41 bn to finance the Akassato-Bohicon road in southern Benin and a further CFAfr 65 bn at 1.8% interest. On 21 August, China made an additional grant of CFAfr 3.6 bn and a new loan of CFAfr 7.8 bn to dig 100 wells and build a technical college and for work on the Akassato- Bohicon road.

Socioeconomic Developments

Despite the fact that it made highly optimistic assumptions, the 2012 budget of CFAfr 1,099 bn was unanimously approved by the National Assembly. On 16 January, the budget was adjusted down to CFAfr 1,016 bn in response to losses expected to result from a port strike. Revenue performance was disappointing, however, as a result of difficulties in implementing reforms in the cotton sector and disappointing levels of revenue collection in the Port of Cotonou. GDP increased to an estimated 3.4%. The IMF issued a growth warning for 2012 and called for the acceleration of overdue structural and economic reforms. The domestic oil market, which is almost 90% supplied by illegally smuggled oil from Nigeria, called ‘kpayo’, faced important price fluctuations. A first increase in prices for ‘informal’ petrol and diesel fuel occurred soon after Nigeria’s decision to end domestic oil subsidies on 1 January. After Nigeria’s president announced a 30% price reduction on 15 January, Beninese prices suddenly fell, although still remaining high. The issue of the illegal fuel trade with Nigeria continued to animate debate, until opposition between the formal and informal sectors led to the temporary suspension of imports from Nigeria, causing a new price hike. The independent press criticised the lack of government action against informal traders, on whom motorised transport largely depended, but, on 17 November, Presi- dent Yayi made the unexpected announcement that he would halt the ‘kpayo’ trade before year’s end. ‘Kpayo’ sellers were raided by the army, and the government reduced the official fuel price on 1 December. Observers estimated that ‘kpayo’ was responsible for a loss of tax revenue amounting to CFAfr 175 bn a year. The government faced major difficulties in strengthening revenue collection in thePort of Cotonou. In addition to the dry ports of Parakou and Tori, the government announced plans to build a dry port at Glo-Djigbé and a second deep-water seaport off the coast of Seme-Kpodji at a cost of CFAfr 105 bn. Inland dry port infrastructure was meant to alleviate congestion in the seaports and especially the ‘Port Autonome de Cotonou’ (PAC), which remained the government’s largest source of revenue. On 23 January, port stakeholders (‘Bénin Control’, the ‘Société d’Exploitation du Guichet Unique du Bénin’, customs, the director general of PAC, transporters and brokers), who were accusing each another of opposing the implementation of the reforms, were called together by the president. The next day, Minister of Maritime Economy Jean-Michel Abimbola was dismissed 64 • West Africa and replaced by Valentin Djénontin, while the army was mobilised to remove 250 trucks that were blockading the port. The port’s malfunctioning motivated the Chamber of Com- merce of landlocked Niger, heavily dependent on the port’s infrastructure, to call on Nigérien transporters to boycott Cotonou and use the ports of Lomé (Togo) and Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) instead. On 10 February, Boni Yayi created a temporary body, under his own control, to monitor the port’s activities and established a committee to propose practical solutions to end congestion at the PAC. On 13 February, customs officers arrested several people suspected of corrupt practices in relation to the port. The activities of ‘Bénin Control’ (owned by Talon), which was in charge of the implementation of the reform of the port, were suspended on 28 February, after the customs authorities regained control of the export of second-hand vehicles via Cotonou’s port. On 10 April, the government unilaterally decided to reduce the 16-year concession agreement with ‘Bénin Con- trol’ to a four-year contract. The port’s position as a major supply hub for the sub-region declined as a result of its poor performance, to the advantage of Lomé and Abidjan. Cotton production, which represented 13% of GDP in 2012, was hindered by delayed provision of supplies of fertilisers and pesticides. Despite a reduction in cultivated land, output expectations were put at an optimistic 500,000 tonnes. On 10 April, the government decided to dismiss Director General of the Treasury and Public Accounting Alexis Bonaventure Houéha, after he paid CFAfr 12 bn to the ‘Centrale de Sécurisation des Paie- ments et de Recouvrement’ (CSPR) without prior authorisation. This decision took place in the context of growing tensions between President Yayi and Patrice Talon, director of ‘Société de Distribution des Intrants’ – a private company and major actor in the cotton sector. On 26 April, Talon, together with other key actors in the cotton sector, was arrested in relation to the unauthorised payment to the CSPR; he was released the following day. Denouncing bad governance in this sector, Boni Yayi decided, on 29 April, to suspend the contract with the ‘Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton’ (which received the above- mentioned CFAfr 12 bn) regarding the management of the cotton sector, and the state took control of the provision and import of supplies for the sector. While observers worried about the prospects for cotton production because of problems in accessing supplies, on 8 June the government sent troops to requisition 14,000 tonnes of fertiliser from one of Talon’s companies. Fertiliser stored in a ship owned by the same company was also confiscated. Opposition parties challenged this action and, on 14 June, a press statement by the ministers of agriculture, economy and finance, and development announced that CFAfr 13 bn compensation had been paid by the government to Talon’s company. On 18 June, the West African Development Bank and the government signed a convention to the tune of CFAfr 115 bn to support the 2012/13 cotton season. On 27 June, despite a decline in global cotton prices, the government raised the price paid to domestic producers for high-grade cotton by 10% to CFAfr 260/kg and by 5% to CFAfr 210/kg for second- grade cotton, while the price cotton producers paid for fertiliser was fixed at CFAfr 200/kg (compared with CFAfr 220/kg in 2011/12). The sector received CFAfr 160/kg in grants for Benin • 65 fertilisers (CFAfr 11.2 bn). On 18 September, the government reached a new agreement with the West African Development Bank, worth CFAfr 82 bn, to fund the 2012/13 cotton season. According to an EU report, poor management of the cotton sector caused a loss to the national budget of CFAfr 10 bn-CFAfr 30 bn. Strikes crippled the justice sector. On 20 January, the union of lawyers asked the minister of justice to apologise for her recent declaration that Beninese justice was corrupt. The strike ended on 7 February, but only after repeated public apologies and the personal involvement of the president. On 31 July, a new 72-hour strike was announced in protest against a decision taken by the government in judicial matters and a government decree relating to criminal justice fees. Satisfied by the meeting with Boni Yayi on 4 August, the two unions of lawyers suspended their strike on 7 August. On 24 January, primary and secondary school teachers began a 72-hour strike in support of claims for a 25% pay increase, which was given to all other civil servants in Janu- ary. Meetings with Prime Minister Pascal Irénée Koupaki did not resolve the problem. In March, strikers extended their action to four days a week. Arguing that Benin had to respect budgetary constraints and that teachers had received a salary increase in 2010, the government refused to give in. On 8 March, the government started replacing striking teachers with conscripts. As talks ended in deadlock, three teachers unions formed a united front and on 13 March threatened the government with a so-called ‘année blanche’. Sev- eral teachers and trade union representatives were arrested for holding debates on the continuation of the strike action. Under threat of government sanctions, strikers went back to their schools on 17 March, but refused to teach. On 21 March, a demonstration by teachers and pupils was violently put down by the police. While trade unions denounced the government’s attitude, they decided to end the strike. On 10 April, a government announcement of the postponement of the Easter holidays led to renewed frustrations and teachers called for a sit-in on 17 April. A new series of negotiations was launched in Sep- tember, but towards year’s end the education sector was again gripped by strike action. On 27 June, Benin signed a CFAfr 23 bn agreement with the World Bank to promote decentralisation and the fight against poverty at municipal level. Despite a positive visit in mid-July, IMF experts pointed to the need to improve private-public partnerships in the cotton sector and to revitalise Cotonou’s port activities. On 30 July, the West African Development Bank approved a CFAfr 12 bn loan for the promotion of tourism, including a project for the upgrading of the coast road and the expansion of hotel capacity. Two additional agreements worth CFAfr 22.5 bn were signed with the World Bank on 4 September for the development of telecommunications and the fight against malaria. The World Bank Doing Business Index put Benin at 175, indicating that the regulatory environment was not conducive to the operation of private enterprise. On 9 November, the IMF again urged the government to implement the necessary reforms in the cotton and port sectors. 66 • West Africa

Severe flooding in August–September hit the northern towns of Karimama and Malan- ville along the River Niger, resulting in fatalities as well as losses in the agricultural sector and destruction of homes. Together with bilateral donors, the government tackled various security issues such as drug trafficking, illegal financial flows and maritime piracy. Although several tonnes of drugs from South America were seized by customs, the port of Cotonou appeared to be an important access point for the transit of drugs through West Africa. Following a report by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the government expelled the directors of Ellisa Holding (a Lebanese company) on 18 January. The government received technical and financial support in this area, from France in particular, but also from Germany and Inter- pol. On 21 September, the French ambassador delivered a report on drug trafficking, maritime piracy and criminal activities, which stated that, despite efforts by the authorities, these problems needed to be tackled more efficiently. Following a US mission reporting on deficiencies in the port’s security system, the Millennium Challenge Account-Benin announced that further funding for the port should not be taken for granted. Nevertheless, the difficulties involved in implementing effective reforms in the two principal economic sectors increased the country’s dependence on international aid.

Eric Komlavi Hahonou Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso experienced a politically quiet year compared with previous years. Two nation-wide elections were conducted peacefully. The dominant ruling party secured its absolute majority in the National Assembly and won two-thirds of all municipal seats, leaving the opposition far behind. Testing its electoral strength for the first time, former finance minister Zéphirin Diabré’s new party became the leading opposition force. Although statistics continued to show solid economic growth, the socioeconomic situation remained precarious for most of the population and a loss of confidence in the state’s capacities gave rise to increased real and potential local tensions. President Compaoré, still very active on the international scene, became the official ECOWAS mediator in the conflict in neighbouring Mali.

Domestic Politics

Latent political tensions persisted throughout the year. The widespread civilian and military unrest that followed the killing of student Justin Zongo in Koudougou by police in February 2011 still strongly permeated the political atmosphere, though without escalating into large-scale protest. In this calm after the storm, many indicators suggested that the underlying causes of the initial protests had not been resolved. 68 • West Africa

As an immediate consequence of the behaviour of security forces in 2011, more than 170 police officers and 566 soldiers were punished or prosecuted. Four policemen were taken to court over the killing of Justin Zongo and the minister of the interior dismissed 136 for mutiny. The government appointed Roger Zongo as new head of the national police in place of Paul Sondo. Military tribunals were packed, dealing with some 300 cases of mutiny. President Blaise Compaoré retained direct control of the Ministry of Defence. These short-term measures were intended to demonstrate the state’s ability to act and restore order. The government further reinforced subsidies and initiated institutional reforms. The ‘Conseil Consultatif sur les Réformes Politiques’ (CCRP) proposed several modi- fications to the constitution. The smooth translation of these proposals into law on 11 June was hardly surprising, given the dominance of the ruling ‘Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès’ (CDP) in the CCRP, the government and the legislature. The so-called radical opposition – those political parties that refused collaboration with the presidential movement – boycotted the CCRP and, consequently, abstained from the parliamentary vote, so appraisal of the reforms was ambivalent. The constitutional amendments appeared at first glance to be extensive, with more than 60 articles modified. However, the vast majority of changes were linked to the introduction of a senate, which necessitated numerous editorial adaptations. This was the second time that Burkina Faso had provided for a second parliamentary chamber designed to represent sub-national administrative units, religious and traditional leaders, employers and trade unions and the diaspora, as well as personalities the president considered deserving of a seat in this largely consultative chamber. With regard to the new senate, neither the number of senators, nor the exact distribution of seats among the specified groups, nor the precise electoral system was stipulated in the constitution. Most senators would be elected by “their respective structures” (article 80, section 3), which were not further defined. Even if there was currently a consensus on the relevant organisations, the ambiguities concerning the senate increased the risk of future political conflict over its composition. The senate was scheduled to be established in 2013. Another constitutional amendment formally strengthened the National Assembly’s power vis-à-vis the government. It committed the president to dismiss the prime minister automatically after a successful vote of no confidence. In addition, an upper age limit of 75 was introduced for presidential candidates, although this rule was largely symbolic in practice. Article 37 of the constitution laid down a two-term limit for the office of president, and Compaoré was currently in his second term, even though he had served as president for more than 25 years, so he was due to leave office in 2015. However, leading members of the CDP and other associations that supported Compaoré promoted the idea that a democratic decision could lift the two-term rule, and so the age limit would not debar the 61-year-old president from running for re-election until 2025, when he reached the age of 75. Given previous manipulations of the constitution in Compaoré’s favour and Burkina Faso • 69 in light of public statements by his supporters, the opposition did not expect his departure from office. Two further state organs were now inscribed in the new constitution: a national ombudsman (‘Médiateur de la République’) and an independent media regulation authority, ‘Con- seil Supérieur de la Communication’ (CSC). Unlike the senate, these bodies were established long before the June amendments. Further amendments potentially strengthened the Constitutional Court (‘Conseil Con- stitutionnel’, CC). Access to the CC was made easier – including for ordinary citizens (“question prioritaire de constitutionnalité”) – and the CC was given the right of self- referral. In addition, its composition was modified; notably, former heads of state now had the right to sit on the CC and the president of the future senate was given the right to appoint three judges. This was certainly inspired by the French model, but would also serve as a source of immunity for outgoing presidents. The new composition of the CC – which, if implemented, would increase the number of judges to 14 – could therefore also be read in conjunction with the newly introduced constitutional guarantee of a full amnesty for all heads of state in office from 1960 to 2012. Only three presidents would enjoy both privileges: Saye Zerbo (1980–82), Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo (1982–83) and Blaise Compaoré, as all the other former presidents had already died. The absence of serious accusations against the military regime leaders Zerbo and Ouédraogo strengthened the assumption that the amnesty was designed to preclude any potential prosecution of Compaoré for corruption or, worse, for the murder of Thomas Sankara in 1987. The radical opposition deemed Compaoré responsible for the killing that ended Sankara’s populist, leftist and socially revolutionary regime. Compaoré had returned the country to a more market-oriented economy and restored the influence of traditional chiefs, whose status was also provided for in the new constitution, with traditional and religious leaders now represented in the senate and their moral authority being acknowledged in the constitution’s preamble, which underlined their political importance. Whereas Sankara had tried to abolish traditional authority in the mid-1980s, Compaoré accepted high-ranking members of noble families into the ruling CDP. Legislative and municipal elections took place on 2 December. The National Assem- bly elections were postponed by a few months after formal objections were raised when the CC reviewed the relevant electoral law. Observers were surprised by the CC’s objections, which were unusual, and interpreted this purely formal action as a step towards greater judicial independence. Eventually, the electoral law was corrected and passed. Prior to the election, the ‘Commission Électorale Nationale Indépendante’ (CENI) computerised the electoral roll. As in many African states, the register had been a contentious issue in previous elections. Even though CENI had run out of time and was unable to complete its work, the trust placed in the updated roll was much higher than before. This was partly due to the role played by the new CENI president, Barthelemy Kéré, who managed to build trust in the Commission’s independence. Estimates suggested that 70 • West Africa around 55% of potential voters had been registered, of whom roughly 76% participated in the polls. The country was divided into 45 provinces, all of which now became multimember constituencies contrary to the previous situation when 15 provinces had been single member districts. Of the 127 seats, 111 were allocated at the provincial level and the remaining 16 were distributed at the national level. The government had decided to increase the number of seats in the Assembly in response to criticism that the election of only one MP in a significant number of constituencies in 2007 effectively turned the system ofpropor - tional representation into a simple first-past-the-post system causing a higher degree of disproportionality between votes and seats. However, only eight constituencies returned more than two MPs, so the system continued to favour large parties – in particular the ruling CDP – and parties with substantial provincial strongholds, but disproportionality was still less than in previous elections. In the legislative elections, the ruling party CDP won 70 seats, followed by the ‘Alli- ance pour la Démocratie et la Fédération/Rassemblement Démocratique Africain’ (ADF/ RDA) with 19 seats, which was thus on a level with the strongest opposition party, the ‘Union pour le Progrès et le Changement’ (UPC). The ‘Union pour la Renaissance/Parti Sankariste’ (UNIR/PS), formerly the largest opposition party, won four seats. The ‘Parti pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme/Metba’ (PDS/Metba), a newly created amalgam of smaller leftist parties, won only two seats, even though it received more votes than either the pro-presidential ‘Union pour la République’ (UPR; four seats) or the ‘Convention des Forces Démocratiques’ (CFD; three seats). Six other parties took one seat each. Specula- tion that the ruling CDP would suffer high losses did not materialise; public discontent did not translate clearly into election results. The CDP lost three seats compared with 2007, but still secured an absolute majority. Although its best results were in rural areas, it was also able to win 44% of the vote in the capital province, Kadiogo, 24 percentage points more than the UPC. In total, the presidential camp won five out of nine seats in Kadiogo, where one seat went to the ADF/RDA, which as a self-declared moderate opposition party nonetheless participated in government. The UPC’s success showed that the electorate preferred a new opposition party, which had largely invested in nation-wide party structures, over established opposition forces such as the UNIR/PS and even the PDS/Metba, which represent the old guard of Sankarist and socialist politicians. While the opposition’s inability to unite certainly contributed to its unimpressive performance, the election results could be largely attributed to the CDP’s enormous administrative and financial resources. The party and its preceding revolutionary structures had ruled the country for almost three decades. Particularly in rural areas, the party was often confused with the state, since representatives often served as the local leaders of both. Although the structural advantages of the ruling party were the most important factors, however, it could not be excluded that fraud played a role in the electoral outcome. Burkina Faso • 71

Well before the elections, both the CDP and the civil society ‘Fédération Associative pour la Paix et le Progrès avec Blaise Compaoré’ (FEDAP/BC) made changes to their leadership. The personal background of those voted into leading positions indicated that links between the party and the association had grown stronger. For instance, the CDP mayor of Tanghin-Dassouri, Adama Zongo, became the new chairman of the FEDAP/BC. The association’s resources made it one of the strongest pillars of Compaoré’s re-election campaign in 2010. Many perceived the FEDAP/BC as the main political vehicle for the head of state’s younger brother François Compaoré, who might make the powerful association ‘his’ political party, but François instead assumed a leading position on the CDP executive board at the party congress on 4 March. The president’s cabinet director, Assimi Kouanda, who was the chief of the political staff in the presidential palace and the head of state’s main political adviser, became the party president. Long-standing party barons, such as outgoing party chairman and head of the National Assembly Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, former prime minister Paramanga Ernest Yonli, outgoing mayor of Ouagadougou Simon Compaoré (not related to the president), and the former political heavyweight, Salif Diallo, were sidelined. The opposition newspaper ‘L’Événement’ argued that the FEDAP/BC masterminded these leadership changes in order to take power in the party and serve Compaoré family interests. Whether or not this was the case, such speculation pointed to a concern that François Compaoré might be preparing for his own succession to his brother’s office in 2015. It was rumoured that the president was becoming weary, although another popular view had it that Blaise Compaoré might seek his fourth re-election. Parallel to the National Assembly elections, local elections took place in all 367 municipalities. The CDP was the only party that fielded candidates in all except one district. The ruling party outdid all its rivals and CDP politicians won roughly two-thirds of the 18,645 council seats. As in the parliamentary polls, ADF/RDA and UPC won the second and third places almost neck and neck, with 1,746 and 1,615 seats, respectively. This ultimately meant that only a few mayors did not belong to the ruling block. Many of the election results were contested and so partial by-elections in 123 municipalities were scheduled for early 2013. Despite the CDP’s secure position, the drawing up of the electoral lists was not achieved entirely peacefully. Local factions struggled publicly and sometimes violently for the positioning of candidates. In the provincial capital, Tougan, the house of Saran Sérémé, an incumbent MP, was burnt down in an attack presumably carried out by hostile party members. When she was then placed on the list behind her inner-party rival, Sérémé left the CDP in rage. Other local protests were directed against state or party officials. The Economist Intel- ligence Unit counted dozens of outbreaks of violence in the first half of the year. On 21 June, residents of Boussouma defending the authority of local chiefs clashed with 72 • West Africa security forces over the mayor’s behaviour. The arrival of Prime Minister Tiao in support of the CDP mayor failed to calm tempers. Also in June, crowds freed an imam who had been jailed for insulting the local prosecutor. Similar clashes with state representatives occurred in Ouagadougou (over alleged abuse of office by security personnel), Bobo- Dioulasso, Diapaga and Pouytenga (over various decisions by government officials). The protests and clashes underlined the state’s loss of authority and the persistence of socio- political tensions. Furthermore, despite the country’s reputation for peaceful interethnic relations, it was not completely free of ethnic tensions. In May, 25 people were killed in clashes between Dogon farmers and nomadic Peul herders in the Malian-Burkinabè border region. On 14 August, local Lobi people in Gaoua protested over the police failure to find the killers of a Lobi boy. Since the protesters believed that a member ofanon- indigenous group had murdered the boy, they attacked migrant Peul and Mossi, leaving three dead. In both cases, economic causes underlay the violent clashes.

Foreign Affairs

The crisis in neighbouring Mali dominated Burkina’s foreign affairs. The situation was already tense in January, and led to regional talks. President Compaoré was almost permanently occupied by concerns over security in the Sahel and particularly in Mali, and he engaged in talks with the foreign minister of Benin on 12 February, at the ECOWAS summit in Abuja (Nigeria) on 16–17 February, at an extraordinary AU summit in Cotonou (Benin) on 18 February, with the French foreign minister on 25 February, with the UN’s special representative for West Africa on 13 March, and with the Danish minister for development on 22 March. Only five days after the coup d’état in Bamako (Mali) on 22 March, an extraordinary ECOWAS summit in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) elected Compaoré to serve as the regional organisation’s official mediator in the Malian crisis. Between April and December, Com- paoré received no fewer than 14 official delegations from Mali and participated in 12 regional as well as 13 international talks and conferences dedicated to ending the crisis. Visitors from Mali included military junta members (31 March, 14–15 April, 2 May, 7 July), the transitional prime ministers (Cheick Modibo Diarra on 25 May, 22 June, 7 July, 18 November; Diango Cissoko on 26 December), the foreign minister (7 July, 3 November, 3–4 December), the Tuareg rebel groups ‘Ansar Dine’ (6 November, 16 November, 3–4 December) and ‘Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad’ (16 November, 3–4 December), and religious leaders (3 April, 14–15 April), as well as other politicians and civil society actors. On 4 December in Ouagadougou, Mali’s northern rebels and transitional government agreed on the need to establish a framework for an inter-Malian dialogue. The political conflict in Bamako had still not been resolved and the basis for dialogue was weak since other armed Islamist groups were not accepted as dialogue partners. Burkina’s Foreign Minister Djibril Bassolé also played a major role in the Burkina Faso • 73 mediation process, contributing his experience as a former AU mediator in Darfur (Sudan). On 24 April and 19 July, Burkina Faso helped to free four Europeans held hostage in Mali. For its own security, Burkina Faso sent 1,000 troops to the northern border zone with Mali on 11 October. With the settlement of the Ivorian crisis, relations between Ouagadougou and Côte d’Ivoire’s new president, Alassane Ouattara, acting president of ECOWAS, were good and certainly helped establish a common ECOWAS position on Mali. Consultations on the Ivorian situation nevertheless continued (e.g., on 27 September). Compaoré also retained close ties with France, Burkina Faso’s most important political and trading partner. Given the situation in the Sahel, Burkina continued to intensify security and military cooperation with France and the US. As in the previous year, US AFRICOM commander General Carter Ham visited Ouagadougou on 13 August. Burkina Faso continued to recognise the government of Taiwan as the only diplomatic representative of China. Taipei thanked Ouagadougou for its loyalty with an increase of bilateral development aid to € 40 m.

Socioeconomic Developments

The situation in Mali also had an impact on the domestic situation in Burkina Faso. Refu- gee camps emerged in the far north of the country. Up to 100,000 refugees crossed the frontier, but the number had fallen to about 40,000 by the year’s end, according to UNHCR. The influx of such large numbers of Malians into the northern drylands deepened the domestic food crisis. Erratic rains in the 2011 season had led to poor harvests and to significantly higher food prices in 2012. On 20 June, Al Jazeera English reported social tensions in Djibo where the population had grown by about 50% and where both locals and refugees depended on humanitarian aid. There were no acts of violence against refugees, but tensions were likely to rise as long as the difficult situation continued. On 1 December, UNHCR issued requests for $ 62.5 m to help displaced Malians in Burkina Faso. On 2 August, the US donated $ 34 m to improve general food security beyond the necessities of humanitarian aid for refugees. The Burkinabè government estimated the total costs of meeting the food crisis at more than $ 200 m; around 1.6 m people in the country would need humanitarian assistance. On 23 October, the National Assembly approved a revision of the national budget. With revenue almost a third higher than budgeted in the original legislation, the state was able to increase spending by 14.4% to roughly CFAfr 1.6 trillion (approx. € 2.4 bn) and to close the previous deficit. The social sector, including healthcare, social assistance and education, and the rural development sector, including agriculture, water supply and food subsidies, received about a quarter of the budget each. The 2013 financial bill that was passed in November foresaw a moderate increase in spending to some CFAfr 1.64 trillion, i.e. about € 60 m more than in the corrected budget of the ending year. Budget aid 74 • West Africa contributed significantly to the government’s resources. In recent years, overall ODA stabilised at around $ 1 bn. Analysing the budget, one of the leading newspapers, ‘Le Pays’, recalled that up to a quarter of the national income was estimated to be lost as a result of corruption, and called for effective prosecution of those involved, as uncovered by civil society organisations such as the ‘Réseau National de Lutte Anti-Corruption’ or the national agency ‘Autorité Supérieure de Contrôle d’Etat’. Similarly, the IMF, which largely applauded macroeconomic performance, emphasised in its Fifth Review of the ECF for 2010–13 on 19 December that the elimination of fraud would help the state to contain public wage costs. The economy grew by a disappointing 4.2% in 2011 as a result of a bad harvest and the costs of social protests. The Economist Intelligence Unit and the IMF estimated a recovery of growth to 6%–8% for 2012. Sceptics emphasised that growth depended on two highly vulnerable and volatile markets: gold and cotton. Revenue from gold production continued to surge owing to an increase in mining (from 32.2 tonnes in 2011 up to an estimated 36.6 tonnes in 2012) and a further rise in the world market price, which had doubled in less than five years. As a result, gold accounted for more than 60% of Burkina’s export revenues in recent years. In June, the US mining company Newmont paid CFAfr 6 bn (approx. € 9 m) for exploration rights at the Poura mine, 150 km west of Ouagadougou. Newmont was newly arrived in Burkina, joining Canadian, Australian and other mining companies. A new tax regulation improved the state’s control over private mining activities by making asset speculation more expensive. Cotton remained the second most important export commodity. After a poorer harvest in the 2010/11 season, production recovered with the 2011/12 harvest. However, the 410 000 tonnes of output remained more than 200 000 tonnes below that of earlier years. It was only due to rising world market prices that cotton contributed to about 15% of export revenues. In social respects, cotton was more important than gold, as 20% of the employed labour force worked in this agricultural industry. On 2 April, petrol prices increased by a third to more than CFAfr 600 (more than € 0.90) per litre, only days after the prime minister had announced that the state was willing to reduce fuel subsidies to relieve the budget, which had an almost immediate impact on the prices of staple products requiring transport.

Alexander Stroh Cape Verde

One year after its defeat in the legislative elections, the opposition ‘Movimento para a Democracia’ (MpD) won the municipal elections on 1 July with 46.3% of the votes and increased the number of municipalities it held from 11 to 13. Despite the international crisis, the number of tourists increased by 12.3% in comparison with 2011. The strengthening of relations with China, the US and the EU resulted in the granting of additional bilateral aid and, in the case of the EU, a visa facilitation agreement, the first for an African country.

Domestic Politics

During the year, some minor changes took place in the composition of the government. On 3 April, Antero Veiga, former chief of staff of ex-president Pedro Pires (2001–11), replaced Sara Lopes as minister of the environment, housing and territorial planning. In turn, Sara Lopes replaced José Maria Veiga as minister of infrastructure and maritime economy. The latter had resigned to run for the presidency of the municipality of Santa Catarina (Santiago). On 30 May, the opposition MpD accused Minister of Youth, Employ- ment and Human Resources Development Janira Hopffer Almada (‘Partido Africano de Independência de Cabo Verde’: PAICV) of nepotism and demanded her dismissal on the 76 • West Africa grounds that in April, with the approval of the council of ministers, she had appointed her husband, Carlos Pereira, grandson of the late president Aristides Pereira, as executive administrator of the ‘Instituto Nacional de Previdência Social’. Nevertheless, Janira, daughter of the lawyer David Hopffer Almada, minister of justice during the one-party regime (1975–91), remained in office after Prime Minister Neves denied the existence of nepotism in the country and gave assurances of his confidence in the young minister. Pereira, however, resigned from his new post in an attempt to silence the opposition and placate public opinion. In the local elections on 1 July, the MpD defeated the PAICV, taking 46.3% of the votes against 40.0%. At the same time, the MpD increased the number of municipalities it controlled from 11 to 13, while the ruling PAICV secured a majority in eight municipalities, two fewer than in 2008. Altogether, four of the 22 municipalities changed hands. The PAICV won in Porto Novo (Santo Antão), while Paúl (Santo Antão), Brava and Tarrafal (São Nicolau) were taken by the MpD from the PAICV. Ulisses Correia e Silva (MpD) was re-elected mayor of the capital, Praia, with 62% of the votes. Jorge Figueiredo, an independent candidate supported by the MpD, was re-elected mayor of Sal Island. Due to irregularities during the ballot, the Supreme Court ordered a re-run of the polls in Boa Entrada (341 voters) and Cruz Grande (428) in Santa Catarina (Santiago) on 22 July. Eventually, Francisco Tavares (MpD) was re-elected as president of the municipal council of Santa Catarina, defeating ex-minister José Maria Veiga (PAICV) by a narrow margin of 31 votes. The number of registered voters was 282,523. Voter turnout fell from 88.6% in the local elections of 2008 to 63.6%. On 1 June, the two trade union federations ‘União dos Trabalhadore Cabo-verdianos’/ ‘Central Sindical’ and ‘Confederação Cabo-verdiana dos Sindicatos Livres’ organised demonstrations against the rising cost of living and increasing unemployment. Neves promised to call a meeting of the ‘Conselho de Concertação Social’ (CCS) to discuss the three principal union demands, including the approval of the employment, careers and salaries plan (‘Plano de Cargos Carreiras e Salários’: PCCS), a minimum monthly salary and a thirteenth-month salary. Neves said there was consensus with social partners on establishing a minimum salary, but argued that the introduction of the thirteenth-month salary was impossible, although it had been his election promise in 2011. On 13 November, during a CCS meeting, the government, unions and employers approved an accord on strategic dialogue, which foresaw the introduction of a minimum salary by January 2014. The agreement also defined the application of the PCCS in the civil service, but excluded the thirteenth-month salary. On 7 January, Neves received the patrol ship ‘Guardião’ for the country’s coastguard. The ship was co-financed by the ports authority Enapor and Dutch development assistance and had the task of patrolling 734,000 km² of territorial waters to combat drugs trafficking, illegal immigration and illegal fishing. On 4 December, the government signed an agreement with the Cape Verde Maritime Security Services company on a renewable Cape Verde • 77 one-year concession for the exclusive right to monitor the armament and equipment of private maritime security companies conducting anti-piracy operations from Cape Verde. On 31 October, the National Assembly passed a law on the reduction of import tariffs as part of the requirements for the country’s accession to the WTO and the application of the principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. MP Euclides de Pina (PAICV) declared that the reduction of import taxes met WTO requirements while also precluding importation of expensive foreign products.

Foreign Affairs

Cape Verde strengthened ties with China. On 3 January, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs José Luís Rocha and the Chinese ambassador signed four cooperation agreements worth $ 80 m, including a 20-year EXIMBANK credit for a housing project. In addition, China promised to finance the extension of the capacity of the national stadium from 10,000 to 15,000 seats and the extension and renovation of the presidential palace. On 19–20 July, Prime Minister Neves participated in Beijing in the 5th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. On his departure, Neves declared that China had promised Cape Verde development assistance of $ 21 m destined for higher education, professional training and infrastructure. He said that he hoped to obtain additional development funds of $ 500 m in the near future. During his stay, he also visited Shenzhen in search of partners for the construction of a deep water port in São Vicente, considered to be of strategic importance for the country’s maritime economy. From 24 to 29 September, a delegation of the National Assembly, headed by Parliamentary Speaker Basílio Mosso Ramos, visited China at the invitation of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to strengthen bilateral cooperation. The government also reinforced cooperation with the United States. On 17 January, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, returning from a tour of Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, made a stopover in Sal, where she held talks with Neves about regional cooperation, including on good governance and sound economic policies and the fight against drug trafficking. The approval of a second Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Compact programme for Cape Verde was also discussed. On 10 February, Finance Minister Cristina Duarte and Daniel Yohannes, executive secretary of the Millennium Challenge Corpora- tion, signed an agreement for a second three-year MCA Compact of $ 66.2 m designed to stimulate economic growth by improving water supply, sanitation and land management. Cape Verde became the first country to be awarded a second Compact after having been the first African country to successfully complete a first programme. During the signing ceremony, Yohannes stressed that the selection of beneficiaries was subject to strict criteria, which included good governance and the implementation of public policies leading to poverty reduction and economic growth. 78 • West Africa

On 29–30 January, President Jorge Carlos Fonseca participated in the 18th ordinary summit of the head of states of the AU in Addis Ababa. In his summit address, Fonseca pleaded for a true policy of regional economic integration based on realistic and equitable principles. The Cape Verdean MPs Lívio Lopes, Felisberto Vieira, Justiniano Santos (all PAICV) and Jorge Santos (MpD) had already taken their seats in the Pan-African Parlia- ment on 17 January, during the 6th session of the latter’s second legislature. MP Janine Lelis (MpD) followed during the 7th session in May. On 26 April, deputising for Neves who was in Europe, Fonseca participated in Abidjan in the extraordinary summit of ECOWAS to discuss the situation in Guinea-Bissau after the coup on 12 April. Various events emphasised Portugal’s role as an important bilateral partner. On 8–12 June, Fonseca paid his first official visit to Portugal. On 29 August, Portuguese For- eign Minister Paulo Portas signed his country’s Indicative Cooperation Programme (PIC) with Cape Verde for the period 2012–15, which fell in value from € 70 m for the previous three-year aid programme to € 56 m. The PIC was intended to support higher education, innovative technology and entrepreneurship. The reduction in aid was caused by the severe economic crisis in Portugal. On 1–2 December, a Portuguese delegation headed by Prime Minister Passos Coelho stayed in Mindelo to hold talks within the framework of the two countries’ second biannual summit. During the summit the two governments signed seven protocols and two agreements on cooperation in various areas, but without revealing the amounts involved. In addition, Cape Verde accepted the establishment of a Portu- guese School in Praia. At the end of the summit, the two heads of government inaugurated a housing complex in Mindelo with 250 houses and 12 shops, constructed as part of the project ‘Casa para Todos’ and financed with CVE 670 m (€ 6.1 m), provided by a Portu- guese credit line in 2009. On 3–4 September, Park Suk-hwan, South Korea’s vice minister of foreign affairs, paid a visit to Cape Verde, the first by a South Korean government minister to the archipelago. During the visit, Foreign Minister Jorge Borges declared that his country would like to serve as a South Atlantic shipping hub for South Korean companies. Cape Verde further deepened its ties with the EU. Prime Minister Neves represented his country at the 28th annual conference of the presidents of the ultra-peripheral regions (UPR) held in Horta in the Azores (13–14 September). Cape Verde had been an associate member of the UPR since 2008 as part of its special partnership with the EU. On 26 October, the 5th anniversary of the EU-Cape Verde special partnership, the president of the Euro- pean Commission, José Manuel Barroso, in an address to the country’s National Assem- bly, praised Cape Verde as an example for the whole of Africa. He declared that Cape Verde deserved the status of a special partner, since it was one of the most developed countries on the continent and enjoyed a consolidated democratic system. Barroso stressed that the EU was Cape Verde’s most important trading partner by far, accounting for 70% of its imports and 85% of its exports. During his visit, Barroso signed an agreement on Cape Verde • 79 visa concessions, which facilitated Cape Verdean students, academics and businessmen travelling in the EU. It was the EU’s first visa facilitation agreement signed with an African country.

Socioeconomic Developments

On 30 January, the IMF completed the second and final review of the country’s economic performance under the 15-month Policy Support Instrument programme approved in 2010. The IMF praised government policies to reduce the budget deficit and external debts over the medium term in order to strengthen the fiscal position and stimulate private sector growth. At the same time, the Fund advised the government to improve the country’s competitiveness, diversify the economy and modernise the labour market. On 29 April, the National Assembly approved a new investment code by 36 votes of the ruling PAICV to 26 votes of the MpD and one of the ‘União Caboverdiana Indepen- dente e Democrática’ (UCID). Minister of Tourism, Industry and Energy Humberto Brito (PAICV) presented the investment code as a modern instrument to attract investment to Cape Verde. MP Eunice Silva (MpD) justified her party’s opposition on the basis that the new legislation did not differentiate between national and foreign investors. On 21 June, the national airline TACV replaced the Boeing 257 that had been leased for 16 years from the Lessor company to operate the company’s intercontinental flights with a smaller 12-year old Boeing 737–800, with a capacity of 174 passengers, leased from the International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). A second Boeing 737 acquired from ILFC arrived in Praia on 22 August. Including the two new Boeings, which were leased for $ 2.17 m, the company’s fleet was composed of three jet planes and three French ATR turboprop aircraft. On 3 March, João Pereira Silva, a trained engineer and former economy minister, took office as the new president of the administrative board of the state-owned TACV. In July, Enaport signed a renewable one-year agreement with the China International Fisheries Corporation (CIFC) for a concession on an area of 2,000 m² in the container park of Porto Grande in São Vicente for the construction of a freezer facility. Enaport also made available an 80 m berth at the fishing pier of the ex-Interbase (a cold storage facility), which was destroyed by fire in September 2008. In the first half of the year, CIFC unloaded 2,461 tonnes of frozen fish in São Vicente, which were transhipped in 176 containers. The tourist sector was not affected by the economic crisis in Europe. During the year 534,000 tourists visited the archipelago, an increase of 12.3% over 2011. Overnights increased by 17.9% to a total of 3.3 m. As in previous years, the island of Boa Vista attracted the largest number of tourists, accounting for 38.1% of arrivals and 47.7% of overnights, followed by Sal with 35.2% of arrivals and 42.2% of overnights. Santiago accounted for 12.9% of the arrivals and 4.4% of overnights, while São Vicente received 6.5% of the visitors and 2.6% of overnights. British tourists led the ranking by nationality, 80 • West Africa followed by French, Portuguese and Germans. However, the sector suffered from an over- supply of hotel beds given the average occupation rate of 57%, slightly less than the 58% registered in 2011. On 12 December, parliament approved the budget for 2013 with the votes of the 39 PAICV MPs. Twenty-seven MPs of the MpD and the two from the UCID voted against. The budget included expenditure of CVE 60.4 bn (€ 511 m), of which 57% was for current expenditure and 43% for capital expenditure. The opposition justified its disapproval by pointing to the alleged lack of incentives for employment and growth and the increase in VAT from 6% to 15%, arguing that it would prejudice the country’s tourism sector.

Gerhard Seibert Côte d’Ivoire

Having secured 204 of the National Assembly’s 255 seats in the 2011 parliamentary elections, President Alassane Ouattara’s ruling coalition, the ‘Rassemblement des Républicains’ – ‘Parti Démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire’ (RDR-PDCI) had a free hand to govern the country. Achievements during the year were quite impressive, with faster-than-expected economic recovery following months of fighting that had erupted in the wake of former president Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to accept Ouattara’s 2010 presidential poll victory. Key economic reforms were initiated, donors clearly threw their weight behind Ouattara, and investor confidence rose. However, progress lagged on a host of critical key issues, from justice and political reconciliation to security sector reform, which clearly undermined political stability and put the country at risk. A series of armed raids (nearly every month and sometimes daily), mainly attributed to pro-Gbagbo supporters, targeted the security forces, contributing to an even stronger polarisation of the political landscape and undermining the prospects for national reconciliation.

Domestic Politics

On 21 January, a supporter of the ‘Front Populaire Ivoirien’ (FPI; former president Gbagbo’s party) was killed when a rally was attacked by stone-throwing youths. Sylvain Miaka 82 • West Africa

Ouretto, interim president of the FPI, accused Ouattara’s RDR of being behind the attack and the UN peacekeeping mission condemned the violence. Tensions between locals and former northern rebels due to continued policing degenerated into ethnic clashes on 14 February in Arrah, about 210 km north-east of Abidjan. At least three people were killed and about 20 others were injured, and calm was restored by UN soldiers. On 26 February, several areas where the results of the December 2011 parliamentary elections had been annulled over irregularities organised a re-run of the vote. Unidentified attackers fired automatic weapons at a polling station in Bonon, about 300 km west of Abidjan, and at least five people were killed. Ahead of the reopening of parliament, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, who was elected an MP at the last parliamentary election, resigned with his cabinet on 8 March and was elected speaker of the new parliament on 12 March, thus becoming the next in line to the presidency. This move was expected and allowed Ouattara to keep his campaign promise of appointing a prime minister from Henri Konan Bédié’s PDCI, which had backed him in the second round of the 2010 presidential election. Former justice minister Jeannot Koua- dio Ahoussou – a veteran politician from the PDCI – was appointed prime minister on 13 March, with an almost unchanged government. He was replaced as justice minister by Loma Cisse Mattou, and the heavyweight of the previous government, Finance Minister Koffi Diby, retained his post – a way to mitigate concerns about debt payment schedules. The first ordinary session of the new parliament was opened in Yamoussoukro on 25 April in the presence of President Ouattara. On 29 March, former prime minister Banny, the head of the ‘Commission Dialogue, Vérité et Réconciliation’, met with FPI leaders in an attempt to re-engage the reconciliation process. As a next step, the government invited all the political parties to participate in a conference in Grand Bassam on 27 April, in an effort to launch talks between the government and the opposition. But the FPI walked out, insisting that the release of Gbagbo from ICC custody, and of other party leaders currently held in Côte d’Ivoire, was a precondition for dialogue. On 24 April, Ouattara toured the volatile west – a visit that had been repeatedly postponed for security reasons – with the objective of healing divisions in a region engulfed by ethnic tensions, long-standing land disputes, and the presence of tens of thousands of Ivo- rians (including armed militiamen loyal to former president Gbagbo living in Liberia, just across the border). During his trip, Ouattara called on the refugees to return home but warned that those responsible for crimes during the post-election conflict would face justice. In response, the following day, unidentified gunmen attacked the small border town of Sakre, in the Guiglo department, where they burned houses, looted shops, terrorised villagers and killed six people during a two-hour night assault. On 22 May, Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi met with army commanders in a bid to find solutions to the anarchy in theIvorian army, still bogged down with exiled soldiers, militiamen, Dozos, (traditional hunters from northern Côte d’Ivoire who became Côte d’Ivoire • 83 auxiliaries of the rebel forces during the civil war) and other civilians carrying guns. He asked that they lay down their arms completely and told military commanders to work out the precise formation of the national army by 30 June. On 23 May, the Trafigura toxic waste dumping scandal dating from 2006 claimed a new victim with the resignation of Adama Bictogo – minister of African integration and a leading mediator in Mali’s current political crisis – over questions about his role in negotiating compensation for the victims and the possible theft of CFAfr 600 m. Moise Lida Kouassi, a former top adviser to Laurent Gbagbo who had served as defence minister, was extradited from Togo to Côte d’Ivoire on 7 June. He had been detained the same week based on an international arrest warrant issued by Ouattara’s government. In 2011, 24 warrants had been issued against high-ranking military and political officials close to Gbagbo, most of whom were believed to be living in exile in Ghana, Benin and Togo. Ahead of the ICC trial day planned for 18 June, when charges against Gbagbo were due to be confirmed, the former president’s lawyers applied on 7 June for his trial to be postponed on grounds that he was unwell after being mistreated during his eight months in detention in Côte d’Ivoire. Their application was successful and on 12 June the trial was postponed for two months. On 6 August, the ICC’s pre-trial chamber postponed the confirmation of charges hearing again, from 12 August until Gbagbo had fully recovered. On 8 June, seven UN peacekeepers from Niger and one Ivorian soldier (as well as eight civilians) were killed in an ambush while on patrol near the border with neighbouring Liberia. The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) had recently increased its presence in the area near the towns of Para and Tai to boost efforts to protect civilians. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in New York that he was “saddened and outraged” by the attack. On 18 June, Ouattara and UN top envoy in Côte d’Ivoire, Bert Koenders, paid tribute to the seven killed peacekeepers. Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said that cross-border operations were necessary and that a security zone should be implemented on the other side of the border as the only way to free the region from militias and mercenaries. On 9 June, Liberia closed its border. Another attack on a village in the same area occurred on 12 June, and four people were killed. In the context of recurring incidents and the risk of a general relapse into violence, tensions strongly increased when the authorities informed the public on 9 June that they had discovered and prevented a plot against the government. According to Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko, it had been organised by exiled military officers – Colonel Kate Gno- tua, a former senior officer in Gbagbo’s presidential guard, and Lida Kouassi, recently extradited from Togo. Several participants in the alleged plot were arrested and documents outlining a plan to create a transitional authority were seized. Charles Blé Goudé, former president Gbagbo’s right-hand man and leader of the former Young Patriots, told newspapers (‘L’Intelligent’ and ‘Soir Info’) on 11 July that he was in fear for his life as many of his supporters had been kidnapped in Abidjan. A fugitive since Gbagbo’s defeat, 84 • West Africa he denied that he was subject to an ICC arrest warrant, as had been suggested by Guil- laume Soro the previous weekend. An ICC spokesperson on 16 July said that only former president Gbagbo was so far of interest to the court. However, on 23 November, the ICC made public an arrest warrant for Simone Gbagbo, the former president’s wife, for alleged crimes against humanity committed after the disputed election in November 2010. It was the first time the ICC had issued charges against a woman. The unsealing of the warrant, which was issued on 29 February, appeared to be an attempt by the ICC to put pressure on the government to send her to The Hague, as Mrs Gbagbo was being held under house arrest in the northern town of Odienne facing separate charges including genocide and embezzlement. Tensions resurfaced when a camp with 5,000 refugees under UNOCI control in Nahibly, near Duekoue, was stormed on 20 July by members of the country’s new army, the ‘Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire’ (FRCI), Dozo militia men and city dwellers who were tracking ‘insurgents’ supposedly responsible for attacks in the area. The camp was destroyed and six deaths were counted. Eleven more people were killed on 23–24 July during further incidents in Duekoue. General Soumaila Bakayoko, the chief of defence staff, said on 3 August that the army was ready to launch ‘Operation Mont Preko’, designed to clean up this region. The objective was to restore security and enable displaced people to return to their villages. Eight hundred soldiers were to be deployed and to patrol the region. On 5 August, two days ahead of Independence Day, the security situation deteriorated when military camps and a police station were attacked by unidentified armed groups in the Abidjan area and in Abengourou, in the east. In Akouedo, on the outskirts of Abidjan, the attack left seven FRCI troops dead and about a dozen seriously injured. Arms and ammunition were taken from the armoury. Five FRCI troops were also killed in the attack at a checkpoint in Yopougon, but no casualties were reported in Abengourou. The UN envoy in Côte d’Ivoire strongly condemned the attacks and UNOCI sent peacekeepers to help reinforce the FRCI. During an address to the nation on 6 August, President Ouattara stated that the country would “not accept any chaos or injustice that emerged as a result of impunity” and that security had been reinforced across the national territory. He announced the creation of a National Security Council in charge of overseeing disarmament, demobilising troops and reintegrating all former combatants. On 7 August, Mama- dou Koulibaly, former parliamentary speaker, said in reference to the attacks that the events could have been foreseen as they were part of a ‘guerilla war’ that was the result of the many frustrations people were experiencing under Ouattara’s regime. In an interview with ‘Radio France Internationale’, Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said that supporters of former president Gbagbo were behind the series of attacks, which he thought had been planned from Ghana. These accusations were rejected by the FPI, which also condemned the attacks and exhorted the government to identify those responsible. During the Côte d’Ivoire • 85 following days, 25 militia members were arrested. More attacks occurred on 9 August in Agboville (north-east of Abidjan) and on 13 August on a border post on the Liberian border. In the aftermath, Liberia dispatched troops to its side of the frontier and arrested six men – all Ivorians – attempting to flee into Liberian territory. A new attack by dissident forces, this time targeting a prison, was reported in Douplay, 15 km west of Abidjan, on 17 August. Around 100 prisoners believed to be loyal to Gbagbo were released. Unidenti- fied gunmen struck again in the village of Iribo, 90 km west of Abidjan, on 25 August. They opened fire from a vehicle at an Ivorian armed forces checkpoint and one soldier, two attackers and one civilian were killed in the ensuing gun battle. Rumours that these recurring attacks had been coordinated and organised from Ghana under code names such as ‘Faucon rouge’ (red hawk) and ‘Araignée’ (spider) strengthened the position of RDR hardliners in the governing coalition, as well as that of ex- ‘Forces Nouvelles’ members within the FRCI. Following the issuing of an international warrant in 2011, Justin Kone Katinan – a former Gbagbo finance minister accused of economic crimes living as a political refugee in Ghana – was arrested on 25 August by the Ghanaian police. Simultaneously, Alphonse Douati, the FPI’s deputy secretary-general and former minister, and Laurent Akoun, the party’s number two, were arrested in Côte d’Ivoire. On 30 August, Gbagbo’s political allies denied being behind the raids and accused the authorities of using the attacks as a pretext for a crackdown on the opposition. On 6 and 13 September, the ‘Conseil National de la Presse’ ordered the suspension for up to two weeks of ‘Notre Voie’ and then of six other pro-Gbagbo newspapers for their publication of photographs of former ministers in Gilbert Marie Ake’s puppet government (appointed by Gbagbo after he had claimed victory in the 2010 presidential elections) with captions considered “seditious” and “of a nature to prolong the post-electoral crisis”, giving the impression that there were two governments in the country. The security situation deteriorated markedly again on 20 September with new attacks in Abidjan and assaults launched from Ghanaian territory the following day, which struck at army and police forces in the border town of Noe. Eight people, including six attackers, were killed by Ivorian forces during the gun battle. Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said that land, air and sea borders would be closed until further notice. Airspace reopened to Ghanaian flights on 23 September and land and sea borders followed on 8 October, unlocking the main transport route along the Gulf of Guinea. Ahead of a meeting of the UNSC’s Côte d’Ivoire sanctions committee, excerpts from a report prepared by the UN Group of Experts monitoring sanctions compliance, was leaked on 10 October. The report mentioned that Gbagbo’s supporters had hired mercenaries in Ghana and Liberia, established training camps in eastern Liberia, and had a strategic command base in Ghana. The report mentioned some pro-Gbagbo field commanders, collectively known as ‘the generals’ and also identified the leaders of the June operation that had led to the deaths of seven UN peacekeepers. 86 • West Africa

An attack on 15 October in Abidjan on the Azito gas power station, the city’s main source of power, caused damage that forced the shutdown of one of its two turbines for a month. It was the first time strategic infrastructure had been targeted. On 14 November, Ouattara dissolved the government on the grounds of lack of solidarity between the coalition partners, especially on the part of Bédié’s PDCI and the ‘Union pour la Démocratie et la Paix en Côte d’Ivoire’; these two parties had voted against the marriage bill that had been introduced by the government, and this was used by Ouattara to tighten the links within a weakening coalition. The president consulted with Henri Konan Bédié over the formation of a new cabinet on 19 November. Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan, 69, who had been prime minister under Bédié’s presidency, was named as the new prime minister on 21 November and was also put in charge of the Min- istry of Economy and Finance. Jean-Louis Billon – the CEO of an agribusiness firm and president of the chamber of commerce – was appointed minister of small and medium size businesses, and Jean-Claude Brou, a former IMF and World Bank official who had worked with Ouattara in the 1990s and was head of the privatisation committee, was made minister of industry.

Foreign Affairs

On a state visit to Paris on 26–27 January, Alassane Ouattara received support from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to obtain an agreement on debt relief in the first quarter of the year and also announced the implementation of new privatisations to resume a process of state withdrawal from the economy, which had been taking place in the 1990s but had been put on hold as consequence of the crisis. On 17 February, Ouattara was elected the new ECOWAS chair. Following a coup in Mali, where the situation continued to deteriorate, a summit was held in Abidjan on 27 March. It was decided to send a high-level delegation made up of the presidents of Benin, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Niger and Nigeria, and led by Ouattara, but the delegation was prevented from landing in Mali on 29 March. On 7 June, HRW criticised Liberia for not taking action against forces staging attacks on Côte d’Ivoire from its territory. It notably mentioned the failure to stop mercenaries and militias from recruiting child soldiers, launching deadly raids on villages across the border and receiving funds from individuals based in Ghana. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced on 15 June that she was working closely with Ouattara to deal with these attacks. On 18 June, the Liberian government disclosed that 204 Ivorian refugees had entered the country from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. On 21 June, a Liberian court in the remote eastern town of Zwedru, near the Ivorian border, ordered the deportation of 41 Ivo- rians accused of having taken part in post-election violence. The decision followed mounting pressure on Liberia from the Ivorian government and human rights groups. Côte d’Ivoire • 87

Prime Minister Jeannot Ahoussou Kouadio participated in the AGOA Forum in Wash- ington on 14–15 June. On its margins, he met the head of USAID and Christine Lagarde, the Director General of the IMF, who confirmed Côte d’Ivoire’s qualification for the HIPC relief initiative. President Ouattara visited Israel on 16–20 June to participate in a conference chaired by Israeli President Shimon Perez. He also discussed bilateral cooperation with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the repatriation of Ivorian nationals who had arrived in Israel without permits. Israel’s interior ministry said there were around 2,000 illegal Ivorian immigrants in the country. During a four-day visit to China on 22–25 July, Ouattara participated in the fifth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Coop- eration in Beijing. He met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, as well as Chinese businessmen, to discuss economic opportunities in Côte d’Ivoire. Ouattara then travelled to France, where he met new French President François Hollande on 26 July. They discussed the situation in Mali, as well as Côte d’Ivoire’s recovery. Ouattara expressed his gratitude for the cancellation of the Ivorian debt agreed under Nicolas Sarkozy, which scrapped 99.5% of the bilateral debt and freed € 3 bn for investment in the social sector. Under a new defence agreement signed in January, the French ambassador in Côte d’Ivoire, Georges Serre, and Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi signed a CFAfr 1.5 bn convention on 2 August to pay for army reforms and the training of army officers, including the opening of two military colleges in Zambakro. Ouat- tara travelled again to Paris with new Prime Minister Kablan Duncan and ten other government members on 4–5 December to participate in the donors’ consultative group created to support the national development plan. The government received broad support from the donor community and particularly from France. Ouattara met with President Hollande, and other important matters such as justice, the reform of the army and the reconciliation process were discussed. The new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim visited Côte d’Ivoire on 4 September on his first visit in Africa. He said that Côte d’Ivoire’s economic weight in West Africa meant that its success was critical to the entire sub-region and Africa as a whole. On 25 September, following attacks launched from Ghana, Ghanaian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Chris Kpodo reaffirmed Ghana’s readiness to collaborate fully with the Ivorian government. However, tension arose between the two countries after leaks from the UN Panel of Experts report, which referred to a supposed base of pro-Gbagbo elements in Ghana working to destabilise the Ivorian government. Kpodo challenged these leaks on 12 October, but relations between the two countries came under pressure again with the release by a Ghanaian court of Justin Kone Katinan, on 24 October. Katinan had been arrested in August on an international warrant and then released on bail. He had been rearrested on 28 September on charges of two alleged killings, brought by the Ivorian authorities, but the court dismissed the charges. Tensions surfaced once more in early November, when Gbagbo’s ex-fighters infiltrated refugee 88 • West Africa camps in Ghana. It was assumed that they were connected with the 150 fighters who had escaped in May during their transfer to a Ghanaian maximum security prison.

Socioeconomic Developments

The volatile situation in the west was the main source of concern for the government and the international community. A report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre released on 28 November said that at least 24,000 people were displaced in 2012 as a result of residual tension and recurring land conflicts. These people had to be added to between 40,000 and 80,000 people still displaced as a result of the conflict – which had initially displaced up to 1 m people by 2011. Among the major achievements of the year was the long-awaited reform of the cocoa sector, which was a precondition for winning IMF-backed debt relief (with the IMF requesting at least six months of implementation). An industry regulator – the ‘Conseil du Café Cacao’ (CCC) – was created and, on 24 January, Lambert Kouassi Konan (a PDCI baron and former agriculture minister under Bédié’s presidency in the 1990s) was appointed chairman. The reform was officially launched on 8 February with the return of a system to guarantee minimum prices to farmers (based on forward-selling and daily electronic auctions, as well as a minimum farm gate price to be enforced by the authorities). However, on 19 September, ahead of the opening of the harvesting season on 1 October, cocoa merchants threatened to block supplies or resort to smuggling as a consequence of a prolonged dispute with the CCC over transport costs. Merchants said that the over-land transport costs estimate proposed by the CCC in July did not reflect the myriad bribes and illegal taxes they had to pay to soldiers, police and customs agents on the way to port. The final price breakdown was approved and enforced by the government on 2 October. It included a guaranteed farm gate price of CFAfr 725 per kilo (60% of which was the CIF cost, with 22% going to middlemen and 18% to the state). The first World Cocoa Conference took place on 19–23 November in Yamoussoukro, and brought together more than 1,000 stakeholders to address strategic challenges facing the industry. Both the Ivorian president and the First Lady addressed the conference’s opening session, where they stressed the need for increased private sector investment, fair prices for farmers, ecologically responsible practices and the need to drastically reduce the widespread use of child labour. On 12 April, the IMF said that the country was on track to fulfil an IMF-backed debt relief agreement by the end of June. The completion point under the enhanced HIPC Ini- tiative was effectively reached on 26 June and the IMF/World Bank and Paris Club credi- tor countries agreed on a debt cancellation on 29 June, eliminating over $ 10 bn of the country’s estimated $ 12.5 bn external debt. Some 42% of the country’s expenditure had previously gone to debt servicing, so the agreements freed up much-needed funding for post-war reconstruction. The government also began negotiations with private investors Côte d’Ivoire • 89 in London and New York in October to repair relations in the wake of the country’s 2011 debt default. Scheduled interest payments on its bonds resumed in June, but three scheduled semi-annual payments on its $ 2.3 bn bond maturing in 2032 remained in default. The Finance Ministry proposed to repay the $ 89 m it owed in five instalments, finishing at the end of 2014. During a cabinet meeting on 23 May, Charles Koffi Diby presented a privatisation plan for 15 state-owned companies (or companies with state participation) that had the potential to raise CFAfr 116 bn in revenue (including CFAfr 25 bn for the state alone). These 15 companies included major banks, agribusiness firms and public works businesses. A pool of donors, led by the AfDB, reached final arrangements on 28 June in Paris for the construction, operation and maintenance of the Henry Konan Bédié Toll Bridge Project in Abidjan, at a total project cost of € 272 m. The 1.9 km bridge would connect the towns of Riviera and Marcory over the Ebrie lagoon; the project was structured as a public-private partnership and would be implemented under a 30-year Build-Operate- Transfer concession agreement granted to Socoprim, a company registered in Côte d’Ivoire. The project’s sponsor and main strategic partner was the Bouygues Group, a leading French construction and concession conglomerate. It was the AfDB’s first private sector operation in the country in over a decade. The AfDB headquarters – transferred from Abidjan to Tunis in 2003 in the aftermath of the 2002 events that divided the country – was expected to be transferred back to Côte d’Ivoire in 2013. With production soaring to more than 250,000 tonnes, the country became Africa’s leading grower of natural rubber, far ahead of Nigeria and Liberia. The growth in production and exports, which was expected to continue, was a consequence of a progressive switch by planters away from cocoa, lured by the promise of more stable incomes. If cocoa remained the country’s main export (at around 30%–35% of the total), it was followed by oil at about 30%. Oil production was 40,000 b/d, but it was thought that untapped off-shore reserves were vast. Five to seven exploratory drillings were planned, after a decade of stagnation, and a new revised petroleum code was intended to attract new companies and possibly weed out a number of inexperienced operators who had used political connections to acquire stakes during the Gbagbo years. On 3 August, the government temporarily suspended all taxes on rice imports in order to contain food prices – a consequence of grain price record highs caused by drought in the American Midwest and Russia. With estimated imports of around 900,000 tonnes a year, this measure cost the government some CFAfr 7 bn in lost revenue. Ahead of the reopening of universities, closed since the 2011 events, the decision to increase student registration fees in early August triggered student anger. The decision made the news for several days, the situation being exploited by the opposition, which denounced it as being against the right to education. Nevertheless, the reopening of the Abidjan-Cocody campus, the largest in Côte d’Ivoire, on 15 October after major renovation 90 • West Africa work represented a significant step forward. The reopening was an opportunity for the government to enforce reforms, including the reshaping of the training system and a switch in university degrees to international standards (adopting the BA-MA-PhD system). At year’s end, the IMF estimated output growth at around 8%, a dramatic turn-around from a 4.7% contraction in 2011. Ouattara said he was confident of attaining double-digit growth within the next few years, which was significantly higher than current estimates. The year finished tragically when 64 people were killed during a stampede on New Year’s Eve. The victims were crushed or trampled to death when panic broke out as people attempted to leave a fireworks display at a stadium in the central Plateau district in Abi- djan. More than 200 others were injured. Youth Minister Alain Lobognon said at least 26 of those killed were children. The country observed three days of mourning.

Bruno Losch Gambia

On 23 August, firing squads executed nine of the 46 inmates on death row at the Miles 2 Prison in the capital, Banjul. President Yaya Jammeh had announced his decision to carry out all the death sentences during his annual televised meeting with Muslim elders at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Civil society organisations, AI, the EU and ECOWAS promptly asked for a suspension of the remaining executions, which was granted on 15 September on condition that the country’s crime rate would stop rising. The economy continued to suffer from the European downturn and from the poor harvest of 2011. In April, the government declared a national food crisis and appealed for international support.

Domestic Politics

In February, after having dissolved his previous cabinet, President Jammeh, who had been elected for a fourth presidential term in November 2011, appointed new ministers, but retained long-serving Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy, and the ministers of interior, tourism, and finance. Cabinet reshuffles took place throughout the year, clearly one of the disciplinary tactics Jammeh used to keep his close associates in a constant state of 92 • West Africa psychological tension. Domestic politics continued to be characterised by a lack of civil and political liberties, arbitrary arrests and suppression of opponents and journalists, and Jammeh’s challenging statements against international organisations (such as the EU and AI) that spotted the poor human rights performance of his government. His personal campaign against homosexuality, which had started in 2008, gained momentum. Early in April, 16 men and two women, all Gambians apart from a Senegalese and a Nigerian, were arrested by police for having participated in a private party where the dress code for men was transvestite. Less than two weeks later the owner of the hotel where the party took place was badly beaten and flown to Germany for medical treatment. Two of his employees were arrested for the assault, but no motive was given. That same month, at the opening of the parliamentary year, Jammeh declared that Gambia would never bow to international pressure to recognise the rights of homosexuals. In May, he launched ‘Oper- ation Bulldozer’ aimed, in his own words, at getting rid of “drug dealers, paedophiles, homosexuals, murderers, drug traffickers, human traffickers and ‘419’ email scammers”. Most citizens were of the opinion that this initiative was simply an instrument of government repression, and that Jammeh’s moody character had worsened as a result of his constant fear of being overthrown. Social networks and on-line media based in the diaspora kept spreading rumours that testified to his growing lack of confidence, pointing to, among other things, his reported dependence on the advice of diviners and religious specialists of various sorts. In July, a woman spiritual healer was arrested for having dreamt (and talked) of Jammeh’s imminent downfall. Some of the on-line media described the nine executions on 23 August in terms of human sacrifice, a speculation reinforced by the fact that the families of the deceased were denied access to the bodies, which were buried in an unknown location. While no strong opposition movement developed inside the country in the wake of the Arab Spring upheavals, the community of expatriate Gambians became more vocal in response to Jammeh’s increased brutality. In December, ‘Freedom’ newspaper (one of the most read on-line media) reported that Jammeh was sleeping in tents with his soldiers for fear of a coup, after having been warned on 10 October by one Sidia Bayo – a Gambian living in Dakar – that he should leave power within 30 days. On the same occasion, Sidia Bayo announced the birth of the Gambian National Transitional Council and published his list of government ministers who would lead the country after the end of Jammeh’s regime. An anti-Jammeh video in both Wolof and English and titled ‘Against Impunity’ swept the internet in December. In addition, Jammeh’s direct involvement in the death of Gambia’s leading journalist, Deyda Hydra, in 2004, and the disappearance of Dada Marena (chief of the National Intelligence Agency) and of other officials accused of plotting a coup against the government in 2006, was the subject of startling revelations made by some of Jammeh’s former closest aides and loyalists. They included Lance-Corporal Musa Sarr, a former member of the president’s special forces called the ‘junglers’. Stationed in Kanilai, Jammeh’s home village, which became his second capital, and in other key localities, the ‘junglers’ were members Gambia • 93 of the Gambian Armed Forces who answered only to the president. In 2010, Sarr had left Gambia for Senegal after being involved in a car crash in which several passengers were killed; he had apparently been on a trip to pick up cannabis. Jammeh reacted to this incident by arresting four of his junglers, including Sarr’s brother and one Bai Lowe, who by the end of 2012 was reported to having absconded to Germany. Such unverifiable stories, spread by word of mouth and in multiple unofficial versions, caused unrest during 2012. The dark side of Jammeh’s regime started to be discussed, at least on the Internet, although this increasing exposure did not divert him from his brutal repressive tactics. In October, the parents of the editor of ‘Freedom’ newspaper, Pa Nderry M’Bai, were interviewed by national television and urged to stress their support for the regime, which they duly did. During the first part of the year Ba-Kawsu Fofana, the Imam of Sanchaba Sulay Jobe mosque, was arrested several times; he had been in the news in December 2011 because his colleagues at the Supreme Islamic Council had officially asked Jammeh to put a stop to his Friday sermons, in which he exposed their supine allegiance to Jammeh’s regime. Imam Fofana eventually fled the country in August to seek refuge in Senegal. In Septem- ber, he released an internet interview providing details of his arrests and torture by security forces. On 13 September, Imam Baba Leigh publicly condemned the August executions as anti-Islamic. He was one of the few Islamic leaders who had over the years resisted the regime’s efforts to subdue the national religious authorities. Imam Leigh was arrested on 3 December and by year’s end his family and the public were fearful that he had died in custody as no sure information was available about where or in what conditions he was being detained. On 12 March, with legislative elections pending, conflicts within the ranks of the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) over the nominations – a sign that Jammeh’s supporters were divided internally – led to the expulsion of 26 members who were deemed disloyal to the party. Twelve of them had planned to stand as independent candidates. The polls took place on 29 March without the participation of six out of the seven opposition parties, which boycotted the polls after having asked the Independent Electoral Commission to halt the APRC’s use of government resources for its political campaign. The result was that the APRC gained complete control of the legislature, apart from one seat, which went to Hamat Bah’s as yet unrepresented National Rec- onciliation Party and four seats that went to independent candidates. In the course of the year a series of important court cases reached their conclusion. On 4 October, Gumbo Ali Touray, former director of international affairs at the University of The Gambia, was acquitted of all charges by the Banjul Magistrates Court. The result was welcomed by the diaspora as Touray’s case stood as a clear example of Jammeh’s disregard for the rule of law. In 2011, Touray had been accused of giving false information to a public official under section 114 of the criminal code, but his real fault was that he had petitioned Jammeh about the misconduct of Mohammadou M.O. Kha, vice chancellor of the University of The Gambia, who ‘pavement radio’ used to say “travelled like a plane”. 94 • West Africa

In a country where citizens had long been forced to go abroad to further their education, the university, established in 1996, is considered among the major achievements of Jammeh’s government. According to Touray, Kha was more interested in appropriating public money to cover his travel expenses than in furthering the university’s development. Travel allowances are one way in which high-ranking civil servants capitalise on their offices – a visible sign of their privileged status, and contrasting sharply with the travel opportunities open to the general population, which had been undermined by years of financial constraints and increasing Western immigration restrictions. On 19 October, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence passed on the former head of the Gambian army, General Lang Tombong Tamba, and six others who had been charged with treason in 2010 after the alleged discovery of an attempted coup. After the failure of their appeal, their only hope lay in a judicial review before a panel of seven judges. AI asked the government to give Tamba and the others sufficient time to file their application. On 12 November, Isatou Touray and Amie Bojang Sissoho, officials of GAMCOTRAP (one of the most important Gambian NGOs) were acquitted of charges of fraud and theft brought against them by the government in 2010. This was a victory for the international network that had mobilised in support of these two prominent human rights defenders.

Foreign Affairs

Though Gambia was still popular with European tourists, the year’s events seriously undermined the country’s peaceful image on the international stage. Jammeh’s announcement on 19 August, at the end of Ramadan, that all pending death sentences would be carried out caused considerable commotion. Jammeh had issued the same threat in 2009 but it was not implemented. For this reason AI had classified Gambia as ‘abolition- ist’ in practice; the last death sentence had been carried out in 1985 and the death penalty had been abolished under former president Dawada Jawara (1993). Having taken power, Jammeh reinstated it in 1995 and in 2011 extended its use to cover drug crimes in an effort to demonstrate his commitment to curbing drug trafficking in the sub-region. Things were different this time because, after Jammeh announced his intention to proceed with the executions, activists in and outside the country had no time to organise any concrete efforts to stop the executions. Two of the prisoners executed in August were nationals of Senegal, a man and a woman, Tabara Samba, who was rumoured of having been repeatedly raped before her execution. Senegalese reaction was immediate and added to the historical grievances between the two countries, which were also particularly fuelled by Jammeh’s alleged support for the Casamance rebels. In an effort to improve relations, Jammeh intervened in negotiations that led to the release on 9 December of eight Senegalese citizens who had been held by Casamance rebels. Gambia • 95

The August executions also compromised relations with the EU, which asked for an immediate moratorium on death sentences. On 3 February, the EU had signed a € 10 m Governance Support Program intended to improve Gambians’ access to justice and legal training, create an institutional framework for the work of journalists, and enhance financial governance through reform of public expenditure, taxation and revenue administration systems.

Socioeconomic Developments

By year’s end real GDP growth was estimated to have contracted by 1.7%, following failed harvests and slow growth in the tourist sector. Drought and sparse rainfall in 2011 had dealt a major blow to the agricultural sector, and at the beginning of the year it was evident that the poor harvest would not supply farmers’ food needs for more than a couple of months. A decline in migrants’ remittances as a result of the global downturn helped push more households below the poverty line. In March, the government declared a national food emergency and called for international support to the tune of $ 23 m in seeds, fertiliser and food aid. In May, after a positive review of the country trends, the IMF renewed a credit facility of $ 28.3 m for another three years. Although the government had launched the Programme for Accelerated Growth and Employment (PAGE) in 2011 to boost agriculture and the construction sector with the help of infrastructural projects, tangible benefits for the citizenry were not yet visible. In search of resources to carry out PAGE, the government tried to attract the support of private investors. Meanwhile, Jammeh continued to expand his personal business empire. In June, he tried to appropriate by force part of the Albert Market in Banjul, which was owned by Alhajie Jawara, a businessman from Baddibu. The area hosted market stalls that Jawara rented out to small traders. After Jammeh’s attempts were disclosed by on-line media, Jawara allegedly received 10 m dalasi (roughly € 240,000) in compensation for the property he had lost. The government also issued an ‘open call’ threatening punitive action against the business community for holding foreign currency, especially US dollars, and purportedly triggering inflation; in October, Jammeh unilaterally intervened in the currency market to devalue the euro, dollar and other strong currencies. This happened on the eve of the ‘Tobasky’ festival (the Muslim festival of sacrifice), when remittances usually rise to help cover family expenses.

Alice Bellagamba

Ghana

The campaign for the 7 December presidential and parliamentary elections was the key event of the year. Although the elections were generally peaceful and both local and international election observers deemed the process to be free, fair and transparent, the campaign activities leading to polling day were marred by derogatory statements and speeches laced with ethnocentric epithets. This eventually led to several violent clashes between the two major political parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patri- otic Party (NPP). The sudden death of President John Evans Atta-Mills, however, contributed to a period of national unity, sorrow and calm, albeit short-lived. While election campaigns were the primary focus of activities, the country further consolidated its diplomatic and bilateral relations at sub-regional, regional and international levels.

Domestic Politics

The country’s domestic politics were skewed towards preparations for the December elections and its related activities. On 24 March, the Electoral Commission (EC) began a biometric registration exercise as part of the preparations for the election. The three-month (March–May) registration exercise was fraught with challenges, although EC Chairman 98 • West Africa

Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan continuously assured Ghanaians of an effective and well- organised registration. On 26 March, for example, there were reports of dysfunctional laptops, printers and fingerprint machines at some registration centres and, on 11 April, two leading members of the NPP, Ursula Owusu and Abu Jinapor, were attacked by hired party thugs, popularly known as ‘machomen’, at a registration centre in the Odododiodio constituency in Accra. On 22 June, the EC reported between 12,000 and 15,000 double registrations during the voters registration exercise and on 15 November, with a few weeks to go to the election, admitted that some minors, particularly in the Ashanti and Volta regions (strongholds of the NPP and NDC respectively), had been registered. Regardless of these challenges, the EC registered over 14 m potential voters and dedicated the period between 1 and 10 September to displaying the register for verification and correction. In the interim, the political climate continued to be tense, marked by inter- and intra- party conflicts, political innuendo, violent clashes and the use of insulting and abusive language. On 19 January, President Mills fired Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Martin A.B.K. Amidu for accusing his administration of covering up “gargantuan economic crimes” against the state. On 11 June, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, wife of former president Jerry Rawlings and an NDC presidential aspirant who lost to Mills at the 2011 Sunyani Congress, announced the formation of her own political party, the National Democratic Party (NDP) and, on 12 October, she resigned from the NDC to take up the leadership of the NDP. This led to several objections from NDC supporters, who accused Rawlings, her husband and their followers of treachery. Political break-ups and tensions did not only occur within the NDC. On 2 February, Paa Kwesi Nduom, former presidential candidate of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), announced the formation of a new group, the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), to contest the elections. This decision hinged on an internal power struggle within the CPP, which had escalated in the latter part of 2011, resulting in Nduom’s eventual resignation. On 22 November, tensions within the People’s National Convention (PNC) saw the denunciation of Hassan Ayariga, the party’s presidential candidate, by some members of the leadership, including Atik Mohammed, the PNC’s policy analyst. This denunciation came in the wake of allegations of Ayariga’s close ties with the NDC and his misconduct at the second of three rounds of election debates at the Institute of Economic Affairs on 21 November. Counter-attacks and clashes between loyalists of the ruling NDC and the opposition NPP escalated in the course of the year. On 19 January, Sunyani East constituency executives of the NPP reported attacks by supporters of the NDC. The NPP reported several attacks by NDC loyalists in the Odododiodio constituency, which occurred on 4, 12 and 19 March and led to numerous injuries. Similarly, there were reports of violent clashes between NDC and NPP loyalists at the Makola market and Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra on 11 and 13 December, respectively. The former incident resulted in the death of Ghana • 99 an NDC supporter. On 19 November, there were reported clashes between supporters of the NDC and NPP in the Efutu constituency in the Central Region. Despite the intense political atmosphere, the year also marked the passing of two prominent statesmen. First, the announcement of the death of President Atta-Mills on 24 July threw the nation into a state of shock and mourning. While this period united many Gha- naians, there was indignation at the NDC’s alleged deception over the president’s health and the extreme pressures placed on him to run for re-election. The president’s health status had been an open secret since the presidential elections in 2004, but many people were still dismayed by his sudden death. Atta-Mills was finally laid to rest on 10 August at the new ‘Asomdwee’ (Peace) Park near the Christiansborg Castle, Osu, in Accra. Second, on 16 November, the death was announced of former vice president John Aliu Mahama of the previous Kufuor-led administration. In accordance with the provisions of the 1992 constitution, Vice President John Dra- mani Mahama was sworn-in as the interim president, less than 24 hours after the announcement of the president’s death. Subsequently, on 30 August, President Mahama was unanimously elected as the new presidential candidate of the incumbent NDC, polling 99.5% of the votes at a special congress in Kumasi. The selection of presidential running mates became an issue of central importance. In the NPP, there was speculation that the presidential candidate, Nana Akuffo-Addo, would change his running mate, Mahamudu Bawumia, for the 2012 election. There were reports of rival potential candidates for the NPP’s vice presidential slot. These included former head of the Ghana Football Association, Alhaji MND Jawula; Deputy Minority Leader Ambrose Deri; and former Salaga MP Boniface Saddique Abubakar. On 29 March, Nana Akuffo-Addo formally retained Bawumia as his running mate, while Mahama announced on 18 September that Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur Bekoe, a former governor of the Bank of Ghana and a native of the Central Region, would stand as his running mate, although Han- nah Tetteh, a former minister of trade, was also seen as a potential candidate. On 12 September, 11 October and 17 October, the PPP, CPP and PNC selected three women, Eva Lokko, Sherita Sarpong and Helen Matrevi, as their respective vice presidential candidates. The CPP’s selection of Sherita Sarpong, Queen Mother of the Dormaa Traditional Council, was in contravention of the 1992 constitution, which banned the active participation of chieftaincy office holders in politics. She subsequently resigned her queen mother position to compete in the elections. Two female presidential candidates, Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings of the NDP, and Akua Donkor of the Ghana Freedom Party were, however, disqualified by the EC for not completing their registration forms. On 25 October, the former filed a case against the EC, which was, however, dismissed by the Human Rights High Court on 30 November. With barely three months to the elections, Mahama began his campaign with the slogan, “Still a Better Ghana Agenda” and started by touring the Greater Accra Region on 100 • West Africa

19 September. Mahama’s campaign tour to the Upper East Region from 10 to 12 November was perhaps the most controversial. On one of his campaign platforms in Zuarungu, the president was quoted as having asked the electorate to vote for him because he was a northerner. This sparked nation-wide condemnation. On 12–13 November, the PNC and NPP condemned Mahama’s ethnocentric politics, and the CPP demanded an apology from the president on 15 November. To assure northerners of his support and discredit Mahama’s ethnocentric outburst, Nana Akuffo Addo dispatched Bawumia, also a northerner, on a campaign tour in the three northern regions on 22 November. In his speech at one of his campaign stops in Walewale, Bawumia was reported to have remarked, “I ask you to vote for Nana and I, not because I am a northerner but because Nana and I have the vision, competence and incorruptibility necessary to solve your problems.” Another NDC campaign controversy occurred on 12 November, when a renowned pastor, Mensa Otabil, condemned the party for wrongfully using his past sermons in its campaign commercials against Akuffo-Addo’s free senior high school policy. This resulted in abusive comments from NDC officials, who called Mensa Otabil a “coward” and a “disappointment” and an ally of the NPP. The NPP campaign was not without controversy, either. On 13 April, an “ethno- defamatory” and “treasonable” speech by Kennedy Agyapong, an NPP MP for Assin North, threatened the already fragile political atmosphere. In his speech, Agyapong was alleged to have said, “We would beat all Gas and Ewes in the Ashanti Region if this is how they want us to go. Again I declare war in this country (. . .). We would club any intruder who intends fomenting trouble with a machete and butcher them.” As a consequence, civil society groups, religious bodies and political parties – especially the NDC – criticised the MP for “inciting war”. He was arrested on 15 April and charged with genocide and treason. However, on 6 July, the case was rejected by the Supreme Court. On 1 August, Akuffo-Addo re-echoed his earlier “all-die-be-die” speech, made in 2011, defiantly defending the hostile mantra. The speech called on the party faithful to “take all necessary actions”, including violence where needed, to defend themselves during the election. In addition, on 11 October, Akuffo-Addo visited ex-president Rawlings, founder of the NDC, which also sparked several debates. Critics perceived this visit as a desperate measure by the NPP to solicit the support of Rawlings and his followers. On 4 September, the EC came under attack over the submission of constitutional instrument CI 78 to parliament. CI 78 authorised the EC to add 45 new constituencies to the existing 230, making a total of 275. Political parties doubted the legitimacy of this move and accused the president of using the constitutional process to rig the elections. Never- theless, CI 78 became law on 2 October. On 14 October, the NPP organised primaries to elect candidates for the new constituencies, while the NDC had already organised its primaries on 5 August, i.e. well before CI 78 was passed. On 14 November, the Electoral Commission was censured for its delay in releasing the voters register. The Commission’s tardiness fuelled doubts about its ability to organise a free and fair election, particularly Ghana • 101 when there were allegations of vote rigging by the government party. On 22 October, two EC directors were arrested for allegedly receiving bribes from a political party. On 29 November, the NPP alleged that workers of the National Disaster Management Organi- sation were transporting illegal ballot boxes, ballot papers and motorcycles to the northern region with the aim of preventing the EC from carrying the official ballot boxes to the polling centres. Because of the tense atmosphere, civil society groups made a commitment to work for a peaceful election. On 15 February, the West Africa Network of Peacebuilding launched an ‘Election Dispute Management Practice Guide for West Africa’. This guide was aimed at highlighting the causes and effects of election violence, as well as the mechanisms appropriate for resolving election-related disputes. On 18 July, the Institute for Democratic Governance organised a seminar on ‘Ghana’s Political and Administrative Transitions of Government’. Similarly, on 23 October the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Train- ing Centre organised a colloquium on ‘Ensuring Peaceful Elections in Ghana’. At the end of the colloquium, all stakeholders published a communiqué outlining their commitment to peace and calling on the government to use effective mechanisms to ensure a violence- free election. On 27 November, the National Peace Council, under the auspices of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu II, organised a high-level meeting with all presidential candidates in Kumasi, urging them to take cooperative action against “electoral violence, impunity and injustice” and to abide by the results of the vote. Of the 23 parties that campaigned at the beginning of the year, the EC only allowed eight to participate in the elections. With regard to the parliamentary elections, the EC announced on 3 December that 1,332 candidates, made up of 1,198 men and 134 women, had been approved. On 4 December, special voting commenced for security service and affiliated personnel who would be on duty on polling day. On election day, 4,000 non- partisan election observers were deployed by the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, a civil society organisation, and over 20,000 police and 5,000 military personnel were also deployed by the government. External observers such as the AU deployed 40 observers, while ECOWAS and the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) deployed over 250. Despite the use of biometric registration, voting was extended to 8 December owing to technical glitches. As in 2008, the parliamentary results for the 2012 elections represented a setback for the NPP. Despite the electorate’s tendency to go for a “skirt-and-blouse” vote, i.e. vote for the presidential candidate of one party and the parliamentary candidate of another, the NPP lost the parliamentary elections to the NDC. The NPP took 123 parliamentary seats to the NDC’s 147, although this was an improvement for the NPP over the 107 seats it won in 2008. Samia Nkrumah, the only CPP MP in parliament and daughter of Kwame Nkrumah, lost her seat in the Jomoro constituency to the NDC’s Francis Kabenlah Anaman. She blamed her loss on an invasion of the constituency by non-Jomoro residents on election day. 102 • West Africa

Mahama won the presidential vote. He received 50.7% of the votes, while the NPP’s Akuffo-Addo received 47.7%. The PPP’s Paa Kwesi Nduom took third place with 0.6% of the votes, while Henry Herbert Lartey, leader of the Great Consolidated Popular Party, came fourth with 0.4%. Before these results were announced by the EC, the NPP organised a press conference on 8 December declaring Nana Akuffo-Addo the winner, but the next day the EC officially declared John Mahama the winner of the 2012 elections. This result and declaration tallied with what observers and other tabulations had predicted, but the NPP protested that the results were not valid and was advised to file its complaints in court as provided for under the rules governing elections. Subsequently, on 28 December, the party filed its petition alleging electoral fraud with the Supreme Court.

Foreign Affairs

2012 was a busy year for the Mills-Mahama administration as far as diplomacy was concerned. The year began with invitations to attend investiture ceremonies in two West African countries. On 16 January, Mahama, on behalf of then President Mills, attended the inauguration ceremony of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. Mills himself attended the investiture of Macky Sall of Senegal on 3 April. Ghana continued to show its commitment to the ideals of ECOWAS and the AU. The coups d’état that occurred in Mali and Guinea-Bissau in March and April, respectively, led to a series of ECOWAS meetings and consultations. On 27 March, Mills attended an extraordinary Summit of ECOWAS heads of state and government in Côte d’Ivoire to address the worsening crisis in Mali. Similarly, on 3 May, Mills attended an emergency summit of ECOWAS heads of state and government in Senegal to discuss the conflict situations in Mali and Guinea-Bissau. Mills also participated in the 18th ordinary session of the AU assembly of heads of state and government in Ethiopia (29–30 January). In his address, he emphasised the need for an increase in intra-Africa trade and effective mechanisms for improved inter-continental economic relations. Mills also unveiled a statue of Kwame Nkrumah in the forecourt of the AU headquarters. Mills engaged in several bilateral talks. On 29 March, he embarked on a one-day working visit to Togo to hold talks with President Faure Gnassingbe. On 11 May, Mills received President Boni Yayi of Benin for talks on various issues. This meeting led to the signing of an agreement on energy supplies to Benin on 8 September by President Mahama. In addition, Ghana’s long-standing bilateral relationship with South Africa was consolidated when the latter’s Vice President Kgalema Motlanthe paid a courtesy call on Mills on 20 April to strengthen political and economic relations. The meeting ended with a promise from South Africa to support Ghana by providing 500 affordable housing units and to boost the country’s tourism industry through the development of the Mole Game Reserve. At the global level, Mills was hosted by US President Obama at the White House on 8 March for discussions on bilateral relations and regional integration. One of the key Ghana • 103 outcomes of the meeting was the signing of the Partnership for Growth Initiative, which was expected to increase and sustain mutual economic growth. Another outcome was the signing of a $ 1.2 bn facility with General Electric and the Conti Group for the energy sector. On 21 April, Mills once again travelled to the US as a Special Guest at the Interna- tional Conservation Caucus Foundation forum on the promotion of good governance and natural resource management. Mills continued to New York on 26 April for a meeting with the Business Council for International Understanding. To further affirm their bilateral relations, Mills was invited by Obama to participate in the 38th G8 Summit at Camp David in May. On 1–3 March, a Chinese delegation held talks with Mills on strategies to strengthen bilateral relations and, on 13 December, Ghana signed a $ 30 m agreement with China for the construction of a 15,000 capacity stadium in Cape Coast. From 22 to 28 September, newly sworn-in John Mahama was in the US to participate in the United Nations General Assembly meeting. During the six-day trip, Mahama held meetings with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, World Bank President Jim Y. Kim and various heads of state, as well as business leaders. More importantly, on 26 September, Mahama addressed the 67th UN General Assembly. In his address, he recounted Ghana’s progress towards the achievement of the MDGs, including poverty reduction, gender equality, access to safe drinking water, universal basic education and efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. On 11 December, Mahama received President of Benin and Chairman of the AU Assem- bly Boni Yayi. The high-level delegation commended Mahama and the Ghanaian people for organising yet another successful election. On 12 December, Mahama travelled to Malabo (Equatorial Guinea) for the 7th Summit of the ACP heads of state and government. The meeting also marked the end of Ghana’s four-year chairmanship of the ACP, which Mahama subsequently handed over to the government of Equatorial Guinea. At the meeting, Mahama urged world leaders to make an extra commitment towards peace and security, development and good governance. He also used the opportunity to encourage the ACP states to vote for Allan Kyeremanteng, a former NPP presidential aspirant, in the election for the executive directorship of the WTO. On 13 December, Mahama visited Abuja (Nigeria) for discussions with President Goodluck Jonathan on the West African Gas Pipeline.

Socioeconomic Developments

On 16 February, President Mills gave a state of the nation address on the theme “Still a Better Ghana Agenda” in which he highlighted his government’s unprecedented economic achievements. He referred to the construction of 1,700 classroom blocks, distribution of over 60,000 laptops to schools, and a $ 7 bn growth in FDI. His statement on corruption was, however, received with uproar by the opposition, citing allegations of increasing amounts of judgment debt ordered to be paid by the government to aggrieved 104 • West Africa contractors, and lack of transparency. Since taking office in 2009, the Mills government had been accused of spending over GH¢ (cedi) 600 m Ghana on ‘preventable’ judgment debts, needlessly causing the state financial loss. The scandal surrounding these judgment debts escalated in 2012. On 16 January, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, allegedly a financer of the NDC, was accused of defrauding the state of some GH¢ 51.2 m. In addition, on 12 July, the former attorney general and minister of justice under the Mills/Mahama administration, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, was accused of paying over € 94 m judgment debts to the Construction Pioneers company without due process and cabinet approval. The government blamed the increasing judgment debts on the previous NPP administration, which it accused of having illegally abrogated contracts. Inflation remained stable in the first quarter, despite the 15% rise in petroleum prices in December 2011 and the 17.3% depreciation of the cedi. However on 9 May, Philomena Nyarko, acting government statistician, announced an inflation increase from 8.8% in March to 9.1% in April, indicating a rise in commodity prices. By November, inflation had risen again to 9.3%. The country experienced an economic growth rate of 7.1%, with the service sector showing the highest rate at 8.8% and the agricultural sector scoring the lowest at 2.6%. On 16 November, a report by the Ghana Monetary Policy Committee highlighted that, as of September 2012, the country had accrued revenues and grants totalling GH¢ 11.1 bn, and merchandise export growth of $ 10.1 bn, compared with $ 9.8 bn in 2011. Gold was the highest export commodity registering $ 4.1 bn. Efforts were made towards improving agricultural activity. On 15 February, Mills opened the George Walker Bush Highway, part of a $ 547 m US Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) project to connect farming communities to commercial centres. The MCA project also supported the capacity building of farmers in 23 districts in the northern region. A $ 2.5 m Perishable Cargo Centre began operating on 16 February, aimed at providing storage for perishable foods, such as fruit and vegetables, for export. On 27 September, a critical access road, the Achimota-Ofankor road, was completed. On 29 October, the government reported a 30% reduction in rice imports and a corresponding 59% increase in local rice production. The oil and gas sector brought in $ 340 m, compared with $ 347 m in 2011. On 14 December, the US-based Hess Petroleum company reported five new oil discoveries in the Deepwater Tano basin, Cape Three Points. The energy sector also received some external support. On 28 September, Ghana signed a $ 1.5 m grant agreement with South Korea for human resource capacity building to strengthen domestic energy transmission. In addition, on 14 November, Shell established a $ 2.2 m hydrocarbon storage facility at the Golden Star Resources, Bogoso Mines, and Air Liquide, an industrial and medical gas producer, opened a € 2 m liquid oxygen, nitrogen and argon plant and a 60 tonnes carbon dioxide storage tank at Tema on 3 December. On 5 December, a UK firm, Mere Power Nzema, announced an initiative to build a solar plant at Nzema. The $ 400 m facility was expected to increase power generation by 6%. Nevertheless, frequent power outages Ghana • 105 remained as the main challenge in the energy sector. As part of a national energy conservation mechanism, power rationing (also known as ‘load shedding’) was implemented during the greater part of the year, but this affected manufacturing output. The government blamed the power outages on the damage caused to the West African Gas Pipeline by an unidentified ship on 28 August. Increasing drug trafficking received further international attention. On 18 May, Assis- tant US Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement William R. Brownfield travelled to Ghana to finalise discussions on the West Africa Cooperative Security Initiative. By 23 July, the US had begun training an anti-drugs police contingent in Ghana. Despite these efforts, £ 200,000 worth of cocaine was seized at Kotoka airport on 11 September and 7.5 kg of cocaine from Ghana was intercepted at Heathrow airport on 25 September. On 12 November, Ghana signed a $ 12 m loan agreement with the Saudi Fund for Development to facilitate the construction of a trauma and acute care centre at the Korle- Bu Teaching Hospital. After acquiring a 70% share in Ghana Telecom, the main challenge of Vodafone UK was the increasing incidence of cable theft. On 26 November, the management announced that over 34 ‘mega cables’ containing about 2,500 smaller cables had been stolen in August alone. Frequent cable theft cost the company over GH¢ 2 m annually. On the positive side in telecommunications, on 23 November, Minister of Communi- cations Haruna Iddrisu unveiled ten mobile communication towers provided by K-NET to service rural communities.

Kwesi Aning and Nancy Annan

Guinea

After promising developments in previous years, 2012 brought a political deadlock, manifested foremost in the repeated delaying of legislative elections and an embattled political landscape with rising ethnic tensions. This stalemate not only disappointed Guineans’ waning hopes for political stability but also risked delaying even longer desperately needed economic development, as well as frustrating the plans of international donors and investors to develop Guinea’s vast mineral resources further.

Domestic Politics

Legislative elections, which would conclude the transition to civilian and democratic government after years of volatile military rule, were rescheduled several times and had not taken place before year’s end owing to a stalemate between the governing and opposition parties. After negotiations about election technicalities and executive agencies failed again, the opposition parties called on 10 May for repeated demonstrations to put pressure on the government. This move and the demonstrations that followed were organised by two umbrella associations that united all the major opposition parties: the ‘Alliance pour la Démocratie et le Progrès’ (ADP) and the ‘Collectif des Parties Politiques pour la Finali- sation de la Transition’. The latter comprised the parties that supported former presidential 108 • West Africa contender Cellou Dalein Diallo of the ‘Union des Forces Démocratiques de Guinée’ (UFDG) in the second round of presidential elections in 2010, most notably Sidya Touré’s ‘Union des Forces Républicaines’ (UFR), while the ADP covered other political parties, including those that left the governing ‘Rainbow coalition’ led by President Alpha Condé’s ‘Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen’ (RPG). Tensions between government and opposition parties increased further in the course of the year. On 27 August, government ministers Souleymane Cisse and Aboubacar Sidiki Koulibaly, both belonging to the opposition ‘Parti de l’Espoir pour le Développement National’ (PEDN), resigned their positions after the party announced that it had ended all cooperation with the government in response to the arrest of over 100 opposition demonstrators and attacks on the heads of major opposition parties on the same day: the house of Cellou Dalein Diallo (UFDG) was attacked and he himself was targeted by gendarmes and police while travelling with Lansana Kouyaté (PEDN) and Sidya Toure (UFR) to join demonstrations in central Conakry. The opposition leaders were detained at Lansana Kouyaté’s house and released in the evening. On 30 October, another ‘failed attack’ by security forces was reported on Elhadj Modi Sidy, head of the social and legal council of the UFDG. The principal bone of contention concerned the composition of the ‘Conseil Électoral National Indépendant’ (CENI), voter registration and the technical support for the election, for which two companies had been contracted, the South African firm Waymark Infotech and Guinean Sabari Technology. They were criticised for inaccuracies in the registration exercise, which opposition parties demanded be repeated. Opposition leaders also alleged that the owners of Sabari were too close politically to Condé’s ruling RPG. Following violent clashes between followers of the opposition, government supporters and security forces and months of protracted negotiations, a new electoral commission was sworn in on 1 November. Its new chairman was Bakary Fofana and it comprised ten members of the ruling coalition, ten from opposition parties and five from civil society organisations and the civil service. In December, the new CENI presented an electoral timetable with an election date in June 2013, although this was not supported by all members of the Commission. Leading opposition parties threatened to boycott the elections and to withdraw from the Commission and the ‘Conseil National de Transition’, the interim parliament headed by trade unionist Rabiatou Sérah Diallo. Nevertheless, the announcement of an election timetable led the EU to unblock part of its 10th aid envelope, with the remaining 84% of its aid portfolio to be released upon the conclusion of the elections. While opposition parties accused Condé’s government of violating democratic principles and not delivering on the promises made during the presidential elections of 2010, the legislative elections came to be seen as a test of the consolidation of democratic politics and the long-promised improvement of living conditions. Many political and economic tensions were expressed in an increasingly ethnicised rhetoric, notably pitting the country’s largest ethnic group, the Peul, against the Malinké and Susu (the second and Guinea • 109 third largest ethnic communities, respectively). Government and opposition parties accused each other of fuelling communal fears by invoking long-established ethnicised tropes, bringing previously opaque allusions to ethnic conflict into the open in the course of the year. These accusations became more frequent in the second half of the year, as political violence increased. After a comparatively peaceful opposition rally on 20 September, fighting broke out the following day between Peul traders and predominantly Malinké youth supporters of Condé in Conakry, and escalated into days of violent clashes between opposition parties and government supporters which left at least one person dead. Security forces were reported to have used excessive force against opposition supporters – predominantly ethnic Peuls. From August onwards, news outlets reported more problems with security forces: the authorities temporarily closed down the private radio station ‘Liberté FM’ and intimidated journalists for allegedly inciting anti- government demonstrations. Beyond this ethnically entrenched divide, regional grievances and a sense of regional identity in the volatile ‘Guinée forestière’ region in the east also became more pronounced. During October’s cabinet reshuffle, the minister for agriculture and regional strongman, Jean-Marc Telliano (a former supporter of Condé), was dismissed amidst allegations of corruption. He announced that he would return to his home town of Gueckédou in order to join forces with the opposition. Strengthened by this support, opposition supporters clashed with gendarmes and police on 10 December over allegations that government officials were exceeding their powers. At least three people were reported dead and 106 wounded. On 6 October, the first major cabinet reshuffle took place since the government’s formation in January 2011, with several ministers being let go under allegations of corruption. A presidential decree named seasoned diplomat François Loucény Fall as foreign secretary and also changed ten other cabinet members. Mouramani Cissé was promoted to the position of minister of security, civilian protection and reform of security services, and Kalifa Gassama Diaby became minister of human rights and civil liberties, a newly founded position. Other key ministers retained their positions, including Minister for Economy and Finance Kerfalla Yansané and Minister of Mines El Hadj Mohamed Lamine Fofana. One marked changed was the retirement of three army generals who had previously been part of the transitional government under General Sékouba Konaté: Mama- douba ‘Toto’ Camara (ministry of state for public security), Mamadou Korka Diallo (ministry for animal husbandry) and Mathurin Bangoura (ministry for urban development). The reshuffle marked another step in the president’s attempt to make the administration fully civilian after the military and transitional governments of 2008–10 and the continuous intertwining of government and military elites under Lansana Conté (1984–2008). Lieutenant Colonel Moussa Tiegboro Camara and Captain Claude ‘Coplan’ Pivi continued to be part of the government, even though they were prime suspects in the 110 • West Africa investigations of the stadium massacre of 28 September 2009. The other accused were also high-ranking members of the military, including Captain (and former president, 2008–9) Moussa ‘Dadis’ Camara. However, the investigations conducted by the judiciary continued to be paralysed by non-cooperation on the part of government agencies, lack of resources and the instability of the political landscape. Only two suspects were officially indicted – Lieutenant Colonel Moussa Tiegboro Camara in February and Colonel Abdoulaye Chérif Diaby in September – but they were not arrested. The ICC had on multiple occasions offered to take over the investigations but human rights activists argued that domestic prosecution would be an important test of confidence in the civilian government. The government’s relationship with the army remained balanced. At the beginning of the year, only 4,000 soldiers had been retired, and ongoing army reforms appeared minimal although not without effect. Soldiers stayed mostly inside their barracks, even in the face of demonstrations, which increased from June onwards but were handled by the police and gendarmerie – an achievement in itself, as international commentators pointed out. However, the continued attempt to disentangle army and government, including by the October cabinet reshuffle, raised the stakes. The murder of Aïssatou Boiro, director of the national treasury, by a man in military uniform on 9 November reignited concerns about who was controlling the army. The murder was linked not only to Ms Boiro’s uncovering of a major embezzlement scheme involving some € 1.5 m, but also to the latest cabinet reshuffle and its unsettling effect on the precarious balance of power within the armed forces, as well as on their relations with government. In March, 17 of the more than 60 people (including military) accused of having taken part in an attack on Condé’s private residence in June 2011 were released from jail without charge. One of the accused, UFDG vice-president Oury Bah, had since gone into exile, Colonel Issiaga had died in custody and Colonel ‘Aidor’ Bah had been released due to ill health and had died soon after. Others remained in prison amid persistent rumours that the attack had been staged to legitimise a crackdown on the opposition and members of the military. In August, during a demonstration in the south-eastern town of Zogota, six protesters were killed during a security forces crackdown. Although the government promised investigations into the army’s attack on Zogota as well as their deployment against opposition leaders on 27 August, by year’s end no arrests had been made. Overall, commentators agreed that, while the army’s use of lethal force against civilians had decreased compared with previous years, excesses continued to mark the deployment of police and gendarmes, who were now responsible for crowd control.

Foreign Affairs

Continuing his diplomatic efforts to improve relations with international organisations and bilateral partners, President Condé made numerous regional and international Guinea • 111 journeys. Most notably, he participated in the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzer- land) in January, calling for a stronger AU lead on intra-African energy, infrastructure and trade networks. In June, Condé visited Malaysia with the aim of strengthening bilateral economic ties, and in early July he visited newly elected French President François Hollande in Paris. Over the course of the year, Guinea was involved in the management of the Mali crisis with ECOWAS and the AU. In early September, a shipment of 20 armoured personnel car- riers was blocked in Conakry’s harbour to await ECOWAS’s clarification of its destina- tion. As part of the West African troop deployment ECOWAS was preparing, the Guinean government committed itself to send soldiers to Mali, scheduled for the beginning of 2013. ECOWAS plans for Guinea-Bissau, another of Guinea’s troubled neighbours, were less concrete but nevertheless demanded the government’s attention as Bissau’s notorious narco-trafficking had been known to involve members of the Guinean government and military. The government emphasised the security concerns and potential economic opportunities Guinea shared with fellow members of the MRU, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. This was particularly relevant for the stabilisation of Guinea’s ‘Forest Region’, which bordered on all other MRU countries and often served as haven and recruitment ground for armed groups from across the Union.

Socioeconomic Developments

The economic situation improved somewhat, after years of political crisis and mis management of public resources. First, the government managed to improve the public infrastructure. The advance in electricity supply in urban areas was particularly important after so many decades of serious power cuts. In addition, agricultural credit schemes were expanded, and the government promised new recruitment of civil servants in an attempt to address the debilitating levels of unemployment, which affected all population groups, but especially the young. 2012 saw a further improvement in certain socioeconomic issues, which were noted in international indices. Guinea was ranked 178 on the HDI (compared with 187 in 2011), while Reporters without Borders ranked it 86th on the Press Freedom Index, a marked improvement on previous years. The positive trend was also reflected in TI’s corruption perception index at 154 compared with 164 in 2011. However, the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report put Guinea 178th (out of 185 countries worldwide), indicating that there were major challenges for potential investors. Inflationwas estimated at about 15% compared with ca. 21% in 2011, which reflected the government’s attempts to stabilise the economy. The official exchange rate of the Guinean franc stood at about 7,100 to the dollar, with black market exchange still thriving despite an ambitious attempt to curb street trading in 2011. Guinea’s economy grew by 3.9% (real GDP growth) in the course of 2012, below the more optimistic forecast of 5%. 112 • West Africa

The government cited political uncertainty and public unrest, as well as the general slowdown of the world economy, as reasons for this shortfall. Production of Guinea’s major export, aluminium, fell to 241,000 tonnes (586,000 tonnes in 2011), while bauxite production rose by 13.5% to about 20 m tonnes. Overall exports were valued at $ 1.785 bn. While mineral export was the cornerstone of the economy, the general population continued to struggle for survival, with wages not covering living expenses and high unemployment particularly affecting youth prospects. This problem repeatedly found expression in protests against the extractive industry, which was not fulfilling hopes in terms of local employment and the trickle-down of wealth. Most markedly, in July local youths destroyed infrastructure at the Zogota mine of Vale/BSGR, and clashes over resource distribution erupted in Fria in September, halting production at RUSAL’s aluminium refinery. In April, the government introduced a new mining code, formulated with the advice of Tony Blair’s ‘African Governance Initiative’ and George Soros’ ‘Revenue Watch’, which also assisted with the review and renegotiation of mining contracts so as to maximise the country’s revenues. In December, Minister for Mines Lamine Fofana announced that, of the 1,072 mining permits issued, 818 were inactive and should therefore be cancelled. Fofana named the three largest projects under review as RUSAL Plc’s purchase of the Friguia aluminum refinery, Hyperdynamics Corp’s drilling rights for about one third of Guinea’s offshore oil reserves, and the contested Simandou iron-ore project in south- east Guinea. The Simandou project had already seen many overhauls and, as of December, the contract for the southern half of the project was restored to Rio Tinto. This Anglo- Australian company had been involved in exploration from early on but had been sidelined under President Conté (1984–2008) and the ensuing military government (2008–10). In the meantime, it had teamed up with Chinese Chinalco for the Simandou operations. The renewed contract now included the construction of a trans-Guinea railway about 700 km long for the transportation of ore, and a deep-sea port. In order to boost revenue, this extraction route had always been preferred by Guinean governments to the potential alternative, an already existing railway in neighbouring Liberia that connected Nimba County to the port of Buchanan. While the government could exact up to 35% of the mining benefits by contributing an equivalent share in the investment, it would face problems with raising these funds and announced that it would consult other firms to this end. The northern half of Simandou had been contracted out to Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), which in turn had sold half of its project to the Brazilian mining company Vale. This contract also included a plan for a passenger and freight railway to the coast worth about $ 1 bn, while it had previously allowed for the iron ore to be shipped via Liberia. Former mines minister Mahmoud Thiam said that BSGR mining contracts appeared to be under particular scrutiny as they had been signed with the previous military government. In a report published in November, the government raised corruption allegations Guinea • 113 against BSGR and Thiam, which were disputed by both parties. While BSGR/Vale had in 2011 undertaken such public actions as flying in former Brazilian president Lula to support their deal and bolster their visibility, in the course of 2012 their activities dwindled, citing political uncertainty and the government’s prolonged mining review as reasons to freeze all their operations in Guinea. BSGR, in turn, indicated that a potential cancellation of their contract by the government could lead to lengthy legal proceedings that would halt operations and thus delay further investment and much-needed income for Guinea. Amidst these reviews and controversies, mining giant BHP Billiton announced its withdrawal from Simandou in July. In December, the much-anticipated full mining review report was delayed to 2013, while many parties were already seeking legal advice regarding potential litigation. Aside from Simandou, in December the government announced a $ 6 bn aluminium refinery deal with Chinese state-owned ‘China Power Investment Corp’, including the construction of a power plant and a deep-sea port near Boffa. These moves were an indication of the balancing act being undertaken by the government in its attempt to disentangle itself from previous governments’ opaque commitments without ostracising domestic elites and mining partners. However, the delay in the publication of the reviews risked damaging investors’ trust in the Condé government at a time when mining firms were trimming costs and global demand for aluminium and iron was faltering. In September, the World Bank and the IMF (through the HIPC initiative) announced a two-thirds reduction of Guinea’s debt, amounting to $ 2.1 bn. This could be seen as a reward for the government’s economic policy, which was aimed at assuring the international community of its stable and responsible governance. In the same month, President Condé received World Bank Vice President for Africa Makhtar Diop to assess further debt relief within the HIPC-framework and to consult on the World Bank Group’s running projects, valued at ca. $ 291 m. Another success ascribed to the government’s budgetary restraint was further debt relief of about $ 365 m by the Paris Club. Condé announced that all these cuts would free up $ 150 m in the annual budget, which would be used to combat poverty and increase civil service salaries. However, at year’s end and after months of strikes, the government and trade unions had not yet finalised payment negotiations. Trade unions had demanded a salary boost of 200%. On 15 December, the government announced a 50% salary increase for civil servants to be implemented gradually by the end of 2013, committing future revenues that seemed less secure given the unpredictable evolution of mining contracts. At year’s end, after a promising start to improving its ties with international donors, the government faced waning patience from institutions such as the AfDB and the World Bank, which hesitated about granting further aid due to growing political instability, including heightened ethnic tensions that cut across society and politics on multiple levels. While Condé received overall praise for trying to adjust policy in order to stabilise the economy, he was increasingly criticised for his politically repressive actions, which seemed so similar to those of previous governments. 114 • West Africa

While the organisation of parliamentary elections had turned into a litmus test of the Condé government’s ability to stabilise the country and regain some of the trust it had lost since the elections, it remained highly doubtful whether the elections, even if conducted in a transparent and democratic fashion, could solve the growing problems the government faced.

Anita Schroven Guinea-Bissau

The death of President Malam Bacai Sanhá in January triggered a series of events that resulted in a serious political crisis. Presidential elections were subsequently scheduled but the candidacy of Prime Minister Carlos Domingos Gomes Júnior was opposed by an opposition coalition. They and parts of the army also criticised the presence of an Angolan peace mission in the country. When Gomes won the first round of the elections, parts of the army staged a coup d’état on 12 April. Although the international community initially condemned the coup unanimously, ECOWAS soon proceeded to install an unconstitutional ‘transitional government’, but by the end of the year this had not been recognised by international stakeholders, such as the UN, AU, US and EU. Violations of human rights and drug-trafficking intensified. The economic situation worsened due to sanctions, the wait-and-see attitude of potential investors, and a reported fall in demand for cashew kernels, the country’s main export product.

Domestic Politics

President Sanhá of the ruling ‘Partido para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde’ (PAIGC) died on 9 January after an illness. As required by the constitution, Parliamentary Speaker Raimundo Pereira (PAIGC) was appointed interim president. Presidential elections 116 • West Africa were scheduled for 18 March. Prime Minister Carlos Domingos Gomes Júnior did not resign but suspended his prime ministerial mandate on 10 February to stand for the presidency, and Adiato Djaló Nandingna (PAIGC) was appointed interim prime minister. Of the nine presidential candidates, Gomes was the most favoured by the international community, including Angola. The other candidates included former president and leader of the principal opposition party ‘Partido da Renovação Social’ (PRS) Kumba Yalá, and Henrique Pereira Rosa, a former interim head of state. Defence Minister Baciro Djá (PAIGC), interim parliamentary speaker Manuel Serifo Nahmadjo (PAIGC), and Luís Nancassa, head of a teachers’ union, ran as independents. The situation before and after the presidential elections was tense. In January, the PRS-led opposition alliance ‘Colectivo da Oposição Democrática’ said that Gomes’ candidacy was unconstitutional because his handing over of the prime ministerial office to Djaló Nandingna was legally questionable. The opposition alliance had been created by the PRS and some minor extra-parliamentary parties in 2011. The opposition organised protest rallies that alleged electoral irregularities (including the failure to update the electoral register and supposed use of government funds and resources in Gomes’ campaign) and demanded the withdrawal of the ‘Missão de Segurança de Angola na Guiné-Bissau’ (MISSANG), stationed in Bissau since 2011 as part of security sector reform, claiming that it was a foreign intervention force. In fact, many Bissau-Guineans regarded MIS- SANG as a force to back Gomes and his government, and some also believed it was there to safeguard Angola’s economic interests in the country (including mining, banking and oil). The opposition also accused Gomes of corruption and drug trafficking and many people held him responsible for the assassinations of, amongst others, army general chief of staff Batista Tagme NaWaie and then-president João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira in 2009. On 20 February, soldiers arrested and shot at policemen seeking to break up a disorderly demonstration in front of the ‘Comissão Nacional de Eleições’. Army chief of staff Indjai took this incident as an opportunity to demand the prohibition of the use of arms by police, thus making public the hostility that existed between army and the police. On the eve of the elections, Samba Djaló, who, until the April 2010 coup, had been head of the military intelligence service under then army general chief of staff Zamora Induta, was assassinated. Following the assassination, Induta sought refuge in the office of the European Commission on 21 March, fuelling rumours of an impending military coup. The election (voter turnout: 55%) was won by Gomes (with 48.9% of the votes). Yalá came second with 23.4% and Nhamadjo third with 15.4%. Because no candidate received 50% of the votes, a runoff between the first two candidates was originally scheduled for 22 April. On 20 March, five presidential candidates, including Yalá, accused Gomes ofelectoral fraud, arguing that no voter census had been held. He called for the annulment of the elections and declared a boycott of the runoff. The ‘Comissão Nacional de Eleições’ overruled the objections on 28 March. Election observers from the AU, ECOWAS and the CPLP Guinea-Bissau • 117 deemed the elections to be free, fair and transparent. The second round was postponed for one week until 29 April. Yalá rejected international mediation attempts. After continuous criticism from both the opposition and the army chief, Angola declared the termination of MISSANG on 9 April. During the night of 12–13 April, soldiers attacked Gomes’ residence and occupied various strategic sites in Bissau. Both Gomes and Pereira, the interim president, were detained. The military coup was unanimously condemned by the international community. A self- proclaimed ‘Comando Militar’ announced that it intended to return the country to political and constitutional normality. The coup had apparently been either masterminded or at least authorised by army chief of staff Indjai. The coup leaders declared that their intervention was not aimed at seizing political power but was rather to defend the army, which they said was threatened with attack from Angolan forces, i.e. MISSANG. The ‘Comando Militar’ claimed to have a secret document signed by Pereira and Gomes authorising their intervention. Some Bissau-Guineans believed that this accusation was true and therefore held Gomes jointly responsible for the coup. On 14 April, the coup leaders convened the opposition parties to form a transitional government, but army officers were given control of the interior and defence ministries, in contradiction of their previous declarations. Yalá, who was known for his close ties with the army, took part in the subsequent meeting and was repeatedly accused by local and international observers of conspiring with the military. In contrast to the PAIGC, which held two-thirds of parliamentary seats and refused to work with the coup leaders, the opposition parties – among them the PRS – agreed on 15 April to cooperate and create a National Transitional Council. An opposition spokesman declared that this implied the suspension of the constitution and the dissolution of state institutions. However, following international criticism, the five presidential candidates condemned the coup on 16 April and announced that they would not participate in a transitional government. It was reported that Nhamadjo had been appointed as interim president, following an agreement between the ‘Comando Militar’ and minor opposition parties, but he announced on 20 April that nobody had invited him to run the presidency and that he supported a return to constitutional rule. On 24 April, the Angolan deputy defence minister said that Yalá had masterminded the coup, but both Yalá and the junta denied this allegation. At an extraordinary summit on 26 April, ECOWAS increased its pressure on the coup leaders and issued an ultimatum. As a result both Pereira and Gomes were released by the coup leaders on 27 April. The junta also accepted the stationing of an ECOWAS force in Guinea-Bissau to replace MISSANG. Subsequently, ECOWAS abandoned its absolute demand for a return to the pre-coup position. While continuing to stress demands for a return to constitutional rule, it now proposed a 12-month transition period, which the ‘Comando Militar’ accepted. At a summit in Dakar (Senegal) on 3 May, ECOWAS made major concessions and called for the appointment of an interim government and 118 • West Africa president – a move that was heavily criticised by the international community and sections of Bissau-Guinean civil society, who called for a return to the status quo ante. Nhamadjo was finally appointed transitional president on 11 May. Nhamadjo – who was said to be reliant on Indjai – nominated Rui Duarte de Barros (PRS), a former finance secretary during Yalá’s presidency and a UEMOA official, as transitional prime minister. Although de Barros’s government was dominated by the PRS, it also included two members from the army, but no PAIGC politicians. The defence and interior ministries were taken over by army officials. The government’s proposed programme included many popular measures, such as the fight against impunity, organised crime, drug trafficking and corruption, and the implementation of security sector reform. The junta and former opposition parties formally agreed on the army’s non-interference in politics. An accord signed on 22 May stipulated, inter alia, a one-year transition period and extended the parliamentary term by six months to April 2013, when new elections would be held. The PAIGC boycotted the signing ceremony and founded, together with allied parties and organisations, an anti-coup platform, the ‘Frente Nacional AntiGolpe’ (FRENAGOLPE). A small unorganised group attacked the Bra airforce base in a Bissau suburb on 21 October, which led to a gun battle with the armed forces that left six people dead. The transitional government was quick to denounce Portugal and Gomes as masterminds of what they called a failed coup attempt, thus repeating accusations that Gomes was destabilising the country and supporting counter-coup attempts. The transitional government identified Captain Pansau Ntchama and some “Diola conspirators” – the Diola are an ethnic group in the north-west and parts of the Senegalese Casamance and Gambia – as instigators of the attack. Ntchama was arrested on 27 October. He had had good relations with Indjai for years and so some observers believed that the attack was a ploy to undermine Gomes. After the coup the human rights situation worsened. A journalist and several politicians were beaten up by security forces, freedom of movement was subjected to restrictions and the media pursued a policy of self-censorship. The head of a Portuguese radio-television delegation was threatened with expulsion after the Bra incidents, accused of hostile reporting, and some journalists went into hiding. Speculation surfaced in July over Roberto Cacheu, MP for the PAIGC and a Gomes rival. He had been missing since the failed putsch of December 2011 and his whereabouts remained unclear. On 22 October, unidentified soldiers tortured Silvestre Alves and the FRENAGOLPE leader Iancuba Indjai for condemning the April coup, and on the same day soldiers interrupted a PAIGC meeting and ransacked the party’s headquarters. Uniformed men kidnapped an ally of Induta, Luís Ocante da Silva, on 6 November and he was reported to have died of wounds three days later. Rumours of assassinations also circulated. The international community complained in November that diplomatic and UN vehicles were being searched and UN properties were being monitored illegally by security forces. In October, there were media reports that the Military Court was being controlled by the army leadership. Guinea-Bissau • 119

On 27 August, Nhamadjo nominated Abdu Mané as new attorney general to succeed Edmundo Mendes. Mané subsequently banned any statements on the 2009 political assassinations and the April coup. The head of the ‘Comissão Nacional de Eleições’, Sebastião Desejado Lima da Costa (PAIGC), died in October. He was succeeded by Rui Nené (PAIGC), who had also been elected vice president of the High Court and would therefore ultimately have to choose which mandate he wished to assume.

Foreign Affairs

After the coup Guinea-Bissau was subjected to sanctions and the transitional authorities were isolated by the international community, with the exception of ECOWAS. The country was excluded from the AU and the OIF while the UN, AU, EU and CPLP, amongst others, demanded a return to constitutional rule. After some changes of direction, the US eventually followed the anti-coup line. The transitional authorities were removed from a UN General Assembly meeting – in favour of the deposed legitimate interim president Pereira – and from a CPLP summit in July. In revenge, the transitional authorities denied Portuguese embassy security forces entry to the country in December. A reshuffle of ambassadors in August was clearly designed to put in place supporters of the transitional government. A rapprochement of positions seemed to be feasible towards the end of the year, although negotiations between the PAIGC and the transitional authorities had been refused by the latter in early November. The UN repeatedly called for all the parties involved to reach a consensus and criticised the slow pace of normalisation of political affairs. A breakthrough came with ECOWAS’s call on 11 November for a joint assessment mission, conducted by a delegation made up of the UN, AU, ECOWAS, CPLP and EU to evaluate solutions to the crisis together with politicians and civil society representatives. After parliament reopened in mid-November, the PAIGC started cooperating with the PRS, choosing members for the party executive. In mid-December Yalá resigned the PRS leadership, giving way to Alberto Nambeia. The joint assessment mission took place on 16–21 December. Security sector reform (SSR) stalled after most donors withdrew in the wake of the coup. Only the programmes backed by UNDP and the UN Integrated Peace-Building Office in Guinea-Bissau continued. Owing to the tense political situation, 349 Bissau- Guinean policemen who had completed SSR training in Angola in July were only able to return to Guinea-Bissau in mid-October. On 7 November, ECOWAS promised $ 63 m for army reforms. An army spokesman declared on 27 December that reforms in 2013 would be implemented with the aid of Chinese, Russian and Cuban advisers. Various sources stated that drug-trafficking intensified after the coup. Two small air- planes landed in the country’s interior in early November. The US ambassador accused 120 • West Africa members of the military and politicians of involvement. The increased trafficking also affected the local population, as the number of drug addicts rose. Nigerian, Burkinabè and Senegalese police and military units with a total of 629 personnel arrived in late May to form the ECOWAS peace mission, ECOMIB, to replace MISSANG. On 11 November, ECOWAS extended the mission for another six months, after the signing of a Status of Mission Agreement with the transitional authorities to formalise the ECOMIB deployment. Despite lack of funds and the ongoing crisis, the transitional authorities confirmed on 20 November that they would contribute a 100-strong contingent to the ECOWAS peacekeeping operation in Mali. On 4 December, Guinea-Bissau endorsed the UN-backed Paris Principles agreement that sought to protect children from recruitment and involvement in armed conflicts.

Socioeconomic Developments

As a result of the putsch, many bi- and multilateral partners suspended their aid and cooperation, including the World Bank, AfDB, EU and US. Only ECOWAS, UEMOA and the West African Development Bank maintained their financial support, and they also held out prospects for funds for the planned 2013 elections. The withdrawal of funding made an impact – for example, payment of civil servants’ salaries fell further into arrears – and in August Prime Minister de Barros asked international partners to resume financial cooperation. On 11 November, ECOWAS appealed to its member states to extend financial assistance and called on the international community to ease the sanctions, underlining the country’s difficult financial situation. The coup also affected the economy, which until then had performed well. In Decem- ber, the US removed Guinea-Bissau from its privileged trading partners list under the AGOA. After India reduced its imports, the price of cashew kernels, which make up 90% of all exports, fell below the benchmark price of CFAfr 250 to CFAfr 100 per kg, and about 120,000 tonnes were left stockpiled. Foreign purchasers were reluctant to travel to Guinea-Bissau after the harvest in view of security concerns. By July, exports had fallen from more than 100,000 tonnes in 2011 to 60,000 tonnes. It was predicted that the situation would lead to food insecurity and indebtedness as many farmers, who usually bought rice on credit before the cashew harvest season, now lacked sufficient funds and were forced to sell off their livestock. What was worse, the World Bank and AfDB suspended their agricultural projects in April. As in other countries, food prices rose, complicating the lives of urban residents, including poorly paid civil servants, and potentially increasing the risk of corruption. As in the past, there were strikes by health workers in July, followed by teachers in September, their trade unions demanding payment of salary arrears and better career opportunities. Again, the beginning of the school year was postponed and schools were Guinea-Bissau • 121 still closed in early November, despite an agreement signed by teachers’ representatives and the transitional government. The situation in the health sector remained difficult and deteriorated further after the coup. Following accusations of mismanagement, the Global Fund cut its aid to government institutions to fight malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis early in the year. Patients now went without medical treatment. After levelling out in 2011, HIV/AIDS cases reportedly increased by 25%. The prevalence rate was estimated at 2.5% of the total population aged between 15 and 49 years, which meant that 24,000 people were living with HIV/ AIDS, a higher level than in neighbouring countries. As in previous years, Guinea-Bissau was hit by a cholera epidemic and 1,500 cases and nine deaths were reported by mid- November. The country’s first clinic to treat noma, or gangrenous stomatitis, was opened in November. The sinking on 28 December of an overcrowded wooden pirogue – the main means of transportation in coastal areas – underlined the country’s deficient infrastructure. Doz- ens of people drowned, possibly well over a hundred. As in the previous year, Guinea-Bissau was ranked 45th out of 52 countries on the Ibra- him Index of African Governance. In the TI Corruption Perception Index published in early December, it ranked 150th out of 178 countries researched, an improvement of three places compared with 2011.

Christoph Kohl

Liberia

The consolidation of the country’s impressive economic gains over the previous few years, and matters relating to governance reform, were dominant issues following President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf ’s inauguration for a second term on 16 January. As a result of its ill-advised boycott of the presidential run-off the previous year, the formal opposition remained largely insignificant throughout the year. The country’s economy maintained its growth trajectory of more than 6%. The national budget for 2012/13 represented an increase of about 25% over the previous year’s ($ 516 m in 2011–12). Youth unemployment, however, remained high, and inflation rose to 11%, sharply increasing the cost of living. Concerns about graft and nepotism were expressed locally and internationally. Sirleaf ’s co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, Leymah Gbowee, resigned as head of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission, a group set up by the president to promote dialogue among Liberians of different political leanings, as well as peace and security. Gbowee cited “differences in opinion on the pathway for national healing and reconciliation” and criticised Sirleaf for condoning corruption and nepotism. Per- haps more significantly, the UN Secretary-General issued a report on 15 August sharply criticising Sirleaf ’s government for corruption and nepotism and for her failure to promote national reconciliation. Though the report recommended a significant drawdown of the UN’s military presence in the country, by year’s end the UN was still maintaining 124 • West Africa

7,430 troops, 126 military observers, 1,306 police, 230 UN volunteers, 470 international civilians, 989 local civilians, and a budget of close to $ 500 m.

Domestic Politics

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in for a second term as president on 16 January, promising to promote national reconciliation and, as one of the first steps in that direction, to form an inclusive government. “The cleavages that led to decades of war still run deep,” she said. “So, too, does the longing for reconciliation.” Despite this commitment, Sirleaf ’s government was beset by allegations of nepotism and she was accused of failing to include members of the opposition in her government. The controversy began in Febru- ary, when she named her eldest son, Robert Alvin Sirleaf, as senior adviser and chair of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL). Critics claimed that Robert was so powerful that he was Liberia’s de facto prime minister. Amidst the controversy, Sirleaf appointed another of her sons, Charles Sirleaf, as deputy governor of the Central Bank of Liberia, and yet another, Fumba Sirleaf, as head of the National Security Agency. In the absence of a viable opposition party, some 60 young people from the governing Unity Party demonstrated on 27 June in front of the president’s residence, accusing her of nepotism and demanding her resignation as party leader. Sirleaf ’s former solicitor-general, Tiawan Saye Gongloe, referred to her preferring her sons for these positions as “a violation of her oath of office as President of Liberia”. Notwithstanding a commitment to include people from the political opposition in her cabinet, by year’s end only 11 of the 447 individuals Sirleaf had appointed to the cabinet and other government positions were not publicly affiliated to her Unity Party. On the other hand, the government scored points on gender inclusiveness. The president appointed six female cabinet ministers (out of 21) and nine female deputy ministers. Overall, women constituted 33% of local government officials and 31% of senior and junior ministers. With the government headed by a female president, this was the highest ever female representation in the Liberian government. There were, however, only four women in the 30-seat Senate and eight in the 73-seat House of Representatives, far below the 30% target for female representation in the national legislature. In fact, female representation dropped to 7%, from 13% in the previous legislature. There was also only one female associate justice in the five-seat Supreme Court. Allegations of widespread official graft, and the Sirleaf government’s lack of action to deal with such allegations, continued to be an issue. The UN Secretary-General’s report on 15 August noted that, although the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission had investigated 25 high-profile cases since March 2009, and had submitted six cases to the Ministry of Justice for prosecution, no prosecutions had taken place and there had been no convictions. It noted that the government “remains unresponsive to audits of public institutions” and that Sirleaf had so far taken no action to implement the recommendations contained Liberia • 125 in 45 audit reports prepared over the previous three years by the General Auditing Com- mission. By year’s end, no such action had been taken by the government. In contrast, the authorities vigorously prosecuted minor cases of corruption involving low-ranking officials. In March, a judge of the 13th Judicial Court in Kakata ordered the detention and subsequent investigation for bribery of the 12 jurors sitting in a drug-trafficking case. In July, five criminal court jurors, accused of attempting to receive bribes of $ 1,035 for returning a not-guilty verdict in a theft case, received sentences ranging from five to 30 days’ imprisonment plus forfeiture of benefits. In August, amidst national outrage at the lack of action on corruption allegations, Sirleaf suspended 46 government officials, including one of her sons, for not declaring assets. A few weeks later, she lifted the sus- pensions after each official declared his/her assets, but their declarations were not made public, triggering criticism in the local media. On 30 May, Charles Taylor, Liberia’s former president, was sentenced to 50 years in prison by the UN-mandated Special Court for Sierra Leone for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes by Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front rebels during that country’s civil war. The conviction had little resonance in Liberia, but on 20 July, the UNSC removed the sanctions it had imposed on 17 Liberians – along with Taylor – in 2003, including a ban on their foreign travel and the freezing of their assets on the grounds that they were a threat to peace and security in Liberia and the sub-region. They included Senator Jewel Taylor, the estranged wife of the former president, and Edwin Snowe, a member of the House of Representatives and Taylor’s son-in-law. The delisting of these individuals, all of them notorious during the country’s civil war, triggered renewed interest across the country in the implementation of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which had been summarily shelved by Sirleaf ’s government in 2009 – partly because the Commission had recommended that she should be barred from holding office for 30 years. On 26 June, J. Baron Brown, an opposition member of the House of Representatives, introduced a bill to constitute a war crimes court in Liberia for the prosecution of persons bearing the greatest responsibility for serious violations of international humanitarian law and Liberian law committed since December 1989, when Liberia’s civil war started. Senator Jewel Taylor and the powerful Senator Prince Johnson, also implicated in war atrocities in the 1990s, denounced the bill, and said that they would reject it. The bill did not gain any support. The overall security situation remained largely stable, although there were incidents of violent criminal and vigilante activity. The UN reported over 20 incidents of mob violence, none of them leading to fatalities. On 23 February, about 600 protestors gathered outside a local radio station in Monrovia that was hosting a live interview with a gay rights activist, chanting hate messages and throwing stones. The police dispersed the crowd. Anti-gay sentiment rose sharply, as indicated by the unanimous passing by the Senate on 19 July of proposed amendments to existing laws making homosexual acts a crime and prohibiting same-sex marriage, although it was not signed into law by the president. 126 • West Africa

On 13 June, a police team investigating an alleged rubber theft in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, came under fire from former combatants. No one was seriously hurt, and the incident was brought under control. A massive student demonstration in Monrovia on 18 July led to violence, with some of the students rampaging through the city, damaging vehicles and other private property. The police arrested ten students and the riot was brought under control. In August, a mob of about 100 individuals assaulted two suspected robbers in Clara Town, Montserrado County, leaving one of them dead and the other hospitalised with serious injuries. The Liberian National Police demonstrated slightly improved effectiveness and was increased in size to 4,200 police officers, 17% of whom were women. This was still far below the national target of 8,000, however, and the UN criticised the government in August for not prioritising police capacity – a core UN concern as its mission planned to downsize – in its 2012/13 budget, announced in May. The budget cut allocation to the National Police Training Academy from $ 1.7 m the previous year to $ 1.5 m. The UN Secretary-General’s special technical assessment report in April detailed the Liberian police’s operational difficulties as “poor conditions of service, which limit the ability to attract, recruit and retain qualified personnel; difficulties in building the institutional and management framework of the police; and inadequate transport, communications equipment and infrastructure, which were common to all security agencies”. The budget proposed an overall increase of $ 3 m for the security sector, but mainly to support the military. This, critics argued, was because members of the military had criticised Sirleaf for retaining a Nigerian as chief of staff rather than appointing a Liberian. At 1,982-strong, the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) consisted of two infantry divisions and an emerging Coast Guard. In January, Sirleaf announced that she was retaining Major General Furajalao Abourrahman, a Nigerian, as Chief of Staff of the AFL. The April UN Secretary-General’s special report on Liberia gave the AFL short shrift, noting that the army “does not have appropriate training and equipment” even for the limited role of border monitoring. It said that the army had an attrition rate of 10% and that ill-discipline was a major concern. The army’s development, the report noted, was “constrained by limited opportunities and resources to conduct practice operations as needed”.

Foreign Affairs

Sirleaf continued to demonstrate her star quality when she attracted five African heads of state – from Guinea, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Benin – to her inauguration in January. Also in prominent attendance was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a close personal friend of Sirleaf. Clinton said at the inauguration that her attendance was “an opportunity for the United States to express our appreciation for the outstanding job she [Sirleaf ] has done, to acknowledge the success of her recent election, to applaud her Liberia • 127 for her Nobel Prize”. The United States continued to be Liberia’s most important bilateral partner, and to lead on Liberian issues at the UN. On 15 March, about 300 Sierra Leoneans, apparently avenging the killing of a fellow citizen, attacked several Liberian villages in the northern Foya region and destroyed villagers’ property. The attackers destroyed nine buildings, including two churches and two buildings used to store rice. The four leaders of the MRU – Sirleaf, Ernest Bai Koroma (Sierra Leone), Alpha Condé (Guinea) and Alassane Ouattara (Côte d’Ivoire) – with some of their key ministers, met on 2 May at the Grand Royal Hotel in Monrovia for discussions aimed at addressing the four countries’ border security and infrastructural needs. The leaders approved a $ 9 m MRU fiscal budget for 2013. On 19–20 May, UNSC members, led jointly by Ambassador Susan Rice (US) and Ambassador Mohammed Loulichki (Morocco), visited Liberia to assess the overall security challenges in the country, including the need for continued attention to illicit weapons flows in the region and exploring methods to strengthen regional cooperation. The mission met with Sirleaf and her cabinet, as well as with representatives of civil society organisations, and discussed national reconciliation and governance issues Cross-border attacks by Ivorian dissidents and Liberian mercenaries into neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire were a key issue. The porous 700-km border with Côte d’Ivoire remained volatile throughout the year. On 8 June, militia groups killed seven UN peacekeepers, and at least 27 civilians were killed in Ivorian villages in several attacks along the border. The attackers were believed to have come from Liberia. The Liberian authorities closed the border, except for humanitarian activities. These attacks were particular worrying because a June report by the UN Panel of Experts on Liberia noted “ongoing ties and inter- linked command structures” between Liberian mercenaries and Ivorian militias residing in Liberia. The report expressed concern that the Liberian government had made no progress on national small-arms control measures and had not acted vigorously to dismantle the network of Ivorian and Liberian militants in the country. In mid-June, the authorities launched ‘Operation Restore Hope’, a security operation in Grand Gedeh County, near the most unstable part of the border region, with the aim of mitigating the threat posed by the armed elements. Among those participating in the operation were the AFL, the national police Emergency Response Unit and the Bureau of Immigration and Natural- ization. Soon after, the arrests were announced of more than a dozen suspects and a list was issued of ten Liberians and Ivorians, including former rebel commanders in Liberia, wanted for mercenary activities. On 29 June, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, joined by the UN, held a quadripartite meeting in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, at which the two countries agreed to enhance cooperation and to take measures aimed at dealing with the fragile border situation. The two governments requested UN assistance in organising a cross-border reconciliation meeting between traditional leaders, which was held in Sep- tember. The issue continued to be discussed throughout the year. The MRU, chaired by 128 • West Africa

Sirleaf, provided an important avenue for mutual cooperation between the two countries. On 13 June, the Union convened and discussed the two countries’ joint border, the extradition of Ivorian ex-combatants who had fled into Liberia and the turnover of vehicles confiscated from Côte d’Ivoire and taken into Liberia. On 12 December, ECOWAS Com- mission President Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo met with Sirleaf and praised coordination efforts on the border between Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.

Socioeconomic Developments

Although Liberia’s economy maintained its impressive growth of over 6%, with new investments in the oil and service sectors, the country’s socioeconomic landscape was gripped by controversy, which began with an op-ed in the ‘New York Times’ of 20 January, shortly after Sirleaf ’s second inauguration. Captioned “A Nobel laureate’s problem at home”, and written by environmental activists Silas Kpanan’nayung Siakor and Rachael S. Knight, the article stated that, between 2006 and 2011, the Sirleaf government had granted more than a third of Liberia’s land to private investors to use for logging, mining and agro- industrial enterprises. It claimed that more than 7 m acres had “become forestry and agricultural concessions”. These land concessions were granted through an opaque and graft-addled process called Private Use Permits (PUPs), which were intended to allow private landowners to cut down trees on their property but were in fact signed over to major logging companies, creating a loophole for felling vast tracts of forest. The permits contained no sustainability requirements, and created a loophole by which the state and local communities could derive little benefit from the exploitation of Liberia’s rich rainforest. The Land Commission claimed that existing concessions were larger than the country’s available land area. The chief beneficiary of the concessions was the Malaysian palm oil multinational Sime Darby Berhad, which in 2009 had won a 220,000-ha concession, spread over four counties. The company had pledged to invest $ 3.1 bn over 16 years. Locals began protesting against Sime Darby in late 2011 to early 2012 over its destruction of productive farmland and forestry, its purchase of timber and land at knockdown prices, and its desecration of sacred sites, as well as the lack of job opportunities for local workers. Shortly after the publication of the ‘New York Times’ article, Sirleaf despatched Agriculture Minister Florence Chenoweth and Minister of Justice Christiana Tah to western Grand Cape Mount County to meet community activists protesting against the company. On 4 September, the British NGO Global Witness published a more detailed and damning report on the issue, entitled ‘Liberian forest to be flattened by secret logging contracts’. The report reiterated the claims made in the article, and detailed the extensive damage being done to Liberia’s forest reserve by the companies, in particular Sime Darby, which it claimed controlled 7.5% of Liberia’s land. The report also slammed the PUP system. Within hours Liberia • 129 of the report’s release, Sirleaf suspended the head of the country’s Forestry Development Authority, placed a moratorium on the use of PUPs, and ordered an investigation. Controversy also engulfed the country’s oil sector, though Liberia did not (yet) have a well-developed oil industry. First, a dispute arose over the appointment of one of Sirleaf ’s sons to head NOCAL. Then in May, the House of Representatives asked the government to renegotiate ten oil exploration contracts that had been granted over the previous few years. The lawmakers argued that sections of the Petroleum Act, which required a 20% share of the contract to go to NOCAL, 10% to be made available at fair market value to Liberians, and 12%–18% of gross production to be paid as tax to the government, were not being fully adhered to, and were in any case too generous to oil companies. The government stalled on the lawmakers’ demand. In September, Sirleaf signed into law the national budget of $ 672 m for the fiscal year 2012/13. The budget indicated significant growth in domestic revenue sources over those of 2011/12, from $ 342.8 m to $ 452.2 m. It projected investments of $ 15 m in the energy sector (with the aim of building a new plant that would produce an additional 10 MW of electrical power within 18 months); an additional $ 10 m in the upgrading of the Mount Coffee Hydro Power Plant; and investing $ 20 m in transmission and distribution infrastructure in preparation for hydro power. The budget also projected the investment of $ 20 m in various skills and livelihood programmes for young people, and to create employment for 20,000 youths. The huge unemployment rate among the young – about 80% – was seen by the authorities and the UN as a major security threat.

Lansana Gberie

Mali

Although state authority and legitimacy had already been declining steadily in previous years, in 2012 Malian citizens experienced the most dramatic year since the birth of their country. President Touré was ousted in a military coup in March and power struggles at the centre of the state persisted up to the end of the year. Shortly after the coup, state authority completely withered in the most northern regions, which soon fell under the control of an opaque alliance of radical Islamists, drug smugglers and former Tuareg rebels. Neighbouring countries and the wider international community desperately sought to address the considerable security challenges, but were long divided over the most appropriate response and, later, over the timing of an African-led military intervention. Although the immediate economic impact was fairly moderate, a humanitarian crisis developed as the principal political and security challenges persisted throughout the year.

Domestic Politics

Although Malian state authority and legitimacy had been steadily declining throughout the previous decade, the country witnessed an unprecedented series of dramatic events during the first quarter of 2012. By April, Malian democracy had collapsed and state authority had evaporated in the vast and desolate northern regions. 132 • West Africa

The revival of a Tuareg rebellion on 17 January, with an attack on an army garrison in the northern town of Menaka, marked the start of the most tragic year in Malian history. In the following week, an unknown number of soldiers – estimates varied between 70 and 97 – were brutally slaughtered near Aguelhoc in unclear circumstances. Preparations for the renewed revolt had been ongoing for some time. The ‘Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad’ (MNLA), established in October 2011, had attracted a new generation of secessionists and benefited from the return of well-trained Tuareg fighters from Libya following the downfall of Colonel Kadhafi. Internal divisions and rivalry between Tuareg factions were, however, also obvious, with some subordinate castes in the hierar- chical set-up of Tuareg society remaining loyal to the Malian regime. Moreover, one of the principal leaders of previous Tuareg rebellions had established his own movement, ‘Ansar Eddine’, which was striving for the implementation of Shari’a law in northern Mali and beyond. While the Touré regime had effectively co-opted the military hierarchy (at least doubling the number of army generals within two years, according to the ICG), investment in the army had been limited and state authorities relied heavily on non-state militias to counter security threats. Unsurprisingly, the Malian army appeared unable to quell the rebellion and this incapacity fuelled popular protests across the country. On 31 January, the mothers, wives and sisters of Malian soldiers joined in a protest march from Kati (a garrison town near the capital, Bamako) and headed for the presidential palace. Several days after the march, businesses and private property of Tuaregs residing in southern Mali were attacked as tension rose. In the north, the army continued to suffer heavy losses and on 10 March it lost control over its strategic basis near Tessalit. On 21–22 March, disgruntled junior officers and soldiers ousted President Touré in a chaotic military coup just weeks before the presidential elections were due. Starting as a spontaneous mutiny, the coup reflected widespread frustration with the Touré regime amongst lower-ranking military personnel. A visit by Minister of Defence Sadio Gassama and his defence chief General Poudiougou to the military camps in Kati on 21 March fuelled simmering dissent amongst soldiers. Having gone with the intention to discuss the northern rebellion in general and poor supply lines within the army in particular, they were chased from the garrison town under a hail of rocks thrown by highly frustrated military. Matters evolved quickly as several groups of angry soldiers drove up to the capital nearby and attacked the presidential palace. Only a couple of hours later, Touré and a handful of close allies descended the hill upon which the palace is located and managed to escape. By that time, other groups of mutineers had already taken control of the national radio and television company’s headquarters in the city centre and, in the early morning of 22 March, a declaration was finally read on national television. Lieutenant Konaré presented himself as the spokesperson for the junta, which was led by US-trained Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, and informed citizens that they had suspended constitutional rule. Meanwhile, the military continued to arrest several senior government officials, police and army officers, who were brought to the army barracks in Kati. While most Malians prefer democracy to Mali • 133 any other political system, an opinion poll conducted shortly after the coup suggested that the majority of citizens in Bamako supported the ousting of the highly discredited political elites. The coup leaders subsequently established the ‘Comité National pour le Redresse- ment de la Démocratie et la Restauration de l’Etat’ (CNRDE) and identified the conquest of northern Mali as their prime objective. However, in sharp contrast to this ambitious title and stated priority, Malian state authority imploded in the northern regions during the days after the coup. Command structures within the army collapsed as senior army officers in both Bamako and the north were arrested. As a result of the ensuing chaos, all state officials fled from Gao, Timbuktu, Kidal and parts of the Mopti region. By the end of March, the government had lost control of most northern cities. The Tuareg rebels carried out widespread looting and HRW reported several incidents of sexual abuse. On 6 April, just two weeks after the military coup, the MNLA formally declared the independent republic of Azawad. MNLA representatives subsequently engaged in negotiations with Ansar Eddine leaders over the modalities and ideological orientation of a transitional authoritative body. Although an agreement was made public on 26 May, many rank-and-file members of the MNLA opposed the Islamic pillars of the new-born state advocated by Ansar Eddine. With tensions between the two groups mounting, it became clear that the capacity of the MNLA to get a grip on the region was much more limited than their public media statements and independence declaration suggested. In fact, seasoned observers of northern Mali noted that most of the military successes against the Malian army claimed by the MNLA actually involved many Ansar Eddine fighters and radical Islamists. The real strength of the MNLA on the ground was fairly restricted. Thus, when talks with Ansar Eddine were aborted, it did not take long for the MNLA to be ousted from the region. On 28 June, MNLA fighters were driven from Gao after having been expelled from Kidal and Timbuktu. Their independence dream had turned into a nightmare in a matter of months. Up to the end of the year, the northern regions were controlled by an opaque and volatile alliance established between Ansar Eddine, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the ‘Mouvement pour le Tawhîd et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest’ (MUJAO). These groups of jihadists colluded with local drug smugglers and each operated from their own specific urban stronghold. Kidal constituted Ansar Eddine’s home base, as its leader, Iyad Ag Ghali, originated from the region, but the organisation also aligned with influential (Berabish Arab) leaders in Timbuktu. Although it originally attracted only a small number of fighters, many Tuareg fighters defected towards Ansar Eddine after the MNLA was ousted from the region. Various branches of AQIM, the Algerian-led radical Islamist organisation that formally aligned with al-Qaida in early 2007, roamed across the region but maintained particularly strong economic and social ties in the Timbuktu region. Between 2003 and 2011 AQIM had abducted more than 50 people, mostly Westerners, and thereby secured a multimillion source of revenue. Likewise, the AQIM offshoot MUJAO released Spanish and Italian hostages on 18 July and claimed to have received a 134 • West Africa considerable ransom in exchange. Led by the Mauritanian Hamad el Khairy, the organisation attracted recruits from the southern Sahara, established close ties with Arab and some Songhai representatives in Gao, and recruited numerous child soldiers. Backed by the financial resources earned in the kidnapping industry and a vast arsenal of weaponry confiscated from Malian army depots, these militant organisations rapidly established their authority in northern Mali. After the undisciplined Tuareg rebellion, in which numerous fighters engaged in looting, restoring order initially gained the radical Islamists some level of popular support. Their legitimacy dwindled, however, as they vigorously applied Shari’a law, for which local sympathy remained limited, although not completely absent. On 30 July, a man and woman were executed for adultery and in the following months at least nine cases of amputation were reported, for which MUJAO claimed responsibility. The media-savvy Islamists managed to retain international attention by destroying local shrines in the legendary city of Timbuktu. Shortly after UNESCO had listed the town as an endangered cultural heritage site on 28 June, Ansar Eddine members destroyed the first tomb. Additional attacks took place on 18 October and 23 December and, in total, 11 mausoleums in Timbuktu were destroyed. While state authority withered in the northern region, a power vacuum persisted in the capital. On 6 April, the military junta signed an agreement with ECOWAS that paved the way for a transitional government. On 12 April, Parliamentary Speaker Dioncounda Traoré was formally installed as interim president, and the new government, which included representatives of the junta in various key positions, was formed on 24 April. The new cabinet was headed by Cheick Modibo Diarra, a close ally of Burkina’s President Compaoré. The military itself secured key positions within the interim government as Colonel Yamoussa Camara, Moussa Sinko Coulibaly and General Tiefing Konaté took up the defence, interior and civilian protection portfolios, respectively. The government’s functioning was, however, frustrated by a constant power struggle between the interim president, the prime minister and the junta. Internal factionalism also persisted within the army and the police. Recruits remaining loyal to former president Touré and representatives of the junta clashed openly on 30 April, leading to at least 14 deaths and 40 injuries (including citizens). Sections of the police fought each other on two occasions, 26 September and 16 November. Moreover, security forces merely stood by when an angry mob almost beat interim-president Traoré to death on 21 May. He was evacuated to France for medical treatment on 23 May and did not return to Mali until 27 July. Less than a month later, on 20 August, Traoré announced the establishment of a new government of national unity. Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadio Lamine Sow, a close ally of Compaoré, was replaced by Tieman Coulibaly, a representative of the anti- coup coalition ‘Front pour la Démocratie et la République’. Moreover, the 31-member cabinet now included a new minister of religious affairs in the person of Yacouba Traoré. The junta retained its influence within the new government headed by a re-appointed Mali • 135

Modibo Diarra, who was supported by influential Islamic leaders. On 10 December, however, he was forced to step down after being arrested by the military junta, which clearly illustrated their continued control over political affairs. President Traoré subsequently nominated Django Sissoko, who had served under previous presidents in various capacities, as the new prime minister. Thus, while the state had lost total control over almost two-thirds of the national territory, persistent political wrangles at the centre thwarted all action and thinking with regard to a solution to the multiple crises.

Foreign Affairs

Throughout the year, the prolonged political crisis frustrated international attempts to formulate an effective response to the security challenges in northern Mali. Immediately after the military coup, ECOWAS and the AU were able to put sufficient pressure on the military junta for them to accept the establishment of a transitional government, although key positions were awarded to CNRDE representatives. On 27 March, an emergency meeting of ECOWAS heads of state appointed Burkina’s President Compaoré as principal mediator and imposed a broad range of sanctions on Mali, but these sub-regional mediation efforts themselves soon became the subject of controversy. On 26 April, ECOWAS extended the mandate of the transitional government beyond the constitutional limit of 40 days to a full year without consulting Malian stakeholders. This infuriated many senior political actors, who, quite understandably, felt sidelined. The intention of ECOWAS to deploy a sub-regional military force was fiercely opposed by the military junta, which sought to maintain its authority. The appointment of people in the transitional government who were close allies of the Burkinabè mediator further fuelled nationalist sentiment. Moreover, ECOWAS made little diplomatic effort to involve Algeria, despite its crucial role in previous peace processes in northern Mali and its unmatched military capacities. Favouring a political solution rather than a military conflict across its southern borders, Algeria tried to weaken ties between Ansar Eddine on the one hand and AQIM and MUJAO on the other, distinguishing the first as a ‘Malian’ group as opposed to the others, which were portrayed as ‘foreign’ Islamists. However, convinced that an African-led military response was unavoidable, French officials invested much time and energy into easing Algeria’s objections to such intervention. On 15 July, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius travelled to Algeria, as did French Minister of Home Affairs Manuel Valls on 13–14 October, ahead of President Hollande who visited the country on 19–20 December. The United States, on the other hand, doubted the potential for the success of a military operation and considered the political crisis at the centre of the Malian state to be the first priority. In the course of the year, however, the American stance altered. On 29 October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 136 • West Africa discussed the security threats in northern Mali and potential military responses with Algerian President Bouteflika. On 19 October, regional leaders and representatives of the AU, UN and EU gathered in Bamako to discuss the rising security threats and an African- led military intervention. In the course of these talks, support for such military intervention grew, although doubts still persisted over the capacity of an African-led force and its ability to operate in desert terrain that most foreign soldiers were unaccustomed to. These reservations were also reflected in the three resolutions that the UNSC adopted with respect to the crisis (the French government played a key role in this process). On 5 July, resolution 2056 stipulated the need for a clear-cut roadmap aimed at restoring constitutional rule on the basis of an inclusive dialogue process. While neighbouring countries had insisted on the need for swift military action, the UNSC clearly objected to this at the time. Some three months later, however, on 12 October, it was ready to consider the use of an international military force, although proposed plans remained vague on the key logistical, financial and capability issues. The resolution therefore urged ECOWAS leaders to come up with more detailed and thoroughly worked-out plans. On 11 November, ECOWAS heads of state formally adopted a military intervention strategy involving 3,300 troops and urged the international community to enable its swift deployment. The AU’s Peace and Security Council endorsed the proposal three days later. On 20 December, the UNSC formally approved this African-led force, but the resolution again specified the need for further planning and did not include a specific time-frame for action. While the AU, ECOWAS and the French emphasised the need for urgent action, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous and the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for the Sahel, Romano Prodi, were more reluctant. They indicated that, because of the considerable logistical constraints and the difficulties of operating during the rainy season, a military intervention would not be feasible till September or October 2013. Thus, while the considerable security challenges were widely recognised, the international community was divided on the issue, initially over the most suitable response and subsequently about the feasibility of a rapid, African-led, military operation. The persistence of security challenges also had a devastating humanitarian impact on ordinary citizens, both in the northern region and in the southern parts of the country.

Socioeconomic Developments

The immediate macroeconomic impact of the political and security crises was fairly moderate. The World Bank estimated a 1.5 % contraction of real GDP for 2012. The collapse of the state and much of the formal economy in the north was alleviated by significant growth in the principal economic sectors, i.e. agriculture and gold mining, located in the south. Inflation peaked in the months following the military coup, (rising to over 8%) but eventually stabilised at around 2%. The recorded annual average of 5.3% was never- Mali • 137 theless considerably higher than the 3.1% figure in 2011. Government revenue declined considerably as international donors froze their financial contributions following the coup. Overall revenues dropped by 17%, greatly affecting public investment, which was 60% lower than in 2011. The 2011/2012 agricultural season was severely affected by lack of rain and the restricted availability of seeds in 2011. Stocks lasted only about six months and food prices rose rapidly in the course of the year. Although exact figures were unavailable and estimates varied considerably, many Malians lacked access to food, and over half a million children were affected by malnutrition. In the north, markets gradually adapted to the security situation. While established retail networks connecting the north with the southern parts of the country were cut off, the River Niger was used to ship food supplies north and vast quantities of staple foods also reached Kidal and Gao from Algeria. The rainy season brought unexpected relief as water volumes were much higher than anticipated. In the southern regions agricultural output was well above the five-year average, with grain production showing as much as a 36% increase, and prices subsequently dropped. In the north, however, harvests were less plentiful and prices remained above average up to the end of the year. By December, almost 750,000 people were suffering from severe food shortages; half a million of those affected were in the north. While agricultural output was up by 14% and gold revenue increased by 9% in comparison with 2011, the tourist sector completely collapsed. This third economic pillar, while already in decline, used to account for 5% of Mali’s GDP; in the past, 60% of residents in Timbuktu profited from the influx of tourists either directly or indirectly (45,000 visitors in 2006). These vital sources of revenue completely dried up, not only in the north but also in the southern part of the country. The renewed Tuareg rebellion, the collapse of state authority and advances of criminal- Islamist organisations in the north also prompted a profound humanitarian crisis. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 360,000 people fled the north, seeking sanctuary in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and southern parts of Mali, where hosting families were consequently confronted with substantial rises in living costs. A survey conducted in two districts of Bamako showed that 70% of respondents were struggling to make ends meet. In the northern regions, access to social services became highly constrained. Over 90% of health facilities became dysfunctional, 85% of education personnel left the area, and access to drinking water became problematic. Of the 65 community healthcare centres operational in the Gao region before the conflict erupted, only those situated in the regional capital remained accessible. In the north, human rights violations were widespread, with Islamic police arresting people for offences against Shari’a law and having them tried in Islamic courts without access to a proper defence. Sentences included the amputation of limbs and executions, which were documented by international human rights agencies. 138 • West Africa

Demonstrating the prominent role of music in Malian society, various artists – including Khaira Arby, Vieux Farka Toure and Bassekou Kouyate – worked together to record a peace song (shortly after the military coup). Rappers in Bamako started the group ‘Les Sofas de la République’, striving to raise civic and political awareness amongst urban youths. Amidst the profound governance, security and humanitarian challenges, these efforts provided rare signs of hope.

Martin van Vliet Mauritania

The increasing tension in the Sahelian region, especially in Mali, constituted the most obvious security risk to Mauritania, along with potential threats from terrorists and extremists within the country. Increased costs for military and security measures and the growing influx of refugees from Mali complicated the financial situation. The impact of the 2011 drought further exacerbated living conditions. At the same time, increased aid volumes and new commercial contracts, especially in the fishing and mining sectors, boosted the economy. Although parliamentary and municipal elections were postponed, the political situation, including the position of President Aziz, was regarded as reasonably stable, and both opposition parties and the press were allowed to operate relatively freely.

Domestic Politics

The government failed to set a new date for the National Assembly elections, originally due to take place in September and October 2011. Nevertheless, the Assembly continued to operate and on 6 March approved a series of constitutional amendments, among them a rather symbolic ban on military coups and any unconstitutional change of government, a provision criminalising slavery, an extension of the annual ordinary sessions of the Assembly from four to eight months, and measures reinforcing its authority with regard to 140 • West Africa the appointment of new governments, adoption of the budget and monitoring of its implementation. The amendments also guaranteed women and men equal opportunities in seeking elected office and provided a constitutional basis for women-reserved quotas in elected assemblies. The reforms confirmed Arabic as the official language but also recognised Pular, Soninké and Wolof as national languages and confirmed the country’s cultural diversity. The opposition alliance ‘Coordination de l’Opposition Démocratique’ (COD) regarded the measures as inadequate, particularly regarding the equal treatment of black Mauritanians. A deep split between the ruling ‘Union pour la république’ and the opposition continued. Despite mediation efforts by Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, the Assembly speaker and leader of the ‘Alliance populaire progressiste’, most members of the COD alliance including the ‘Rassemblement des forces démocratiques’, decided not to participate in a dialogue with the government. Instead, in mid-March and in April they organised demonstrations which drew several thousand participants. The former president, Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, leader of the 2005 coup and the subsequent democratic transition period, joined the demonstrations, calling on President Aziz to resign and hinting at a new run for the presidency himself. In February, a visiting delegation of members of the European Parliament pressed for the rapid establishment of an independent electoral commission and the fixing of an election date. Since the EU was a key financial partner, this put certain pressure on the regime. On 12 April, the National Assembly adopted a law establishing a ‘Commission Electo- rale Nationale Indépendante’ (CENI), and on 7 June Aziz appointed seven members of the Commission, chaired by Abdallahi Ould Soueid Ahmed and guided by a seven- member board called the ‘Comité des Sages’. These seven members were appointed by the president on 7 July and Abdallahi Ahmed was appointed on 8 July as their chairman. He would thus preside over both the CENI and the ‘Comité des Sages’. On 5 August, Aziz declared that municipal and legislative elections would be held in November. However, the elections were postponed again and the COD also disputed the CENI’s credibility and accused Aziz of maintaining an authoritarian regime and using the formal democratic structures simply as an excuse for postponing the polls. Nevertheless, the position of Aziz remained strong, even when demands for his resignation were repeated on 21 November, while he was in France for medical treatment after being shot and wounded by his own troops on 13 October near Tweila, north of Nouakchott. No broad military or civil unrest was reported in connection with the shooting and both government sources and independent journalists claimed it was accidental. Opposition parties argued, however, that there was a power vacuum during the president’s absence. Aziz returned to Mauritania on 24 November. On 1 January, a group of activists launched a campaign to support Ely Ould Moctar, a gendarme abducted by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) near Adel Bagrou, close to the Malian border. He was released on 10 March in exchange for Abderrahmane Mauritania • 141

Ould Meddou, who had been serving a five-year jail sentence for involvement in the kidnapping of an Italian couple in southern Mauritania in 2011. In an attempt to halt similar infiltration attempts, the authorities decided in January to set up three security zones on the country’s southern, south-eastern and north-eastern borders. On 3 January, eight Salafists were sent to prison on terrorism charges, including recruitment. Among them were the prominent Islamist leader and one of the leading Salafist ideologues, Mohamed Salem Ould Mohamed Lemine, ‘Al-Majlissi’. He had benefited from a presidential pardon in 2010, but had been re-arrested on 22 November 2011. On 5 April, Abu Hafs al-Mauritani (Mahfouz Ould al-Walid), once Osama bin Laden’s mufti, arrived in Nouakchott after being extradited from Iran, where he had been held on charges of belonging to al-Qaida. He was arrested upon arrival. On 12 May, two men were arrested on charges of “planning large-scale kidnappings of senior Mauritanian army officers on behalf AQIM”. Islamic Affairs Minister Ahmed Ould Nini announced on 22 August a national census of mosques and mahdharas (Qur’anic schools) as part of a long-term strategy to better monitor religious institutions and thereby curb potential extremism. Notwithstanding its constitutional criminalisation, there was evidence that slavery continued to be practised. On 28 April, a prominent activist, Biram Ould Obeidi, representing ‘L’Initiative pour la Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie’ (IRA), organised protests against slavery and burned copies of religious texts from the Maliki school of Islamic law, saying that they encouraged slavery. Obeidi and six other activists were charged with threatening state security and political parties condemned their actions, even those who stressed their opposition to slavery. The IRA apologised for the incident, saying that the intention was not to insult religious values but to drive home the point that slavery still existed. On 21 October, the state media organ ‘Haute Autorité de la Presse et de l’Audiovisuel’ called on all interested parties to bid for licences for three new private television stations in addition to the current two authorised private stations, Mauri-Vision and Televi- sion Wataniya. The number of internet-users was estimated at 100,000, corresponding to approximately 3% of the population. The number of Facebook users was around 85,000, which made the country 151st in the world for Facebook use. The majority of users were young people (under 35), with males making up 70% of the total.

Foreign Affairs

An increase in the number of attacks by AQIM fighters close to the Mauritanian border continued to be a major security concern. The regional security situation deteriorated following the Malian coup on 22 March and the subsequent failure of the Malian government to contain the rebel advance in the country’s northern region. However, there was notable opposition to Western involvement in the government’s campaign against AQIM fighters, although a number of cooperation projects related to 142 • West Africa civilian and military security continued. In order to control and curb organised crime networks involved in various forms of trafficking, the West Sahel Project was launched on 22 January with the aim of securing the country’s more than 5,000 km of land borders. The project was funded by a € 2 m grant from the EU and based on a partnership with the Spanish ‘Guardia Civil’. During a visit to the Sahel region in mid-February, French Minister for Cooperation Henri de Raincourt expressed the wish that Mauritania would play a more visible mediation role in the Malian crisis, using a possible link between Mau- ritania and the rebel ‘Mouvement Nationale de Libération de l’Azawad’. Members of the European Parliament met with Aziz and other officials on 20–23 February to discuss the security situation, and on 29 August Justice Minister Abidine Ould El Kheir met EU Spe- cial Adviser for African Peacekeeping Capabilities Major General Pierre-Michel Joana to discuss various ways to strengthen the fight against terrorism and organised crime. A top- level French military delegation made a four-day visit to Nouakchott on 5–8 November. During a visit to UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 11 December, Aziz emphasised the urgency of protecting the cultural heritage of northern Mali from destruction. Following the Malian coup in March, Mauritania’s relations with the other West African states became closer, including in the framework of the ‘Comité d’État-Major Opérationnel Conjoint’, a security structure for the Sahara operated by Mauritania, Alge- ria and Niger. A West African foreign ministers’ meeting was held in Nouakchott on 8 April. Mauritania reported that it had sent reinforcements to its eastern and southern borders and offered logistical and other indirect assistance to the ECOWAS force planned for intervention in Mali. It remained reluctant to actively participate in the operation of this projected force. Algeria’s Maghreb and African Affairs Minister Abdelkader Mes- sahel visited Nouakchott on 7 October to discuss various options for a political solution in Mali. Relations with Morocco had soured after Mauritania’s decision on 22 December 2011 to expel the local head of the Moroccan news agency, El Abdelhafid Bakkali, accusing him of “practices contrary to his profession”. This did nothing to improve relations, which had long been impaired by friction over the Western Sahara conflict and Mauritania’s close cooperation with Algeria. Mauritania and Algeria took part in informal talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front in New York on 11–13 March, and the UN Secretary- General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, visited Nouakchott on 5 November to discuss the conflict with the Mauritanian authorities. Relations with Senegal were marked by political tensions over the position of Mau- ritania’s southern black minority. They worsened further following Senegal’s refusal on 11 July to extradite Moustapha Ould Limam Chaafi, a Mauritanian national living in Burkina Faso and a vociferous opponent of Aziz; Chaafi was key adviser to Burkina’s President Blaise Compaoré on the crisis in Mali and other Sahelian issues When Chaafi visited Senegal in June, the Mauritanian authorities demanded his extradition, having Mauritania • 143 previously issued an international arrest warrant in December 2011, accusing him of “being a member of AQIM and financing terrorism in the Sahel”. Disputes over fishing rights and air traffic also impinged on relations between the two countries, but there was no obvious risk that these tensions would lead to outright violence, as had occurred in the late 1980s, when tens of thousands of black Mauritanians were expelled to Senegal. More than 24,000 of them returned home in the period 2008–12 through the joint efforts of the Mauritanian and Senegalese governments and UNHCR. The last 297 refugees returned in March to the city of Rosso in southern Mauritania. Mauritania tried to establish an international reputation in the struggle against terrorism, and on 29 September Foreign Minister Hamadi Ould Hamadi stated in the UN General Assembly that his country was willing to host and support a UN centre against terrorism and organised crime in the Sahel. Hamadi also expressed Mauritania’s desire for two more permanent seats on the UNSC, one for the African continent and one for the group of Arab countries. On 5 September, the government decided to extradite a Libyan former intelligence chief and brother-in-law of Muammar Kadhafi, Abdullah al-Senussi, toLibya rather than handing him over to the ICC, which had issued a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity. Al-Senussi was arrested on 17 March and charged with arriving in Mauritania on a false Malian passport. Mauritania not being a signatory to the ICC treaty, it was not formally obliged to hand Senussi over to the Court.

Socioeconomic Developments

Protests across the country led the government to offer food price subsidies and promises of public-sector jobs to employ educated youths. A job fair was organised in Nouakchott on 20–21 February focusing on building partnerships between the public and private sectors and closing the gap between training and employment. In mid-March, the government allocated € 391,000 to fund youth employment projects and launched vocational training programmes in a number of fields, involving 5,000 young people. In October, the EU decided to make a grant of € 7.2 m to support civil society and traditional industries. The increased foreign aid had a positive impact on local living standards, but the aid was unevenly distributed. Due to the extreme drought, the poorest households were running out of food as early as February. At the same time, wages for day labourers fell dramatically as a result of the high unemployment rate, and many people were forced to buy their food on credit. On 13 July, FAO approved a $ 350 m recovery package to provide seeds, inputs, veterinary support and technical advice for communities in the regions of Tagant, Assaba, Hodh el Gharbi and Guidimaka. At the same time, the pressure on rural areas in the south-east was accentuated owing to the influx of a large number of Malian refugees. Altogether, more than 100,000 people were estimated to be sheltering in the 144 • West Africa refugee camps of Bassiknou and M’Berra. This increased competition for firewood, water and pasture land at a time when some 700,000 Mauritanians were facing hunger (i.e., one in four people in rural areas). On 29 November, the IMF completed the fifth review of its ECF arrangement. It remained generally positive, despite depressed agricultural output and a downturn in Euro- pean demand. The budget for 2012 provided for expenditure of $ 984 m, a 9.1% increase compared with 2011. There was a notable increase in defence and security spending. Donor support and foreign interest in the oil and mining sectors (including uranium) boosted economic growth, and real GDP growth was estimated at 6.2% (compared with 5.2% in 2011). Consumer price inflation was estimated at 6.5%. The exchange rate was regarded as modestly overvalued and the country remained vulnerable to price shocks on international markets. The current account deficit was estimated at 19.8% of GDP. Tour- ism receipts were depressed, owing to the fragile security situation. The annual Festival of Ancient Cities (Chinguetti, Ouadane, Tichitt and Walata) was concluded in Ouadane in February with very few foreign tourists attending. Despite dissatisfaction with the 2011 controversial fishing agreement, China maintained its position as Mauritania’s largest trade partner and imports from China rose by nearly 40% during the first half of 2012. During the same period, exports to China declined by 0.4%. Ancillary infrastructure for the oil industry was one of the main cooperation sectors. A new two-year fisheries partnership agreement with the EU was signed on 26 July. The EU’s annual contribution to the Mauritanian fishing industry amounted to € 70 m, and it was reported that 60% of the crews on European vessels fishing in Mauritanian waters would be Mauritanians. Overall oil production continued to decline and oil prices contracted slightly. The mining sector was confronted by a number of strikes. In June, the Canadian company Kin- ross Gold reported strike action at the Tasiast gold mine, and First Quantum Minerals suspended operations at the Guelb Moghrein copper/gold mine, 250 km north-east of Nouakchott, because of strike action on 18 July. However, 128 new mining licenses were granted, two-thirds of them for iron ore and quartz. The government claimed that the fight against corruption was high on its agenda, and on 2 February a new public procurement system was launched. Nevertheless, the level of corruption was estimated to remain high. The World Bank’s ‘Doing Business Report’ ranked Mauritania’s business environment at 167th out of 185 economies worldwide. Complicated procedures for paying taxes and dealing with construction permits, as well as inadequate energy and transportation infrastructure, constituted the major constraints. An updated investment law passed on 21 June simplified administrative procedures related to business and investments and introduced free zones and key investment areas. A free trade zone was set up in Nouadhi- bou. A master plan for the electricity sector was also implemented and, on 9 August, the ‘Organisation pour la Mise en Valeur du Fleuve Sénégal’, based in Dakar, launched plans Mauritania • 145 to build a new power plant as a part of a project to improve regional electricity supplies. A new Nouakchott International Airport with two runways and capacity for more than 2 m passengers annually was under construction. On 30 June, the government announced that the manufacture, import, marketing and use of soft plastic bags would be prohibited from 1 January 2013. Plastic bag manufacturers and importers could be jailed for up to a year. The law was motivated by environmental concerns – soft plastic bags constituting a major form of pollution.

Claes Olsson & Helena Olsson

Niger

The second year of the 7th republic saw a remarkable degree of stability. The government reinforced its hold on power, and, despite the marginalisation of the opposition, Niger improved its position on democracy indexes. Greater cohesion and a range of government measures went some way towards alleviating social conditions, despite the return of huge numbers of migrant workers from Libya. The country faced security threats from Boko Haram Islamists in north-eastern Nigeria and even more from the northern regions of Mali, where state control collapsed with the influx of heavily armed Tuareg and Islamist fighters into areas bordering on Niger. The government of President Mahamadou Issoufou nevertheless managed to keep the national territory under control, notwithstanding occasional kidnap incidents. Although not guaranteeing an untroubled future, increased security budgets and cautious government policies played a positive role, as did astute manoeuvring by Issoufou, who turned the country into a constructive international partner. The food situation worsened rapidly during the first part of the year. July to October saw the worst floods in decades, but later harvests exceeded immediate needs. Overall economic performance was positive, with record growth anticipated thanks to oil production and higher uranium output. Nevertheless, more than 40% of the population continued to struggle under the poverty datum line. 148 • West Africa

Domestic Politics

President Mahamadou Issoufou’s ‘Parti Nigérien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme’ (PNDS) enjoyed a dominant political position. However, since it held less than a third of the seats in parliament, it depended on the support of other parties. It was backed by five of the eight parties represented in the National Assembly, particularly important among which was its main coalition partner, Moden-Lumana (‘Mouvement Démocra- tique Nigérien’), the party of former prime minister Hama Amadou. It thus commanded a comfortable majority. Observers expected that Issoufou would be careful not to antago- nise Hama Amadou, a former presidential candidate, political rival and now chairman of the National Assembly, for fear of pushing Amadou back into the fold of his original political home, the once ruling ‘Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement’ (MNSD) of deposed former president Tandja, now the principal opposition group and led by Seyni Oumarou. Nevertheless, Issoufou felt forced to take action in a case of corruption concerning fraudulent election expenses. It involved not only six opposition MPs but also two of the presidential majority. Among them was Zakou Djibo, a wealthy Moden member, who resigned in protest on 7 March, thus putting relations between the coalition partners under pressure. The government hesitated to move, but on 2 April the National Assembly voted to lift the immunity of all the MPs involved – although this was against the wishes of the MNSD. The opposition, tainted by the corruption of the Tandja years, had appealed to the Constitutional Court to prevent the vote. It accused Issoufou of violating the separation of powers and threatened to have him prosecuted for perjury. After the Court rejected the case, an MNSD motion of censure was defeated in the Assembly by 84 votes to 29. This paved the way for the vote on the lifting of immunity, which the MNSD boycotted. The outcome underlined the weakening of the opposition; ten former ministers in the Tandja government faced other embezzlement charges. Seyni Oumarou was still a powerful figure, but rumour had it that there was now unrest in the MNSD ranks over his party leadership. Oumarou strengthened his position somewhat by aligning himself with another prominent opposition leader, Mahamane Ousmane (who commanded strong support in the important city of Zinder), but numerous boycotts of parliamentary debates did nothing to improve the MNSD’s standing, although elections were not due before 2016. Issoufou promised that 2012 would be marked by a crusade against corruption, which was still a major problem. TI reported that corruption had worsened during the previous year (being classified as ‘rampant’). In an indication of how acute conflicts over the issue could become, on 3 January arson destroyed parts of the justice ministry. It was rumoured that the object of the attack was to foil investigations into corruption in the judiciary (a branch of government notorious for its corrupt behaviour). Substantial archival col- lections going back several decades were lost. Although his anti-graft drive was sure to reinforce his popularity, Issoufou would need to boost judicial capacity in order to make Niger • 149 headway in this area, as well as to rein in the inevitable profiteers attached to the new ruling bloc. Still, the president responded vigorously to corruption in his own ranks. In February, the Constitutional Court declared the allocation of government contracts in certain ministerial departments to be unconstitutional. On 3 April (one day after the Assembly vote lifting the immunity of MPs allegedly involved in graft), Issoufou dismissed the ministers of finance and national supplies/public works – both PNDS stalwarts. The minister of transport, who was involved in another scandal, was similarly replaced. The cabinet reshuffle was justified on technical grounds and, if this was less than the whole story, the incoming ministers had professional backgrounds, thus strengthening the image of a government based on merit and ostensibly showing the anti-corruption campaign in a less politicised light. Besides his many socioeconomic priorities, the president was faced with increasing security concerns. Fears were expressed about a link between Malian militants belonging to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Boko Haram in Nigeria. Early in the year, members of Boko Haram were arrested in Diffa, in south-east Niger, while on their way to Mali carrying AQIM contact details and propaganda material, as well as explosives. Considering the impossibility of patrolling every border crossing with Nigeria, one diplomatic source opined that it was only Boko Haram’s own decision not to become active in Niger (yet) that accounted for the continued quiet. Although AQIM’s influence in Niger remained limited, it did have a small presence in remote areas (although the movement’s stronghold was in neighbouring Mali). A kidnap incident involving six African aid workers in the north-central town of Dakoro on 14 October underlined the country’s vulnerability – a Chadian aid worker was killed and the other five were released three weeks later, having spent their captivity in Malian territory. The kidnappers were alleged to be members of an AQIM-linked group called the ‘Mouvement pour le Tawhîd et le Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest’, whose stronghold was in the Gao region of eastern Mali. As humanitarian agencies shifted non-essential staff to urban hubs, these developments showed that Niger was not immune to the Sahel’s worsening security situation. This had already been driven home by the pillaging on 14 September of Zinder’s largest Catholic church in response to the infamous anti-Islamic film, ‘The Innocence of Muslims’. Sandwiched between two hotbeds of Islamist activity, Niger’s leadership worried about the effect on the country’s own malcontent youth. The defence budget was increased by 65%, frontier security was beefed up and the armed forces were supplied with new hardware. As the risk of a military coup could never be discounted, Issoufou was said to foster the ‘republican’-minded sections of the armed forces. In addition to military measures, Issoufou was aware of the importance of development, especially in the northern region. However, though the president’s willingness was not in doubt, promises to address the marginalisation of Tuareg communities by providing jobs and facilitating integration into the armed forces were, as ever, slow to materialise. In January, Issoufou organised a 150 • West Africa

‘Forum Paix et Développement’ at the uranium town of Arlit, setting out the vision of a multi-year development plan to the tune of CFAfr 1,000 bn (€ 1.5 bn). In October, Prime Minister Rafini, himself a Tuareg from the town of Iferouâne, announced a plan called ‘Stratégie de développement et de sécurité dans les zones sahélo-sahariennes du Niger’, aimed at preventing spillover from the conflict in Mali. The government promised to cover half the scheme’s projected cost of $ 2.5 bn itself, but said it would face difficulties raising the rest, in spite of an EU pledge of $ 118 m. These measures alone could not have limited the disastrous consequences for Niger of the coup in Mali on 22 March, which quickly led to the loss of state control over that country’s northern, north-eastern and eastern regions, bordering on Niger. The coup went hand in hand with a declaration of independence centred on the cross-border region of Azaouagh by separatist Malian Tuaregs, but they were subsequently defeated by well- armed fighters with a wider, Islamist agenda, many of them returnees from Libya who had fought in Kadhafi’s forces. However, despite the influx of Malian refugees in Niger’s western region, the collapse of state authority in Mali had by year’s end not led to a similar disintegration of control on the Nigérien side of the border. Several political factors and some basic military facts were relevant here, though they said little about the immediate future. The rebellion in previous years by Nigérien Tuaregs united in the ‘Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice’ (MJN) had created numerous victims in the north but had not led to concessions by the government – contrary to the action taken in Mali, Tandja’s regime had fought back first and only negotiated afterwards. This meant that many Tuaregs were lukewarm about taking up arms again. Strategically, the Nigérien state had never lost complete control of the all-important Aïr region, the heartland of the uranium riches that also made Niger of greater significance to France than Mali. The government was also careful to disarm Nigérien Tuaregs who returned from Libya (again in contrast to Mali). With the advent of Issoufou’s administration, care was taken to involve Tuareg dignitaries in the new dispensation. Besides the appointment as prime minister of Rafini, a relative of the mayor of Iferouâne, where the MJN rebellion started, various figures from the Tuareg community were invited to participate in the new government, gaining positions as adviser to the president or the National Assembly chair, the mayorship of the important northern town of Agadez and seats on the regional council. However, although these appointments sent out a signal that the government was prepared to involve northern communities in decision-making, many of the posts did not carry real power. Moreover, some of the dignitaries involved had been discredited in the eyes of their own community, as much of the money involved in the Libya-brokered peace of 2009 was said to have ended up in their pockets. In March, Aghaly Ag Alambo, adviser to the Assembly presidency, was detained on suspicion of smuggling arms from Libya, having been mentioned in connection with the transportation of arms from Libya Niger • 151 to an AQIM hideout in Mali in June 2011. His arrest proved an embarrassment to Hama Amadou, but also showed that mistrust was still rife. Security in the mid-term depended at least in part on whether the situation in Mali would stabilise or deteriorate.

Foreign Affairs

With the advent of Issoufou, the country’s foreign relations improved substantially. The reopening of USAID’s offices in Niger underlined the good relations with the United States – the government being able to benefit from American assistance in counter- terrorism. Relations with France similarly improved (with France’s new president, François Hollande, the leaders of both countries now shared a similar ideological outlook). With Issoufou’s commitment to development and the requirements of humanitarian relief provision, donors lauded the new government’s posture. Development grants and loans to a value of $ 1 bn were confirmed. Issoufou cleverly used the security threats in the Sahelo-Saharan regions to attract more Western aid. On 13–14 November, a Round Table conference was organised at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris, where Issoufou received more than 120 foreign representatives to discuss the funding of his development plans. Those present included officials from the AfDB, UEMOA and the Islamic Development Bank, as well as bilateral partners such as France, the UK, Russia, China, Spain and the US. Pledges were made to the tune of $ 4.8 bn – more than had been requested (though this did not amount to even half the projected cost of the government’s five-year plan). Regional security concerns played a role. On 10 August, the EU launched a two-year civilian security mission to reinforce Niger’s counter-terrorism and crime-fighting capabilities. To be called EUCAP Sahel Niger, it would entail the dispatch of 50 experts with a budget of € 8.7 m and eventually be expanded to include Mali and Mauritania. Niger was said to be very active in the ‘Comité d’état-major opérationnel conjoint’ based in the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset, where Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger collaborated to put the region’s security co-operation on a more solid footing. The conduct of foreign affairs was dominated by the developments in Mali and Libya. Niger was one of the more outspoken proponents of a military solution to the disintegration of the Malian state. On 1–2 December, Issoufou received Mali’s new president, Dioncounda Traoré, who thanked him for taking in thousands of Malian refugees. Both leaders called for international help in reconquering Mali’s northern regions. Exactly how thoroughly the security of the two countries was intertwined was demonstrated on 2 December, when a Malian colonel in Niamey came under attack by unknown assailants. The colonel had fled Mali with 400 Malian military personnel early in May to escape the rebel advance. Relations with the new regime in Libya were difficult, not least because Niger continued to give asylum to one of the sons of Colonel Kadhafi, former football star Saadi. 152 • West Africa

In addition, Bashir Saleh Bashir, Kadhafi’s former chief of staff and one of his top aides, was given a diplomatic passport in late 2011 and was said to have been appointed as an adviser to Issoufou. Saleh was born in Agadez and for many years ran Libyan investment funds. (Rumour had it that Issoufou himself owed part of his campaign funds to Kadhafi’s generosity.) The attacks in Libya on Nigérien migrant workers in the wake of Kadhafi’s fall and their forced return home continued to impinge on bilateral ties, but when Saadi Kadhafi gave a telephone interview to an Arab news channel on 10 February, predicting another rebellion in Libya, he was put under de facto house arrest and his telephone was cut off. The government still refused to extradite him, as he might face execution. The day after Saadi’s interview, armed men raided Niger’s embassy in Tripoli, expelling the chargé d’affaires. (The two countries no longer exchanged ambassadors after the fall of Kadhafi.)

Socioeconomic Developments

In the wake of the failed 2011 harvest, the worsening food crisis became the primary economic concern. The estimate of the cereal deficit was increased to more than 700,000 tonnes, which meant that 6 m people (ca. one-third of the population) would suffer food shortages. The number of children at risk of severe malnutrition rose to 400,000, compared with 300,000 being treated for malnutrition in ‘normal’ years. People’s ability to cope was significantly weakened by the influx of migrant workers from Libya, whose numbers had swollen by April to 250,000 – most of them men, who in the past had each supported an average of seven people at home and had now lost all their savings. The closure of the border with Nigeria hindered food imports, especially in the (far) east, while Nigériens were prevented from seeking work in Nigeria and sending money to relatives at home. The arrival of 50,000 refugees from Mali made the situation in the west worse. The crisis quickly spread to the cities as a result of galloping food prices and the arrival of destitute people from the countryside. Zinder was hard hit, receiving numerous villagers in search of food, in addition to prostitutes from Nigeria fleeing the violence of Boko Haram. The government faced the crisis with transparency and timely measures, releasing a total of CFAfr 100 bn (€ 152.4 m) for emergency programmes. Towards the end of Janu- ary it had already begun selling cereals at subsidised prices and planned for animal fodder and the purchase of weakened cattle. In June (when shortages began to peak), it commenced free distribution of food. Although international humanitarian agencies became active early, by April only 40% of $ 229 m in donor aid had been mobilised. The government also introduced some constructive measures, including irrigated vegetable cultivation, which led to significantly lower food prices. Baptised ‘3N’ (‘les Nigériens Nourrisent les Nigériens’), the government’s agricultural programme aimed to attain food self-sufficiency by way of a five-year plan projected to cost a total of CFAfr Niger • 153

1,000 bn. The objective was to create a permanent cereal reserve of 100,000 tonnes. The agricultural sector received CFAfr 100.3 bn in the 2012 budget, compared with CFAfr 21.8 bn in 2011, but the government foresaw a lack of sufficient funding for the full implementation of the ‘3N’ programme. During the third quarter, abundant rains led to massive flooding in the western region, including Niamey and Dosso – the latter badly affected, with the destruction of 10,000 homes. More than 80 people drowned, and there were outbreaks of cholera (3,854 registered cases) and malaria, as well as an invasion of locusts. More than half a million people were affected. At least 7,000 fields were flooded and 120 grain stores destroyed; the western Tillabéri region lost 42% of its homes. The government announced almost € 1 m in emergency aid, releasing 1,400 tonnes of cereals, and asked for international assistance. The EU responded with the disbursement of € 600,000 emergency funding. As locusts did not arrive till after the grain ripened, harvests overall exceeded demand – auguring well for 2013. Oil production became a new factor in the economy. The Soraz refinery in Zinder, owned jointly by the government and the China National Petroleum Corporation, had begun production late in 2011 and had a potential production capacity nearly three times Niger’s domestic needs, so that the country could in principle become self-sufficient. In early March, Niger struck an accord with Chad for the construction of a pipeline to connect with the Chadian-Cameroonian pipeline in order to ship out the surplus. Maximum production in Agadem was between 60,000 and 80,000 b/d, and reserves were estimated at a total of 483 m barrels, but construction of the pipelines had not begun by year’s end. Moreover, in spite of the completion of a 400 km pipeline connecting Agadem with the Zinder refinery, there were problems. The government set a price for petroleum that could not compete with the subsidised price of Nigerian fuel. Protests against fuel prices erupted, in which two people were killed. On 21 September, the government responded by lowering fuel prices by 6%. Taxi drivers demanded a 30% cut and increased fares by half. New protests took place in Niamey on 21 October, and another 7% cut in fuel prices was foreseen for January 2013. Meanwhile, export to Nige- ria of the refined surplus was hindered by its higher price, and Zinder’s refinery began to suffer from a lack of storage facilities and distribution problems. Operations had to be dis- continued, causing substantial losses, and by year’s end the refinery was working at half capacity. Fuel lorry drivers went on strike to protest against delays at the refinery, causing shortages and new price increases in the capital. Uranium production had its problems, too. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, prices plummeted by 30%. Areva was facing losses and the government feared that construction of the giant new mine at Imouraren would be endangered. Construction slowed, and the opening of the mine was expected to be delayed. On 25 April, workers at Imou- raren went on a week’s strike over pay and working conditions and a one-day strike took 154 • West Africa place at the Somaïr mine in Arlit on 20 August. There were also environmental concerns about the impact of Imouraren. In addition, on 11 May a court judgement in France required Areva to pay € 200,000 in compensation to the family of a Frenchman who had worked at Areva’s Akokak mine and had died of lung cancer. A Nigérien NGO demanded that similar compensation be paid to Nigérien workers. At year’s end, Areva began a libel suit against an NGO, accusing it of trying to bribe Issoufou with the offer of a plane. Pro- duction at its other mine, the Somaïr mine at Arlit, reached record levels, while the new Chinese mine at Azélik increased its production of yellow cake. Mainly as a consequence of oil production, analysts foresaw record growth. Real GDP growth was initially expected to reach 9.4%, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, and then to fall in 2013 as a result of diminishing capital investment. The IMF thought 13.4% growth was possible (in the autumn it increased its forecast to 14.5%). The IMF also corrected its estimate of the 2011 growth rate upwards to 5.5%. The 2012 figures could decrease, however, as a result of the bottlenecks in oil production. Much of this was good news for Issoufou’s government, which entertained ambitious plans. Investments in education to the tune of CFAfr 1.2 bn were projected over a five- year period. The agricultural sector would receive CFAfr 100.3 bn (a fivefold increase as compared to the previous year), and the overall budget was set at CFAfr 1,262 bn. The budget was increased three times as a result of the food and security crises, but the 2013 budget saw only small increases, as administrative capacities, among other things, hindered investment spending. Nevertheless, new infrastructure projects got underway, including various road repair and construction plans. France and China announced new aid agreements, as did the IDA, ADF and World Bank. As shown by the World Bank aid, which was partly aimed at the reintegration of returnees from Libya, this could also help offset the negative consequences of the poor relations with the new Libyan government. The Chinese decided to invest in a new sugar refinery. Total FDI was among the highest in UEMOA (reflecting investment in oil and uranium production). Even so, the government was planning to revise its investment code in cooperation with the World Bank; in the latter’s Doing Business Report, Niger was among the worst performers in terms of business environment, trailing behind Zimbabwe and Afghanistan. The government also risked becoming the victim of its many promises, however well intentioned. In addition to fuel protests, strikes by magistrates and civil servants took place during the summer as food prices peaked ahead of the cereal harvest. The minimum monthly wage was increased from CFAfr 27,000 to CFAfr 30,047 (€ 45.80). The HDI figures for 2011 showed Niger to be the second least developed country in the world ( just ahead of the DRC). Annual per capita income was stalled at $ 641, life expectancy at 54 years, and average schooling for males at 1.4 years – a bleak figure in a country where 85% of the population were under 35. More than 40% were living below the poverty datum line of less than $ 1.25 a day. On a positive note, media freedom improved Niger • 155 substantially. Issoufou, who developed the habit of organising unorchestrated press conferences and taking media representatives on his tours, signed a declaration calling for the decriminalisation of defamation (although four newspapers were sued, mainly as result of unfounded and libellous reporting, a persistent feature in the country’s media). There were now 11 television stations (of which nine were private), an increase of seven since 2010, and more than 70 newspaper publications (compared with 50 in 2011).

Klaas van Walraven

Nigeria

The most critical issue during the year was the deterioration of the precarious security situation, particularly in the urban areas of Maiduguri (Borno state), Potiskum and Dama- turu (Yobe state), and Kano and Kaduna (capitals of the states of the same name). Clashes between factions of the Islamic sect ‘Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lid Da’awati Wal Jihad’, better known as Boko Haram, and security forces, particularly military units of the ‘Joint Task Force’ (JTF), took place almost every day, with dozens of deaths on both sides. (Boko Haram is generally translated as ‘Western education is forbidden’. In fact, the original meaning is ‘deceit, or fraud (boko), is forbidden’; the meaning ‘Western education’ accrued later.) The structural weakness of the Nigerian police forced the military to shoulder most of the burden of dealing with the insurgents and criminals. Several hundred people, including innocent persons and security personnel, as well as alleged members and sympathisers of the sect, fell victim to bomb attacks, suicide bombings, counter- attacks, indiscriminate killings and deadly raids on barracks, police stations, churches, mosques, schools, hide-outs, villages, outdoor refreshment stops and prisons. At year’s end, some 1,000 people had lost their lives. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for most of the attacks, although it had allegedly split into various splinter groups such as the more radical Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan (meaning ‘Vanguards for the protection of Muslims in Black Africa’), better known as Ansaru. Sophisticated criminal 158 • West Africa gangs from all parts of the country were also at work, using the same name. Those arrested included a significant number of security personnel actively involved in the movement. Such complications defeated any attempt to draw a clear line between sectarian clashes and organised crime in the poverty-stricken far North.

Domestic Politics

Despite the state of emergency imposed in some areas of Borno state, where Boko Haram was founded, two students of the University of Maiduguri were killed on 7 January in their Mairi ward residence, and a scholar of the ‘Goni College of Islamic and Legal Stud- ies’ was assassinated on 25 March on the outskirts of Maiduguri. Soon afterwards, on 3 April, gunmen attacked the city’s ‘Monday Market’, robbing five traders of the day’s takings and gunning down 12 people. On 9 April, six men, including a police inspector, the former chairman of Dikwa local government council, Babagana Karim, and three gunmen became victims of a clash between a gang of about 30, and the JTF. On 18 September, the Borno state attorney general, Zanna Malam Gana, was shot in his home town of Bama. The JTF was also involved in clashes, which drew heavy criticism: On two occasions alone, on 15 October and 1 November, the JTF killed dozens of alleged Boko Haram members but was heavily criticised by local observers and AI, which accused the security forces of human rights abuses, even against uninvolved civilians. Nevertheless, the often heavy-handed and at times brutal behaviour of the military had its effect on the Islamists and clearly unnerved Boko Haram. This development fuelled the use of brutality on both sides, so that more and more distinguished locals were targeted. One such was veteran soldier Muhammadu Shuwa, a retired major general and top commander during the civil war; he was killed on 2 November. On 12 November, Alhaji Babagana Kola, a university don, and Malam Yerima, a director in the Ministry of Lands and Survey, were gunned down. Two days later, Malam Ali Mohammed Sheriff, a top civil servant in the Ministry of Water Resources, suffered the same fate, and the Revd Ilesha Kabura of Eklesiya Yanwa Nigeria Church met his death on 18 November. One of the cruellest incidents in Borno state involved 20 young women wearing mini-skirts and trousers who were butchered in the state capital on 23 November. On 1 December, late at night, ten Christians, living in the remote village of Chibok had their throats cut and, on 28 December, in the village of Musari on the outskirts of Maiduguri, 15 villagers were killed in the same way, bringing the number of dead to more than 220 in Borno state alone, including foreign workers from China, India and Ghana. Neighbouring Yobe state fared no better. On 10 January, eight people, including four policemen, were shot in a bar in Potiskum, the state’s largest city and its commercial hub, and the next day, gunmen on motorcycles attacked a south-east bound bus, killing four passengers. On 6 March, the comptroller of customs in charge of Borno and Yobe states, Alhaji Adamu Ahmadu, also met his death in Potiskum. On 10 December, another gun Nigeria • 159 battle in the city cost 14 lives, including that of a divisional police officer, and gunmen attacked the Church of Christ in Nigeria on Christmas Day in the nearby village of Piri, killing the pastor, Yohana Sini, and five worshippers. Shortly before New Year’s Eve, on 29 December, the JTF killed four suspected Boko Haram members and arrested some 50 in the city’s Yindiski area. In the state capital Damaturu, nine soldiers died and several others sustained injuries on 5 August, when a suicide bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into two military patrol vehicles. On 24 September, the city became a veritable battlefield when military forces killed 35 alleged Boko Haram members during an overnight gun battle. In another raid on a hide-out in the town on 7 October, some 30 suspected members were killed in a shoot-out and several others arrested, among them the notorious one-eyed Bakaka, a close associate of the sect’s self-proclaimed leader, Abubakar Shekau, who had assumed the leadership after the extra-judicial killing of Mohammed Yusuf in 2009. A retired comptroller of customs, Ajiya Waziri Golili, and his son were gunned down in their house on 20 October by a gang of ten, and the Buni/Yadi divisional police station in Gujba local government area was targeted on 9 November; three officers were shot and the attackers made off with a large haul of arms and ammunition. Some 100 people lost their lives in the state. The most populous northern state, Kano, became a new focal point of the rapidly spreading violence in the northern region. According to official figures, 186 people were killed when, on 20 January, bomb attacks and some 50 gunmen disguised as military and police wrought havoc in the city. They targeted police stations and police command posts, offices of the SSS (State Security Service) and other government agencies such as the immigration headquarters. Three days later, the police discovered cars and vans filled with explosives. Shortly thereafter, on 26 January, the German engineer Edgar Fritz Raupach, an employee of the Julius Berger Nigeria construction firm, was taken hostage. Later in March, a video message was released, demanding the release of a Turkish-born woman, Filiz Gelowicz, imprisoned in Germany the previous year for helping terrorists. She was the wife of a German Muslim convert and member of the ‘Sauerland group’, whose members were sentenced to prison terms in 2010 for plotting to attack US facilities in Germany. At the end of April, she was released early for good behaviour. Nevertheless, the hostage was eventually killed by his captors when security forces raided their hide-out in Kano on 31 May. None of the hostage takers survived the shoot-out. In the days and weeks that followed, attacks on police stations continued unabated. Another ugly incident took place on 29 April, when gunmen equipped with ‘impro- vised explosive devices’ (IEDs) and rifles attacked Christian worshippers at the university theatre of the old Bayero University campus, which was regularly used for services on Sundays. At least 19 were killed and many more wounded. On 16 September in Hotoro, a national security and civil defence officer, his wife, daughter and brother were virtually executed in their house by assassins who had arrived on a motorcycle. The following 160 • West Africa day, security sources declared that they had killed the Boko Haram spokesman, Anwal Kontagora, alias Abu Qaqa. The authorities had already claimed to have arrested him in March, but the detainee turned out to be another member of the sect. This case highlighted the fact that establishing the identity of arrested leaders of Boko Haram was problematic. Only two days later, the JTF intercepted and arrested the sect’s accountant, travelling on a commuter bus on his way to Zaria, carrying 4.5 m naira (NGN) in cash. Prior to that, on 5 September, gunmen on motorcycles destroyed mobile phone masts. This action paralled coordinated attacks on at least 24 masts in other states in the northern region. As in Borno state, distinguished Kano residents were not spared by the Islamists. State house members Ibrahim Abba Garko of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Daladi Isa Kademi of the All Nigeria People’s Party were killed on 17 November and 14 December, respectively. Eventually, two suspects were arrested and allegedly con- fessed to having been paid NGN 40,000 each to carry out the plots. At year’s end, at least 240 people had fallen victim to the many assaults, and 68 IEDs had been discovered and detonated by the police. Kaduna state also experienced a new level of sectarian violence when, on Sunday 25 November, suicide bombers drove two vehicles full of IEDs into the famous military college in Jaji, close to the state capital, targeting the St Andrew Military Protestant Church, located within faculty premises. The blast killed at least 15 people and wounded many more, aggravating what was already a delicate situation. Already on Easter Sunday, 8 April, two car bombs had killed some two dozen Christian worshippers and motorcyclists. The latter are popularly known as ‘Okada’ or ‘Achaba’ riders, and offer a cheap alternative to taxis. However, these organised motorcyclists claimed that more than 100 of their members had been killed. On 26 April, two offices of the leading Nigerian newspaper ‘This Day’, in Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, were targeted. Six staff members died in the blasts and the Abuja office was completely destroyed. On 28 October, a bomb explosion at the St Rita Catholic Church in Malali, part of the Kaduna metropoli- tan area, claimed the lives of some 15 people, injuring at least 100 and bringing the death toll in the state to more than 60. Not one of the 12 northern states where Sharia law has been adopted, was spared, as Boko Haram extended its reach into all the other northern states. Even Sokoto state, with its capital of the same name, home of the sultan and considered a safe haven, was hit when two police stations in the state capital were attacked by suicide bombers on 30 July. The two suspected bombers, a policeman and a woman died. And on 1 September, the Muslim cleric Limam Danda Birkitawa was shot dead in his village in Dange-Shuni local government area. In Birnin Kebbi, capital of neighbouring Kebbi state, a rescue operation was undertaken on 8 March to free British and Italian construction workers, Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara, who had been abducted in May the previous year. Some of their guards had Nigeria • 161 already been arrested and the rest were gunned down during the operation, but not before they had killed their hostages. Since British security forces were involved, the action received international attention. On 20 December, a group of about 30 attacked a heavily guarded compound in Rimi, close to the city of Katsina in the state of the same name, killing two security guards and kidnapping the French engineer Francis Colump, who was working for a French company on a wind power project. No information was available at year’s end as to his whereabouts and fate. On 28 December, the divisional police station, the prison and the customs area office in Maiha local government in Adamawa state were attacked. Some 20 people lost their lives, and the gunmen made off with weapons and ammunition and freed several inmates. These are only some of the many acts of violence that were committed. A modest attempt by the federal government to initiate dialogue with factions of Boko Haram, a proposal made by the Shehu of Borno and the Usman Galtimari committee earlier in the year, had little impact and was shelved, although the government acknowledged in August that it was still talking with some sect members through “back room channels”. However, against this background of spiralling violence, it took another three months and many more attacks and victims before a new strategy on counter-terrorism was revealed at a conference in Abuja in early November. Apart from creating the post of coordinator in the office of the national security adviser, charged with the difficult task of dealing with the various and often divided security agencies, a list of the 19 most wanted members of Boko Haram was published on 23 November and generous rewards offered for information leading to their arrest. However, the creation of the new post prompted controversy in political and security circles, particularly concerning its affiliation with the national security adviser’s office; it was still vacant at year’s end. The precarious security situation eventually took its toll on the administration’s key positions. Early in the year, on 25 January, President Goodluck Jonathan sacked the controversial inspector general of police, Hafiz Ringim, and his six deputies and appointed the then assistant inspector general, Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar. The reason for sacking Ringim, only months before his retirement, was the escape of Kabiru Umar, also known as Kabiru Sokoto, from police custody a month earlier; Umar was one of the chief suspects in a bomb attack carried out on Christmas Day 2011. The consequences of Abubakar’s leap-frog promotion were far-reaching, triggering further promotions, retirements and redeployment of police units. In March, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), appointed in November 2011 under the chairmanship of Ibrahim Lamorde, also underwent a major reorganisation; this move sought to hasten the cleansing process and to reverse the widely perceived integrity deficit of the Commission. On 22 June, Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel, was appointed national security adviser, replacing the unfortunate retired General Andrew Owoye Azazi. Minister of Defence Bello Haliru Mohammed was also removed, and no successor had been appointed by year’s end. 162 • West Africa

The military also underwent a shake-up, when, on 4 October, three new service chiefs emerged, following the retirement of Air Marshal Oluseyi Petirin and Air Marshal Mohammed Dikko Umar, chief of defence staff and of air staff, respectively. Jonathan replaced them with the chief of naval staff, Vice Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim, who took over defence, and Air Vice Marshal Alex Sabunduh Badeh, who was given the air staff portfolio. Lieutenant General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika retained his position, however, while Rear Admiral D.J. Ezeoba succeeded the former chief of naval staff. The air force had already redeployed six of its air vice marshals in March and, in November, 32 group captains were promoted to the next rank of air commodore. The army and navy followed suit in December, promoting 226 senior officers to the rank of colonel (91), brigadier (37), major general (22), commander (20), captain (33), commodore (40) and rear admiral (19). In response to the Boko Haram uprising, 2,000 soldiers were trained by counter-terrorism experts in Jaji in March, and several courses for commissioned and non-commissioned officers were run at the same venue in December, exposing them to the concept of asym- metric warfare and methods of combating insurrection. However, the reorganisation of the security agencies made little or no difference to the lives of the vast majority of Nigerian citizens. In the southern region, with its commercial hubs of Lagos and Port Harcourt, the security situation was shaped not by Boko Haram but by organised crime. There were also sporadic clashes between remnants of Niger Delta militias and the JTF, which acknowledged having lost nine men in the oil producing area over the course of the year. However, the JTF also claimed to have arrested more than 1,900 suspects, destroyed more than 4,000 illegal refineries (small and very simple structures, located in hide-outs in the swamps), and impounded vessels, barges and even trucks. And in early June, the first Nigerian-made warship was launched, almost five years after work on it started. On 1 March, the commander of the JTF unit in Brass, Lieuten- ant Colonel Abubakar Malik, and three of his soldiers were attacked by militants in five speedboats and eventually killed. On the same day, a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta blew up a police checkpoint in Bayelsa state; four people lost their lives. On 15 October, pirates kidnapped seven men, all except one Russian citizens, on their way to an oil platform. They were released on 1 November. Prior to that, in early September, the federal government had agreed to start the third phase of an amnesty programme involving more than 3,600 ex-militants, and bringing the total number of those benefitting from the programme to 30,000. Once again, crime was widespread, with kidnappings, bank raids and killings still prevalent. However, the security forces killed and arrested a significant number of gang members, particularly in southern parts of the country. In Lagos state alone, some 140 robbers were killed and more than 560 arrested, while 30 or so policemen lost their lives in the course of duty. On 26 January, a military unit on routine patrol in Ebonyi state intercepted a group of armed robbers after a failed bank robbery in Ikom in neighbouring Cross River state, in which eight civilians and one policeman had died. Nine robbers and one Nigeria • 163 soldier eventually lost their lives during the ensuing gun battle. Although six robbers managed to escape, weapons, ammunition and two vehicles were recovered. In Sapele in Delta state on 18 March, gunmen attacked a beer parlour, mindlessly shooting seven guests. No reason was given for the bloodbath, but it was reported that the killers claimed to be unemployed and starving, while their victims were enjoying themselves. On 31 March, another ugly incident took place on the Ore-Sagamu expressway in Ogbere in Ogun state, when a gang robbed a bus and raped some 40 female students. The police were able to arrest the suspects shortly afterwards, including the bus driver. In late July, Cynthia Osokogu, a post-graduate student of Nasarawa university and daughter of a retired major general, was lured into a trap by male students in Lagos via ‘Facebook’; she was raped and killed. The culprits were traced weeks later when her stolen mobile phone was located. The actions of Boko Haram did not diminish the activities of organised criminal gangs in the north. Some of the ugliest incidents took place in Zamfara, Adamawa and Kaduna states. On 27 January, about 100 hooligans barricaded a main road in Zamfara and robbed a convoy of traders on their way to the Batsari market in neighbouring Katsina state. Pandemonium broke out and 15 traders were killed. In Adamawa, on the night of Independence Day (1 October), gunmen shot dead at least 26 students in their college residence at the Federal Polytechnic in Mubi. While alleged Boko Haram members denied any involvement, there were indications that the killings might have been motivated by a serious feud inside the college. In what seemed to be an act of reprisal, 24 villagers in Dogon-Dawa in Birnin Gwari local government area in Kaduna state were gunned down by bandits on 14 October. Shortly before, a vigilante group had captured four people in a village called Kuyello and taken them for questioning; those captured were believed to be members of a gang notorious for terrorising the area. Kidnapping was still a common and lucrative activity, particularly in the south. As in previous years, kidnappers mostly targeted well-known local Nigerians, such as the wife of Senator George Sekibo, abducted in Port Harcourt on 22 March and rescued unharmed four days later. Others were Mrs Ngozi Chukwuebulim, a medical doctor in Warri, Delta state, who was kidnapped on 1 April and released three days later; Nwika Gbinu, a Catho- lic priest from Onne in the Eleme local government area of Rivers state, who regained his freedom on 1 May after a week in captivity; Hope Eghagha, Delta state commissioner for higher education, who was captured in an attack on 30 September, during which his police bodyguard was killed. He was set free two weeks later. The most spectacular kidnapping was that of the finance minister’s 83-year-old mother, Kamene Okonjo, a retired professor of sociology, who was abducted from her husband’s palace in Aniocha local government area in Delta state (9 December). The captors demanded NGN 200 m for her release, and, on 14 December, she was eventually freed some 30 km away. Security sources maintained that no ransom had been paid but it emerged that the captors had demanded the minister’s resignation in connection with a controversial fuel subsidy scam. In contrast, when four South Korean nationals and various Nigerians working for Hyundai were kidnapped on 164 • West Africa

17 December, a ransom of $ 190,000 was paid before they were released a few days later, much to the consternation of the police. This was one of the rare cases in which such a deal became public. The Middle Belt, particularly Plateau, Benue and Taraba states, was another focal point of sectarian clashes, which claimed many victims. In Gwer local government area in Benue state on 6 March, ethnic Fulani herdsmen raided Tiv villages, killing some two dozen inhabitants. On 29 October, at least five were killed in a predawn attack in a village in Barkin Ladi local government area in Plateau state. And in Taraba state, on 19–20 November, the death toll rose to ten and the number of injured to some 200 after violence broke out between Muslims and Christians in Ibi local government area over a temporary street closure for a religious service. Even the capital, Abuja, was not spared, when, on 29–30 December, Fulani herdsmen and local Gwari people clashed over farm boundaries in Garko in the Gwagwalada area, leaving some dead and more than 1,500 displaced in various communities. In addition to appointing new personnel to top positions in the security agencies, Presi- dent Jonathan filled several more important vacancies. On 16 July, a female justice of the Supreme Court, Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, succeeded Dahiru Musdapher as chief justice of Nigeria; Musdapher had reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. An overdue shake- up affecting most of the senior staff in the aviation sector, with its poor air safety record, took place in early October, and a re-organisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation followed towards the end of that month. On New Year’s Eve, the president approved yet more boards of directors of federal agencies, offering highly paid positions by the dozen. Nigeria’s new and first female chief justice soon stirred up a hornet’s nest, however, with steps that had controversial legal and constitutional ramifications. On 5 November, she declined to administer the oath of office to Abia state nominee Mrs Ifeoma Jombo- Ofo, who, together with 11 other justices, had been elevated to the Court of Appeal, the second highest court in the land. The chief justice’s refusal was based on the fact that the candidate was originally from Anambra state, but, upon marriage, had transferred her service to her husband’s state, Abia, so that her nomination was invalid. In fact, this issue touched on the sensitive and unresolved question of citizenship and ‘indigeneship’, which continued to work to the disadvantage of non-indigenes in any state and to affect vacancies in public institutions and government at state and national level. The Federal Character Commission Act, established in 1996 and included in the 1999 constitution, had introduced an allocation system by which, it was hoped, a sense of balance might be achieved in Nigeria’s power structure; however, the system was misused, often leading to communal tension. After strong political and legal pressure from the senate and the national judicial council, the chief justice rescinded her decision and Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo was sworn in on 22 November, but the real issue remained shelved. Nigeria • 165

The legal and constitutional controversy concerning five PDP governors, who, after the annulment of their election in 2007, were elected in a re-run the following year and whose tenure therefore expired in 2012, or in one case in late 2011, dragged on behind the scenes, although the verdict of the Supreme Court, passed on 27 January, seemed to have removed these governors from office. The court emphasised the fact that tenure should not exceed the four-year term prescribed by the constitution and argued that tenure started from the day of taking the first oath of office and should have expired in May 2011. However, with the exception of Kogi state, where the PDP candidate had already been re-elected in December 2011, the sitting governors of Adamawa, Cross River and Sokoto states won their elections in February and remained in power after all. These election victories were eventually confirmed by the same court, despite its earlier ruling. In Jonathan’s home state, Bayelsa, PDP’s Henry Seriake Dickson emerged as the new elected governor, after the incumbent Timpre Sylva had been controversially disqualified from the primaries. In July, despite wide public criticism, the new governor appointed the president’s wife, Patience Jonathan, as a permanent secretary. Interestingly, in almost all cases, the Supreme Court strictly applied the amended deadlines for written submissions: 21 days for petitions, 180 days for tribunal judgments and 60 days for appealable verdicts. Thus the court avoided to some extent dealing with possibly overwhelming legal wrangling regarding content but, by insisting on the deadlines, overruled even appeal court verdicts. In Edo and Ondo states, statutory gubernatorial elections took place on 14 July and 20 October, respectively, and were won by the incumbents, Adams Oshiomhole of the Action Congress of Nigeria and Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party. They had successfully contested the election results of 2007 and had eventually been installed as duly elected. In the north-western state of Kebbi, however, the elected governor, Usman Dak- ingari, was sacked by the Supreme Court on 24 February but won the re-run on 31 March with ease. All the other petitions concerning the gubernatorial elections in April 2011 were finally dismissed. On 13 December, however, in a surprise move the Electoral Commis- sion deregistered 28 parties and indicated that more could be targeted. The anti-corruption campaign did not yield any positive results, despite the EFCC’s new leadership and restructuring. In March, Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde even admitted to being shocked, having realised that those charged with fulfilling the Commission’s mandate were themselves caught up in widespread corruption. Moreover, in cases such as that brought against the former bank manager Erastus Akingbola, charged with serious fraud, the Commission and the attorney-general were berated by the Lagos federal high court in early April for providing insufficient evidence and for the prosecution team’s general incompetence. As a result, the case was dismissed. The report by the petroleum revenue special task force, set up in February in the wake of fuel subsidy protests and chaired by the former head of the EFCC, Nuhu Ribadu, was an example of how excessive corruption was handled. At the end of October, the 166 • West Africa leaked report unearthed ample evidence of large-scale fraud in the petroleum industry, including massive fraud connected to the lucrative import of highly subsidised fuel. Soon afterwards, however, an open disagreement between the chairman and his deputy, Steve Orosanye, on how to compile the committee’s report became so embarrassing that the office of the president eventually rejected the report on 8 November on the grounds that its recommendations were not workable. In its place, barely a week later, the president established three committees to draft ‘White Papers’ on the petroleum report and two other reports – on the national refineries and on the governance and controls special task force. Moreover, on 3 December, the federal government pardoned more than 80 stockbrokers, who, like business tycoons such as Femi Otedola and Aliko Dangote, amongst others, were largely responsible for the capital market failure in 2009. There were, nevertheless, some successes. At least half a dozen Nigerians were intercepted with huge amounts of undeclared dollars, ranging from some $ 130,000 to $ 7 m, at the airports in Abuja, Kano and Lagos. They were arrested and charged, since only $ 10,000 was permitted to be taken out of the country without prior declaration. The worsening human and civil rights record was to a large extent determined by the precarious security situation. Nevertheless, more governors used their executive powers to commute death sentences to life imprisonment and they even ordered the release of elderly and some long-term prisoners. Ogun state started in late January by commuting two death sentences and releasing seven prisoners. Cross River state acted similarly in September, followed by Lagos state, where some 280 were released in two batches in September and December. In October, Kano freed 58 inmates. A closer look, however, revealed that some 70% the 50,000 inmates across the country were awaiting trial in overcrowded prisons. On 30 January, in Nigeria’s longest-running criminal case, the Lagos federal high court sentenced two men to death by hanging: Hamza Al-Mustapha, a notorious former chief security officer of military dictator Sani Abacha, and Lateef Shofolahan, protocol officer in Chief Moshood Abiola’s presidential campaign in the early months of 1993. That election was annulled by the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida, who was succeeded by Abacha. The verdict, handed down for the 1996 murder of Kudirat Abiola, then senior wife of her detained husband who died in custody in 1998, ended the trial, which had begun in 1999. On 26 November, Attorney General Muhammed Bello Adoke inaugurated the governing council of the National Human Rights Commission. On 4 November, the Biafran Zionist Movement under its self-proclaimed president of Biafra, Benjamin Onwuka, a faction of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sov- ereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), raised the Biafran flag, marched through Enugu and declared Biafra’s independence. Onwuka was arrested by the police, together with dozens of MASSOB members. A walkout by members of the OIC, of which Nigeria is a member, from a UN panel of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 6 March, once again highlighted the controversial Nigeria • 167 issue of same sex-marriage. A rigorous bill banning it was passed by both houses of the Nigerian parliament, strongly supported by leaders of both the Muslim and Christian faiths but, somewhat surprisingly, the president had not signed it into law before year’s end, which indicated that the bill had been quietly put to rest.

Foreign Affairs

Relations with the United States, the most important customer for Nigeria’s crude oil and liquefied gas and its main supplier of wheat, were to a large extent shaped by the Boko Haram situation. On 16 February, Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab was sentenced to life imprisonment for his failed attempt to blow up a US-bound flight in late 2009. The then Nigerian security adviser, Andrew Owoye Aziz, had just published an article in the ‘Washington Times’ on combating terrorist threats in Nigeria and had urged the US to offer Nigeria its support. He referred to a high-level meeting in Abuja on 23 January under US-Nigeria Binational Commission, which was attended by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Fitzgerald and US military and intelligence officials. In early March, the State Department acknowledged that the FBI was assisting Nigerian security services in tackling Boko Haram and, to a lesser extent, the Niger Delta’s militias. This was in line with the US commitment to Nigeria, confirmed in Abuja on 5 March by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who was then on a five-nation Africa tour. Furthermore, the US even considered setting up a consulate in Kano. On 9 August, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stopped over in Abuja at the end of her Africa tour. In early September, a US navy ship undertook a week of joint training with the Nigerian navy, and, on 11 December, President Jonathan received the head of the US Africa Com- mand, General Carter Ham. The previous month saw Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Michael Posner visiting Nigeria. On 11 April, the US and Nigerian vice presidents, Joe Biden and Namadi Sambo, met at the White House, and the Nigerian guest and his high-ranking delegation then attended the US Exim Bank annual conference. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a US government institution, approved a $ 250 m loan to fund a nitrogen fertiliser facility. At the end of the year, the US Supreme Court’s decision on a law suit against Shell, initiated by relatives of the Ogonis, who were hanged in 1995 after a show-trial, was still pending. Nigeria’s relations with Britain were shaped once again by various legal issues. At the end of July, London’s High Court, after hearing a $ 1 bn fraud case, handed down a judgement in favour of the Nigerian Excess Bank against Erastus Akingbola, a former executive of the Nigerian Intercontinental Bank, one of the banks bailed out during the Nigerian financial crisis of 2009. Also, on 17 April, the former Nigerian governor, James Ibori, who had been indicted for various money laundering offences in 2011, was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment. This verdict ended an extraordinary legal battle between the 168 • West Africa former strongman of Delta state politics and the joint powers of the EFCC and the British legal system. Ibori, who rose from being a petty thief in London to become a powerful governor in Nigeria, was to spend only four-and-a-half years in prison in return for his decision to plead guilty, but nevertheless brought an appeal against the verdict in Sep- tember, alleging a plea bargain with the prosecution for an even shorter prison term. The appeal was still pending at year’s end. In September, a British judge imposed a confiscation order on a Nigerian couple to pay almost £ 1.2 m under the Proceeds of Crime Act or be jailed for six years. The couple, Ovo Mayomi and his wife, Juliet Ubiribo, had already been convicted of fraud in 2010 for using an identity and immigration scam to claim welfare benefits amounting to some £ 43,000. Eventually, investigators discovered that they were living in a large house in Lagos, driving luxury cars and running several businesses. In another case in late October, Canter- bury Crown Court jailed Osezua Osolase for 20 years after finding him guilty of human trafficking and rape. Entirely aware that he was carrying the HIV virus, he used ‘juju’ ritu- als to make girls submit to him as sex slaves. The prisoners’ transfer deal, to be applied to Nigerians involved in fraud and other crimes in the UK, made headway in the Nigerian National Assembly in December and the bill was awaiting the president’s assent. DFID was forthrightly criticised by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, whose report, published in November, claimed that, despite £ 102 m having been spent on basic education in ten Nigerian states, with a focus on the north, there was so far no evidence of any improvement. Even so, DFID had earmarked another £ 126 m for the next period until 2019. The British government vowed to review the report’s recommendation and to respond in due course. Prior to that, in April, the BBC’s ‘Newsnight’ programme and the ‘Financial Times’ had reported that DFID’s private enterprise arm, the CDC group, had been accused of allowing huge amounts of money to be invested in Nigerian money laundering fronts linked to James Ibori that had been investigated by Nigerian officials. On 8 March, 120 Nigerians were deported from Britain for various immigration offences. Shortly thereafter, David Armond, international director of the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency held a meeting in Nigeria with Femi Ajayi, director general of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, to develop new strategies against the drug cartels by investigating their finances and assets. Cooperation with China, which had almost come to a standstill the previous year, produced some headlines when, in January, the minister of youth development acknowledged that a number of Nigerians had been detained in China for various drug-related offences, although the number given seemed to have been exaggerated. Nevertheless, on 12 September in Bejing, the Nigerian finance minister signed an agreement on a $ 500 m loan from the China Exim Bank for a light rail project in Abuja. Eventually, in December, the long-awaited launch of the totally overhauled Lagos to Kano railway line, financed to a large extent by Chinese capital and built with Chinese know-how, came into service. Nigeria • 169

In January, six Nigerians were arrested in India, accused of defrauding hundreds of people through cybercrime. In October, two Nigerian nationals suspected of belonging to a drug smuggling ring were taken into custody in Thailand’s capital Bangkok, after being found in possession of illegal drugs with a black-market value of more than $ 30,000. Relations with Saudi Arabia were temporarily strained when, on 26 September, the Saudi authorities deported 150 female Nigerian pilgrims and held another 1,000 at Jeddah airport, because they had arrived for the hajj unaccompanied by men. Shortly thereafter, Saudi immigration officials denied Nigeria’s ambassador access to these women and began deporting them. The diplomatic row dragged on when the speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who was to mediate, was obliged to call off his trip to Saudi Arabia and was only received there on 8 October. Barely a week after the row began, Nigeria resumed flights to Saudi Arabia, which had been suspended, and the Saudi government eventually agreed to re-admit the deported female pilgrims on condition that they were accompanied by appropriate males. President Jonathan attended the 18th AU summit in Addis Ababa in January, but conspicuously absented himself from the summit there in July. He joined the extraordinary ECOWAS summit in Abidjan on 26 April, which discussed the situation in Mali and Guinea-Bissau. On 10 September, he flew to Malawi and Botswana for a three-day visit and received Côte d’Ivoire President Allassane Ouattara and his Benin counterpart, Boni Yayi, in Abuja for a meeting behind closed doors on 14 September. On 18 October, he met Niger’s head of state Mahamadou Issoufou in Niamey (Niger), proceeding then directly to the Mali capital, Bamako, where he held talks with the coup leader, Captain Amadou Ayo Sanogo. Another extraordinary ECOWAS meeting of heads of state and government took place in Abuja on 11 November and, not surprisingly, Nigeria decided to send a contingent of 600–700 soldiers to Mali as part of a planned international peacekeeping mission. A possible conflict arose when, in mid-December, the ECOWAS court of justice found the federal government legally responsible for alleged violations of human rights and related oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The government was also given responsibility for bringing the oil companies and the perpetrators to account. On 21 October, Gabon expelled 215 Nigerians, most of them fishermen who had been living there for years. Deportations also played an important role in a diplomatic row with South Africa when, on 2 March, 125 Nigerians were expelled for alleged failure to provide genuine yellow fever vaccination documents. In a gesture that seemed to be based on the ‘principle of reciprocity’, the Nigerian immigration authorities denied 126 South Africans entry on three consecutive days shortly after, using the same reason. On 8 March, however, South Africa backed down and apologised for the “regrettable incident”. South African businessmen in particular immediately realised the danger to their investments in the booming telecommunications sector and their department stores in Nigeria’s principal cities. 170 • West Africa

Despite the fact that the demarcation of the maritime border with Cameroon was suspended indefinitely on 22 November, Nigeria and Cameroon surprised international observers when, in mid-December, both sides agreed to speed up decisions concerning demarcation in land-based areas of the Bakassi Pensinsula, which were yet to be identified. On 26 March, President Jonathan joined the second international nuclear summit in Seoul (South Korea); he then participated in the first meeting of the bi-national commission in Germany on 19 April and held talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On 19 June, he travelled with a large delegation to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) for the UN Earth Summit and he also took part in Jamaica’s celebrations of its 50th anniversary of independence in early August. On 25 September, he addressed the 67th UN General Assembly in New York, and took part in October in the International Telecommunication Union conference in Dubai, rounding off the year with the D-8 summit in Islamabad (Pakistan) in November. Last but not least, on 24 October, the Vatican elevated the 68-year old Archbishop of Abuja, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, to the office of cardinal; he thus became the third living Nigerian cardinal.

Socioeconomic Developments

Oil prices remained high, well above the $ 100 per barrel mark, and production levels in the Niger Delta was kept fairly stable at about 2.4 m b/d. Foreign reserves rose to some $ 45 bn towards the end of the year. In April, reserves already stood at some $ 36 bn, a development that had prompted Mustafa Chike-Obi, chief executive officer of the ‘Bad Bank’, AMCON, to claim that the banking crisis was over. However, the 2012 budget, totalling NGN 4.877 trillion ($ 30.4 bn) based on a benchmark of $ 72 per barrel of crude oil and an exchange rate of NGN 160 to $ 1, was not signed by the president till 13 April. Not surprisingly security, including the military, took the lion’s share: some NGN 920 bn. Prior to that, on 1 January, the government scrapped the fuel subsidy as part of sweeping economic reforms and more than doubled the pump price for petrol from NGN 65 to NGN 150 per litre. This decision was aimed at improving fiscal discipline and, probably more importantly, at curbing serious corrupt practices in the petroleum sector. As in previous years, the increase in the price of petrol was hugely unpopular and triggered nationwide protests in almost all urban areas, supported by trade unions, Muslim and Christian religious leaders and civil society groups. Protesters shut down petrol stations and formed human barricades along main roads, prompting security forces to intervene. The protests turned violent and a small number of people were killed, with dozens wounded. Eventually, on 7 January, the president announced that the government would back down but then, in another broadcast on 16 January, he declared that the price was to Nigeria • 171 be increased to NGN 97, rather than NGN 150, an increase of 15%. Because of increased oil prices, however, the cost of imported fuel per litre stood at NGN 167, which meant that every litre was subsidised to the tune of almost NGN 71, bringing the total annual subsidy to more than NGN 1 m. In this context, towards the end of the year, the government requested a supplementary budget of some NGN 162 bn to finance thefuel subsidy, which was eventually approved by parliament. On 20 December, the national assembly passed the 2013 budget totalling NGN 4.987 trillion ($ 31.6 bn) based on a benchmark oil price of $ 79 per barrel. The president’s assent however, was still pending at year’s end, probably delayed by the government’s alleged insistence on a benchmark of $ 75. As in previous years, the central bank regularly issued bonds and treasury bills worth several billion dollars. However, the debt profile increased slightly to some $ 45 bn made up of some $ 6.4 bn of foreign and a somewhat troubling $ 39 bn of internal debts. On 28 August, the finance minister announced that the controversial ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’ would initially start with a sum of $ 1 bn, managed by local Nigerian finance experts such as the former deputy governor of the central bank, Mahey Rasheed, and Uche Orji from the diaspora. The fund faced objections from state governors, however, since its initial funding was to be taken from the excess crude account, which stood at more than $ 8 bn in October, and which, since it was shared by the three tiers of government, was an important source of state revenue. The controversy notwithstanding, the government aimed to merge the two funds in the near future and, on 20 December, it emerged that the fund would become active sometime in March 2013. Mobile phone coverage continued to expand in one of the fastest growing markets on the continent. According to the Nigerian Communication Commission, mobile phone subscriptions passed the 100 m mark, and growth continued undiminished, thanks to the latest generation of iPhones and Tablets, which had no trouble reaching the huge and lucrative market. On the other hand, the 11-year effort to privatise the state-owned Nige- rian Telecommunication Company was halted in March when the government realised that the company, with its huge debt portfolio, was simply unsalable. Nevertheless, with its SAT-3 submarine cable, exchange transmission stations and its substantial property assets, it was still of some value. The enduring power problems took their toll, with hardly any real improvements. At the start of the year, the government liquidated the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, making way for 18 successor firms. Barely two months later, the National Council of Privatisation, chaired by Vice President Namadi Sambo, approved the sale of 60% of the shares in distribution companies to core investors. Interestingly, as well as the federal government, state governments were also allowed to bid, but participation was restricted in both cases to 49%. The fall in the power supply to some 2,000 MW prompted the president to sack three managers on 2 April, and, soon after, the government awarded a $ 24 m power transmission contract to the Canadian company, Manitoba Hydro, to overhaul the 172 • West Africa ailing electricity infrastructure. On 28 August, it was Barth Nnaji’s turn to be sacked and his portfolio as minister of power remained vacant for the rest of the year. In late September, eight northern states were hit by a blackout lasting several days, but, somewhat surprisingly, the generally poor power situation improved slightly towards year’s end when power generation increased to some 4,300 MW. In October, the privatisation exercise in the power sector, promising new opportunities and immense profits, revealed new well-heeled players such as former chiefs of military juntas, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Ibrahim Babangida, the ex-governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu, and business tycoons such as Tony Elumelu and Emeka Offor, who were either bidding with their respective companies or backing others. Nigeria’s generally poor air safety record suffered yet another blow when, on 3 June, a plane on a domestic flight, operated by Dana Airlines, crashed while approaching Lagos airport. All 159 people on board and half a dozen people on the ground were killed. That tragedy notwithstanding, the number one airline Arik Air secured a credit facility of some $ 2 bn in October to expand its fleet and destinations. On 5 December, it commenced services to Kinshasa (DRC), having started flights to Duala (Cameroon) in August and to Luanda (Angola) the previous year. On 15 December, a helicopter belonging to the navy crashed in Bayelsa state. All six persons on board lost their lives, including the governor of Kaduna state, Patrick Yakowa, and Andrew Azazi, the displaced national security adviser. Within 24 hours, Yakowa’s deputy Ramalan Yero was sworn in as new governor. Earlier, on 14 March, a surveillance police helicopter suffered a fatal accident in Plateau state, killing all four men on board, including Haruna John, a newly promoted deputy inspector general of police. The governor of Taraba state, Danbaba Danfulani Suntai, and his aides were luckier when their plane, piloted by the governor himself, crashed near the Adamawa state capital, Yola, on 25 October; they escaped with their lives but were seriously injured. In this context, the Lagos ‘Guardian’, in its 29 October edition, quoted an aviation source claiming that Nigerians top the list of private jet owners in Africa – up to 200 in the year under review from 50 some four years earlier. Interestingly, most of the said jets carried foreign registration credentials. The road safety situation showed no improvement. As before, the number of serious accidents with more than ten deaths was high. Two of the worst accidents happened in Kaduna and Ogun states on 28 March and 18 September, when at least 14 people were killed on the Kaduna-Abuja motorway and 30 near Abeokuta. However, the 480 accidents with almost 280 dead and 1,600 injured in a short period of 11 days around Christmas and New Year’s Eve showed how poor road safety continued to be. The second half of the year saw the worst floods since independence. From the Sahel in the north to the oil and gas producing areas in the south, some 3 m people were affected, with almost 400 dead and thousands injured. Nigeria • 173

In September, Chinua Achebe, one of Africa’s most famous writers, published his long awaited memoir of the Biafran war 1967–70 under the title ‘There was a Country’; the book gave rise to a controversial debate about Nigeria’s darkest hour. Lateef Adegbite, an ethnic Yoruba Muslim and former long-serving secretary-general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, died on 28 September. He was the co-founder and first president of the Muslim Student Society in the early 1950s, which was transformed in the 1970s into a radical group of ethnic Hausa-Fulani students within northern universities.

Heinrich Bergstresser

Senegal

Despite an uneasy economic situation, which mounting spending failed to resolve, and a tarnished image, President Abdoulaye Wade held to his controversial decision to run for a third term. In so doing, he offered Senegal a wonderful test of its democracy. Opposition parties and civil society were strongly mobilised, and key international partners made their concern felt. All this combined to allow for the victory of a discrete challenger, Macky Sall. Aiming to cut a contrast with the flamboyant Wade, Sall tried to project the image of a sound manager, keen on good governance. He took bold preliminary steps regarding the Casamance conflict, and tried to develop – though with uneven success – innovative policies to handle deep popular discontent with regard to living conditions.

Domestic Politics

The 26 February presidential election was the highpoint of the year. As the 26 January deadline for candidacies approached, the picture became clearer. The incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade confirmed at New Year that he would run for office and said that, if he won, he would form a government of national unity. Meanwhile, on 5 January, the opposition released the final report of the ‘Assises Nationales’, the lengthy country-wide consultations it had been organising with major civil society structures. However, it then failed 176 • West Africa to unite behind a single candidate, though some declared contenders dropped out of the race, including star journalist Abdou Latif Coulibaly from the civil society coalition ‘Alli- ance Bennoo Alternative 2012’, who rallied behind Moustapha Niasse, leader of the ‘Alli- ance des Forces du Progrès’ and candidate of the opposition coalition ‘Benno Siggil Senegaal’ (United to Boost Senegal). On 3 January, no fewer than 16 challengers to Wade filed applications to the Constitutional Council, including world-famous singer and local media mogul Youssou Ndour. The Council published the list of authorised candidates on 27 January, excluding Ndour and two others on the grounds that they had not amassed the required 10,000 signatures. Among the 13 candidates authorised to run against Wade, the most significant were two of his former prime ministers (Macky Sall and Idrissa Seck) and two heirs of the socialist regime that had ruled the country from 1960 to Wade’s victory in 2000 (Ous- mane Tanor Dieng of the ‘Parti Socialiste’ [PS], and Moustapha Niasse). The other eight were the senior diplomat Ibrahima Fall, the junior opposition leader and mayor of Saint- Louis Cheikh Bamba Dièye, former socialist ministers Doudou Ndoye and Djibril Ngom, former Wade ministers Cheikh Tidiane Gadio and Oumar Khassimou Dia, former Mou- stapha Niasse associate Mor Dieng and – a first in the history of post-colonial Senegal – two women, designer Diouma Diakhaté and law professor Amsatou Sow Sidibé. The Council’s validation of Wade’s controversial candidacy for a third term set off a wave of protests in the capital, Dakar, and other cities as the opposition and many civil society organisations called on 29 January for resistance to what they described as a “constitutional coup”. Shortly before the Council’s decision, Minister of the Interior Ousmane Ngom announced a ban on demonstrations, which he soon lifted under international pressure. Alioune Tine, the leader of the ‘Mouvement du 23 Juin’ (M23), a coalition of parties and civil society organisations hostile to Wade’s candidacy, was arrested, interrogated and released after two days. The 27 January protest at Dakar’s Place de l’Obélisque was put down by security forces; one policeman was fatally injured. Two protesters were killed in a protest in Podor on 30 January. A new demonstration at the Place de l’Obélisque on 31 January drew several thousand protesters, but was still put down, leaving one protester dead, several injured, and others arrested. Tension mounted as the campaign began, with violence by small groups of militants against some candidates’ motorcades, particularly Wade’s. There were also incidents between supporters of opposing sides, as well as between competing pro-Wade factions, such as in Kédougou on 13 February. Overall, four people died during these weeks of trouble. But not all protests were violent, and ‘Y’en a marre’ (Enough is Enough), a civil society movement led by a journalist and young rappers from the Dakar suburbs, was particularly creative in exploring new forms of mobilisation. As Wade refused to back down, the opposition and civil society had to decide on their next step. While the M23 called on candidates to focus on getting Wade disqualified from running, Macky Sall, whom rumours about unreleased polls identified as the principal Senegal • 177 challenger, chose to carry on campaigning, as did Moustapha Niasse. The M23, ‘Y’en a marre’ and other candidates, including Idrissa Seck, continued to organise protests. Around mid-February, there were daily protests in the centre of Dakar, and many demonstrators were arrested, including ‘Y’en a marre’ leaders and some minor candidates. Oth- ers were wounded. On 17 February, a protester was killed in Kaolack, and a gas canister was fired into a Tijani mosque in Dakar, causing outrage. During his subsequent visit to the Tijani city of Tivouane to present his apologies, the interior minister was mobbed by angry Tijani disciples. Another protester died in Rufisque on 20 February. That same day, a Wade spokesperson, Serigne Mbacké Ndiaye, accused Idrissa Seck of recruiting 200 ex-soldiers to foment trouble. As election day approached, protests were increasingly seen as failing, and some minor opposition figures suggested a delay or called for a boycott, but Wade and major opposition leaders seemed keen to go ahead with the vote. On 23 February, during a meeting in his hometown of Fatick, Macky Sall said he would “walk on the presidential palace, if anyone tried to steal [his] victory”. Some major international partners had not hidden their unease about Wade’s candidacy. On 23 January, US Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs William Fitzgerald made it clear that it was “a good time for Wade to retire”. Even France, hitherto discrete, expressed its displeasure and Minister of Foreign Affairs Alain Juppé called on 5 February for “generational change”. These positions met with protests from Senegalese officials, and there were threats of pro-Wade demonstrations. The EU as a body was less explicit, though it did ask the Constitutional Council to make public the justifications for its decisions on the candidacies, and called on the authorities to respect the right to demonstrate. On 26 January, the EU deployed its 90-strong electoral observer mission, keeping a close watch over the election preparations and pressing for more transparency in the release of voter cards. The involvement of the international community, and particularly the EU, Germany and the US, was instrumental in containing the mounting controversies over election procedures and accusations that the regime was planning for massive fraud. It helped the electoral commission to revise and upgrade the election apparatus. The only sticking point seems to have been the introduction of the single ballot, which the government rejected. ECOWAS and the AU dispatched former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo on an observation mission on 21 February. He held talks with all sides and, according to the M23, came up with a plan that Wade, if he won, would remain in power for a maximum of two years. The opposition called for the organisation of new elections without Wade in six to nine months. All the way through to the elections, Wade’s party and coalition were subject to internal divisions. Thus, a few more MPs left the ruling ‘Parti Démocratique Sénégalais’ (PDS), often to join Macky Sall’s ‘Alliance pour la République’ (APR). Internal struggles were brought to new heights of intensity by the allocation of campaign funds, the selection of local campaign managers and Wade’s attempts to reshuffle the government and campaign structures. Among the most notable sources of tension were the replacement on 9 January 178 • West Africa of Ndèye Khady Diop by Aïda Mbodj at the influential Ministry of Family, Women’s Organisations, Early Childhood and Childhood, and the apparent marginalisation of the mayor of Ziguinchor, Abdoulaye Baldé. In the run-up to the elections, doctors, teachers and lecturers went on strike, usually over the non-implementation of earlier agreements over wages and working conditions. Drivers also stopped work, unhappy with the rising price of fuel, and on 2 January Dakar was totally paralysed. With state schools grinding to a halt, student protests multiplied. In line with their policy over years, the ‘khalifes généraux’ of the Muridiyya and the Tijaniyya, the largest Sufi brotherhoods, did not take sides. Shortly before Wade’s 9 January visit to Touba, the capital of the Muridiyya, to which he is affiliated and whose support he had cultivated, senior Murid officials complained that ministers were neglect- ing the brotherhood. Wade’s protests to the contrary renewed the controversy over his special relation with the Muridiyya. That proximity lay at the heart of an incident at the ‘Université Cheikh Anta Diop’ when some Murid students fought the affiliates of a Mus- lim reformist movement over a pamphlet produced by one of the latter that denounced Murid support for Wade. Muslim and academic authorities quickly diffused the tension. Some marabouts did take sides, however. El Hadj Ibrahima Niasse, a Tijani marabout, along with another leading figure, called for Wade’s withdrawal. On 1 February, his half- brother, pro-Wade politician-marabout Ahmed Khalifa Niasse, criticised his stand and laid claim to the khalifat, leading to violence by disciples. On 24 February, Cheikh Béthio Thioune, a controversial Murid marabout who had been a close ally of Wade, declared he had received a mystical order to support Wade from a defunct Murid ‘khalife général’. On 20 February, Malick Noël Seck, a youth leader of the PS, who had been condemned in 2011 for alleged threats against the Constitutional Council and pardoned on 13 January, was briefly detained in Saint-Louis for carrying machetes and clubs in his campaign car – a fairly standard procedure in Senegalese politics. Rumours of violence were rife. Wade supporters did not shy from making unlikely accusations that Sall was supporting gay rights, a powerful taboo in much of Senegalese society. They also hinted at his affiliation to the peripheral Toucouleur ethnic minority. While it is true that Sall did enjoy significant support among the wealthy Toucouleur diaspora, he could legitimately claim to be a ‘Sénégalais de synthèse’, having been born in the Serer heartland, grown up in a Wolof urban culture and married a Serer. The first round of the elections was held on 26 February and was peaceful, except in Casamance, where a number of polling stations had been displaced earlier and fighters of the separatist ‘Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance’ (MFDC), who had forbidden participation in the election, attacked a few villages and an army vehicle carrying voting equipment around the time of the polls. Overall, 5.1 m voters were registered at 2,149 stations. Local results were broadcast quickly, thanks to an efficient network of private radio stations, and indicated disappointment for Wade’s hope of a first round victory. After two days, PDS spokesperson Amadou Sall accepted that there would be a Senegal • 179 second round. Provisional official results were declared on 1 March, and confirmed on 6 March. Voter turn-out was low, at 51.5%. Wade came first (34.8%), then Macky Sall (26.6%), Niasse (13.2%), Tanor Dieng (11.3%) and Idrissa Seck (7.9%). Sall attracted more support than the other challengers because of his resources, his enduring connections with segments of the disgruntled PDS elites and state, and a serious and well-funded campaign effort, but primarily because he embodied change: he was relatively young (born in 1961), had no links with the old socialist regime, and had consistently opposed Wade after their breakup. Sall mobilised the support of the failing candidates, who joined him for the second round in a coalition called ‘Benno Bokk Yakaar’ (BBY; United to Share Hope). The second-round campaign was remarkably peaceful, though the aggressive posturing of the ‘thiantacounes’, the club-bearing disciples/clients of Cheikh Béthio Thioune, at a 17 March pro-Wade rally in Dakar aroused criticism. In the second round, on 25 March, turn-out reached 55% and Sall took 65.8% of the votes, leaving Wade with a smaller share than in the first round (34.2%): of the 14 regions, only the peripheral regions of Kédougou and Sédhiou gave Wade a majority. Sall appointed Abdoul Mbaye, a banker from a patrician family with no political affiliation, as prime minister. Mbaye’s cabinet, named on 4 April, totalled 25 members and comprised representatives of the key components of the BBY coalition (including eight from Sall’s APR, who held key portfolios), though none of its senior leaders. Observers criticised the choice of an APR figure for the strategic Ministry of Interior. The PDS was soon ripped apart when a number of PDS celebrities spoke out against Wade’s continuation at the head of the party and on 22 November created the ‘Convergence Démocra- tique Bokk Gis-Gis’ (Common Vision) under the leadership of the Senate President Pape Diop, President of the National Assembly Mamadou Seck and the mayor of Ziguinchor, Abdoulaye Baldé. In the ensuing legislative elections, held on 1 July, the BBY was able to present a single list, distributing seats according to the performance of its constituent parties in the first round of the presidential election. It was thus able to secure, on a low level (less than 37%) voter turn-out, 53% of the votes, winning 119 of the 150 seats (with 65 going to APR candidates). It was almost only thanks to the proportional component of the vote that other parties and coalitions won seats. The PDS took 12 seats in all and ‘Bokk Gis-Gis’ only four. For the first time in Senegalese political history (and in an indication of the quest of a minority of voters for alternatives to established parties), parties led by marabouts won a few seats – four for ‘Bes du Ñakk’, the party of Serigne Mansour Sy Djamil, a relentless critic of Wade; two each for Imam Mbaye Niang’s ‘Mouvement de la Réforme pour le Développement Social’ and Modou Kara Mbacké’s ‘Parti de la Vérité pour le Développement’, and one for Cheikh Béthio Thioune’s ‘Mouvement Patri- otique Sénégalais Faxas’. Six other parties, including Djibo Ka’s eroding ‘Union pour le Renouveau Démocratique’, took one seat each. This was the first time that the law on gender parity had been applied, and it led to the election of 64 women (compared with 33 in the previous legislature). Moustapha Niasse was elected as speaker of the Assembly. 180 • West Africa

Soon after the elections, cracks began to show within the BBY and, on 16 September, former presidential candidate Ibrahima Fall announced that he would leave the coalition. Following Sall’s election, politics revolved around two sets of issues: Wade’s governance, and social demands. Sall’s presidency began with a hunt for the 600 vehicles missing from the Wade presidency car pool. Soon after, on 31 May, major figures in Wade’s close entourage, including his son Karim, and former ministers or advisors Farba Senghor, Pape Diop, Ousmane Ngom, Amadou Sall, Oumar Sarr, Madické Niang, Samuel Sarr and Thierno Ousmane Sy were called to account by a variety of institutions, including the ‘Inspection Générale d’Etat’, the police, gendarmerie and ‘juges d’instruction’. International partners provided a helping hand in these investigations, with the World Bank dispatching an assistance mission on fraudulent property on 27 August. An angry Wade announced he would return to Senegal from France on 16 November to lead the fight, but he abandoned the idea, apparently through the intervention of Ivorian Presi- dent Alassane Ouattara. On 27 November, the state lodged a complaint in France against Karim Wade and other associates, and it was announced in December that a number of former officials of the Wade regime had been banned from leaving the country. Counter- attacks by the PDS did not seem to carry much weight: the demonstration it called at the Place de l’Obélisque on 6 December met with limited success. Prime Minister Mbaye in turn came under attack, with critics reproaching him for his past defence of the interests of the Chadian dictator-in-exile Hissène Habré. And there was criticism of the way the political spoils were now being distributed, as many BBY politicians took over the direction of state companies (and some diplomatic postings) from Wade’s men. Meanwhile, the anti-corruption apparatus was tightened up with the reactivation of the ‘Cour pour la répression de l’enrichissement illicite’, the passing of a new set of laws in December for the ‘Haute Cour de Justice’ and the ‘Cour des Comptes’ and the creation of an ‘Office National de Lutte contre la Fraude et la Corruption’ with extended powers to investigate fraud. A physical audit of the 121,000 state agents was initiated on 30 November. The new government partly corrected Wade’s past tampering with institutions in line with the recommendations of the ‘Assises Nationales’, but not without rumours of second thoughts: a law was passed on 19 September suppressing the Senate, a chamber rendered meaningless by the president’s power to appoint more than half of its members, and the authorities confirmed on 19 December that Wade’s extension of the presidential mandate from five to seven years would be rolled back. On 29 October, a cabinet reshuffle increased the number of ministers to 30, and saw the departure of two APR elders, Mbaye Ndiaye and Alioune Badara Cissé, the former being replaced at the Ministry of Interior by a retired general of high repute, Pathé Seck. The influential journalist Abdou Latif Couli- baly took over as spokesperson and minister for the promotion of good governance. President Sall continued to maintain good relations with the marabouts, though more distant than Wade. Mor Ngom, the former minister of infrastructure and transport who took over as Sall’s cabinet director, was the object of much speculation, as he was said to Senegal • 181 be Sall’s ‘Monsieur Touba’, his man with the Murid brotherhood. Steps were announced for the formalisation and restriction of state financial support for the brotherhoods, including during religious festivals, which raised eyebrows in maraboutic circles, but, in a speech on 15 December, Sall called on marabouts to help him in modernising Senegalese agriculture. The arrest on 24 April of Cheikh Béthio Thioune, the controversial pro-Wade Murid marabout, on suspicion of complicity in the killing of two disciples, was seen as a litmus test for maraboutic influence. On 22 October, Thioune’s disciples staged a turbulent protest in Dakar, which left three people injured and dozens of vehicles destroyed; some of the arrested protesters were sentenced to jail terms on 29 November, while Thio- une remained in prison, awaiting trial. Regarding the continuing separatist conflict in the south-west, President Wade took the opportunity of his New Year speech to call the leaders of the three main armed factions of the MFDC to engage in the pursuit of peace. On 4 January, he announced that, on the advice of Pierre Atépa Goudiaby, an influential Casamançais businessman, and the ‘Col- lectif des Cadres Casamançais’, he had asked the Italian Catholic organisation Sant’Egidio to act as a mediator with Salif Sadio. This most radical MFDC leader had been holding seven Senegalese security personnel captive (or hostage, as the Senegalese press put it) for months. While keeping up the military pressure, with attacks on the gendarmerie of the village of Affiniam on 2 and 4 January, when one gendarme was killed and another taken captive, Sadio declared in a 20 January communiqué that he accepted Sant’Egidio as mediator. Towards the end of January, the army launched a major operation against Sadio around Sindian, losing three soldiers, and there was violence in the department of Bignona and in Balantacounda through February and March, in which at least eight soldiers were killed. The election campaign gave the issue of Casamance added exposure. Wade came under criticism for his failure to resolve the conflict. He acknowledged this and, while campaigning in Casamance on 11 February, came up with a plan (“DDP” for disarmament, demining and [development] projects), which, however, looked suspiciously like past proposals. Politicians on all sides were vocal with all sorts of suggestions for ending the conflict, including an amnesty, a unilateral ceasefire, open negotiations with neighbours and the appointment of a Casamançais prime minister. Civil society organisations were also active. Former minister and ex-mayor of Ziguinchor Robert Sagna ran a reflec- tion group with a view coming up with innovative institutional solutions for Casamance. From 17 April, MFDC groups not affiliated to Sadio called attention to themselves with new attacks north and south of the Casamance River. As civilians were increasingly marginalised in a peace process that focused on the armed MFDC factions, on 21 April, MFDC civilian moderate Jean-Marie Biagui obtained the recognition by the Senegalese authorities of the ‘Mouvement pour le Fédéralisme et la Démocratie Constitutionnels’ (MFDC; a federalist party, although bearing the same acronym as the separatist forces). In a communiqué on 1 June, Salif Sadio said he would release his prisoners if Senegal agreed to negotiations on neutral ground outside Africa, a proposal hailed by civil society 182 • West Africa and many politicians, who urged Sall to accept. However, on 6 June, Minister of the Armed Forces Augustin Tine announced in Ziguinchor that the army was planning to acquire new hardware. President Sall declared on 27 June that he was willing to negotiate with Sadio and the two other main guerrilla leaders, César Badiate and Compass Diatta, although only a few days before he had insisted, after a meeting of the cabinet in Ziguinchor (at which the prime minister announced a comprehensive development package for the region), that Casamance would never be independent. Sant’Egidio organised a brief encounter of Sen- egalese representatives and Sadio envoys in Rome on 14 October. On 9 December, Sadio released his eight prisoners on Gambian soil, in the presence of diplomats and the media. Soon after this major event, on 14 December, Sall announced that Casamance would be a testing ground for the new territorial policy. But other MFDC factions continued their operations, a testimony to the deep rifts within the separatist movement.

Foreign Affairs

Until the elections, Senegal was absorbed in its internal politics, and international affairs were limited to international expressions of concern about the conduct of the polls and pressure for Wade’s departure. Though financial constraints led to a number of cuts in Senegal’s diplomatic representation abroad, President Sall seemed bent on continuing its high-profile and ambitious diplomacy, but without the occasional problems raised by Wade’s arrogant and hyperactive style. At the OIF summit in Kinshasa on 14 October, it was decided that Senegal would host the 2014 summit, and the government embarked on a campaign to secure a seat on the UNSC for 2014–2015. Sall’s desire for the normalisation of ties with the outside world led to movement with regard to the long-expected trial of the Dakar-based former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, which had been delayed for years under Wade, despite international pressure. On 10 January, the Dakar court of appeal had again rejected an extradition request by Bel- gium but, after Wade’s defeat and the 20 July order by the International Court of Justice that Senegal either try Habré or extradite him, things moved fast. On 22 August, Senegal and the AU signed an agreement paving the way for the creation in Senegal of special chambers manned by African magistrates charged to try Habré, and a € 7.4 m budget was made available by Chad, the EU, AU and some Western countries. On 19 December, the Assembly voted to create the special chambers. Senegal’s long-running election drama and its happy ending did much for the country’s image in the Western world. Sall was received in Paris twice: during his first visit on 18 April, he secured € 130 m in special assistance and signed a new bilateral defence agreement that had been in the pipeline for some time; a second visit followed on 5 July. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius paid a visit to Dakar on 28 July, as did US Secre- tary of State Hillary Clinton on 1 August, celebrating Senegal’s democracy. The opening of an Australian embassy in Dakar was announced for 2013. Senegal • 183

Straight after his election, Sall announced that Casamance was a priority, and he chose to pay his first international visit, on 15 April, to Gambia, a country whose relationship with Wade had gone wrong and which was widely considered as having sway over Salif Sadio. The eternal question of the construction of the bridge over the Gambia River to improve connections between Casamance and north Senegal was discussed, as was Gam- bia’s contribution to the peace process. Former minister and former mayor of Ziguinchor Robert Sagna emerged as a middleman between Sall and Gambia’s President Jammeh. Dakar’s angry reaction to the death sentence carried out on two Senegalese in Gambia in August did not affect the rapprochement for long. Sall visited neighbouring Mauritania in September and Guinea in December. There had been a moment of tension with Mauri- tania in April, when that country deported 200 Senegalese, officially in an effort to reduce jihadi threats. In Guinea-Bissau, Senegal was one of the prime movers in the ECOWAS decision to engage in negotiations with the junta that took over on 12 April. Dakar’s diplomatic support for chief of staff António Indjai and transitional president Serifo Nhama- djo was due to the fact that Dakar counted on the moderating influence exerted by the Guinean military on the Casamance rebels. Dakar thus busied itself countering Guinea- Bissau’s diplomatic isolation, and in May dispatched troops to Bissau to take part in the ECOWAS mission. Regarding the coup d’état and Islamist onslaught in Mali, Senegal was initially cautious, concerned not to stir up Islamist Senegalese by getting too involved in the Malian problem; suspected Islamists were repeatedly detained for questioning, but no charges were pressed. The official line was that the Senegalese army was already overstretched and could therefore not be deployed in Mali. But Senegal was already playing a major role as a base for French troops, and the ousted Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré established himself in Dakar on 19 April. Sall paid a visit to Côte d’Ivoire in October and, seized upon by friends of former president Laurent Gbagbo, he agreed to meet with a delegation of Gbagbo’s party in Dakar on 13 December. Breaking away from Wade’s style, he insisted that he was not mediating between the Gbagbo camp and the Ouattara regime, but would be happy to facilitate contact between the two sides. Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan paid a visit to Senegal on 22 August.

Socioeconomic Developments

Internal tensions and the crises in Mali and Guinea-Bissau affected the economy, but sustained public spending resulting from Wade’s last-minute attempts to rebuild popularity and a rebound in agriculture and fishing facilitated a pick-up in growth (which reached 3.8%, according to the statistical agency). Power remained a nagging problem, and the state was forced to spend CFAfr 120 bn to subsidise electricity production, an amount that exceeded spending on health. In order to handle these financial constraints and implement its ambitious policies as outlined in the ‘Stratégie nationale de développement économique 184 • West Africa et social’, the new regime relied on the recovery of international assistance from bilateral and multilateral donors. The World Bank backed programmes on infrastructure and industrial development, energy, water management, agriculture and budgetary support. Senegal also relied on the successful issue of treasury bonds, as well as a continuing emphasis on collecting tax and customs revenues and the rationalisation of expenditure through the reduction of the number of ministries and the disbandment of redundant state agencies, among other things. The execution of the state budget for 2012 showed a 5.2% increase in resources (CFAfr 1,447 bn) and an even larger increase in grants (up to CFAfr 206 bn), while expenditure increased by 5% (to CFAfr 2,077 bn). In comparison with 2011, the deficit thus shrank both in gross terms (to CFAfr 424 bn) and against GDP (to 5.9%). The rising cost of living was a major topic during the election campaign. Macky Sall tried to make good on his promises, but met with uneven success. On 20 April, after negotiations with importers, the government announced cuts in the price of staple foods such as rice, cooking oil and sugar, and in July, a cut in the price of gas and petrol, but these measures were unevenly implemented and involved subsidies that were unsustainable. On 30 April, the authorities cancelled the licences of 29 foreign industrial trawlers, a move to limit over-fishing and protect access by local fishermen and the supply of the local market; this led to a slow-down in price rises. Overall, while the statistical agency’s total figures indicated only modest inflation (1.4%), the price of many basic goods and services (unprocessed cereals, meat, soap, vegetables, education) increased significantly. Special efforts were made for the rural areas through the provision of farming supplies. Strategic moves were made in the groundnut sector: immediate payment was required, and the trade was liberalised, with Chinese exporters of unprocessed groundnuts paying higher prices to producers than local oil refiners. Because of the rising cost and volume of fuel and food imports, the country’s structural trade deficit worsened, with imports increasing by 14% to CFAfr 2,758 bn while exports grew by only 5.8% to CFAfr 1,308 bn. Repeated teachers’ strikes raised the spectre of an ‘année blanche’, nullifying the whole academic year. On 16 April, new Education Minister Ibrahima Sall called for a truce, and a compromise was worked out, thus rescuing the year. On 9 September, the government announced a 10-year plan costing CFAfr 767 bn to tackle the problems of recurrent floods in Dakar’s suburbs. During his election campaign, Sall had committed himself to a policy of social protection, and steps were taken to implement new measures as of 2013, including a family security allowance (a CFAfr 100,000 annual allocation to 250,000 vulnerable families) and the introduction of ‘universal’ medical care (i.e. free healthcare for new-borns during their first month and for the disabled, as well as cheaper healthcare for children under five). Sall also introduced a 10% increase in pensions on 1 May and a reduction in income tax, as well as exemptions from tax for the lowest paid, which was compensated for by an increase in tax on businesses. The National Assembly Senegal • 185 approved the new tax code on 27 December. Confronted with the tricky issue of the booming real estate market in Dakar, Sall could do little more than ask for the creation of a commission on rents. There was mounting criticism of police violence, fed by the tense election campaign. AI and Senegalese human rights NGOs raised a number of cases, including those of people killed during the election campaign. The city of Kédougou was rocked by riots after the death in custody of a young deaf-mute arrested for smoking hemp on 13 August. On 14 December, a gendarmerie NCO was found responsible and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

Vincent Foucher

Sierra Leone

Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in November and saw the incumbent President Koroma claiming victory without the need for a run-off. While his main opponent, Julius Maada Bio, did complain of irregularities, the process was generally considered as fair and conducted peacefully. Koroma’s 2007 election slogan was that he would run the country as a business, and 2012 witnessed ‘the company Sierra Leone’ booming. The country’s growth figures peaked at well over 20% (according to conservative estimates), mainly because of a rapidly expanding mineral extraction industry. Iron-ore mining and export got into full swing with another double-digit GDP growth forecast for 2013. Nevertheless, (youth) unemployment remained a pressing problem and the confiscation of large areas of land by international mining companies and agro-businesses made it clear again to the population that sound growth figures did not necessarily translate into poverty alleviation. With the sentencing of Charles Taylor by the Special Court, Sierra Leone closed another important chapter in its recent history.

Domestic Politics

There were a number of violent incidents in the run up to the national elections. In Janu- ary, tear gas and live bullets were used by the police to disperse supporters of the ruling All 188 • West Africa

Peoples Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), at a by-election in Fourah Bay, Freetown. To further ensure that the elections would be as fair as possible, lawmakers imposed a temporary ban from June onwards on the country’s secret societies’ activities. The male Poro society and the female Bundu society had significant influence over their members, and their presence was almost universal in the rural areas of the country. On 23 November, the National Election Commission (NEC) announced the results of the presidential, parliamentary, local council and mayoral elections, which took place on 17 November. These elections were the first since the end of the civil war (1991–2002) that were organised solely by Sierra Leone, without outside help or oversight. Incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC defeated eight other candidates, including his main opponent Julius Maada Bio of the SLPP. Bio had served as a minister of information and broadcasting following the 1992 military coup by the National Provisional Ruling Council and briefly as the country’s president during the transition period from a military to a democratic regime in early 1996. Koroma received 58.7% of the votes against 37.4% for Bio, making a second round of voting unnecessary. The People’s Movement for Dem- ocratic Change candidate, Charles Margai, nephew of the country’s first, and son of the country’s second, prime minister, received 1.3% of the votes; Joshua Carew of the Citi- zens Democratic Party, who recently moved back to Sierra Leone from the US, received 1.0%, and Eldred Collins of the Revolutionary United Front Party, the main wartime insurgency group that reformed itself into a political party for the 2002 elections, received 0.6%. Turn-out was around 87%. In parliament the APC took 67 seats and the SLPP 42. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated the country on its peaceful and orderly elections and urged the various parties to work together. Nevertheless, on 28 November Maada Bio called for “an independent international assessment” of the results and ordered the SLPP members of parliament and councils to observe a boycott until his party’s concerns over the election process were addressed – this despite the fact that a number of regional and international bodies, such as the EU, AU, ECOWAS and the Commonwealth Secretariat all considered the elections as peaceful and well conducted (with the proviso that the EU observer mission did not want to describe the elections as completely free and fair). Irregularities in the delivery of required materials were noted, and the EU also expressed its concerns about the APC’s use of its control of the government to make the ballot go in its favour. ECOWAS sent 150 observers, headed by former Ghanaian president John Kufuor, who hailed the elections as free, fair and credible despite “a few isolated incidents that could have marred the smooth and peaceful conduct of the polls”. Head of the NEC Christiana Thorpe stated that about 10% of the votes from the 9,493 polling stations were set aside because of alleged fraud; these were to be recounted. On 26 April, the Special Court for Sierra Leone found 64-year old warlord-turned- president of Liberia Charles Taylor guilty on all of the 11 indictments for crimes against Sierra Leone • 189 humanity, violations of Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. The counts included, among others: acts of terrorism; murder; rape; sexual slavery; conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into armed forces or groups, or using them to participate actively in hostilities; enslavement; and pillage. The five years of hearings resulted in Taylor’s conviction for backing the rebel Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, rather than for giving direct orders. Arms and ammunition were exchanged by Taylor for Sierra Leone’s ‘blood diamonds’, so the court established. Taylor became the first former head of state to be sentenced for war crimes by an international court since the post-WW II Nuremburg trials. The Special Court had moved its hearings from Freetown to The Hague for fear that the trial might trigger new regional instabilities. Reactions in Freetown were moderate, perhaps reflecting the fact that the conflict had ended more than a decade before and that the trial had taken place on another continent. The international community and human rights organisations applauded the verdict and interpreted it as a watershed event in helping to bring to an end a culture of impunity. Taylor’s sentence – a 50 year term, which he would serve in the United Kingdom – was announced on 30 May. On 31 July, President Koroma promoted the new army chief of defence staff, Samuel Omaru Williams, to the rank of Major General, at the Presidential Lodge, Hill Station. Major Williams replaced Major Paolo Conteh, retired. On 15 August, Herbert George Williams, the mayor of Freetown, was fined more than € 31,000 for breaking rules relating to council service contracts and failing to pay employee payroll taxes. Williams was given 30 days to make the payments, or face three years’ imprisonment. Immediately after the November presidential and parliamentary elections, Koroma announced that all ministers and deputy ministers of the government were to remain in post until parliament was reconstituted, and that new ministers’ appointments would go through the parliamentary approval process. Towards the end of the year, on 17 December, Koroma announced a first round ofnew cabinet appointments: K. Marah became the new minister of finance and economic development, taking over this position from Samura Kamara, the new minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation. Marah had briefly acted as the chief of staff to the presidency and before that served at the Commonwealth Secre- tariat in London. F.B. Kargbo was awarded the portfolio of attorney-general and minister of justice.

Foreign Affairs

On 25 January, President Koroma arrived in Addis Ababa to attend the AU summit. The current AU Chairman Boni Yayi of Benin was welcomed by Koroma in Sierra Leone for a short visit towards the end of the year. On 31 January, Khady Ramatu Sacco, a Sierra Leonean diplomat, assumed his duties as new ECOWAS commissioner of administration and finance. She would carry out this role for a four-year term. Just three days later, on 190 • West Africa

2 February, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recalled his executive representative at the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNipsil), Michael von der Schulenburg, following a long-standing dispute between UNipsil and the president of Sierra Leone, with the latter accusing the UN office of unwarranted interference in local politics. On 16–17 June, the four leaders of the countries making up the MRU met in Guinea. Presidents Sirleaf of Liberia, Koroma of Sierra Leone, Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire and Condé of Guinea endorsed the Operational Plan on Peace and Security, and renewed Sirleaf ’s mandate as MRU chair for another year. On 28–29 June, Koroma attended the ECOWAS summit in Yamoussoukro (Côte d’Ivoire). The armed conflict in Mali was one of the key issues discussed. In June, Sierra Leone deployed troops to Somalia under the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). With the arrival of the Sierra Leonean troops – in charge of handling training – AMISOM’s strength would reach 17,700, as authorised by the UNSC in February. On 9 August, Koroma led a Sierra Leone delegation to Accra (Ghana) to join other heads of state and government for the funeral service of Ghana’s late president Atta-Mills. In November, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan made a short visit to Sierra Leone and was honoured by Koroma, who made him a Grand Commander of the Order of the Republic of Sierra Leone. Both presidents committed themselves to further strengthen bilateral relations.

Socioeconomic Developments

Over recent years, the country’s mining sector had received multi-billion-dollar foreign investments. On 3 May, London Mining stated that it would invest $ 3 bn in the Marampa iron ore mine, on top of the $ 300 m it had already spent. The mine had started operating in December 2011. The multi-billion-dollar investments, spread over a ten-year period, would expand production capacity from 9 m tonnes to 16 m tonnes a year. Africa Miner- als, too, had started shipping iron ore in late 2011 from its Tonkolili mine, but operations ceased temporarily because of a violent strike by its workers at the end of April. Following the company’s agreement to a 400% salary increase for its national workers and contractors, mining activities resumed. Another $ 3.5 m would be invested in two modern training centres where national staff could acquire skills that would enable them to take more senior positions in the company. In December, the firm announced that it would not build a $ 3 bn port and railway at Tagrin Point to connect its Tonkolili iron-ore mine, but plans were made instead to expand its already existing rail and port facilities at Pepel, at a cost of about $ 2 bn. Expansion was needed to achieve production of 35 m tonnes per year by 2016. Production in 2012 exceeded 5 m tonnes but exports were only 4.1 m tonnes because of an extended wet season. On 18 December, two striking miners were shot dead during demonstrations for better working conditions at Octea, a South African-owned mining Sierra Leone • 191 company in the diamond-mining town of Koidu. Police began investigations into the deaths. In addition to having one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world, Sierra Leone also has one of the largest rutile and ilmenite deposits and Sierra Rutile Ltd produced a record amount of ilmenite (5,315 tonnes) and rutile (26,381 tonnes) during the September quarter, with its year-on-year output up by about 50% for both minerals. Sierra Leone’s offshore oil fields also offered promise. In February, the third offshore oil find of the year was announced by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. According to a 2011 report, the country could look forward to generating more than $ 100 m annually once offshore oil production got underway. In April, the Russian oil company Lukoil announced that it would set aside $ 100 m for oil exploration about 100 km offshore in the first quarter of 2013. The potential for disputes between Guinea and Sierra Leone over any finds on or below the seabed, including fish, oil and metals, was reduced when the two countries, with support from Norway, agreed in March on the outer limits of their continental shelves. In January, the Government of Sierra Leone Online Repository System was launched with the aim of increasing accountability and transparency in the natural resources sector. It would collect, record and publish online all revenue data for the extractive industries, which would thus be accessible to the public. The new system would make the country compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and was a joint initiative between the government, international donors, UNDP, the Revenue Develop- ment Foundation and the World Bank. On 29 August, the trade ministry launched a Local Content Policy to ensure that activities by the extractive industries and other foreign companies would not only result in more growth but also lead to more local jobs – including at more senior level. This Policy obliged foreign companies to give first consideration to Sierra Leoneans when hiring staff. Currently there were over 6,000 expatriates working in the country, primarily in the mining, agriculture and road reconstruction sectors. The Policy stipulated that at least 50% of intermediate and 20% of managerial positions should be taken up by locals. Furthermore, security personnel, drivers, secretaries and other junior positions should all be held by Sierra Leoneans. The Policy also required that, a succession plan be in place for positions not held by locals, enabling Sierra Leoneans to shadow the expatriate for a maximum of five years, after which the position should be offered to the then fully trained Sierra Leonean. The Local Content Policy acknowledged the large number of expatriates working in the quickly developing agri-business sector. In January, the Shanghai Construction Invest- ment company announced that it would invest $ 1.3 bn to develop 35,000 ha of land in the Tonkolili region for rice cultivation and a further 100,000 ha for rubber production. The company stated that work would commence in July and would create some 100,000 jobs for locals. Haman Rubber Group, a subsidiary of the Shanghai company, would construct 600 km of feeder roads, 500 km of trunk roads and 868 km of irrigation networks. How- ever, prospects for the hundreds of thousands semi-subsistence farmers who combined 192 • West Africa food production with cash crop farming remained poor. The first half of 2012 saw a 20% decline in cocoa exports, which would make it more difficult to reach the 2017 target of 25,000 tonnes (to equal the country’s pre-war cocoa production). Sierra Leonean farmers received about $ 1.33 per kg, compared with farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, who received $ 1.97 and $ 1.80 per kg, respectively. In August, a $ 15 m loan agreement was signed with China, enabling Sierra Leone to complete its connection to the 17,000 km Africa Coast to Europe fibre optic cable, boosting broadband access and connecting 23 countries directly or indirectly along the African Atlantic coast. Nearly $ 35 m destined for the upgrading of the road between Matotoka and Sefadu – the main diamond mining centre – was secured through grants by the Frag- ile States Facility and the ADF, and an ADF loan. An additional $ 11.1 m was needed to cover the total estimated costs of this important project, which were subsequently covered by OPEC and the government of Sierra Leone. Further plans to improve infrastructure were announced on 14 December, when Koroma stated that a new international airport would be build at Mamana, following a $ 190 m loan concession deal signed the previous day with the Chinese Railway International Company. Mamana airport would be located 60 km from Freetown but would significantly reduce the current four-hour journey by road, or by car ferry across the Sierra Leone River estuary, from Lungi international airport to the capital. It was anticipated that work on the new airport would take four years, and that a better and more accessible international airport would boost tourism as well as trade. In May, a $ 3 m project was launched to develop the tourism sector. In 2011, just over 50,000 tourists visited the country, compared with pre-war figures of around 100,000, and only 20% of them were real tourists, rather than visitors on business trips. The tourism project was funded by the WTO. In early April, construction started on a 3 MW hydro power plant on the Bankasoka River, near Port Loko. The plant, funded by the Chinese government and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), would bring electricity to the local community. UNIDO’s Director General Kandeh Yum- kella, a Sierra Leonean national, said that his organisation was also working on the feasibility of a 10 MW hydro power plant, which would cost $ 32 m. On 26 January, the World Bank approved the fifth Governance Reform and Growth Credit for Sierra Leone. The one-tranche budget support disbursement was worth $ 24 m. Following a visit in early April to discuss the fourth review of the ECF programme, an IMF team noted the country’s continued growth in 2011. It estimated that real GDP growth was about 6%, with year-on-year inflation down somewhat to 16.9%. Sierra Leone’s GDP at the beginning of 2012 was about $ 2.2 bn. However, for 2012 the IMF estimated that minerals exports in particular would translate into economic growth of 20% to 36% and another 21% GDP growth for 2013. A ban on small arms, in place since the end of the war, was lifted by law makers at the end of July. A national commission would now oversee their transfer, manufacture, Sierra Leone • 193 sale and use. Traditional hunter guilds, such as the Kamajors, who as part of the pro- government Civil Defence Forces played a key role in the civil war, use small arms to hunt for ‘bush meat’. Sierra Leone experienced a particularly severe cholera outbreak – a recurring problem during the rainy season from May to September – triggering the government to declare a national health emergency. In the first half of the year, more than 11,000 cases were reported with more than 200 fatalities. In April, figures were released on the number of children living on the streets. According to two NGOs – Help a Needy Child International and Charity Child – there were about 50,000 street children in Freetown and the main towns, and a further 2,000 children were active as sex workers.

Krijn Peters

Togo

Domestic politics were dominated by the upcoming legislative and local elections and irreconcilable differences between the ruling party on the one hand and a broad coalition of opposition parties and civil society organisations on the other. Under the growing momentum of regular anti-government demonstrations, often violently suppressed, the call for the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbé and political change became more articulate. In foreign affairs, the pro-Western stance of the government was increasingly valued by international donors in view of the growing threat of terrorism in the neighbouring Sahel. Promising growth prospects led the government and its majority in parliament to vote an ambitious budget for 2013.

Domestic Politics

The reformed ‘Cadre Permanent de Dialogue et de Concertation’ (CDPC), created in 2009, which had resumed work in September 2011, submitted recommendations of its first round of talks in February. However, the most important opposition parties, the ‘Alli- ance Nationale pour le Changement’ (ANC) and the ‘Comité d’Action pour le Renou- veau’ (CAR), as well as various civil society groups, boycotted the dialogue because 196 • West Africa

ANC MPs were still denied their rights as elected legislators and barred from parliament. The ANC, CAR and the ruling ‘Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais’ (RPT) agreed in March on separate consultations in order to overcome their differences, but the dialogue stalled again. Finally, the president accused Prime Minister Gilbert F. Houngbo of mishandling the affaire. After the latter’s replacement on 8 July, the new prime minister, Ahoomey-Zunu, tried to reopen the dialogue again in September and mid-November, but to no avail. This was the result of incompatible differences between an unyielding ruling party RPT/UNIR (‘Union pour la République’) and the opposition, notably on the question of limitation of the presidential mandate to two consecutive terms (the current one terminating in 2015) and the adjustment of constitutional boundaries, which were heavily biased in favour of the ruling party. The opposition became anxious to confront the uncompromising attitude of the government and overcome the weakness in its own ranks caused by the schism in the major opposition party, ‘Union des Forces du Changement’, in 2010. In view of the limited success of conventional party politics, opponents of the Gnassingbé regime were keen to create a broad basis for civil and political action against the regime. On 4 April, six opposition parties of the so-called ‘radical opposition’ (among them the ANC, CAR, ‘Convention Démocratique des Peuples Africains’ [CDPA] and ‘Organisation pour Bâtir dans l’Union un Togo Solidaire’, along with civil society groups), launched a broadly based opposition alliance, ‘Collectif Sauvons le Togo’ (CST), headed by the lawyer Ajavon Zeus. On 26 June, an alliance of 27 civil society organisations, called the ‘Concertation Nationale de la Société Civile Togolaise’, followed suit in creating a movement to promote democratic elections, the ‘Synergie Citoyenne pour des Elections Démocratiques’. And finally, on 3 August, a confederation of smaller parties of the ‘moderate’ opposition (such as the ‘Parti Démocratique Panafricain’ and CDPA) joined in, by founding a rainbow coalition, the ‘Arc-en-ciel’, meant to complement the CST. As a result, anti-government demonstrations in July–September reached a new level with up to 150,000 participants. The dissolution of the RPT in favour of a modernised UNIR party, which had long been in the pipeline and was originally scheduled to take place on 28 January, was postponed sine die because of the resistance of old party barons. It took finally place at a second attempt during the 5th extraordinary party congress at Blitta and a simultaneous constitu- tive conference at Atakpamé (14 April). Subsequent to the decision, the president toured the north, the traditional fief of the RPT, in order to explain the party’s new vision. The outward appearance of the new ruling party was adapted to the requirements of a modern multi-party system, including a gradual democratic opening and regeneration of party members, but the personalised informal party structures remained much the same. The most powerful opponents to the party’s dissolution had already been sidelined well before. They included General Assani Tidjani, who had brought Faure Gnassingbé to power after his father died in 2005 but had been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for his alleged Togo • 197 involvement in the 2009 coup attempt. Tidjani, who was released on bail for medical treatment, died, a frustrated man, on 7 December in Limoge (France). On 3 April, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVJR – ‘Commission Vérité, Justice et Réconciliation’) published its final report. It was presided over by Mgr Nicodème Benissan-Barrigah and supported by the UNHCR office in Lomé. The CVJR’s 11 members represented various civil society groups (excluding political parties) and notably involved religious leaders. During its enquiries, it received over 20,000 petitions. Its most important recommendations included reparations, publication of documents concerning human rights violations, symbolic reconciliation (e.g. public apologies, monuments, memorial days), and last but not least prosecution of perpetrators. The Commission demanded that the government publish a White Book on how it intended to implement the CVJR’s recommendations and suggested two institutions for monitoring and evaluation. However, the CVJR had neither the power to lift the immunity from prosecution of perpetrators and architects of human right violations, nor the ability to offer amnesty or reparations; these remained prerogatives of the state. However, the government was reluctant to implement the recommendations, which was hardly surprising since high-ranking members of government, the military and the administration figured among those accused. During a government reshuffle in July, the head of state replaced Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo, who stepped down on 11 July because of a bitter dispute with the president about the continuing arbitrariness in the intelligence services. He was replaced by former minister for trade, Arthème K.S. Ahoomey-Zunu, known as a government loyalist. The new government was appointed on 31 July with few noteworthy changes. New Secu- rity Minister Colonel Yark Damehane replaced Dokissima Gnama Latta, who was blamed for the ineffective response to political protests. Pascal Bodjona was replaced by Gilbert Bawara as minister for territorial administration responsible for the handling of the coming elections. Later, on 11 September, Bodjona was charged with complicity in an international fraud against a background of internal rivalries in the ruling party. Others involved in this case included Togolese businessman Bertin Agba, El Youssef Abass, a trader from Abu Dhabi, and Loïk Le Floch Prigent, former CEO of the French oil company Elf- Aquitaine, in prison in Lomé since 14 September. One of the last remaining kingmakers of the 2005 uprising, General Zakari Nandja, chief-of-staff of the armed forces, who had to step down in the wake of the 2009 coup attempt and was marginalised at the Minis- try of Water and Sanitation, was replaced by newcomer Bissoune Nabagou. Altogether, there were nine newcomers in the cabinet, mostly from UNIR, and the radical opposition remained excluded. The Ministry of Defence remained attached to the presidency in order to prevent another coup attempt. The military’s top brass were replaced by presidential loyalists. Thus, Colonel Kadanga Félix Abalo Essodina, former commander of the Rapid Intervention Force and brother-in-law of Kpatcha Gnassingbé, the imprisoned former minister of defence, was appointed the new chief-of-staff on 2 November. Shortly before, 198 • West Africa on 18 August, the president replaced the controversial head of the gendarmerie, Colonel Yark Damehane, with Lieutenant-Colonel Messan Akobi. A lawyer and divisional commander, Koudouovo Têko, became the new police chief. Unusually, the two appointees both originated from the south. Concerning the legislative and local elections planned for October, one of the opposition’s most salient demands was the revision of the biased constituency boundaries, as well as the compilation of a new trustworthy electoral register, installation of a truly independent ‘Commission Electorale Nationale Indépendante’ (CENI) and the holding of legislative and local elections, which had been repeatedly delayed. The redrawing of constituency boundaries and the increase in the number of constituencies from 81 to 83 (instead of 91 as recommended by the CDPC) in June was rejected by the opposition as merely cosmetic. Even in the view of international donors, it failed to correct the bias in favour of the ruling party. The same was true of the controversial changes in the electoral code, adopted on 27 May, and the restructuring of CENI on 15 October. Headed by Angèle Dola Aguigah, a university professor of archaeology and formerly an RTP candidate in the 2007 legislative elections, the commission was now dominated by the government even more than before. The parliamentary majority sidelined representatives of the ‘radical opposition’ and the CST when electing the 17 CENI members, although the Global Politi- cal Accord of 2006 required the commission’s balanced composition. The legislative and local elections were again adjourned, this time to March 2013. The human rights record remained tarnished, as shown by credible reports on political persecution and torture of opponents, which the government tried in vain to suppress. On 17 February, it published a report on torture within the security services, notably the intelligence agency (‘Agence Nationale de Renseignement’; ANR), as demanded by the opposition and international human rights groups. The report had been submitted to the government by the ‘Commission Nationale des Droits de l’Homme’ (CNDH), mandated to investigate allegations of torture in 2011. Two days later, CNDH president Koffi Kounté uncovered distortions in the government report, which had omitted the most critical statements and denied accusations of torture. He published the original findings but was subsequently forced to flee to France after receiving death threats. On 23 November, Samdja Alilou Cissé, a university professor and ally of the presidential majority, was elected as the new head of the CNDH. He questioned any wrongdoing by the government concerning the falsified report. At the same time, the UN Committee Against Tor- ture voiced concerns regarding torture and ill-treatment during its examination of the second periodic report submitted by the Togolese government (49th session, Geneva, 29 October–23 November). Throughout the year, civil society organisations and international NGOs protested against the persecution of journalists. Although Togo’s position on the Global Freedom of the Press Index improved slightly from 72 (2009) to 69 (2012), it was still not considered as ‘free’. In addition, leaders and activists of new opposition student organisations, such Togo • 199 as the ‘Union Nationale des Élèves et Étudiants du Togo’, at the universities of Lomé and Kara were harassed and imprisoned. In November, the appalling conditions in the con- gested prisons, regularly denounced by human rights groups, again hit the headlines when the deaths were reported of two detainees in Lomé prison and another three in Dapaong prison (in the far north). According to UN reports, Togo had become a major trafficking and money- laundering hub in West Africa. Government sources revealed the seizure of 80 tonnes of drugs between November 2011 and June 2012. Cocaine smuggling from Latin America via Lomé to destinations in Western Europe, Lebanon and Asia had become a growing concern. Drug money and profits from illicit re-exports (notably used cars from Western Europe) from the deep-water port of Lomé to neighbouring markets (mostly in Nigeria) were apparently also used for money laundering for Hisbollah. Lomé became notorious for slack enforcement. The extent of the illegal trade in ivory from Central Africa via Lomé to China became clear when customs in Malaysia seized tusks from over 750 elephants, equivalent to all the African ivory seized in the previous year. Piracy on the West African coast made it a new international ‘hot spot’. London-based Lloyd’s insurance now listed the Gulf of Guinea in the same risk category as Somalia. In December, the ICG warned about slack enforcement and lack of maritime cooperation between coastal states, hampered by political tension and distrust. In August and October, three oil tankers were hijacked by pirates off the Togolese coast and, on 27 August, a hijacked tanker damaged the West African Gas Pipeline, which interrupted the flow of gas destined for power plants in Takoradi and Tema in Ghana.

Foreign Affairs

The debate on transnational crime in West Africa resumed on 21 February at the UNSC, presided over by Gnassingbé in his capacity as representative of Togo as a temporary member state. Shortly before, Togo had circulated a paper on the impact of organised crime on peace, security and stability in West Africa and the Sahel region. On 6 June, Gnassingbé was reconfirmed as executive chair ofUEMOA during its 16th summit in Lomé, which focused on peace and security questions in the sub-region. In late November, Gnassingbé made a surprise visit to Israel on his way back from Italy, where he had gone for health reasons. In Tel Aviv he was joined by his most important security advisers, General Atcha Titikpina, head of the armed forces, Minister of Security and Civil Protection Yark Damehame, and Yotrofei Massina, deputy director of the ANR. This led to media speculation about the president’s health, which was swiftly rebutted by the government. Israel and Togo had long cooperated on security issues. The EU continued assisting and monitoring the process of democratisation in general. However, it refused to provide direct assistance for the organisation of local and legislative elections, which had been postponed several times, until EU recommendations on 200 • West Africa a political dialogue and the restructuring of constituency boundaries were followed. In addition, the EU contributed generously to development assistance. On 23 November, it granted € 22.5 m for the promotion of accelerated growth and employment within the framework of the budgetary support programme for public policy, which had the ambitious goal of reaching 7% growth a year in order to fight poverty and achieve the MDGs. On 17 December, another EU-funded project (€ 6 m for four years) was launched to promote civil society development (the ‘Projet d’Appui à la Société Civile et à la Réconcili- ation Nationale’). The first IMF-financed three-year ECF, which had replaced the PRGF, had expired in 2011. It was to be extended by a further ECF in early 2013. According to the IMF, the government had largely met the programme’s conditions, although it still fell short with regard to the restructuring of the banking, phosphates and cotton sectors. The World Bank-backed second Interim Strategy Note (2012–13), which focused on growth, governance and poverty reduction, included environmental protection. France continued its bilateral assistance, although the new socialist government had a more critical view on the sluggish implementation of reforms by the Gnassingbé administration. The arrest of the former patron of the French oil giant Elf, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, on fraud charges on 16 September caused some irritation in Paris, which demanded his extradition. Germany resumed bilateral development cooperation with negotiations in June on an three-year aid programme worth € 27 m focusing on the agricultural sector, employment generation and the strengthening of civil society institutions in three urban regions (Kpalimé, Sokodé and Tsévié). China honoured its partnership with Togo on 19 September in an exchange of messages between the two heads of state to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their diplomatic ties. On 24 January, relations were temporarily soured by a corruption affair. Ataféi Péwissi, the Togolese director of the Confucius Institute in Lomé founded in 2008, was dismissed, apparently in relation to accusations of mishandling students’ funds provided by the Chi- nese. A Chinese company acquired a 50% stake in the development of the new container terminal in the port of Lomé. Togo remained a reliable and significant contributor to peace-keeping missions in the sub-region. In May, Nigeria, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal contributed to the ECOWAS force’s first troop deployment in Guinea-Bissau. Later, Lomé contributed to the African-led International Support Mission to Mali organised by ECOWAS. On 7 June, Lida Kouassi, a key ally of Côte d’Ivoire’s ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, was arrested in Togo and deported to Abidjan. Kouassi had served as defence minister at the time of the 2002 Ivorian coup attempt, which had led to the civil war. He was renowned as a Gbagbo hardliner. In December, Gnassingbé attended the annual conference of the Conseil d’Entente in Niamey, where he agreed to demands from Nigérien traders for the restitution of € 1.4 m Togo • 201 out of a total of € 2.6 m of foreign exchange, which had been confiscated by the ANR at Lomé airport in 2010 from traders on their way to Dubai and China, on the mistaken assumption that the money derived from illegal sources.

Socioeconomic Developments

Growth forecasts remained promising at ca. 4.5% for 2012–13, thanks in part to assistance by the international donor community. The fiscal deficit widened to 4%, due to increased public spending intended to counteract the impact of the global recession and years of underinvestment. The current account deficit remained high at 13.5% because of growing public investment, which in turn resulted in higher imports; exports of major foreign exchange earners (cotton, phosphates, etc.) lagged behind. Privatisation of the four state-owned banks was delayed owing to their weak finances and the government’s unwillingness to sell at the market price. In August, the ‘Banque Togolaise pour le Developement’ was sold for € 30 m to the Benin-based Orabank. In January, the government adopted a new investment code promising equal treatment of domestic and foreign investors. However, investment was permitted only in certain sectors and was still vulnerable to corrupt practices. Early in the year, the government published its first report on theExtractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which Togo had joined in 2010, declaring payments received from and made to mining companies. Lomé expected to be fully compliant by April 2013. Cotton production, managed by the joint-venture ‘Nouvelle Société Cotonnière du Togo’, recovered, but remained dependent on highly volatile markets. Thus, although output rose by 25% to about 100,000 tonnes, cotton export earnings actually fell because of a 40% decline in international market prices in the previous peak year. In April, the president committed himself to diversification of mining resources and more equal regional distribution of mining proceeds. In July, the Australian iron ore and manganese development company Ferrex announced details on its 92,390 ha exploration permits in the Nayega manganese project in northern Togo, to be developed in cooperation with South African suppliers. At the end of the year, parliament adopted the draft budget for 2013 to the tune of CFAfr 779.8 bn. The government defended the increase of CFAfr 200 bn compared with 2012 by pointing to improved financial discipline and promising growth forecasts. The fiscal deficit of CFAfr 6.6 bn was significantly lower than in 2012 (CFAfr 11.8 bn), but credit finance rose by 35.3 % from CFAfr 17 bn in 2012 to CFAfr 23 bn in 2013. Invest- ment focused on infrastructure (19.4%), education (13.8%), agriculture (6.6%) and health (5.9%).

Dirk Kohnert

V. Central Africa

Although West Africa’s hotspot, Mali, was grabbing media headlines worldwide, Central Africa again had its share of violent conflict and related damage elsewhere too. As in previous years, this mostly concerned the DRC and CAR. With the CEMAC Commission in a severe leadership crisis, it was only CEEAC that appeared to function more or less according to expectations; a timid first initiative to merge the two main and semi-competing sub-regional organisations started towards the end of the year.

Democracy and Elections

In contrast to 2011, the sub-region saw a low level of electoral activity. The only country to hold national-level elections was Congo (Brazzaville), where legislative elections gave 204 • Central Africa an overwhelming majority to the ruling ‘Parti Congolais du Travail’ and its allies, with only 20 seats going to the opposition. The strongest opposition grouping, the ‘Union Panafricaine pour la Démocratie Sociale’, accused the government party of electoral fraud, although CEMAC observers did not report any major incidents. Municipal and legislative elections were postponed to 2013 in Cameroon, and a controversial electoral law was passed in parliament against the express will of the opposition. Elections to provincial assemblies in the DRC were also postponed, but the November 2011 presidential and legislative elections continued to cast a shadow over the current year. With fraud allegations voiced from many quarters (opposition, civil society and the donor community), the entire electoral machinery of the DRC was in crisis mode. The composition of the National Assembly was only declared on 2 February, giving a narrow absolute majority to President Kabila’s supporters, with 260 out of 500 seats (of which 340 were contested in court). All in all, 103 parties and 17 independent candidates took seats in parliament. The fragmentation of the party system was thus a main feature of those elections (23 parties won five or more seats). This was not the case in the 2011 legislative elections inGabon , as they had been boycotted by most opposition parties, but mobilisation against the resulting one-sided parliament early in the year was strong and resulted in a new umbrella organisation of major opposition parties. In Chad, The ruling ‘Mouvement Patriotique pour le Salut’ (MPS) and its allied parties won most municipalities in the country’s very first local elections. (Six out of 10 constituencies were in the capital, N’Djamena, and the second-largest town, Abéché.) However, some significant towns were dominated by the opposition: Laokein Médard headed the winning list in the economically important city of Moundou, and Bébédja, in the oil-producing area, was won by the list supported by opposition veteran Yorongar Ngarlejy. This did not prevent the opposition platform ‘Coordina- tion des Partis Politiques pour la Défense de la Constitution’ from accusing the MPS of electoral fraud. In the CAR, the prospect of a further episode of the “third term debate”, over an incumbent president trying to change a constitution in order to be able to stand for a third mandate, was a unifying factor for the opposition, so it was somewhat surprising that the government and opposition arrived at a consensus on a new electoral code. With most party leaders from the early 1990s (when multiparty systems were readmit- ted throughout the sub-region) now either co-opted into ruling regimes, dead or simply forgotten, and with only few party structures stable enough to have survived a leadership change, one might legitimately question the sustainability of multiparty democracy in the sub-region. In Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, parties that had governed under the former single-party systems offered the most effective pathways to both power positions and state-sponsored spoils, making their competitors mostly unattractive to voters. The DRC’s party system was somewhat more fluid, and in the CAR, given the dominant violent approach to bringing about regime change, parties were condemned to play a minor role in politics. Only tiny São Tomé and Príncipe had a somewhat stable party system with three parties repeatedly engaging in coalition games. However, Central Africa • 205

Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada, heading a minority government, did not survive (politically) a parliamentary motion of censure and was replaced, attesting to a different form of crisis in representative democracy. Equatorial Guinea was arguably the harshest autocracy in the sub-region, with only symbolic representation by one opposition member on a committee formed to bring about the implementation of the new constitution.

Instability, War and Peace

The consequence of one-sided party competition was the propensity of ambitious leaders and aggrieved segments of the population to choose violence as a means of entering the contest. This was nowhere more visible than in the CAR, where a new coalition of rebel groups, the Séléka coalition, emerged at the end of the year. It quickly gained ground and its fighters progressed quickly towards the capital, Bangui, where panic broke out. Some nervous diplomatic activity began in the last days of the year, with France, the former colonial power, excluding military intervention to save the regime of François Bozizé, who had come to power in much the same way, at the head of a rebel army in 2003. A new and dangerous rebellion developed in eastern DRC with the M23 movement (named after the date of the 2009 peace agreement signed on 23 March), which claimed to stand for full implementation of that agreement. Earlier, tensions had emerged within the Kivus after the government tried to arrest the leader of the ‘Conseil National pour la Défense de la Patrie’, Bosco Ntaganda, who had been indicted by the ICC in The Hague. Ntaganda called for a renewal of peace talks but prepared for a new round of armed conflict, which finally broke out in November. The provincial capital of North Kivu, Goma, was taken by the M23 on 20 November and remained under rebel control for some days. It was again evident that the national army was not capable of effectively combating the rebels. In the shadow of this major confrontation – which also involved Rwanda, dis- cretely supporting the rebels – a couple of smaller rebel movements and militias started fresh rounds of attacks, once more jeopardising security throughout the eastern part of the country. Some observers interpreted the explosion of an ammunition depot in Congo’s capital, Brazzaville, which killed several hundred people, as part of a coup attempt, but this could not be confirmed independently and no major upheaval followed. Cameroon’s security forces were preoccupied by some cross-border developments with armed poachers who were transiting via the CAR from Sudan and raided a national park in the north, and some minor border incidents also took place with the CAR directly. In addition, the threat of Boko Haram infiltration from Nigeria into the northern part of Cameroon became more tangible. Chad’s security forces kept a close eye on developments on all fronts – Libya, the CAR and the Sahel (Mali and Niger) – fearing that repercussions might affect its own stability. Inter-state tensions were somewhat on the decline, with Gabon and Equatorial Guinea seeking friendly solutions to their long-standing quarrels over islands in the Gulf 206 • Central Africa of Guinea, and Nigeria reaffirming its commitment to keep to the (unfavourable to Nige- ria) agreement with Cameroon regarding the Bakassi Peninsula. With no more recent information from the UNHCR available, figures for the main refugee populations at the end of 2011 presented a familiar picture: Congo was hosting 131,648 DRC citizens, and Cameroon and Chad were hosting 90,176 and 67,414 CAR citizens, respectively. A more recent figure (released in September) showed that Chad was also hosting some 288,700 refugees from Sudan. The plight and the number of IDPs were of greater concern. The largest number of IDPs in Africa (and one of the largest worldwide) was found in the DRC, where there were about 2,700,000 at year’s end (914,000 IDPs in North Kivu, 878,000 in South Kivu, 498,000 in Orientale Province, 277,000 in Katanga, 92,000 in Maniema and 7,000 in Equateur). While the CAR was recorded as having just 52,000 IDPs in October, it was estimated that the Séléka attacks produced a further 80,000 displacements by the end of the year. The IDP figures gradually fell in Chad, with about 90,000 not resettled or integrated by the end of the year.

Human Rights

The M23 uprising in North Kivu gave rise, both directly and indirectly, to a further increase in human rights abuses. In April and May, the M23 forcibly recruited at least 149 fighters in Masisi and North Kivu, of whom at least 48 were children; Rwandans were also apparently recruited against their will. Fighters attempting to escape were frequently shot. More importantly, the M23 was accused of mass killings, mass rapes, abductions, robber- ies, and resource plundering, particularly when they took Goma and Sake. Journalists and human rights activists in North Kivu were threatened when they filed negative reports about the M23. But it was not only the new movement that was committing such crimes in the DRC; the anti-Tutsi ‘Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda’ and the Mai- Mai militia Raia Mutomboki, allied to the pro-Tutsi M23, attacked each other and committed atrocities against the civilian population. International attention continued to be focused on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which was active in northern DRC and eastern CAR. At least 273 LRA attacks were recorded between October 2011 and October 2012, leaving at least 52 civilians dead and 741 abducted. Most of the latter were freed or fled after a few days. In September, AI issued a major report on prison conditions in Chad with the title “We are all dying here” and pleaded that the authorities should care for the physical and mental health of prison inmates. The report stated that levels of hygiene were mostly disastrous and that food, medicine and drinking water were not available in all prisons. AI recommended seeking assistance from the international community to “reform the prison sector along with the whole criminal justice system”. Cameroon was one of the African countries where homosexuals faced a high risk of state prosecution and imprisonment. In a series of short reports, AI called for an overhaul Central Africa • 207 of state legislation and repressive practices. AI representatives visited the country’s largest and most feared prisons – Kondengui (Yaoundé) and New Bell (Douala) – and were appalled by the conditions. Together they held more than 6,000 prisoners, while their joint capacity was meant to be 1,500. Prisoners in Kondengui received only one meal a day and were suffering from malnutrition. The human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea remained very poor. In an apparently politically motivated trial, Wenceslao Mansogo Alo, one of the leaders of the ‘Convergen- cia para la Democracia Social’ and a human rights defender, was convicted of professional negligence and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, which led to an outcry by international human rights organisations. The ICC remained occupied with alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in the Central Africa sub-region, with the DRC being most prominent. In the case of Thomas Lubanga, the accused was found guilty in March and sentenced in July to 14 years in prison; a reparations regime was established. His defence team appealed against the verdict. In contrast, Ngudjolo Chui was acquitted and released from custody in December for lack of evidence for the offences with which he was charged: rape, sexual slavery and other crimes judged to be serious in international law, committed by his militia. The ICC Prosecutor appealed and human rights groups took his acquittal as a reason to move the issue of witness protection higher up on their agenda. In the related case against Germain Katanga, a decision was pending at year’s end. The trial of former DRC vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba for crimes committed in the neighbouring CAR was ongoing at the end of the year, with the defence presenting its evidence.

Socioeconomic Developments

Overall, this was a gently positive economic year for Central Africa, with GDP growth rates ranging from 2.0% in Equatorial Guinea to 7.1% in the DRC, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook (published in April 2013). Between those extremes, moderate GDP growth was recorded in Congo (3.8%), São Tomé and Príncipe (4.0%) and the CAR (4.1%), with more substantial growth in Cameroon (4.7%), Chad (5.0%) and Gabon (6.2%). But these figures hid some realities: although Equatorial Guinea could still be regarded as a booming oil economy despite only a marginal growth rate in 2012, Chad’s growth history over recent years showed strong volatility and Cameroon had recorded a steady improvement for given the dominant violent approach to bringing about regime change three years. The DRC macro figures for the last three years were also quite impressive but, after the large-scale destruction caused by years of war, this would not necessarily mean that it had completely recovered. Most notably, other African sub-regions fared better than Central Africa. The figures were also relativised by changes in consumer prices. The upward inflationary trend of 2011 continued in most places, with five countries experiencing over 208 • Central Africa

(and sometimes well over) 5% annual inflation (Congo 5.0%, CAR 5.2%, Equatorial Guinea 5.5%, Chad 7.7%, DRC 9.3% and São Tomé and Príncipe a staggering 10.6%); only in Gabon (3.0%) and Cameroon (3.2%) was inflation quite moderate. Price rises were also one of the factors contributing to increasing nervousness about political stability in the CAR. Interest in large-scale land acquisitions all over Africa was also tangible again in the sub-region. A controversial oil palm project made some headlines: SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC), a subsidiary of the US company Herakles Farm, started logging in preparation for a project to convert 73,000 ha of rainforest into palm oil plantations in south-west Cameroon. Local and international environmental NGOs protested and drew attention to the vulnerability of one of Africa’s most important biodiversity hotspots. Greenpeace published photographs of the plantation project that showed the profound impact it would have on the tropical forest that still surrounded it. In the 2012 Land Matrix Report (“Transnational Land Deals for Agriculture in the Global South”), only the DRC (ranked eighth worldwide) and the Republic of Congo were listed as “most targeted countries according to size of total reported acquisitions”, but the authors conceded that the entire Congo Basin was potentially underrepresented because of lack of transparency (on the part of both governments and investors) and because it was covered by fewer media reports than other world regions. This lack of exposure could arguably also be related to the lower than average standard of democracy and civil society involvement. UNDP’s HDI saw Gabon again as the best ranked country in the sub-region (unchanged at 106th; HDI value slightly improved to 0.68). A second group with rather similar aggre- gate values was headed by Equatorial Guinea (ranked again 136th), Congo (declining by six ranks to 142nd), São Tomé and Príncipe (144th) and Cameroon (150th) – the last two maintaining their position. The worst ranking was again reserved for the CAR (180th), Chad (184th) and the DRC (186th), with unchanged values of 0.33, 0.32 and 0.28 respectively. Overall, the balance sheet of achievements in socio-economic development was disappointing. The closing date for the MDGs in 2015 was drawing near, but no major change was recorded with regard to the UN-sponsored MDG monitor, Gabon performing best and Chad worst. No major reform efforts to ameliorate the fate of the majority of the population were visible in any of the states in the sub-region, and all hope rested on the belief in the trickle-down effects of private investment.

Sub-regional Organisations

There was little progress regarding CEMAC’s frequently professed main policy goals. Similarly, the intended merger of the two stock exchange markets in Libreville (Gabon) and Douala (Cameroon) made no progress, and the planned biometric CEMAC passport did not see the light of day. Plans for the community airline Air CEMAC also stalled – with Air France again presented as a potential partner after South African Airways stepped Central Africa • 209 out of the game. In fact, the CEMAC Commission mostly dealt with internal affairs and more particularly the question of its own leadership. This was inevitably on the agenda when the chairman, Cameroonian Antoine Ntsimi, was refused entry on 21 March at Ban- gui international airport (the CAR capital hosts the CEMAC headquarters). The CAR authorities subsequently declared Ntsimi persona non grata on 26 March. In parallel, the Paris-based weekly ‘Jeune Afrique’ accused Ntsimi of extravagance and of embezzling money from CEMAC accounts, presenting detailed evidence to support the accusation. Member states were split over this embarrassing confrontation, with Cameroon in particular furious with the CAR authorities, while Ntsimi held on to his ambition to be re-elected. During the postponed CEMAC summit in Brazzaville, on 25 July, i.e. only after finishing his first term of office in May, Ntsimi was finally replaced by former Congolese planning minister Pierre Moussa, more or less in line with the alphabetical rotation system adopted at a CEMAC summit back in 2010. Bozizé had hoped to install a CAR national and had advanced several names of former ministers, but to no avail. All six heads of state were present in Brazzaville and decided that a national of the member state in which a community institution was located could never preside over that institution. This was also a blow to Cameroon’s ambitions to take the presidency of BEAC, located in Cameroon. The Ntsimi affair had the advantage of making public the huge € 38,000 a month salary paid to the top CEMAC official. An audit of the entire organisation was not demanded at the Brazzaville summit, because many more details involving nationals of practically all member states could potentially be disclosed. Moussa was officially inaugurated as chairman during a ceremony on 5 September. The appointment of a new secretary-general of the CEEAC was much less controversial. Nassour Guelengdouksia Ouaïdou, a former president of the Chad National Assem- bly (and also former prime minister and secretary-general of the Presidency – and so a close confidant of Idriss Déby), was elected to succeed General Louis Sylvain-Goma (Gabon) during the 15th Heads of State Summit on 15–16 January. Heads of state Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo), Teodoro Obiang Nguema (Equatorial Guinea), François Bozizé (CAR) and Pierre Nkurinziza (Burundi) attended the summit in Ndjaména (Chad) at the invitation of President Déby; the other five member states were only represented at ministerial level. AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping (from Gabon), who was present at the summit, enjoyed full sub-regional support and so received the summit’s endorsement to continue in post, despite a challenge from South Africa’s candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini- Zuma. At the following AU summit, neither received the required two-thirds majority, which led to Ping staying in office for a further six months, but in a third round of voting at a further AU summit on 15 July, Dlamini-Zuma was elected AU Commission chairperson with 37 out of 54 votes. The EU signed a new € 14 m funding agreement for the MICOPAX mission in the CAR (bringing total funding to € 101.7 m since the start of the operation). Technical and legal experts from more than 20 CEEAC and ECOWAS nations attended the Maritime Safety and Security Conference held on 28 March in Benin. A key 210 • Central Africa recommendation was the elaboration of a Memorandum of Understanding and an Opera- tional Agreement on Fighting Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea to be ratified at a later stage. The event was initiated by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. CEEAC later declared its willingness to strengthen military cooperation with AFRICOM. On 10 August, the CEEAC secretariat and the committee of ambassadors accredited to the organisation published a joint communiqué on the security situation in North Kivu province (DRC). As a symbol of sub-regional integration, the CEEAC secretary-general met with the CEMAC Commission chairman on 1 October at the CEEAC premises in Libreville, and both promised to revitalise and better coordinate activities between the two sub-regional organisations. They met again on 15 November in the same place, this time with more participants, to draw up a balance sheet of existing frameworks of cooperation (the most important document being a trilateral memorandum between CEEAC, CEMAC and UNECA dating from 17 March 2005). Both organisations made it clear that their parallel existence could only be transitory and that they would have to work towards a merger. This announcement was the single most forward-looking aspect of sub-regional integration during the whole year. A CEMAC-CEEAC merger would make the architecture of sub-regional organisation within Africa decisively more logical. This new drive looked more genuine in the case of CEEAC, which ostensibly also tried to strengthen its links with the more or less dormant Gulf of Guinea Commission (GGC), which held an extraordinary session of its Council of Ministers in Luanda (Angola) on 13 August. On the agenda was, among other things, the organisation’s difficult financial situation. GCC Executive Secretary Miguel Trovoada met with Nassour Guelengdouksia Ouaïdou during a meeting in Libreville on 30–31 May, which focused on the fight against piracy, and also led to the establishment of a working group for the identification of more general common interests between CEEAC and GCC.

Andreas Mehler Cameroon

6 November was a historic day of great symbolic importance in Cameroon’s modern history: President Paul Biya celebrated his thirtieth year in power. However, the year’s most important political event was, without a doubt, the sidelining of Marafa Hamidou Yaya, one of the barons of the Biya regime, who was arrested and convicted of corruption. There were no major developments on the social and economic fronts, but the country was shaken by disturbing social unrest arising from specific events.

Domestic Politics

On 16 April, the ‘Marafa soap opera’ began with the arrest of Marafa Hamidou Yaya, the powerful former minister of territoral administration and decentralisation (2002–11) and former secretary general of the presidency (1997–2002), on suspicion of corruption related to the purchase of a presidential aircraft in the early 2000s, dubbed the ‘Albatross Affair’. Two other men were arrested around the same time: former prime minister (2004–9) Ephraïm Inoni, and Yves-Michel Fotso, a prominent businessman. The three men joined around ten other former ministers imprisoned since 2006 as part of an anti-corruption drive called Operation Sparrowhawk, apparently a political purge from within the regime. 212 • Central Africa

Analysts considered these arrests to be the latest episode in the war for the succession (to the office of president), which had been playing out behind closed doors for a number of years. Marafa, reputedly close to French diplomatic and business circles, gave credence to this theory by making multiple political declarations in open letters. Indeed, he announced his presidential ambitions for the first time in letters published by a number of Cameroonian daily newspapers. He also tried to change his public image as a former power player in the regime by revealing information about numerous corruption cases and even suggesting that President Biya should resign. The Social Democratic Front, the main political opposition party, which was fast losing momentum, took sides in the internal succession struggle to replace Biya by publicly declaring support for Marafa and providing him with lawyers. Biya had never publicly addressed the issue of his succession. Shaken by Marafa’s statements, the government and ruling party, the ‘Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais’ (RDPC), stifled Marafa’s public declarations and ended any hope that he would escape his fate: In Sep- tember, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison following an accelerated trial. Another victim of Operation Sparrowhawk was the former minister of finance, Poly- carpe Abah Abah; he had been in custody since 2008, but was arrested at his home in May, despite having permission to visit hospital. He was quickly sentenced to six years in prison for “aggravated evasion”. Like Marafa, Abah Abah was detained under special conditions at the headquarters of the national gendarmerie, along with another former regime strongman, Titus Edzoa, considered one of Biya’s rivals, who had been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in 1997. In October, he received a further 20-year prison sentence for corruption. Another affair may also have been linked to the succession crisis: the implication in a corruption scandal of the president’s eldest son, Franck, considered a potential successor to his father by some barons of the current regime, given that Biya (aged 79) was frequently portrayed as being in poor health. At the end of the year, Franck Biya, a discrete businessman absent from the political scene, was at the centre of a scandal that lasted for weeks. He was accused by ‘L’Alliance pour la Défense du Bien Public’, a previously unknown association, of having embezzled CFAfr 100 bn (around € 152 m) of public money in a financial operation dating back to 2006. In December, the One Cameroon Movement, an association of the Cameroonian diaspora in France, filed a complaint with the French ‘Office Central pour la Répression de la Grande Délinquance Financière’, accusing Franck Biya of embezzling Cameroonian public funds. The Cameroonian authorities publicly denied his implication in the affair. Municipal and parliamentary elections should have been held during the year, but were postponed. On 2 April, the terms of members of the RPDC-dominated National Assembly were extended by six months (renewable) and elections postponed sine die. Terms for parliamentarians elected in 2007 would have normally have expired on 21 August. Cameroon • 213

Prior to this decision, Elections Cameroon (ELECAM), the body in charge of elections, had announced in February that a completely new electoral roll would be drawn up, and called on all voters (nearly 9 m out of a total population of 19.4 m) to re-register. The background to this decision was that numerous cases of ‘multiple voting’ and registration of deceased persons had occurred during the presidential election in 2011. ELECAM also announced the introduction of biometric registration, a measure long called for by the opposition. In mid-April, the National Assembly adopted a controversial new electoral law, which was heavily criticised by the opposition, who ultimately boycotted the vote. It emerged that many of the proposals made by the opposition during consultations with Prime Min- ister Philemon Yang had not been taken into account. Amongst the proposed measures that did not appear in the final bill were: a two-round presidential election (instead of one round), the reduction of the voting age from 20 to 18 years, and supplemental measures to ensure the security of ballots. The opposition also expressed its disapproval of the new law’s removal of a provision allowing candidates’ representatives to be present at polling stations. To express its discontent, the opposition refused to take part in the traditional national parade on 20 May. The problem of porous borders and national security became apparent during a major poaching incident in the north of the country: Early in the year a team of approximately 50 poachers, probably from South Sudan, having crossed the CAR, ravaged the Bouba Ndjida national park, targeting elephants and their ivory. The Cameroonian government was severely criticised by international wildlife organisations for its failure to react. Under pressure from the media and international NGOs, Biya finally decided to send over 100 soldiers to the park. The poachers, accused by NGOs of having killed over 500 elephants, did not hesitate to attack the soldiers, even killing some of them. In Decem- ber, over 600 soldiers were once again deployed in the Bouba Ndjida Park as a preventive measure to ward off a new incursion by poachers. As is the case every year, on 1 October, the anniversary of the reunification of the Brit- ish and French-administered Cameroons, members of the Southern Cameroons National Council, outlawed since 2008, called for the independence of the Anglophone part of the country. Approximately 50 people were arrested in a church in Buéa in the Southwest Region and others in Bamenda in the Northwest Region. On the social front, there were many troubling events. The first occurred at the beginning of January: a robbery in the Deido neighbourhood of Douala, the coastal economic capital and a major urban centre, degenerated into battles with rocks and batons between moto-taxi drivers and local residents. These clashes led to the burning of numerous houses and quickly took on an ethnic tone. Hostile slogans were chanted against members of the Bamiléké ethnic group (originating in the West Region, but potentially the majority in Douala) many of whom were moto-taxi drivers. The governor of the Littoral Region, 214 • Central Africa which includes Douala, was pelted with rocks when he attempted to visit the scene. Calm finally returned after five days. Local media reports of two deaths were denied by the local authorities, but the police presence and security measures were strengthened in Deido for weeks following the incident. In mid-June, there were clashes between police and hawkers after an incident in the largest market in the capital, Yaoundé. Traders erected barricades and threw rocks at security forces reinforcements, who responded with tear gas. At least one person was killed. Numerous soldiers, police and gendarmes were deployed to the scene. A news story about the abduction of a baby from the maternity ward of a Yaoundé hospital held media attention for weeks. The baby’s mother, Vanessa, never recovered her child. ‘Vanessa’s stolen baby’ filled headlines for a good part of the year, putting pressure on politicians and the government to comment. The regime’s opponents denounced a human trafficking ring led by powerful elites, while others made Vanessa the symbol of injustice perpetrated upon the most vulnerable citizens. In March, members of the opposition were arrested and quickly released after attempting to protest against what had happened to Vanessa and the authorities were finally forced to sack the hospital’s director. The young mother, who refused to leave the hospital, was finally removed by police in March. In September, Biya, who rarely travels within the country, visited the north, which was hit by severe floods that caused dozens of deaths and displaced 50,000 people. Heavy rains, dilapidated dikes, and the decision to open the valves of the Lagdo dam caused the catastrophe. Biya ordered the release of CFAfr 1.5 bn (€ 2.3m) in emergency aid to the victims. Commentators believed that his visit was also an attempt to distract media attention from the Marafa trial, which was taking place at the same time.

Foreign Affairs

Several incidents widely relayed by the international media tarnished the image of Cam- eroon. The most important occurred during the Olympic Games in Great Britain, when eight Cameroonian athletes defected. According to media reports, they fled with the aim of staying in Europe for economic reasons. Their actions were the subject of extensive coverage in the Western media and created controversy in Cameroon: some commentators criticised the athletes’ lack of patriotism while others questioned and criticised Cameroo- nian policies that allegedly discouraged young Cameroonians from believing in a better future in their country and drove them to leave. The French media focused several times during the year on cases of arrests of homosexuals or presumed homosexuals, presenting Cameroon as a backward-looking country that persecuted gays. Some Cameroonian commentators were very critical of Cameroon’s loss in July of the CEMAC chairmanship due to the new principle of rotation in CEMAC institutions. Cameroon • 215

Antoine Ntsimi, a former Cameroonian finance minister, who was in conflict with Presi- dent Bozizé of the CAR (where CEMAC headquarters are located), did not have his contract renewed and was replaced by Pierre Moussa of Congo. This change was seen as a loss of Cameroonian influence on the regional political scene. Relations with Nigeria were quite satisfactory. The Nigerian government had until October 10 to appeal against the judgment of the International Court of Justice that had granted the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroon in 2002. The Nigerian Senate wanted the dispute to be re-opened, arguing that the 2002 ruling was unfairly based on an agreement dating back to the colonial era and that the Peninsular’s fate should be decided in a referendum monitored by the UN. The government did not adopt this position, however, and decided not to appeal, perhaps because of a proposal made by Cameroon: according to the Nigerian media, Biya proposed to the Nigerian authorities in May that the two countries should jointly exploit the oil located along their common border in the Bakassi area. It is also likely that Cameroon’s support for Nigeria in its fight against the Islamist sect Boko Haram played a part in the Nigerian government’s decision. In fact, numerous Cameroonian media outlets reported the presence of the sect on Cameroonian soil, even though there was no official comment on the issue. In February, the president of the Asso- ciation of Imams in Cameroon, Cheikh Ibrahim Mbombo Moubarak, publicly expressed his concern that Cameroonian Muslim leaders had allowed Boko Haram to preach in their mosques. The Nigerian and Cameroonian governments seemed to have worked together on this issue: in December, a newspaper revealed that the Cameroonian government had organised a series of arrests in border towns, including Amchidé, of people suspected of being affiliated with Boko Haram, who were subsequently delivered to Abuja. In an extremely rare event, President Obiang of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, with which Cameroon had several border disputes in the past, paid an official visit to Cameroon on 30 November. According to a joint press release following the working visit, the two countries agreed to expand and strengthen their cooperation in the economic, commercial, agricultural, public works and transport sectors, but observers speculated that Obiang had also come seeking Biya’s support in the corruption case he faced in France. In September, the city of Garoua-Boulaï on the CAR border was the victim of a mysterious attack that cost the lives of two Cameroonians. The attack was attributed to Central African rebels who came to free their comrades detained by the Cameroonian army. Four Cameroonians were abducted during the raid, but were freed in November after negotiations between the Cameroonian and CAR authorities. The government made no official comment on the incident. Biya attended the 14th summit of the OIF in Kinshasa (DRC), where he had a meeting with French President François Hollande, their first since the latter’s election in May. However, Biya did not attend the 15th conference of CEEAC heads of state, held in Chad 216 • Central Africa in January, showing once again his blatant disregard for matters of sub-regional and Afri- can integration.

Socioeconomic Developments

The 2012 budget totalled CFAfr 2,800 bn (€ 4.2 bn), up 8.9% from the 2011 budget of CFAfr 2,571 bn (around € 3.9 bn). The total allocated to recurrent operating expenditures was € 2.6 bn, with € 1.2 bn reserved for investment. The remaining € 438.4 m was to finance Cameroon’s internal and external debt. Internal revenue was projected at € 3.5 bn, with € 760.7 m in loans and grants. The contribution to the budget from oil revenue was set at € 864.3 m. The government’s targeted economic growth rate was 5.5%. Oil production was a little better than in the previous year at about 61,000 b/d (compared with 59,000 b/d in 2011). About CFAfr 510.1 bn (€ 777 m) was transferred as oil revenue to the public treasury (against CFAfr 572.7 bn [€ 872 m] in 2011). The state- owned ‘Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures’ (SNH) announced several discoveries in the Rio del Rey Basin, one by Glencore Exploration Cameroon Ltd in an exploration block, and another by Addax Petroleum, which said it had discovered a reserve of 20 m barrels, plus gas resources. In June, SNH signed an exploration contract with Dana Petro- leum Cameroon Ltd for the West Bakassi block, saying that this was the first contract signed in the Bakassi area since the peninsula had been ceded back to Cameroon by Nige- ria in 2008 in implementation of the 2002 judgement. The Cameroonian authorities said that about 31 m barrels of crude oil transited by Cam- eroon from Chad to the oil terminal at Kribi (south) between January and October, compared with 34.85 m barrels during the same period in 2011. The state earned CFAfr 6.53 bn (€ 9.96 m) from transit rights, compared with CFAfr 6.95 bn (€ 10.6 m) the previous year. During the budget session, the speaker of the National Assembly alluded to bad governance in the Cameroonian administration, calling for the budget be executed “with probity” and “an end to certain practices” such as percentages collected by ministers’ collaborators for the granting of public contracts and the fictitious inauguration of unfinished public works projects. Bad governance was also the subject of a report by the National Anti-Corruption Com- mission (CONAC): in an official report in November, the Commission revealed that Cam- eroonian banks were often “instruments of corruption, money laundering, and terrorist financing”. One of the many files transferred to the justice system concerned the matter of CFAfr 2 bn (€ 3 m) of funding for an unnamed “terrorist group”. The CONAC also pointed to the sophisticated level of embezzlement and money laundering of public funds observed in the granting of public contracts and the management of large projects initiated by the government, citing the construction of the Kribi deep sea port (South Region) for which 149 land owners received compensation of more than CFAfr 10 bn (€ 15 m). According to Cameroon • 217 the CONAC, 44.7% of the land titles were granted after the site had already been taken over by the government for “public utility”. The National Financial Investigation Agency reported the laundering of CFAfr 395 bn (€ 600 m) between 2006 and 2011. In May, the World Bank demanded that Cameroon improve transparency in the mining sector, notably in the granting of permits. Since the adoption in 2001 of a new mining code, judged inadequate by NGOs, the government had granted two mining exploitation permits and 160 exploration licences, mostly to foreign-owned companies. In November, CamIron, the local subsidiary of the Australian company Sundance Resources Ltd, signed a mining convention with the government to exploit the immense iron deposit at Mbalam (South Region). The Chinese group Hanlong (attempting a take- over of Sundance) and the China Development Bank were financing the project, which needed over $ 5 bn in capital investment. In addition to the mine, a 510 km railway line would be built to transport iron ore to the port of Kribi, in the south of the country, which was still under construction. On 14 August, Cameroon was officially admitted into the Kimberley Process, the international scheme to prevent the sale of rough diamonds from conflict zones. The Cam- eroonian government sped through the legislative and approval process under pressure from C&K mining. This Korean company, which was subject to prosecution for fraud on the Korean Stock Exchange for grossly inflating its diamond reserves, had been granted an exploitation permit for the Mobilong diamond deposit in 2010. NGOs expressed doubts about Cameroon’s ability to trace its diamond exports, many of which originated across the border in the CAR, to Cameroon’s artisanal mines. There was some limited progress in infrastructure development. In June, when the country was severely impacted by an energy deficit, Biya officially launched the construction of a € 560 m hydro-electric dam scheduled to come online in 2017. The Memve’ele dam would have a capacity of 201 MW. It would be funded by the China ExIm Bank and the construction would be carried out by the Chinese Sinohydro Corporation Ltd. In June, Cameroon and China signed a loan agreement valued at € 368 m to fund the construction of Cameroon’s first highway linking the economic capital of Douala to the political capital of Yaoundé. The ExIm Bank of China would provide the necessary funding for the first phase of the project; total costs were estimated at CFAfr 284 bn (€ 432.9 m). The highway was projected to be 215 km long and take 60 months to build. The current road link between Yaoundé and Douala had just one lane in each direction and was regularly one of the deadliest in the country, with frequent accidents. According to NGOs, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land were sold during the year to foreign companies by ministers, military officers, and presidential advisers in very opaque deals and in violation of national laws. Numerous national and international NGOs, including Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute, had particularly campaigned against an oil palm plantation by Herakles Farms, an American company planning to develop 60,000 ha in the Southwest Region. NGOs questioned the legality of the contract 218 • Central Africa between the government and the company, as well as the risks to the local communities and primary forest in the area. In November, four members of a local NGO opposing the project were arrested and detained for two days. The government, including at least one minister targeted by the NGOs for signing the contract, made no official announcement regarding the agro-industrial project.

Fanny Pigeaud Central African Republic

The CAR continued on the downward spiral it had been experiencing since 1996 of frequent violent episodes with intervals too short to allow for recovery, and state capacity deteriorated further. In December, a new rebel alliance attacked major provincial cities, threatening to march on the capital, Bangui. The dreaded Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), of Ugandan origin, stepped up its activities during the year with 48 attacks recorded, despite a new multinational military initiative.

Domestic Politics

The regime showed remarkable nervousness on several occasions, striking out at opponents and journalists and poisoning the political atmosphere. On 16 January, the editor of the newspaper ‘Le Démocrate’, Ferdinand Samba, was sentenced to ten months in prison for defamation of Finance and Budget Minister Sylvain Ndoutingaï (and pardoned by President Bozizé three months later). Bozizé’s nephew, Ndoutingaï, was frequently cited for involvement in corruption, as in preceding years. In an unexpected move, the president replaced him on 1 June with his predecessor (Albert Besse) without providing an explanation, but rumours circulating since May had it that it was for plotting a coup 220 • Central Africa d’état. Ndoutingaï was probably one of the richest and the second most powerful individual in the country – the media had given him the title “Vice President”, a non-existent position in the CAR. However, he was not only surrounded by allies but also had an impressive number of enemies (and he certainly found limited sympathy in donor circles). The influential Minister of Justice Firmin Findiro was also replaced in this context a couple of weeks later (by Jacques Mbosso). Ndoutingaï and Findiro managed to leave the country and no investigations into their supposed crimes were initiated. This followed on rumours of an earlier coup plot. On 6 January, four leaders of politico-military movements were arrested and accused of conspiring against national security; this was particularly noteworthy as all had roles in the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) process. The most prominent of them was Jean-Jacques Démafouth, leader of the ‘Armée Populaire pour la Restauration de la Démocratie’ (APRD) and vice president of the DDR Steering Committee. The other three were members of the ‘Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement’ (UFDR). Both movements denied that they were involved in a conspiracy. The APRD threatened to pull out of the DDR process, but finally all detainees were freed on bail on 11 April (and the APRD announced its dissolution in May). Démafouth had been implicated in so many coup plots in the past that it was easy to accuse him of another. The detection of a third coup plot was announced on 26 October. Three people were arrested, among them a former Chadian army officer – surprising given the usual high level of close cooperation between the two regimes. A military offensive in late January, jointly organised by the ‘Forces Armées Centrafricaines’ (FACA, the official army) and the Chadian army, destroyed the military bases of Chadian rebel leader Baba Laddé and his ‘Front Populaire pour le Redressement’ (FPR) in Kaga Bandoro, Kabo, Ouandago and Gondava. The FPR, variously accused of having a programme to promote the interests of Mbororo cattle herders or of simply representing highway bandits, left the area. The joint action may have been a military success but it also led to the destruction of seven villages and the displacement of more than 20,000 people. Laddé now claimed that he was aiming to overthrow the governments in both Ndjaména (Chad) and Bangui. Laddé and his troops later surrendered, and he was expelled to Chad on 3 September. The sparsely populated eastern part of the country faced repeated incursions by rebel groups such as the LRA, which stepped up its activities. Forty-eight LRA attacks were recorded during the year, despite the presence of a new multinational military initiative with the help of about 100 US military advisers and involving the armies of Uganda, the DRC, the CAR and South Sudan. LRA commander Joseph Kony was believed to be in hiding in the CAR. In December, an alliance of rebel groups called Séléka, the Sango word for coalition, took over most major towns in eastern and central CAR within a couple of weeks, rarely meeting any resistance. Séléka at first consisted of one wing of the ‘Convention des Patriotes Central African Republic • 221 pour la Justice et la Paix’ (CPJP), the ‘Convention Patriotique pour le Salut wa Kodro’, led by Dhaffane Mohamed Moussa, and the Michel Djotodia faction of the UFDR; both CPJP and UFDR had originated violent struggles in previous years and at least one faction of each had signed peace agreements with the government, in the case of the CPJP only in August (while a UFDR faction had done so in 2008). Djotodia was also only recently back from six years in exile. A CPJP splinter group emerged immediately after the agreement and attacked Sibut, Damara and Dekoa in mid-September without managing to take them. The more consequential Séléka conquest started with Ndelé (where the rebels defeated the CPJP wing allied with the government – while deployed peacekeepers did not intervene), Sam Ouandja and Ouadda on 10 December, followed by Bamingui on 15 December, Bria on 18 December and Kabo on 19 December. The dreaded warlord Abdoulaye Miskine and his ‘Front Démocratique du Peuple Centrafricain’ now joined the rebel alliance. Thereafter, Batangafo (20 December), Bam- bari (23 December) and Kaga-Bandoro (25 December) were taken by the rebels, too. An effort by the FACA to retake Bambari failed on 28 December. On 29 December, the rebels took control in Sibut, only 114 miles from Bangui, and called for Bozizé’s resignation. A Séléka spokesman called on the army to lay down its weapons, claiming that Bozizé no longer controlled the country. Troops in Damara, the last town on the road to Bangui under government control, were reinforced. This turn of events sent shock waves through the capital, where self-defence committees were formed, which checked cars and IDs of mostly Muslim nationals suspected of rebel sympathies. According to their declarations, the Séléka rebels were taking up arms because Bozizé was not honouring his commitments made at the Libreville peace talks in 2007/8. In fact, most rebel movements, including those formally at peace with the government, expressed concern about the pace and inclusiveness of the disarmament process, and this was ultimately one of the reasons given for the new upsurge of violence. There was, however, speculation about the rebels’ funding and international support, since their attacks were relatively well-organised. Eric Massi, self-proclaimed spokesman of Séléka, alluded to support from circles close to Chadian President Déby, but this did not align well with Chad’s official policy. Rich businessmen may also have been in a position to sponsor the rebellion. The only major progress in the country’s crucial political problems was in electoral matters. After four national workshops and consultation with civil society organisations, government and opposition agreed on a consensual text for a revised electoral code in early October, featuring the establishment of a permanent independent organising body, the ‘Autorité Nationale des Élections’, to be composed of seven members. Civilian opposition groups found it difficult – again – to get a hearing in the context of a looming new civil war. Fears that Bozizé would prepare for a change of the constitution, ultimately aiming at allowing him to stand for a further presidential term in 2016, had been a new unifying factor among opposition parties – and certainly added to the decline in the regime’s 222 • Central Africa popularity, in turn serving as a further pretext for the rebellion. At the height of the crisis, Bozizé’s most visible opponent, Martin Ziguélé, leader of the ‘Mouvement de Libération du Peuple Centrafricain’, called for a peaceful solution. Other events during the year reinforced the impression of a crisis of authority. Young men, frustrated after not being recruited into the FACA, attacked and pillaged the main prison in N’Garagba on 2 August, and over 500 detainees escaped. Compounding this problem, the prison in Sibut was looted on 15 September. Escapees remained at large, the absence of prison registers not aiding their speedy recapture. The chief of staff, General Guillaume Lapo, quickly lost the president’s backing in the course of the rebel advance. Bozizé refused to receive him and appeared to favour General Jean-Pierre Dolewaye, who was in charge of military operations on the ground. At year’s end, Dolewaye had suddenly disappeared.

Foreign Affairs

France was the natural ally to turn to – given the rich history of intervention by the former colonial power in Bangui. However, and in a significant move, French President François Hollande on 27 December ruled out any French intervention to save the regime, asserting those days were over. This statement followed days of protests and stone-throwing in front of the French embassy in Bangui. Bozizé nevertheless continued to call on both France and the United States to push back the rebels. Both Washington and Paris appealed to the government and the rebels to engage in dialogue. France slightly stepped up its military presence by 140 troops to an estimated force of 400. On 28 December, Washing- ton evacuated its embassy for security reasons (and the UN ordered non-essential staff and families to leave the country). In this situation, Chad was seen as the regime’s major source of support. A joint commission of both countries met in N’Djaména on 29–30 October and discussed security challenges, taxation issues and the repatriation of 70,000 Central African refugees from Chad. The two countries signed agreements on customs, movement of cattle, and other matters. Chadian President Idriss Déby had indeed shown repeated interest in the stability of Chad’s southern neighbour – the latest evidence was the ousting of rebel leader Baba Laddé from northern CAR (see above), and he was said to be ready to dispatch more troops to Bangui. About 20 heavily armed pick-ups were sent, officially as an interposition force, and N’Djaména also offered to host peace talks between the government and Séléka – maybe a sign that Déby was distancing himself from Bozizé. It was less clear whether all this was within the sub-regional framework of the ‘Mission de Consolidation de la Paix en Centrafrique’ (MICOPAX), to which Chad contributed. MICOPAX commander, General Jean-Félix Akaga of Gabon, wanted to reassure the population by stating that Bangui would be fully secured by his troops and by announcing that others would arrive to reinforce the mission. Although regional solidarity with the CAR was extraordi- Central African Republic • 223 nary at the time of MICOPAX’s formation (and already during the mission that preceded it), relations with neighbouring countries were not free from tensions. A series of border incidents took place with Cameroon, including the arrival of a group of heavily armed poachers, who were killing elephants in a national park across the border. At the height of the rebel conquest, some neighbouring states (Cameroon, Gabon and the DRC) showed reluctance to reinforce the MICOPAX troops. The AU showed above-average concern by announcing on 24 March that it would form a 5,000-strong brigade to stop Joseph Kony and his LRA. The troops would be led by Uganda but would include troops from the CAR and the DRC. The Regional Cooperation Initiative against the LRA was endorsed by the UNSC in June. Officially, the government had dispatched 350 troops in this context to the prefecture of Haut-Mbomou. The AU’s monitoring structure to oversee the efforts to combat the LRA, chaired by the AU Com- missioner for Peace and Security, established a Secretariat in Bangui. The Special Envoy of the Chairperson of the Commission on the issue of the LRA, Francisco Madeira, met with Bozizé and other officials on various occasions. In July, the AU launched the African Solidarity Initiative (ASI), and the CAR was one of the beneficiary countries (with Libe- ria, Sierra Leone, the DRC, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau and South Sudan). The ASI was intended to mobilise support for post-conflict reconstruction and development processes in countries emerging from crisis and conflict situations. AU chairman Boni Yayi (Benin) travelled to Bangui on 30 December to meet with Bozizé. The meeting resulted in immediate promises by the latter to start peace negotiations in Libreville (Gabon). He also promised the formation of a government of national unity. Boni Yayi was also in contact with rebel spokespersons such as Eric Massi. In December, South Africa and the CAR renewed a military cooperation agreement originally signed in 2007. Within this framework only a few dozen South African troops were deployed to the CAR, but they included a specialist VIP protection unit for Bozizé’s personal security. On 31 December, South African Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa Nqakula travelled to Bangui to assess the situation. The UN, OIF, and AU, as well as the ambassadors of France and the US and the EU Delegation were heavily involved in breaking the deadlock between the various parties on a new electoral code. In June, the chair of the CAR section of the UN Peacebuilding Com- mission, Belgian diplomat Jan Grauls, resigned and had not been replaced by the end of the year. The achievements of the Peacebuilding Commission were believed to be limited so far.

Socioeconomic Developments

Following about a month’s delay, the minister of finance presented his budget proposal for 2013 in early November. After a difficult year with little donor funding, there were high expectations of more solid planning for (and more government activity in) the upcoming 224 • Central Africa year, with a total of CFAfr 261 bn in expenditure based on a projected domestic income of CFAfr 139 bn (11.8% higher than in the previous exercise) and again counting strongly on outside support. Education, health, rural development and security ranked highest on the list of ministerial portfolios that benefited. The slightly amended budget was approved by the National Assembly on 20 December with only one dissenting vote. The Economist Intelligence Unit forecast a GDP growth rate of 3.8% (up from 3.1% in 2011) and expected further improvements. The high deficit in the 2011 trade balance was believed to have been reduced somewhat in 2012. Given the depressing political situation, it was not surprising that the general socioeconomic position left much to be desired. As an immediate effect of the political turmoil, many people left their homes. By the middle of the year, some 65,500 people were internally displaced (among them some 26,000 new victims seeking shelter from violence in the current year), while Chad and Cameroon were hosting another 150,000 Central Afri- cans as refugees. Agricultural production certainly did not fulfil the country’s potential, though the agriculture sector continued to generate more than half of GDP. WFP reported 10.2 % global acute malnutrition in children under five. Hunger was therefore a serious threat, and inflationrose to an estimated 6.8% by the end of the year; the government had followed IMF recommendations to adjust petrol prices to global standards. This created serious problems for many households. In a rare show of activity, the National Assembly demanded government explanations for rises in the price of basic commodities. Civil society organisations also pressed the government to act against price increases and received at least some response. The government tackled the dramatic price rises by fixing prices for a range of basic goods (including soap, sugar, vegetable oil, powdered milk, rice, flour, salt and fish) in some cities, including the capital, for six months. However, the ministerial order had barely any effect and shortages emerged in various locations. Prime Minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra consequently invited all major economic and business stakeholders to a meeting to discuss matters, but without tangible results. The IMF argued that the failure to translate world oil prices into domestic petroleum prices in 2011 had entailed significant fiscal losses and direct subsidies, but now had to concede the potential negative impact on the most vulnerable groups of consumers. Accordingly, it advocated some mitigating social measures, including subsidising public transport. An IMF delegation visited Bangui on 9 February. On 25 June, the IMF approved a new ECF, pledging SDR 41.8 m ($ 63.2 m) to fund reforms in public financial management. This long-awaited move was seen as a necessary catalyst for donor support more generally, and some donors agreed to renew budget support after a long wait-and-see phase. Inter alia, the World Bank approved $ 125 m in funding for transport infrastructure and regional trade, with a focus on the road link between Bangui and the port of Douala (Cameroon). International activity was increasingly concentrated on humanitarian aid. After the NGO assessment that over 45,000 people were at acute risk of malnutrition in north-eastern Central African Republic • 225

CAR, a joint effort by humanitarian organisations made it possible to organise airdrops of food aid to seven towns in the Vakaga prefecture in August and September, reaching more than 11,000 people in need. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. The UN system’s consolidated appeal process was based on the premise that 1.9 m people were in need of humanitarian assistance – almost half the country’s population. Uranium mining, once one of the greatest hopes for economic recovery, stalled. A rebel attack (attributed to the FPR) on the Bakouma site in June proved disastrous. No French nationals were hurt (although one local civilian was killed), but French mining giant Areva nevertheless declared that it would completely abandon its plans to exploit the site (after significant delays to progress in 2011).

Andreas Mehler

Chad

The first ever local elections were held in a year that passed in relative calm, despite some movement on the social front. Economic growth picked up after a slowdown towards the end of 2011 following a bad harvest. Relations with neighbouring countries were marked by more efforts towards cooperation on security and economic issues. The political situation in Chad’s southern neighbour, the CAR, slowly deteriorated and demanded a lot attention from President Idriss Déby Itno. There were major developments in the organisation of the trial of former president Hissein Habré for crimes against humanity in Sene- gal, his country of exile.

Domestic Politics

The year started with the marriage of President Déby to Amina Musa, daughter of the Sudanese Janjaweed militia leader Musa Halil. The wedding took place in Khartoum (Sudan), in Déby’s absence and led to tensions with the family of his first wife, Hinda. In one incident, her brother came to Hotel Kempinski in the capital, Ndjamena, where Déby was attending a conference, with the apparent aim of confronting him on the issue. He was quietly removed from the scene by security personnel. On 22 January, the first ever local elections were held in Chad’s 43 major towns; approximately 1 m people were entitled to vote. Previously, all mayors of Chadian towns 228 • Central Africa had been appointed by the Ministry of Territorial Administration. The ruling party, the ‘Mouvement pour le Salut de la Patrie’ (MPS), won a majority in 12 of the 43 towns, taking six of the 10 seats in Ndjamena municipal council and 72% of the votes in Abéché (East). The opposition, united in the ‘Coordination des Partis Politiques pour la Défense de la Constitution’, took Moundou, the economic centre in the south, where a former rebel and minister, Médard Laokein, became mayor. The opposition also did well in other southern towns, including Bébédja. Opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo lost in his home base, Léré, although there were allegations of fraud and the government had also spent a lot of energy in improving infrastructure there in a bid to win voters over from Kebzabo. All the northern towns were taken by the MPS, since no opposition parties had candidates there. Turn-out figures were not published. On 23 February, the Supreme Court ruled that re-elections be held in two districts. Two cabinet ministers were replaced in a cabinet reshuffle on 27 January. Bedoura Kodje was made minister of planning, economy and international cooperation, in place of Mahamat Ali Hassan, and Eugene Tabe became minister of oil and energy in place of Ibra- him Alhalil Hileo. On 27 April, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who had been minister of foreign affairs for six years and was a former secretary-general of the Presidency was arrested on charges of corruption. He was removed from office on 2 August and was succeeded by Moussa Faki Mahamat. Nevertheless, Annadif was later appointed as the AU representative in Somalia. Internal security threats looked more manageable than in recent years. However, the Chadian army undertook joint action with the CAR armed forces in the north of the neighbouring country to hunt down the rebel group ‘Front Populaire pour le Rédressement’ (FPR) led by the Chadian Fulani Abdel Kader Baba Laddé, who had previously been active in southern Chad. As a result of his actions, an increasing flow of refugees crossed the southern border into Chad. Operations began on 23 January and lasted well into Febru- ary. Though these combined forces were not able to capture the rebel leader, he was put under so much pressure that he voluntarily surrendered in September after negotiations under the aegis of the UN mission in the CAR, and returned to Ndjamena on 5 September. The repatriation of 3,000 of his followers, including many women and children, began on 9 October. Some civil liberties were under threat, and unionists and journalists in particular were targeted. Civil servants started a long strike in July, calling for the government to implement an agreement with the ‘Union des Syndicats du Tchad’ (UST) concluded at the end of 2011 to double the salaries of public sector workers. After the strike had lasted for six weeks, the minister of finance threatened not to pay August salaries. On 30 August, private sector workers launched a strike in support, as their salary increases were partly linked to this public sector agreement. On 17 September, the public sector workers resumed work after mediation by religious leaders. Prime Minister Emmanuel Nadingar had appealed to Chad • 229 them to call off the strike, pointing to the government’s inability to raise the funds necessary to pay for the increase, but he admitted that the civil servants’ claims were justified. After a month of fruitless negotiations, new strikes were called on 22 October, for three days, and again on 6 November. On 27 November, the government decided to annul all the agreements with the UST, but other trade unions then joined the strike. Finally, on 18 December the second six-week strike ended after direct talks between the UST and Déby on 10 December. On 19 September, three trade unionists were given 18-month suspended prison sentences and a CFAfr 1.5 m fine for publishing a petition denouncing the mismanagement of government funds and the corruption of local authorities. A journalist of the newspaper ‘Ndjamena-Hebdo’, who published excerpts of this petition, was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence and a CFAfr 1 m fine. On 14 November, there were reports that the mayor of Doba had intimidated a journalist with a local radio station, ‘La Voix du Paysan’; on 30 September, an interview he had broadcast with the Italian bishop of Doba, Michele Russo, had been critical of the government. The bishop was ordered to leave Chad by 14 October, but the government later revoked this decision. On 12 November, the mayor of Ndjamena was arrested on accusations of corruption, abuse of power and failure to respect the municipal council. A document from a Turkish company was produced that promised him a commission if the municipality purchased machinery from them. The situation of Darfuri refugees and Chadian IDPs in the east of the country remained largely unchanged. The IDPs’ return was hampered by the lack of basic services and infrastructure (clean water, latrines and basic education and health facilities) in their villages of origin. Programmes to promote their return remained underfunded, and security threats persisted, with an increasing number of civilians disposing of small arms and continuous instability across the border, so that aid workers continued to depend on armed escorts. On 20 November, an agreement was concluded with the government of Cameroon and the UNHCR to repatriate 3,200 refugees who were still in Cameroon.

Foreign Affairs

Throughout 2012, regional security and the fight against Muslim extremists remained an important concern of the Chadian government (and those of neighbouring countries) and led to extensive diplomatic activity. Early in March, Ndjamena decided to include Libyan troops in Chad and Sudan’s joint border patrols, put in place in 2010 to guard the common borders – now of all three countries. On 12 March, Interior Minister Tchonai Elimi Hassan and Defence Minister Benaido Tatola participated in an African border security summit in Tripoli (Libya), attended by representatives of all the Saharan countries and the EU, AU, Arab League and UN. Rebel leader Timane Erdimi issued a statement on 23 November protesting against Sudan’s handing over of dozens of rebels 230 • Central Africa attached to the ‘Front pour le Salut de la République’ (FSR) and the ‘Union des Forces de la Résistance’ (UFR), including the FSR chief of staff Moussa Younis, to the Chadian government. Both governments denied the accusations. On 30 April, Déby and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan called on a meeting of the otherwise passive Lake Chad Basin Commission to strengthen security in the area because of the threat of terrorism and to extend the mandate of the existing multinational task force around the lake. This force was intended specifically to contain the threat of Boko Haram terrorists in the north of Nigeria. On 23 May, a Regional Conference on Small Arms and Light Weapons was organised in Khartoum with representatives of the UNDP and the UN/AU hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) to create a regional mechanism to control the proliferation of small arms. On 14 December, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, accompanied by high level military officials and the chief of staff of the Lib- yan army, visited Ndjamena to discuss security issues and the fight against organised crime, notably the smuggling of cigarettes, arms, fuel and drugs. A four-party agreement between Chad, Libya, Sudan and Niger was under preparation. Cross-border security threats were real, as many events proved. On 6 March, approximately 1,000 Chadian migrants, including many children who were pupils at Qur’anic schools, fled northern Nigeria, following violence by Boko Haram terrorists. There was also unrest in south-east Libya between members of the Zwai tribe (light-skinned Arabs and former Khadafi supporters) and Tabu (dark-skinned Africans related to Chadian groups) over control of trade and smuggling routes. On 1 August, the multinational task force around Lake Chad intercepted a convoy of weapons on the border with Nigeria and, on 18 December, the Libyan government temporarily closed its borders with all neighbouring countries to prevent the entry of armed groups and refugees from Mali. The situation in the CAR continued to be a headache for the Chadian authorities. After Chad’s intervention in the CAR in January to suppress Baba Laddé’s rebellion, which targeted, both governments, local rebel groups built up their strength in the north of the CAR and occupied a number of major cities. On 18 December, Chadian troops intervened again in the CAR, following an appeal by CAR President François Bozizé. The Chadian army sent 20 vehicles with heavily armed soldiers to the CAR to guard the entry routes to Bangui in Sibut, where 200 troops were stationed, in addition to 150 troops at Bossangoa. Déby appeared tired of Bozizé’s ineffectiveness in maintaining stability in the CAR, and was therefore reluctant to intervene more heavily; he also wanted Bozizé to negotiate with the rebels (and invited all parties to Ndjamena). Bozizé was increasingly suspicious of Déby’s aims and instead chose to go to Libreville (Gabon) to plead for a regional intervention force with the secretary-general of CEEAC, Chadian national Nassour Guelengdouk- sia Ouaïdou, who refused to help. On 23 April, UN and AU envoys visiting Ndjamena warned the Chadian government that the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel movement originating in Northern Uganda, now under serious pressure from an international military force, might settle in Chad. Chad • 231

Relations with France had their ups and downs. A planned meeting with France’s Presi- dent François Hollande on 8 October was postponed at short notice because of “agenda problems”. Paris was unhappy with the lack of progress on the clarification of the disappearance of Chadian opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh in February 2008 following rebel attacks on Ndjamena. Subsequently, President Déby refused to attend the OIF summit in Kinshasa in October, but he finally decided to create an international investigation committee and on 5 December was swiftly received for a three-day visit to France, including a meeting with Hollande. Another background factor contributing to this renewal of warmer relations was the deteriorating situation in northern Mali. France wanted Chad- ian troops to participate in the African intervention force earmarked to intervene there to oust the Muslim extremist groups who had occupied this desert area. Chad was believed to lack motivation to take part in this operation, but Déby made a statement that Mali could count on Chad, without going into the details of the planned level of involvement. A source of tension with France was the end of the trial against six staff members of the French NGO ‘Arche de Zoë’, who had been accused of trying to abduct more than 100 so-called orphans from eastern Chad for adoption by French couples in 2007. After they were convicted in Chad, they were handed over to France and were subsequently released without serving their sentences. They were then put on trial on only minor charges, such as embezzling the fees paid by the prospective adoptive parents and attempting to promote the illegal immigration of minors. Déby called this a breach of the initial agreement between France and Chad. There were major developments in the attempts to put former Chadian President His- sein Habré on trial for atrocities and crimes against humanity in his county of residence, Senegal. On 12 January, the Senegalese court of appeal rejected a Belgian request to extradite Hissein Habré on the grounds that the request did not meet Senegalese legal requirements. However, in June Senegal started preparations to put Habré to trial by establishing a working group to prepare the practical aspects. On 20 July, the International Court of Justice ruled that Senegal must prosecute Habré “without further delay” or extradite him to Belgium, where a judge had asked for him to be handed over in accordance with Belgian law. After four days of negotiations, the Senegalese government agreed to an AU plan to bring him for trial before a special court appointed by the AU. This court, consisting of four chambers, would be hosted in Dakar and consist of Senegalese judges and an external AU-appointed president. On 25 October, a row over the Habré case broke out within the Senegalese government when Senegalese Prime Minister Abdoel Mbaye was accused of complicity in covering up the theft of CFAfr 16 bn from the Chadian treasure by Hissein Habré when he fled Chad in 1990. Mbaye had at that time been an employee of the bank where the money was deposited. He survived a vote of confidence on 26 December. A number of donors made a commitment to fund the trial, which would cost approximately CFAfr 3 bn. The Chadian government promised to contribute € 2 m and the AU € 1 m. The rest was expected to be provided by European donors, including the Netherlands, 232 • Central Africa

Belgium, the EU, France and Germany. On 19 December, the Senegalese parliament passed a law to allow the government to ratify the agreement with the AU to hold the trial.

Socioeconomic Developments

After disappointing economic growth in 2011, the economy picked up and grew by an estimated 5.5%. Growth was promoted by the completion of a number of industrial projects and a good agricultural season. Public investments in infrastructure and new oil developments increased government revenues. Public finances and the financial sector remained heavily dependent on oil, and were still therefore overexposed to developments on the world crude oil market. Oil accounted for 70% of fiscal revenues, 90% of exports and 35% of total GDP. Non-oil revenue collection fell by 3% compared with 2011. Total government revenues were estimated at CFAfr 1,375 bn, made up of CFAfr 943 bn in taxes (taxes on oil related activities amounted to CFAfr 634 bn), an estimated CFAfr 329 bn in royalties on oil, and CFAfr 103 bn in external grants. Projected spending was estimated at CFAfr 1,595 bn. Total investments amounted to CFAfr 770 bn, of which CFAfr 499 bn was from domestic sources and CFAfr 271 bn from foreign sources. Military spending went down to 6% of non-oil GDP, which was considerably lower than in 2011 as a result of the relatively calm situation in Chad. Exports were estimated at CFAfr 2,279 bn, of which CFAfr 2,048 bn came from oil. Imports were estimated at CFAfr 1,474 bn. The health of the financial sector improved with the re-capitalisation of the state-owned banks and strong growth in deposits in private banks. The production of crude oil continued to decline. In the first nine months of the year, about 31 m barrels were produced, compared with 35 m barrels in the same period in 2011. The new oil field in Bongor produced 20,000 b/d, which was refined for the local market at the Djarmaya refinery, 20 km north of Ndjamena. However, on 20 January a row escalated with the Chinese owners (China National Petroleum Cooperation International owns 60% of the refinery) over the price of fuel imposed by the Chadian government, which they considered too low. After negotiations, the refinery was re-opened on 6 Febru- ary. Fuel prices in Chad were now 30% lower than in Cameroon and 50% lower than in the CAR, which led to gasoline and petrol being smuggled to neighbouring countries. On 16 February, Déby opened a new cement factory, built with a loan of $ 49 m by the China Import-Export Bank. Déby’s nephew, Mahamat Timan Déby Itno, was appointed as its director. The factory was expected to produce 200,000 tons of cement per annum at a subsidised price of CFAfr 4,200 per sack, compared with the normal market price of CFAfr 6,000. Export of this cement was prohibited. With the subsidies already in place for the water and electricity company, the cotton sector and these new subsidised plants, total subventions to the industrial sector reached 4.8% of non-oil GDP or 12.1% of the government’s primary spending. Chad • 233

Tractors were put at the disposal of Chadian farmers to help plough their fields so that they could expand the area cultivated and promote agricultural growth, but the 2011/12 agricultural season still yielded only approximately 1.6 m tons of cereals, 15% below the five-year average, which left the country with a deficit of 625,000 tons of food. The deficits were more acute in the northern part of the Sahel, where reserves were expected to last only three or four months after the harvest. The Kanem and Guera regions, where production was 60% below average, were particularly affected. The situation was made worse by the closure of the border with Nigeria, which was usually a main supplier, and Libya, from where the north of the country was usually supplied. In January, the government had already started selling 20,000 tons out of its reserve cereal stock, leaving only 24,000 tons, far from sufficient to cover the country’s needs. In March, millet and sorghum prices rose to a level that was beyond the reach of the poor. Pastures were in comparatively good shape, but livestock prices fell, making it difficult for nomadic pastoralists to make ends meet. Over April–June, the price of cereals rose even higher, to CFAfr 300–400 per kilo. The harvest of berberé, flood retreat sorghum, in the Salamat region brought some relief, but 25,000 tons of food aid still had to be distributed in the Batha region, and 30,000 cases of acute malnutrition were treated. By July, 1.5 m people were receiving assistance from the ‘Office National de Sécurité Alimentaire’. Early rains led to an early start of the growing season and, with government subsidies, market prices fell to an affordable level in August, and livestock prices rose in anticipation of Ramadan and Tabaski, which relieved the situation of the pastoralists. Assistance programmes continued until September. The downside of the early rainfall was flooding in the south, which destroyed 73,000 houses; 446,000 people were affected and there were 13 deaths. A total of 255,700 ha of arable land were flooded, affecting harvests in Mayo Kebbi and Eastern Logone regions. Despite these drawbacks, cereal production increased over the year by 130%, reaching an estimated 3.8 m tons. Infrastructure projects gained momentum. On 15 May, it was announced that Chi- nese companies were planning to build a new airport 40 km from Ndjamena and a railway to Nyala in west Sudan. The World Bank approved a $ 125 m loan to improve transport and transit facilities between Douala (Cameroon) and Ndjamena and the Cameroonian minister of transport promised to reduce the number of check points on the Douala- Ndjamena route from 148 to only three, which would obviously lower transportation costs to land-locked Chad considerably. On 4 October, an alarming report was published on the state of the Chadian education system. In 2012, only 8.96% (6,267 out of 69,919) of pupils passed the internationally recognised and certified Baccalauréat diploma. President Déby called this a national dis- grace and called for a national effort to improve the quality of education.

Han van Dijk

Congo

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 parliamentary 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 increasingly 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. 236 • Central Africa

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 conditions. 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 similar 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 opponent 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 protests 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 independent 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 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 family 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 altogether. President of the ‘Conseil National des Républicains’ Frédéric Bintsamou, once 238 • Central Africa regarded as a viable opposition leader after leading a rebellion in Pool, lost his bid to represent 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 compromise 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 colleagues, 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, 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 foundations 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 confidants. 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. 240 • Central Africa

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 dramatically, 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, according 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.

Brett L. Carter Democratic Republic of the Congo

The year was marked by the aftermath of the contested November 2011 elections and a new outbreak of full-fledged rebellion in the east of the country. A new government was formed after months of confusion, protests and post-election violence. The political climate in Kinshasa, as well as relations with donors and African partners, deteriorated significantly. Within this tense political situation, a mutiny by officers from the ‘Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo’ (FARDC) in North and South Kivu resulted in the formation of a new rebel group, the M23. The rebellion quickly took control of parts of North Kivu, culminating in the seizure of the provincial capital, Goma, in November. Regional peace talks started in the summer between ICGLR countries and were complemented by talks between the government and the M23 starting in December. Due to fighting between the M23, the FARDC and a plethora of other armed groups, the humanitarian situation in the eastern provinces deteriorated further.

Domestic Politics

The formation of a new rebel group, the M23, was the immediate precursor of a renewed outbreak of armed conflict in the eastern provinces of the DRC. After three years of fragile 242 • Central Africa stability in North and South Kivu, hundreds of soldiers from the ‘Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple’ (CNDP) defected. The soldiers were officially integrated into the FARDC, since a peace agreement had been signed between the government and the CNDP in 2009. In March, tensions had already arisen in the CNDP heartlands in the east of the DRC. Splits within the CNDP became apparent when some high-ranking CNDP commanders agreed to be deployed outside the Kivus – a move hitherto fiercely resisted by the CNDP leadership. International donors and diplomats used their leverage after the fraudulent elections to intensify pressure on the government to arrest the CNDP’s leader, Bosco Nta- ganda, who was wanted by the ICC. He started voicing discontent concerning the implementation of the 2009 peace agreement, called for a renewal of peace talks and persuading local troops in North and South Kivu to defect from the FARDC and get ready to fight. The situation deteriorated when President Kabila indicated during talks with the Rwandan government and the CNDP in Goma in early April that Ntaganda could be arrested. This move was widely interpreted as an attempt to regain legitimacy at home and abroad, which the government had lost due to the fraudulent 2011 elections. After a few weeks of defection from and re-defection to the FARDC, a core of several hundred soldiers announced the creation of the M23 movement, named after the 23 March 2009 agreement, in a communiqué signed by the military commanders of the ‘Armée Nationale Congolaise’ (ANC). The ANC had been the armed wing of the ‘Ras- semblement Congolais pour la Démocratie’ (RCD), which had sole control over large parts of eastern Congo during the second Congo war from 1998 until the Sun City peace talks in 2003. The M23 thus underlined its direct link to the RCD and its successor organisation, the CDNP. Led by one of the most important former CNDP officers, Sultani Mak- enga, the M23 demanded the full implementation of the 2009 agreement. They particularly focused on the repatriation of Congolese refugees from Rwanda, and denounced discrimination against CNDP soldiers integrated into the FARDC and the government’s lack of action against the (anti-Tutsi) ‘Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda’ (FDLR). The group first denied any collaboration with Bosco Ntaganda but it soon emerged that he had played a central role in the rebellion. In May/June it became apparent that Rwanda was backing the M23. In the first months of the rebellion, the rebels seized key towns in Rutshuru territory, such as Bunagana and Rutshuru. A de facto ceasefire between the government and the M23, which held until mid-November, did not prevent either side from building up their capacities in North and South Kivu. Skirmishes between proxy groups on both sides were also reported throughout the summer and autumn. On 15 November, heavy fighting between the M23, the FARDC and several proxies broke out north of Goma, effectively ending the ceasefire and culminating in theseizure of the provincial capital by the M23 on 20 November and the subsequent occupation of the town of Sake on the road to South Kivu’s provincial capital, Bukavu. During these two weeks of intense fighting, the FARDC Democratic Republic of the Congo • 243 once again proved its inability to face a well-organised rebellion. After a few days of occupation, the M23 withdrew under heavy international pressure, only to stop a few kilome- tres outside the city, threatening to retake Goma if the government was not willing to negotiate. During the crisis, anti-Rwanda sentiment increased in the eastern provinces, with anti-Tutsi raids in Goma and Bukavu. Protests in Bukavu after the seizure of Goma also challenged UN installations. As a first reaction, Kabila removed Major-General Gabriel Amisi from command of the land forces. Amisi had been known for his involvement in corruption within the army and grave human rights abuses during the second Congo war. Kabila replaced him with Major- General François Olenga, who had been inspector general of the army since 2005 and had already been head of the land forces from 2001 to 2003, replacing Joseph Kabila when he became president in the place of his murdered father Laurent-Désiré Kabila. At first, the government in Kinshasa relied on a military solution to the crisis in the Kivus and only discussed matters with regional and international partners, although the governor of North Kivu, Julien Paluka, called for a re-evaluation of the 2009 peace agreement. In the latter half of the year, as it became increasingly clear that the FARDC would not be able to defeat the M23 and that an ICGLR initiative to solve the crisis would not lead to a breakthrough, the government agreed to talk with the rebels in Kampala (Uganda). The talks began on 9 December, but stalled in the first sessions over the rules for negotiations – who should participate and what the procedural arrangements should be. The government refused to agree to a ceasefire, a precondition the M23 had set for its participation in the talks. The M23 demanded the inclusion in the talks of a whole range of issues well beyond what the government was willing to address, including electoral fraud. The chief negotiator, Ugandan Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, decided to focus on the revision of the 23 March 2009 agreement and leave out new grievances. Six outstanding points in the agreement were specified by the negotiation team: the lack of a national reconciliation mechanism; the non-implementation of a community policing scheme; insufficient efforts towards decentralisation; lack of natural resource management; the failure to tackle property issues; and the weak implementation of an international monitoring mechanism tasked with overseeing the implementation of the agreement. The negotiating parties did not agree on procedure until the Christmas break on 21 December and so no serious negotiations started before year’s end. Although it was the M23 that attracted most international attention, the activities of other armed rebels in the eastern provinces also intensified. This was partly due to the redeployment of FARDC units to the M23 frontlines. Furthermore, both the M23 and the government started to support proxy militias among the plethora of Mai-Mai groups operating in the area. After relative stability in Ituri since 2007, a new rebel coalition, the ‘Coalition des Groupes Armés de l’Ituri’ (COGAI) was formed under the ‘Forces de Résistance Patriotique d’Ituri’ (FRPI) and its head, ‘Cobra’ Matata. The FRPI had used the turmoil 244 • Central Africa around the M23 to push for privileges for the FRPI, demanding its full integration into the FARDC. Rumours were rampant that Cobra had cooperated with Rwanda and the M23 during the mutiny. The government had refused the FRPI’s demands for integration, which they had made as early as February. A letter from North Kivu’s civil society organisations, asking the government to start dealing with the deepening crisis in Ituri, was also left unanswered. With the creation of COGAI and given the fact that fighting the M23 absorbed much of the FARDCs capacity, the government finally agreed to integrate around 400 soldiers from the FRPI and two smaller rebel movements into the FARDC in September. The rebels made it a condition that they should be granted amnesty, have their military ranks recognised and be stationed inside Ituri. Another rather loosely organised Mai-Mai group, the Raia Mutomboki (“outraged citizens” in Swahili), engaged in tit-for-tat massacres with the FDLR in various places, ranging from the forests around Shabunda in South Kivu to Walikale in North Kivu. In the first half of the year alone, almost 200 people were said to have been killed and whole villages destroyed in these mutual retaliation attacks. In Masisi territory, the Raia Mutom- boki allied with the M23 and engaged in attacks on Hutu civilians unwilling to support the rebellion, killing hundreds and burning more than 800 homes in August and September. Apart from exchanging retaliation attacks with the Raia Mutomboki, the FDLR also engaged in battles with the M23 and its Rwandan supporters. On 27 November, around 120 FDLR soldiers were said to have crossed the border into Rwanda, killing at least one civilian and injuring four. Another civilian was allegedly killed and one injured in a cross- border attack on 2 December. These were the first serious cross-border FDLR activities in many years and showed that the FDLR had recovered from some serious setbacks early in the year: Many of their high ranking officers had been killed in a series of assassinations that had begun in November 2011, allegedly orchestrated by the Rwandan government. The dead included FDLR chief of staff Brigadier Leodomir Mugaragu, who was assassinated on 11 January. He was one of the last remaining FDLR commanders accused of direct involvement in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), initially based in Uganda, continued to terrorise the population in the region along the Congolese border with the CAR. Although the number of their fighters was said to have fallen to less than 300, their impact was still significant. Attacks on villages to seize food and the abduction of civilians for use as porters or sex slaves were reported. There were an estimated 347,000 IDPs in the LRA zone of operation within the DRC. In March, the four countries affected by the activities of the LRA, namely the DRC, South Sudan, the CAR and Uganda, with the backing of the UN and the AU, launched a joint military task force to hunt down LRA fighters in the region. These four countries agreed to contribute 5,000 troops. In September, 2,000 troops from Uganda, 500 troops from South Sudan and 360 troops from the CAR were included in the force. Apart from the fact that the force was still short of the agreed numbers, many challenges remained, Democratic Republic of the Congo • 245 including disagreement concerning command structures, payment for soldiers and the regulation of cross-border movements. US-trained FARDC soldiers engaged the LRA for the first time in March, killing two rebels and recovering some ammunition. Other rebel groups that remained active in the eastern provinces throughout the year included the ‘Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain’, Congo Defence Forces and Nyatura in Masisi territory, Mai-Mai Cheka in Walikale, and the Ugandan Allied Democratic Front/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU) in Beni territory, which apparently forged an alliance with Ruwenzori-based Mai-Mai militias. Interrelated with the crisis in the east, the year was marked by the aftermath of the 2011 presidential and legislative elections. Between December 2011 and late April, national politics were characterised by the absence of a functioning government and parliament. Following the highly contested elections, Kabila had been sworn in as president in December 2011. However, the announcement of the legislative election result was postponed several times. The sitting government continued to work without being able to take effective decisions. The ‘Commission Electorale Nationale Indépendante’ (CENI) finally released a list of 483 (out of 500) members of the new National Assembly on 2 February, of which around 340 were immediately contested before the courts. On 27 April, the Supreme Court invalidated the election of 32 members of parliament and instated other candidates in their place. According to the final list, a total of 103 parties and 17 independent candidates had won seats, with only 23 parties taking five or more seats. President Kabila’s ‘Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et la Démocratie’ (PPRD) took 69 seats, only around half as many as in the 2006 elections, followed by Etienne Tshisekedi’s ‘Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social’ (UDPS) with 42 seats – making it the leading opposition party. Jean-Pierre Bemba’s ‘Mouvement pour la Liberation du Congo’ (MLC, 21 seats) and Vital Kamerhe’s ‘Union pour la Nation Congolaise’ (UNC, 16 seats) were the other two important opposition parties. The third largest party in the Assembly was the ‘Parti du Peuple pour la Paix et la Démocratie’, which had just been created and was said to be funded entirely by Augustin Katumba Mwanke, a close ally of Kabila, who died in February. All in all, the pro-Kabila ‘Alliance pour la Majorité Présidentielle’ (AMP) gained a majority with 260 seats – comfortable enough to govern but not to change the constitution. The new cabinet was not announced till 28 April; it comprised 25 ministers, 11 vice ministers and two deputy prime ministers, 10 members fewer than during the previous mandate. The new cabinet could be characterised as largely technocratic, with only a few political heavyweights. Security-related posts, however, remained within the Kabila inner circle, with Alexandre Luba Ntambo as second vice prime minister and defence minister and Richard Mujey Magez at the interior ministry, both close allies of Kabila from his home province of Katanga. Raymond Tshibanda, an experienced diplomat, was appointed foreign minister. Although the inclusion of opposition members had been advocated by 246 • Central Africa international diplomats, the cabinet was constituted almost exclusively of politicians from the AMP, notable exceptions being Minister of Industry Remy Musungayi Bampale from the MLC and Minister of Trade Nemoyato Begepole from the UNC. With this move, Kabila tried to prevent the three large opposition parties, the UDPS, MLC and UNC, from forging a strong alliance. Adolphe Muzito resigned as prime minister on 6 March and was replaced by Louis Alphonse Koyagialo as interim prime minister until the appointment of Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon as prime minister in April. Ponyo had served as finance minister since 2010 and continued to be responsible for finances as prime minister. Pro- vincial assembly elections were postponed to March 2014, to be held together with local elections. The fall in votes for the PPRD introduced a completely new balance of power, which affected politics in the DRC. Whereas Kabila had been relatively free to make political decisions during his previous term, he was increasingly under pressure in the new government to satisfy the diverse demands of his allies, which he did by bargaining with and bribing members of the new National Assembly. This was no new phenomenon, given the large number of splinter parties within the AMP and the more than 100 MPs whose political affiliation was not decided; however, it showed that Kabila’s attempts in 2011 to establish the PPRDs dominance had failed. Churches, human rights organisations, foreign embassies and opposition parties continued to condemn as fraudulent both the presidential and parliamentary elections of November 2011. After first calling for the elections to be cancelled, many opposition members and Congolese NGOs went on to demand instead the formation of a unitary government, with a prime minister appointed from the opposition. Tshisekedi’s UDPS continued to completely reject the election results. Tshisekedi had declared himself the legitimate president in 2011 and maintained this claim throughout the year. In January, he and his supporters were prevented from marching to the presidential palace to hold a swearing-in ceremony and the opposition leader was put under unofficial house arrest in his residence in Kinshasa. Tshisekedi declared a boycott of parliament by UDPS members as soon as election results were out, but 33 of the 42 UDPS MPs dis- obeyed and were excluded from the party on 10 April. On 12 January, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference published a report on the elections called “The Courage of the Truth”, which questioned the credibility of the results and asked the CENI to rectify serious faults or resign. The Catholic Church called for mass protests in Kinshasa on 12 February to reject the election results and call for the resignation of the CENI. However, police and PPRD youth brigades prevented the protesters from gathering, resorting to the extensive use of force. The date marked the 20th anniversary of a mass demonstration for more democracy in 1992, which was brutally put down by the army. Both the 1992 and the 2012 protests were headed by Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo. The EU’s electoral observer mission released its final report on the elections on 29 March, confirming earlier criticism of a number of national and internationalobservers’ Democratic Republic of the Congo • 247 final reports that the results of both the presidential and parliamentary elections lacked credibility. The UN Human Rights Council and the UN Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) published a report on human rights violations from 26 November to 25 December 2011, which largely confirmed accusations that had been made by the opposition. According to the report, at least 33 individuals were killed and 83 injured, 16 civilians disappeared, and 265 were arbitrarily detained. The government fiercely criticised the report, denouncing it as being partial and lacking evidence. Both the government and the opposition made use of the crisis in the Kivus to further discredit each other. In September, it emerged that Kabila had been authorising Rwandan troops to fight FDLR rebels on Congolese soil since March 2011. The opposition took this revelation as a reason to sign a petition calling for Kabila’s indictment for high treason with regard to his handling of the crisis. At the same time, the government accused the UDPS of forging contacts with the M23, an allegation which the UN Group of Experts’ final report in November reiterated but which was continuously denied by the party. In September, the government in turn accused Roger Lumbala, a senior opposition figure and MP from Kasai Orientale from the ‘Rassemblement Congolais pourla Démocratie – National’ (RCD-N), of high treason for supporting Rwanda and the M23 in their advance. Lumbala sought refuge in the South African embassy; he was briefly detained at Bujumbura airport (Burundi) but finally made it to Paris. He first denied any contacts with the M23, but later openly supported the group. A member of parliament who had lost his seat, Jaques Dieudonné Bakungu Mitondeke, was arrested in Goma on 2 Feb- ruary for illegal gun possession and then sentenced to one year in prison for spreading tribal hatred. Mitondeke had changed his allegiance from the PPRD to the UNC before the elections and later denounced the elections as fraudulent. The arrest was largely interpreted as politically motivated. On 12 February, one of the president’s closest advisors, Augustin Katumba Mwanke, died in a plane crash in Bukavu. He had significantly influenced the shape of Congolese politics and business for more than a decade. Other politicians had also been on the plane and were seriously injured, including Matata Ponyo and the governor of South Kivu, Mar- cellin Cisambo. Kabila made a posthumous award to Mwanke of the Order of National Heroes, an honour which only Patrice Lumumba and Laurent-Désiré Kabila had hitherto received. Through Mwanke, many international partners had gained access to the otherwise reclusive President Kabila.

Foreign Affairs

The DRC’s relationship with many donor countries, as well as African partners, cooled after the fraudulent elections of 2011. Most Western donors continued to call the elections into question, but their strongly worded statements had little effect on Congolese politics, except for the cautious shift in dealing with incriminated rebels within the FARDC, 248 • Central Africa particularly Bosco Ntaganda. The new Belgian Prime Minister Elio di Rupo congratulated Kabila on his re-election on 3 January – which immediately sparked criticism among the Congolese opposition and civil society. The 14th OIF summit took place in Kinshasa in October, the first time it had been held in a Central African country. Only around 15 heads of state and as many government members of the 75 states participated; they discussed the situation in the DRC, Mali, Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau and other issues. The organisation of the summit was significantly jeopardised as a consequence of the contested 2011 elections. The political opposition and civil society groups called on international leaders to boycott it and the newly elected French President François Hollande first threatened not to attend but finally announced in July that he would participate and give the opening speech, stating that he wanted to break with France’s tradition of paternalism towards Africa. He nevertheless took a clear stand on the DRC’s democratic and human rights deficits, provoking outrage within the government. On the sidelines of the summit, Hollande also met with Etienne Tshisekedi and civil society groups, sparking a storm about his being more inclined to talk to the opposition than to the government. The Canadian delegation refused to talk to Kabila at all. During the summit, the Congolese government put enormous efforts into improving the image of both the Congolese state and the city of Kinshasa. The new National Assembly passed a law establishing a National Human Rights Commission just days before the summit. Hastily finished infrastructural projects and an effort to keep the streets clean were meant to convey the image of a modern city, but the diversion of electricity and water from many boroughs to the conference centre and hotels for the country’s guests during the summit annoyed many residents. A massive military and police presence secured the city, where protests were banned for the duration of the summit, partly by the outright use of force. Beginning in late summer, the ICGLR held a series of extraordinary meetings in Khar- toum (Sudan), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Kampala to discuss the crisis in eastern Congo. In July, the ICGLR agreed to send a neutral force to fight the M23 and FDLR in eastern DRC. The force was to operate under a UN and AU mandate and be charged with eradicat- ing the M23 and the FDLR in the Ruzizi Plain, Beni-Ruwenzori, Masisi-Walikale and Rutshuru. It was said that around 4,000 African troops would be ready within three months as of September. However, disagreements emerged between the UN and the ICGLR countries (especially South Africa) about the exact mandate and institutional arrangements for the troops. Furthermore, only Tanzania had definitely pledged to send troops, with other SADC states more cautious in promising contributions. At the end of the year, no concrete plan had been formulated and no troops dispatched. In September, the ICGLR launched a Joint Verification Mechanism (JVM) comprising three senior military officers from Rwanda and the DRC plus two officers from each of the other nine ICGLR countries, led by the Ugandan Brigadier General Geoffrey Muhesi. The Democratic Republic of the Congo • 249

JVM was tasked with patrolling the Congolese borders with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, shedding light on cross-border contacts of the M23 and preparing the ground for the deployment of a neutral regional force. Throughout the year, MONUSCO launched a number of joint operations with the FARDC in accordance with the UN Human Rights Due Diligence Policy. These included the operation ‘Amani Kamilifu’ against the FDLR in February and operation ‘Radi Strike’ against ADF-NALU in March. Both operations were suspended with an increase in tensions in the eastern provinces due to defections from the army and the subsequent creation of the M23. MONUSCO’s role in the 2011 elections came under special scrutiny in the first half of the year. MONUSCO had kept a low profile during the elections, restricting its role to logistics and rejecting demands by France and some Congolese opposition members to empower the UN to certify the polls, as it had in Côte d’Ivoire. However, MONUSCO had access to the CENI’s main computers and UN officials were involved in the distribution of voting cards and the counting and validating of results from Katanga and Western Kasai, which had later revealed serious irregularities. The UNSC extended the MONUSCO mandate for another year on 27 June, with no change in the numbers deployed, but significantly enhancing the mandate in key points, most importantly strengthening the mission’s Security Sector Reform (SSR) component and urging the government to do its part in SSR. MONUSCO faced further criticism for its failure to prevent the M23 from advancing and finally capturing Goma. MONUSCO’s mandate only allowed it to fight to support the FARDC or protect civilians. However, the M23 was not directly targeting civilians and the Congolese army chose to flee rather than to fight, so Goma fell practically under the noses of a heavily armed but inactive UN force. This sparked outrage in civil society in many parts of North and South Kivu. UN personnel and installations were attacked by angry citizens in South Kivu’s capital, Bukavu, during the M23 occupation of Goma and Sake. In June, the UN Group of Experts released their interim report on the DRC, which focused on Rwandan support for armed groups and sanctioned individuals in the DRC. The report accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 by providing material and financial support, recruiting fighters, offering training, and intervening directly on Congolese soil. Allegations were also made about Rwandan support for six other armed groups in North and South Kivu as well as Orientale province – fighting partly the FDLR, but also the Congolese government. The Group’s final report, released on 15 November, confirmed these charges. In addition, it mentioned the Ugandan government and army as a second main external supporter of M23 activities, partly in cooperation with Rwanda. Uganda was accused of sending troop reinforcements into Congolese territory, and of providing material support, technical assistance and political advice to the rebels. The Rwandan and Ugandan armies were said to have jointly supported the M23 in a series of attacks. The UNSC repeatedly condemned attacks by the M23 and added high-ranking M23 officers to their sanctions list in November. 250 • Central Africa

Relations with Rwanda reached a new low in 2012, due to the allegations of Rwandan involvement in the M23 rebellion. This was particularly in response to the situation in the east, and despite the increasingly promising cooperation between the DRC and Rwanda since the signing of a peace agreement in 2009. As early as May, reports about Rwandan support for the M23 rebels started to make the rounds and were confirmed by the UN Group of Experts reports submitted in late June and mid-October. Rwanda denied the accusations and questioned the Group’s credibility. In particular, the Rwandan government attempted to portray the head of the Group, Steven Hege, as sympathetic to the FDLR. Rwanda nevertheless refused to sign a statement condemning external support for the M23 at a high-level meeting on the situation in the DRC between the presidents of Rwanda and the DRC, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and representatives of the EU and AU in New York in September. The Group of Experts’ report sparked widespread anti-Rwandan sentiment in the DRC and the government constantly blamed Rwanda for the crisis in the east and urged the international community to impose sanctions on Rwandan defence officials. At the same time, it emerged in early September that the Congolese government had allowed covert joint operations by Rwandan Special Forces and the FARDC against the FDLR. The government’s spokesman, Lambert Mendé Omalanga, first denied the presence of Rwandan troops but was contradicted by Defence Minister Ntambo, who confirmed that the troops had been allowed to operate on Congolese soil. In response to the accusations that Rwanda was backing the M23, the Rwandan government withdrew around 280 Special Forces personnel. On 5 November, a FARDC soldier was killed in a clash with the Rwandan army around 13 km north of Goma. The soldier had crossed the border into Rwanda for reasons that remained contested. The incident was the first direct clash between the Con- golese and Rwandan armies since 2001 and further increased tension between the two countries. On 22 October, the Congolese government decided to close the border post in Goma during night time. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni chaired the ICGLR and thus took a lead in the regional peace talks in Kampala. This was particularly controversial as Uganda’s potential involvement in the crisis had caused much debate. Serious questions were raised about what to expect from peace talks headed by a potential party to the conflict. In an attempt to soothe tensions with the Congolese government, Uganda decided on 13 November to close its border post at Bunagana, an important source of supplies and revenue for the M23. Relations with the USA also revolved around the release of the UN Group of Experts’ report on Rwandan involvement in the M23 rebellion. US Representative to the UN Susan Rice had to face serious accusations of backing Rwanda when she tried to persuade the UNSC to withhold important parts of the report from the public. She later explained that she wanted to give Rwanda the chance to read the report and comment on the accusations that it had supported the M23 before the report was released in order to calm the tension between Rwanda and the DRC. The US’ initial reluctance to sever aid to Rwanda caused Democratic Republic of the Congo • 251 a further deterioration in relations with Kinshasa. Following the UN’s decision to add Makenga to its sanctions list in November, the US Treasury Department imposed their own sanctions on the leader of the M23, including a travel ban and the freezing of assets. Relations with Angola remained tense due to an ongoing dispute that had been simmering for five years over their maritime borders and offshore oil. Rumours emerged that Kabila might ask Angola for military support in his efforts against the M23, which were disclaimed by the Angolan government. Congolese government officials had visited the Angolan capital to talk about the situation in the eastern provinces, among other issues; but Angola’s President José Eduardo Dos Santos said he preferred a non-military solution. He did not, however, make an official statement on the situation and Angola did not play a direct role in peace talks with Uganda and Rwanda until the end of the year. For some years, China had established itself as a significant player in the Congo. While European and US donors increasingly put pressure on Kinshasa – at least rhetorically – after the fraudulent 2011 elections, Chinese banks maintained their multibillion-dollar loans in exchange for mining concessions, mostly in Katanga, without making much noise about the government’s lack of legitimacy. China received around 50% of Congolese exports during the year, including more than 90% of Katangan minerals. Around 80% of Katangan mineral processing plants were in the hands of Chinese companies. A UN Group of Experts report of December 2011 had accused Chinese traders of bypassing the tin supply chain initiative (iTSCi) by buying and selling untagged minerals from the Kivu provinces to companies in China and thereby fuelling conflicts in the region. Investigations into the FDLR leadership in exile were on-going during the year. In December, the German police arrested three alleged members of the FDLR and searched 11 apartments of alleged FDLR supporters across Germany. After first dismissing the prosecutor’s application for an arrest warrant against Sylvestre Mudacumura, overall commander of the FDLR and former deputy commander of the Rwandan presidential guard during the 1994 genocide, the ICC finally issued a warrant in July. Mudacumura was accused of nine counts of war crimes committed in the Kivu provinces between 2009 and 2010. In July, the ICC renewed its arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda, adding more charges of war crimes to the already listed recruitment of child soldiers. After the seizure of Goma by M23 rebels in November, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that the ICC was investigating allegations of crimes committed by the M23 and other rebels in the eastern provinces of the DRC since the beginning of the new crisis. In June, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay mentioned five high-ranking M23 officers as among the worst perpetrators of human rights violations in the world, including the head of the movement, Sultani Makenga. In its first-ever sentence,the ICC convicted Thomas Lubanga of recruitment of child soldiers in the Ituri region of Orientale Prov- ince. His 14-year sentence, of which he would serve eight years, having already spent six years in pre-trial custody, was seen by many human rights groups as too lenient. 252 • Central Africa

Socioeconomic Developments

The humanitarian situation in North and South Kivu, as well as Orientale Province and parts of Maniema, seriously deteriorated over the year, due to fighting involving the M23 and its allies, as well as a plethora of other armed groups. The UN Office for the Coordina- tion of Humanitarian Affairs estimated the total numbers of IDPs in the DRC to be 2.7 m, 1 m more than at the end of 2011, with 1.8 m IDPs in North and South Kivu alone. Num- bers of refugees also rose, with around 210,000 Congolese refugees in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi as of December. Lack of transparency in the mining sector continued to be a concern throughout the year. On 3 December, the IMF announced that it would freeze the disbursement of the outstanding $ 225 m of its three-year loan programme after the government failed to publish contracts signed by its copper mining company Gécamines with the British Virgin Islands-listed Straker International Corporation. Gécamines sold 25% of the Belgian Comide copper project, entered into jointly with UK-listed Eurasian National Resources Corporation (ENRC) and Israeli businessman Dan Gertler. The IMF rejected the Congo- lese government’s request for an extension of the loan programme. In December, the government published its third report with regard to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), presenting detailed disaggregated figures on the extractive industry for the year 2010. The first two reports, on 2007 and 2008–2009, had been highly criticised for their late publication and lack of important information. The reports would form the basis of the EITIs decision as to whether the DRC would be labelled an EITI-compliant country in March 2013. So far, the DRC had failed to comply with all 21 EITI requirements, but had made significant efforts to attain international revenue transparency benchmarks. Official tin, tantalum and tungsten exports came to a de facto halt as companies stopped their Congolese purchases in order to comply with Section 1502 of the 2010 US Dodd- Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The law, which had not yet been implemented, required companies listed on the US stock exchange to certify that their imported minerals were “conflict-free” by disclosing their delivery and production chains, and many companies preventively stopped buying minerals from the DRC. How- ever, the impact on conflict was marginal, according to the UN Group of Experts. Smug- gling into Burundi and Rwanda increased and partly financed the M23 rebellion. The production of tin ore decreased, but tantalum and tungsten were found to be resilient to due diligence demands as they were easily smuggled. Furthermore, armed groups and criminal networks within the FARDC simply shifted to gold mines, since gold was so far not tackled by traceability initiatives. The major hubs for transferring gold, mostly to the UAE, continued to be Kampala and Bujumbura, contrasting with a near absence of official gold trade. After the neglect of gold production in the DRC, the Canadian mining company Banro announced in September that its Twangiza gold mine in South Kivu had Democratic Republic of the Congo • 253 finally started commercial production. The start of production of another Banro mine in the same area was expected in mid-2013. In an effort to increase the country’s benefits from the mining sector, Mining Minister Martin Kabwelulu, together with an inter-ministerial commission, started to revise the 10-year-old mining code. The overall aim of the government was to increase the national share in mining from 5% to 35%. Discussed changes would also increase the royalties from privately exploited metals, impose a profit tax to be applied in case of significant increases in metal prices, and shorten the timeframe for mining concessions and exploitation permits. The new code would also require mining companies to invest in community projects in the mining areas. At year’s end, the revision was still being negotiated between the government and mining companies, and consultations with IMF and the World Bank were ongoing. Investor confidence in Congo seriously declined with the elections of 2011. Canada’s First Quantum Minerals (FQM) sold all its Congolese assets to ENRC in January. The reason for pulling out was probably the re-election of Kabila, who had previously cancelled deals with FQM for dubious reasons on several occasions in 2009 and 2010. Foreign investors were also worried about the first law of the new presidential mandate, enacted at the end of December 2011, which removed the right of non-Congolese to own farmland in the DRC. Land titles could from now on only be owned by Congolese nationals or legal entities in which the Congolese state held a majority of shares. Foreign landowners were required to reduce their shares to a maximum of 49% by the end of the year. In the course of the year, however, the government announced that it would revise this clause and declared in July that it also planned to revise the land law, which still dated mainly from colonial times. Confusion in the law on customary land rights had already led to many conflicts over land, particularly in North Kivu. In June, the DRC acceded to the Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires (OHADA), which aims at harmonising economic and trade laws for its 17 (mostly francophone) member states. The DRC’s accession had been discussed since 2004 and announced twice in 2010 without being implemented. The government introduced a valued-added tax (VAT) of 16% in January, replacing several existing taxes. As a consequence, prices rose by 4.4% between January and March as vendors started to charge 16% extra on their products. Fearing food insecurity, the government reacted by declaring a temporary exemption of basic goods from VAT. The increase in tax revenue was much lower than expected due to lack of implementation. Inflation was on a downward trend, but still as high as 10% in December. The weak linkage between the DRC and the euro zone saved it from a slowdown and real GDP growth remained high at an estimated 7.2%, but the elevated growth levels did not lead to poverty reduction for the majority of the population.

Claudia Simons

Equatorial Guinea

This was a year of transition in political terms, between the constitutional reforms in 2011 and the local and legislative elections announced for 2013. The ruling PDGE held its 5th Congress in April and a new government was appointed in May. President Obiang Nguema finished his term as AU chairperson at the beginning of the year and took advantage of Equatorial Guinea’s joint organisation with Gabon of the (football) Africa Cup of Nations to present a positive picture of his regime abroad. At the same time, legal proceedings brought against top officials and some of the president’s relatives (notably his eldest son) in France, the USA and Spain revealed the mismanagement of oil revenues.

Domestic Politics

On 16 February, President Obiang confirmed the new Constitution, which had been approved in a dubious referendum at the end of 2011. A Commission to draft the laws regulating the institutions established by the new Constitution met in Mongomo (Obi- ang’s fief ) from 25 April to 11 May. Only one opposition member participated, the ‘Con- vergencia Para la Democracia Social’ (CPDS) deputy Plácido Micó, and none of his proposals was accepted. 256 • Central Africa

The new or reformed regulations applied to the procedures of the parliament’s upper and lower chambers of Parliament, the ombudsman, the Court of Auditors, the National Council for Economic and Social Development, the Council of the Republic, election and referendum law, the public administration procedures law and the law on complaints and petitions. Except for the last two, the government modified and submitted the texts as bills to Parliament, which approved them in its second session (August-December). Parlia- ment also approved a bill on minor local administrative bodies, which reinforced the centralised character of the regime as it eliminated the elected nature of these institutions (though in fact, their members had always been appointed by the ruling party, ‘Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial’; PDGE). Apart from this intense legislative activity, other relevant domestic political events included the celebration of the PDGE’s 5th party congress, held on 26–28 April, which confirmed its ‘family’ character. Obiang was elected once again as party president, “with no mandate limitation”, and his wife, Constancia Mangué, as national honorary president of the party’s women’s organisation. Unsurprisingly, their eldest son and would-be inheri- tor of the presidency, Teodoro Nguema Obiang (Teodorín), remained president of the party’s youth organisation, but he lost his position as party vice president, probably as a consequence of the legal problems he was facing abroad. On 19 May, a new government was appointed, in line with the new Constitution, which established a more presidential system with the President of the Republic also being the head of government. The government comprised 39 ministers, 16 deputy ministers and 18 secretaries of state. Most of the previous members of the government remained, but with new portfolios under the ‘administrative coordination’ of Prime Minister Vicente Ehate Tome (from the minority Bubi ethnic group) and two deputy prime ministers. Con- trary to the Constitution, which provided for the existence of one vice president, two vice presidents were appointed: former prime minister Milam Tang, and Obiang’s eldest son, Teodorín. Six more close relatives of the president took over important ministries, including his son, Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy Gabriel Mbega Lima, his uncle, Min- ister of National Defence Antonio Mba Nguema, and his nephew, Minister of National Security Nicolás Mbama Nchama. The new ‘transitional’ government was appointed for an eight-month period, charged with implementing constitutional institutions. In June, a large number of directors general (247), many of them children of top officials, were appointed. The CPDS denounced the unbalanced representation of regions and ethnic groups and the lack of gender balance in the new government. Also in June, Obiang announced that local and legislative elections would be called for 2013 (thus postponing till then the local elections due for 2012), and ordered the establishment of a voters’ register. According to the African Press Agency, the registration process resulted in a very low rate of citizen participation due to the general perception that elections would be manipulated and inevitably won by the ruling PDGE. Equatorial Guinea • 257

Repression of political dissidents and other activists continued. The opposition ‘Unión Popular’ (UP) suffered the worst attacks, as the government tried to divide it and recog nised the more compliant faction, after the party had decided to campaign against the Constitution in 2011. The elected party president, Daniel Darío Martínez Ayecaba, was not regarded as a legitimate political interlocutor and only the faction presided over by Alfredo Mitogo Mitogo was invited to participate in the commission for the implementation of the Constitution. Martínez Ayecaba was briefly detained at the airport and interrogated on 4 December, when he was trying to travel to Spain to meet with the exiled opposition, but was conditionally released shortly afterwards. The CPDS Secretary of International Relations and Human Rights Wenceslao Mansogo was detained along with his anaesthetist in February, accused of causing the death of one of his patients. Interna- tional NGOs and even the European Parliament denounced the charges as politically motivated. In May, shortly after their condemnation to three years in prison, the president pardoned both of them. Independent lawyers also suffered arbitrary government interference. Ponciano Mbo- mio, who had defended Mansogo, was suspended by the Bar Association in April, and Fabián Nsue, a well-known human rights advocate, was detained on 22 October when visiting one of his clients in jail. He was released a week later, along with three others who had been arbitrarily detained. Political control was exercised in everyday violation of human rights of both ordinary citizens and foreign (mostly African) workers.

Foreign Affairs

The regional and international context had important implications for the country. Legal proceedings brought against top officials for misappropriation of oil revenues in France, the USA and Spain continued with the disclosure of new evidence and requisitions of goods. Especially relevant were the court cases in Paris and Washington brought against Obiang’s eldest son and Equatorial Guinea’s second vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang. On 13 July, a French Prosecutor even issued an international warrant for the latter’s arrest. Also in July, the CPLP rejected Equatorial Guinea’s application for membership, after popular protests in Portugal and other lusophone countries led the Portuguese government to express its reservations regarding the authoritarian nature of Obiang’s regime. In response to these difficulties, the government of Equatorial Guinea promoted a campaign against France, including street demonstrations in Equatorial Guinea, calling for an international arrest warrant to be issued for the French president of TI, Daniel Lebègue, and bringing proceedings against France at the International Court of Justice. At the same time, while the USA and China continued to receive top priority, Malabo also strengthened its diplomatic activities in Africa. This was helped by the staging, from 21 January to 258 • Central Africa

12 February, of the Africa Cup of Nations (Coupe d’Afrique des Nations, CAN), which was co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and was used by the government to project an image of modernity and change. However, foreign journalists complained about the inadequate infrastructure and the heavy police presence, while NGOs and internal opposition groups took advantage of the event to denounce the waste of resources in a country where poverty was still rampant. Also in January, Obiang ended his term as chairperson of the AU and was replaced by Benin’s Thomas Boni Yayi. At the end of the year, an Equatorial-Guinean, Rafael Tung Nsue Bilogo, was appointed president of the CEMAC’s committee charged with overseeing Central Africa’s financial markets (‘Commission de surveillance du marché financier de l’Afrique centrale’; COSUMAF). These regional positions boosted the government’s oil diplomacy in Africa. Talks about ‘oil deals’ were important aspects of Bilogo’s visit to Zimbabwe and Swaziland at the beginning of the year, though no concrete agreements were reached. In March, Obiang committed himself to contributing $ 2 m to the national budget of São Tomé and Príncipe. Meetings of mixed commissions were held with neighbouring Gabon and Cameroon, both of which had border disputes with Equatorial Guinea. The controversy with Gabon around Mbañe Island advanced towards an agreement, with discussion of the possibility of shared sovereignty between Malabo and Libreville. In addition, the border with Cam- eroon at Kye-osi was reopened after three years of closure. Obiang also participated in regional meetings such as the 15th CEEAC summit, and Equatorial Guinea hosted other regional and international meetings in the luxury resort of Sipopo, near Malabo, such as the 50th anniversary of the BEAC, the 14th Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Producing Countries and the 7th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the ACP. Despite Equatorial Guinea’s rising profile in regional politics, African immigrants continued to suffer human rights violations. Jails and police stations held numerous Afri- can workers, mostly from Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal, for not having a resident permit, which cost CFAfr 500,000 (€ 762). Expulsions under precarious conditions, such as that of 457 Central and West Africans in September, occurred periodically, and the state security forces were known for regular abuses of immigrants (including killings). At various points in the year, the Cameroonian, Malian and Burkinabé authorities expressed their concern about the position of their citizens in Equatorial Guinea. Outside Africa, the United States, from which the main oil operators in the country came, and China, its primary commercial partner, took priority in the government’s attention. In spite of a complaint filed by the US government on 11 June, detailing massive bribery and money laundering charges against his son, President Obiang visited Washing- ton that same month. He was not only invited to a private reception by the Leon Sullivan Foundation, which was lobbying for the dictator, but also agreed, at the State Depart- ment’s request, to attend a meeting with HRW, Global Witness, Open Society and Oxfam America and to listen to their claims about corruption, poverty and human rights viola- Equatorial Guinea • 259 tions in Equatorial Guinea. In July, Obiang, accompanied by his son, Minister of Mines Gabriel Mbega Lima, met with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the Forum on China- Africa Cooperation in Beijing. Despite the cases being heard in Spanish courts, the Span- ish government tried to improve its relations with its former colony through numerous visits by current and former ministers.

Socioeconomic Developments

According to the IMF, real GDP grew by an estimated 5.7% (far below the 21.4% in 2007, and the 7.8% in 2011). The oil and gas sector accounted for more than 78% of GDP, 97% of exports and 89% of government revenue. In spite of the fact that the economy was based on exports, the current account balance was estimated at -7.7%. The IMF Article IV Consultation with Equatorial Guinea was postponed till January 2013, and conclusions of the consultation conducted in 2011 were not published. In 2010, the IMF had identified lack of competition in the retail sector, rising public sector wages and strong domestic demand as the main causes for the fall in growth rates. According to the privately owned Business Monitor International, hydrocarbon production reached 313.000 b/d, with the oil and gas-condensate fields of Aseng and Alen compensating for the decline in oil production from the Zafiro field. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports had increased rapidly since an LNG processing facility was built in 2007, though the construction of the Mbini refinery, planned for 2012, was not finished. The main extractive companies continued to be American, notably Amerada Hess, ExxonMo- bil, Marathon and Noble Energy, which always worked in partnership with other foreign private companies and the state-owned GEPetrol and Sonagas. Public expenditure in 2011 and 2012 grew enormously due to the undertaking of prestige public projects, especially the co-hosting of the CAN final and the construction of a new luxury resort in Bata. In contrast, education and health continued to be underfunded. The CAN also contributed to price rises for basic goods: food continued to be mainly imported from neighbouring countries, and subsistence or export agriculture did not seem to recover. The construction sector continued to attract foreign investors from Europe, the Arab world, China and other Asian countries, which entered into joint ventures with local partners associated with members of the president’s family. Small local entrepreneurs without such connections were unable to benefit. With these priorities, the government’s commitment to economic and human development was very questionable, despite formal programmes such as the National Economic Development Plan (Horizon 2020) launched in 2007, whose objective was to turn the country into an emerging economy by 2020. Personal ambitions for quick enrichment through access to public funds overcame macroeconomic considerations, which took Equatorial Guinea to the bottom of the TI corruption perception index, ranking 163rd out of 176 countries. Moreover, the well-being of the majority of the population, and the 260 • Central Africa consequent growth of political awareness and independent thinking, was clearly against the political elite’s interest in remaining in power as long as possible. The country’s failure to diversify the economy and lower its reliance on the exploitation of oil and gas was not a new phenomenon but the result of government policies since the onset of the oil boom in the 1990s. The country’s dismal poverty record, with almost 80% of the population living below the poverty line, and a very poor level of social services, was due to one-sided decisions and ill-conceived government policies. Whereas per capita GDP (in current US $) in 2012 stood at $ 20,200, i.e. over eight times higher than in 2000, and the highest in Africa, health indicators were extremely poor when compared with countries with lower per capita income. Average life expectancy had increased, from 49 years in 2000 to just over 51.4 in 2012, but less than 50% of the population had access to drinkable water. According to the 2012 annual Save the Children report, Equatorial Guinea was the 12th worst place in the world to be a mother, and the fourth worst for child malnutrition. The UNDP’s Human Development Index presented Equatorial Guinea, once again, as the country with the biggest gap (–97) between its gross national per capita income ranking and its HDI ranking (136th of 187 countries).

Alicia Campos Gabon

President Ali Bongo continued to consolidate his personal rule, reshuffling the cabinet, running parallel agencies, and cutting major international deals with foreign corporations. Singapore’s Olam increased its direct investments in palm oil plantations and timber processing, part of Bongo’s effort to diversify Gabon’s economy away from oil-dependency and towards what he calls ‘Gabon Emergent’.

Domestic Politics

On 24 January, the leaders of 12 opposition parties staged a rally in Libreville to protest against the results of the legislative elections of 17 December 2011. Speaking on behalf of all the opposition parties present, Jules-Aristide Bourdes Ogouliguende, president of the ‘Congrès Pour la Démocratie et la Justice’ (CDJ), announced that 45 formal objections had been raised to the electoral victory of the ruling ‘Parti Démocratique Gabonais’ (PDG). The opposition parties had boycotted the legislative elections because the government had failed to provide biometric voter cards as it had promised. The ruling PDG announced that it (and its allies) had won 114 out of the total 120 seats in the National Assembly, but it was clear to observers that this was because they had run largely unopposed. The 262 • Central Africa

Constitutional Court confirmed the landslide victory on 7 February, awarding the PDG 108 seats, the pro-PDG parties six seats, and opposition parties only two seats, with the remaining four districts scheduled for new ballots. So, by the opening of the year, the PDG and its allies held 118, or 98.3%, of the 120 seats. On 13 February, President Ali Bongo asked Prime Minister Paul Biyoghé Mba to resign and then named his discrete agricultural minister, Raymond Ndong Sima, to take his place on 28 February. All Gabonese prime ministers have come not only from the Fang (at 42%, the largest ethnic group in the country) but more specifically from the Estuaire region, around the capital of Libreville. The nomination of Sima, a Fang from Oyem, in the Nord region, the “hotbed” of Fang opposition to the Bongo regime, therefore represented a novelty. But it appeared that Ali Bongo admired the young, 57–year-old economist who, like the Gabonese president himself, had done his studies in Paris, and who, also like the president, had had no real political career to speak of before being elected as a deputy from Kyé (Woleu-Ntem) in December 2011. As a manager, Sima symbolised the Bongo regime’s efforts to promote a pro-business climate The 28 February cabinet reshuffle retained around one-half of the ministers from the previous government, but only four minister kept their portfolios: Jean-François Ndongou (Interior), Ida Réteno Assonouet (Justice), Séraphin Moundounga (Education, Youth and Sport), and Pacôme Ruffin Ondzounga (Defence). The real winner in the cabinet reshuffle was Magloire Ngambia, Ali Bongo’s new “super minister” for investment, transport, public works, housing, tourism and territorial planning. These are six of the most strategic portfolios in Bongo’s ‘Gabon Emergent’ development strategy, so Ngambia – who like Bongo is an ethnic Téké – now presided over a large part of the new major investments coming into the country from strategic partners such as Singapore’s Olam. This year was a turning point in the dynastic regime of the Bongo family, for Ali Bongo dismissed the last of the so-called ‘barons’ left over from his father Omar Bongo’s regime. Replaced were Paul Toungui (ex-Foreign Affairs), Réné Ndémezo Obiang (ex-Youth and Sport) and even Alexandre Barro Chambrier (ex-Mines). It was reported that Bongo was tired of leadership disputes between these old-timers, quarrels that he thought had undermined the twilight years of his father’s 42-year rule, and it was suggested that he simply did not want to hear any more of their bickering. On 5 June, Marc Ona Essangui, a political activist who ran the environmental non-governmental organisation, Brainforest, criticised Bongo’s centralisation of power in a much-publicised interview with the ‘Financial Times’. According to Ona, Bongo had reduced the size of his cabinet significantly, com- bining ministries to centralise power. The president had also set up many governmental agencies that were answerable only to him, not to the cabinet. These parallel agencies were presented as a problem: not controllable by the government and having big budgets. On 3 August, two opposition newspapers were censored when the regulatory agency, the ‘Conseil National de la Communication’ (CNC), suspended their rights to publish for six months. ‘Ezombolo’ had published a satire of Bongo which portrayed him as a fat Gabon • 263 cartoon caricature resembling the tyre-company logo ‘Michelin Man’. ‘La Une’, for its part, described the Gabonese AU chairman, Jean Ping, as a “wet dishcloth”. According to the CNC, these two opposition dailies had “disrespected the institutions of the republic and the people who represent them”. But CNC censorship was another example of the lack of press freedom that undermined the country’s democracy. On 8 September, Gabon’s fragmented opposition made a united call for a sovereign national conference, hoping this might produce democratic political change. Gaston May- ila, head of the ‘Union pour la Nouvelle République’, chaired this forum in the town of Mouila, 450 km south of Libreville, which brought together 20 opposition parties under the aegis of a new umbrella party, the ‘Union des Forces pour le Changement’. They signed a joint statement about the need to address the worsening moral, political, economic, institutional, social and cultural crises. But on 29 October, more radical elements in the other parties decided to expel Mayila from the new group because of his willingness to cooperate with the ruling PDG. On 26 November, only 11 parties were left in the grouping, and their leaders signed a charter officially launching a differently denominated organism, the ‘Union des Forces du Changement’. On 10 December, Jules Aristide Bourdes Ogouliguendé was sworn in as the new rotating president at signing ceremonies held in his CDJ party headquarters in Libreville.

Foreign Affairs

A major regional event was Gabon’s holding of the African Nations Cup (CAN) football tournament, on 21 January–12 February, which was jointly hosted with Equatorial Guinea. The fact that these two neighbouring countries were able to work together on the CAN was a sign of the thawing of frozen relations. Equatoguinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema had been no friend of the Bongo regime and was reported to have supported Ali Bongo’s opponent, André Mba Obame, as well as civil society activist Marc Ona Essangui (who comes from the same Essangui clan of the Fang as the Equatoguinean president). These neighbouring countries had been locked in a decades-long dispute over the oil-rich Mbanie and Cocotiers islands. Gabon’s regional image was also improved by the strong performance of its national team, the Panthers, who surprised everyone by making it to the quarter-finals. On 30 January, Jean Ping made a failed bid for re-election as president of the AU Commission against South Africa’s former foreign minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The AU summit in Addis Ababa failed to produce a two-thirds majority for either candidate after three successive ballots, dividing Francophones and Anglophones along a lin- guistic fault line. Ping then presented himself for a fourth ballot alone, as foreseen in the AU statutes, and Dlamini-Zuma had to withdraw. But Ping’s adversaries were not deterred and strategically voted blank, which resulted in a failure to produce a sufficient majority, so Ping was not re-elected. Instead, it was decided that elections would be postponed until 264 • Central Africa the next AU summit. On 11 May, the Gabonese government announced its “unconditional support” for Ping. Gabonese Foreign Minister Emmanuel Issozet Ngondet praised Ping for his work as chairman, ignoring his failure to provide strong AU leadership during the Ivorian and Libyan crises, which were understood to be the critical dividing lines. A joint South African/Gabonese commission was arranged, which met in Cotonou, Benin, on 14 May, to try to overcome the deadlock, but without success. On 15 October at the AU summit in Addis Ababa, Dlamini-Zuma was chosen as the first female head of the AU Commission. Ping’s defeat in the third round of voting undermined Gabon’s efforts to strengthen its position as a regional power-broker and key diplomatic player on the continent. Relations with France worsened on 6 May after French presidential elections produced a victory for the socialist François Hollande, who had promised during his campaign that he would end neo-colonial relations with former colonies. He initially sent clear signs that this promise would be respected when he got rid of the old Gaullist cooperation ministry, and replaced it with the appointment of a junior minister for development, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also appointed William Bourdon, a famous public interest lawyer who had been prosecuting the “ill-gotten goods” affair against the Bongo family, as his presidential human rights advisor. His nomination of Laurent Fabius as foreign minister also sent a clear message that he intended to change French-African relations. Libreville’s fears were assuaged on 5 July, when Bongo was invited – as the first African head of state to meet with Hollande – to the Elysée presidential palace in Paris. Gabon continued to make overtures to East Asian powers, seeking to diversify its dependency away from France. On 29 March, Bongo made his first official state visit to Australia, visiting BHP Billiton mining operations, and focusing on the mining sector. He promised in a speech that his country was making substantial reforms, and told Australian investors in Perth that they would be welcomed “with open arms” by Gabon. Australian mining conglomerate BHP Billiton was just then on the verge of signing two major agreements in the Gabonese manganese and iron sectors. On 28 October, Bongo travelled to Seoul to meet with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to discuss economic cooperation, and a new energy and infrastructure deal was signed with Samsung. On 22 April, the secretary-general of the PDG, Faustin Boukoubi, led a delegation of PDG party officials to Beijing to meet with Wang Gang, a high-ranking member of the Chinese Com- munist Party’s politbureau. Bongo also travelled to London on 17 May to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and to share ideas on how to pursue forestry and mining without sacrificing the environment, as well as to promote the upcoming New York Forum to be held in Libre- ville on 8–10 June. This attracted movie stars such as Robert de Niro, and Nobel laureates such as Muhammad Yunus, who addressed some 600 delegates. Heads of state and government ministers, including Benin’s President (and AU rotating chairman) Thomas Yayi Boni, as well as shadier figures, such as South African arms dealer Ivor Ichikowitz, Gabon • 265 participated in its panels. On 8 June, civil society activists tried to stage a ‘Counter Forum’. The wheelchair-bound activist, Marc Ona, and 19 other participants, including activist Gregory Ngbwa Mintsa, were arrested by the Gabonese authorities, who were determined not to let these protestors undermine the € 4 m spectacle. Journalists who inquired into the activists’ arrests were given only evasive answers, but Ona was eventually released after being held for several hours in detention. Bongo flew to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to participate in the UN Sustainable Development Summit on 20–22 June, where he announced that Gabon had created a new space agency called ‘Agence Gabonaise d’Etude et d’Observation Spatiale’, which he explained would build the first station for the treatment of satellite images in the region, “and which will have as its role the study of our forested regions and allow for better control of forestry issues”. On 12 October, in an angry outburst against the French because of the continuation of a French criminal investigation into the Bongo family’s “ill-gotten goods”, Bongo refused to attend the 14th Francophonie Summit in Kinshasa and, as it opened, his government announced that Gabon was going to change its official language from French to English (as Rwanda had done in 2009). Bongo’s official visit to the Elysée Palace had apparently not produced the intended effect (stopping the investigation) and French judges continued to gather evidence for what promised to be a spectacular trial of grand corruption by the ruling family of Gabon in early 2013.

Socioeconomic Developments

Real GDP growth was estimated to have risen by 3.2%, with exports (fob) at $ 10.8 bn and imports (fob) at $ 3.6 bn. Nominal GDP was $ 14.34 bn, with a high per capita income reported (in purchasing power parity dollars) at $ 17,045. High oil prices contributed to this strong performance but, according to the IMF, Gabon’s non-oil sectors – agriculture (+3.1%), industry (+3.0%), and services (+3.5%) – all experienced growth over the year. External debt stood at $ 2.8 bn, with the government incurring more debt to finance its major developmental projects under Bongo’s ‘Gabon Emergent’ strategy. Gabon’s oil-dependent economy produced around 245,000 b/d in 2012, according to the BP statistical review of world energy. On 20 September, the budget ministry announced that the 2012 government budget would increase by 12% to $ 5.6 bn on the back of a 1.8% rise in oil production and high oil prices, which increased oil revenues by 11.3%. Oil’s contribution to government revenue increased from 55.8% to 58.1%, the ministry said. But without new finds, oil production in Gabon was set to peak in 2012, and would continue to decline thereafter. Total Gabon was still the premier operator in the Gabonese oil sector. Its rival, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), signed contracts with Royal Dutch Shell to explore for oil and gas off the coast of Gabon. CNOOC announced its intention to acquire 266 • Central Africa a 25% stake in a pair of offshore exploration blocks (BC9 and BCD10) and to pay Shell a quarter of what that company had spent on exploration in those two areas, as well as for future exploration. Russian IFD Kapital general director, Olga Plaksina, announced on 22 January that her group would drill in Vanco’s ‘Anton Marin’ offshore concession, located on the border of the territorial waters of neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville. On 25 April, a memorandum of understanding was signed with South Korea’s Samsung to build a new refinery at Port-Gentil with a capacity of 50,000 b/d. The antiquated SOGARA refinery currently processed 21,000 b/d and, despite numerous promises over the years, the French had not upgraded it. So now the South Koreans were going to invest $ 1 bn in an entirely new refinery by 2016. Only one-half of the refined products (gasoline) would be reserved for the small local market, with the rest (heavy fuel oil) being sent to Europe. This would be Samsung’s first major engineering project in sub-Saharan Africa. While oil was the number-one source of government revenue, forestry remained the number one employer in the economy. On 18 January, the Development Bank for Central African States announced that it was going to lend $ 15.8 m to help finance the construction of a timber-processing plant at Owenda. In order to use its extensive forests in other ways than forestry, the Gabonese government had embarked on a major palm oil plantation programme. Singapore’s Olam had invested € 200 m in the project. On 5 September, however, Greenpeace published a report criticising major Olam palm oil projects in Africa, which it said “risk leading to deforestation on a grand scale, to climate change, to embezzlement and to a loss of arable land that could be cultivated by village communities”. It cited Olam’s € 200 m palm oil project in Gabon as a notable example. The non-oil minerals sector remained dominated by manganese production. Gabon planned to become the world’s largest producer of manganese by the next decade, but this depended on its being able to develop its reserves. On 7 March, the Gabonese government announced an agreement with Australia’s BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, to launch a major manganese project at a site near Franceville. BHP Billiton estimated the site could produce 300,000 tons per year over its 50-year lifespan. Gabon was also working on bringing into production the world’s largest untapped iron ore reserve at Belinga. Over the past decade an international drama had played out in which the Brazil- ians and Chinese presented rival projects to Gabon, with China Machinery and Engineer- ing Corporation (CMEC) winning the battle in 2009. On 3 February, however, after many years of delay, CMEC lost its rights to the Belinga iron ore concession. The Gabonese authorities had seized its assets in December 2011, after having originally seized those same rights from the Brazilian iron ore giant Bale. Protests and public sector strikes continued to plague the country. Between 18 Febru- ary and 1 March, Gabonese customs officers went on strike over pay and working conditions, paralysing the ports of Owendo (near the capital Libreville) and Port-Gentil (the oil capital). The ‘Syndicat National des Agents des Douanes’ action caused significant finan- Gabon • 267 cial losses for Gabonese businesses, as several hundred containers were stranded in the ports without proper documentation from customs officers. Then, angry students at Omar Bongo University in Libreville held protests on 12 March over the failure of the government to pay scholarships to those over 27 years of age, and called for a re-opening of the student union building. Student protestors clashed with police forces on the campus, throwing rocks at police, who responded with tear gas. Three students were reported injured. On 27 June, Bongo personally lit a bonfire of 4,800 kg of ivory in a square in downtown Libreville, with a central pillar made up of 1,293 tusks, buried on top of a pile of 17,730 sculpted pieces of ivory art. The bonfire had an estimated market value of € 7.6 m, and represented some 850 elephants killed, according to a spokesman from the World Wildlife Fund who participated in the ceremony. The event came just a few days after a report announced that illegal poaching had reached record proportions, with some 24.3 tons of ivory being intercepted in 2011. Having presented himself as an environmental leader, Bongo wanted to send a strong message that poaching would not be tolerated in “Green Gabon”, a slogan for the environmental pillar of his development strategy.

Douglas A. Yates

São Tomé and Príncipe

At the end of the year, the country was hit by another political crisis. Prime Minister Tro- voada (‘Acção Democrática Independente’ – ADI) was dismissed after a motion of censure in parliament and the lawyer Gabriel Costa assumed the office of prime minister of a coalition government constituted by the ‘Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Prínc- ipe/Partido Social Democrata (MLSTP/PSD), ‘Partido de Convergência Democrática’ (PCD) and ‘Movimento Democrático Força da Mudança’ (MDFM). Both the president and the prime minister strengthened diplomatic ties by making numerous trips abroad in order to attract investments. The withdrawal of the Chinese Sinopec and other investors from the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Nigeria marked another setback for the archipelago’s oil hopes.

Domestic Politics

On 9 June, following months of internal rivalry, MLSTP/PSD leader Aurélio Martins was replaced by Jorge Amado, hitherto ambassador in Taipei, who was elected by acclamation during an extraordinary party congress. In addition, the delegates elected the five vice presidents Osvaldo Vaz, Américo Barros, António Barros, Ana Rita and Alcino Pinto, while Fernando Maquengo was re-elected as the party’s secretary-general. After the 270 • Central Africa

MLSTP/PSD had settled its internal problems, the party became increasingly critical of the Trovoada government. Already in May, the MDFM of former president Menezes (2001–11), which had initially supported the ADI minority government (26 deputies), joined the opposition, made up of the MLSTP/PSD and PCD, by publicly accusing the government of maladministration. On 18 July, the three opposition parties, MLSTP/PSD, PCD and MDFM, signed an inter-party dialogue agreement to strengthen political cooperation. The ADI secretary-general, Levy Nazaré, described this agreement as part of a project to dismiss the government. On 29 July, the president of the National Assembly, Evaristo Carvalho (ADI) dismissed the vote on a motion of censure submitted by the MLSTP/PSD on procedural grounds. On 8 October, Américo Barros, one of the vice presidents of the MLSTP/PSD, publicly accused Prime Minister Trovoada of lack of transparency in government agreements. In turn, Trovoada fiercely rejected the accusations and sued Barros and his party for defamation. On 19 October, the three opposition parties organised a demonstration attended by 5,000 people, who accused the government of lack of transparency in government dealings and the harassment of political opponents. On 21 November, 14 deputies from the three opposition parties presented another motion of censure against Trovoada, whom they accused of irregularities, mismanagement and unfulfilled promises of major foreign investments. The government alleged that the action would lead to instability and was resorting to undemocratic means of gaining power. On 26 November, Carvalho resigned as speaker of parliament in an attempt to block voting on the motion. The opposition deputies then signed a document calling on parliamentarians to elect a new speaker and vote on the motion of censure. The ADI announced a boycott of parliament, arguing that only the speaker was entitled to call plenary sessions. On 28 November, the 29 opposition deputies of the MLSTP/PSD (21), PCD (7) and MDFM (1) elected Alcino Pinto (MLSTP/PSD) as the new speaker of parliament, and then approved a motion of censure against Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada. The ADI immediately declared that it considered the vote to be illegal and continued to boycott parliament. The next day several thousand people demonstrated in the city in support of Trovoada and called for early elections. This had no immediate effect. On 4 December, President Manuel Pinto da Costa formally dismissed Trovoada and asked the ADI to put forward another prime minister. Fol- lowing Trovoada’s refusal to comply, on 10 December, Pinto da Costa appointed the lawyer Gabriel Costa, hitherto president of the country’s bar association, as new prime minister. Two days later, Costa was sworn in as head of a coalition government constituted by the MLSTP/PSD, PCD and MDFM. In his inaugural speech, Costa announced that he would strengthen bilateral ties with Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Congo (Braz- zaville). The appointment of Costa, who had been prime minister of a government of national unity from March to October 2002, came as a surprise, as he did not belong to any of the three coalition parties. Only two of the ten members of his executive had been gov- São Tomé and Príncipe • 271 ernment ministers before. The ADI immediately challenged the legitimacy of the Costa government, arguing that he had not been elected at the polls, while Trovoada asserted that he was the victim of a parliamentary coup d’état. Costa headed the country’s seventeenth government since the first multiparty elections in 1991, attesting to considerable institutional instability. On 26 December, the Constitutional Court rejected an action brought by the ADI by deciding that the motion of censure had been legal.

Foreign Affairs

President Pinto da Costa’s diplomatic efforts focussed on neighbouring countries. On 30 January, he arrived for an official two-day visit in Luanda (Angola). On the second day of his visit, he was received by António Paulo Kassoma, the president of the National Assembly. In his speech during a special parliamentary session, Pinto da Costa praised Angola’s longstanding friendship and cooperation with São Tomé and Príncipe and advocated reform of the composition of the UNSC. On the same day, Angola’s President Eduardo dos Santos held a private meeting with Pinto da Costa. On June 7, during a private visit by Pinto da Costa to Luanda seeking Angolan support for his country, Angolan Foreign Minister Georges Chicoti promised São Tomé financial aid worth $ 10 m, earmarked for agriculture and infrastructure projects. On 6–7 March, Pinto da Costa visited neighbouring Equatorial Guinea. During a dinner with President Teodore Obiang in Bata, he recalled that the MLSTP was founded in Equa- torial Guinea’s capital Malabo (then Santa Isabel) in 1972. He advocated the free movement of goods and people in the Gulf of Guinea and promised his country’s support for Obiang’s application for full membership of the CPLP. In return Obiang promised São Tomé a grant of $ 2 m to help finance the national budget. On 24 May, Pinto da Costa travelled for an official two-day visit toSouth Africa. Dur- ing his meeting with President Jacob Zuma, the Sãotomean president stressed his country’s interest in South African investment. São Tomé also supported the election of the South African politician Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as chairperson of the AU Commis- sion. On 4 October, Pinto da Costa visited Congo, where he was received by President Denis Sassou-Ngessou. On 20 July, Pinto da Costa participated in the 9th biannual summit of heads of state and government of the CPLP in Maputo (Mozambique). Shortly afterwards, on 24 July, he arrived in Portugal for an official two-day visit and was received by President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and Asunção Esteves, the president of the Assembly of the Republic. In a quest for finance and investments, Prime Minister Trovoada principally targeted emerging economies. On 15 March, he embarked on a ten-day tour of Dubai, Tunisia, Morocco and Nigeria. On his return, he claimed that a private company from the UAE was interested in constructing in São Tomé Africa’s third largest shopping mall, comprising 272 • Central Africa

90 shops, with a capacity to serve the entire Central African sub-region. On 12 May, Tro- voada left for a 20-day tour of Turkey, Russia, Taiwan, Singapore, East-Timor and Portu- gal. The principal objective of these visits was again to attract foreign investment. In Taipei, Trovoada participated in the inauguration of the newly elected President Ma Ying- jeou. On 27 June, on his return from a visit to Brazil, Trovoada declared that he had presented the country as a regional service hub to various potential investors. On 22 May, the commander of the Stuttgart-based US Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Carter F. Ham, paid an official visit to São Tomé. Ham, who was received by President Pinto da Costa, considered the archipelago’s strategic position to be important for security in the Gulf of Guinea region. However, the US general denied persistent reports of the establishment a US navy base in the archipelago. On 24 September, Tro- voada was the first African head of government to visit the AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart (Germany). He stressed his government’s availability to cooperate with the United States in ensuring regional security in the Gulf of Guinea.

Socioeconomic Developments

On 8 February, São Tomé and Príncipe become the sixth country in the Central African sub-region to launch the AU’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Pro- gramme, financed by the World Bank. One of the programme goals was to increase agricultural production by 5% per annum by allocating 10% of the national budget each year to agriculture. On 7 March, the ‘Companhia Santomense das Telecomunicações’ (CST) formally introduced G3 mobile telecommunications services in the archipelago, including video calls and data transmission. On 4 October, President Pinto da Costa inaugurated the ACE (African Coast to Europe) optical fibre submarine cable station in São Gabriel, which, according to the CST, would increase internet speed one-hundredfold. In São Tomé, the local operator of the ACE submarine communications cable was STP-Cabo, a company jointly owned by CST (74.5%) and the state (25.5%). The country invested $ 25 m in the submarine cable, of which CST contributed $ 18.6 m and the government $ 6.4 m (actually financed by the World Bank). In November, the government launched a public tender for a second telecoms operator, including the 2G and 3G cellular and landline networks and the government’s 25.5% stake in STP-Cabo. The government expected that, despite the tiny domestic market, the share in STP-Cabo and the additional technical opportunities provided by the ACE connection might attract at least a few small telecom operators. Following renegotiations, on 15 March, HBD (Here Be Dragons), an investment company owned by the South African IT millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, signed a 15-year investment agreement with the central government worth € 70 m for the development of an integrated eco-tourism project, including sustainable agriculture and infrastructure improvement in Príncipe. HBD and Príncipe’s regional government had already signed São Tomé and Príncipe • 273 the agreement in 2011. The concessions obtained by HBD in Príncipe included the large Sundy estate, the Paciência estate, and the Praia Uva, Praia Macaco and Praia Boi beaches. Under the agreement, HBD was obliged to recruit at least 90% of the workforce locally. In May, HBD acquired the Omali Lodge Luxury Hotel (formerly Marlin Beach Hotel) in São Tomé from the Dutch investor Rombout Swanborn. Due to legal quarrels between the Houston-based Nigerian company ERHC and the Iranian consortium made up of International Commerce and Communications and Oil Exploration Consortium (OEC), which had been a 75%-stakeholder and operator of Block 5 in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Nigeria since early 2005, the production sharing contract for this block was only signed in February. The dispute arose because, formally, São Tomé’s fictitious state-owned oil company Petrogás, which had taken over ERHC’s 15% working interests in this block, had to pay 15% of the signature bonus of $ 15 m, while, according to the JDZ Treaty, São Tomé and Príncipe was entitled to receive 40% of the bonus. Following several consecutive extensions, the exploration phase for Blocks 2, 3 and 4 of the JDZ was formally ended on 15 March. The analysis of the exploration wells drilled in late 2009 had failed to prove the existence of commercially viable oil in the blocks. Subsequently, the Chinese Sinopec, its subsidiary Addax, Equator Exploration and other stakeholders decided to abandon the JDZ. ERHC was the only company that maintained its interests in the three blocks. Exploratory drilling in JDZ Block 1 was carried out from 14 March to 8 July by the French company, Total, which had taken over Chevron’s 45.9% stake in Block 1 in 2010 and acquired a 2.4% share from Sasol in 2011. Total announced that it would not reveal the results of the drilling before September 2013. On 18 April, the government and Equator Exploration signed a 28-year production sharing contract for Block 5 of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which included the payment of a signature bonus of $ 2m. Under the agreement, Equator was expected to invest $ 200 m in the first eight contract years in seismic studies and exploration in the block. On 10 May, the government re-applied for Extractive Industries Transparency Ini- tiative (EITI) candidate status, which the country had lost in 2010, since it had not met the minimum requirements for candidate countries. On 26 October, the EITI board approved the application. To achieve EITI compliant status, São Tomé would have to disclose payments from its oil sector and meet all further requirements in the EITI Standard within 2.5 years. On 4 October, a new fish processing plant was opened in Neves, financed by Spain to the tune of € 1.5 m. The plant, with a freezing capacity of 6,000 tons of fish per day, was expected to help end the EU embargo on fish imports from the archipelago imposed in 2000 because its hygiene control did not meet EU requirements for fish-exporting countries. 274 • Central Africa

On 15 November, Trovoada submitted a 2013 budget proposal of $ 142 m, which was $ 11 m below the previous budget. As in previous years, 80% of the budget depended on foreign donor finance. The budget included tax revenue of only about Db 883 bn (ca. € 36 m), although this represented an increase of 16.6% compared with revised tax income of Db 578 bn (ca. € 23.6 m) for 2012. The government justified the increase on the basis of expectations of a growth in economic activity in 2013. The 2012 budget had originally predicted total tax revenue of Db 823 bn (ca. € 33.6 m), but this proved to be too optimistic given the slow-down in the economy. The budget gave priority to public works, which received 40% of the amount allocated to public expenditure. The productive sector accounted for 18% of the budget, and health and education for 10% each. Expected real GDP growth in 2013 was 5%, less than an earlier forecast of 5.5%–6.0%. Annual average inflation was predicted at 10%, while the budget deficit was estimated at 3.7% of GDP. Due to the dismissal of the Trovoada executive, the budget had not been voted on by year’s end. Despite a rising output of cocoa produced by small famers, overall cocoa exports increased only slightly from 2,218 tons in 2011 to 2,229 tons, worth $ 5.1 m, representing 92% of annual agricultural exports. According to IMF estimates, annual income from cocoa exports represented 1.7% of GDP, considerably less than tourism, which accounted for 6.7% of GDP.

Gerhard Seibert VI. Eastern Africa

A new guarded optimism for the slow resurrection of relatively normal conditions in Soma- lia, after two decades of general turmoil and the absence of any modern state structures, began to emerge, although threats by radical Islamist groups were by no means yet fully eliminated. New political authorities were installed in Mogadishu and gained international recognition, after Somalia had long been a stark example of a totally failed state. There was also a significant decline in Somali piracy activities in the Indian Ocean. The sudden death of Ethiopia’s politically dominant prime minister, Meles Zenawi, did not cause any noticeable succession conflicts and was followed by an unexpectedly orderly transition. South Sudan and Sudan appeared for several months to be almost on the brink of war over their dispute about fair transmission procedures for South Sudan’s oil production, which 276 • Eastern Africa was completely closed down in response to the impasse. With outside mediation a new agreement was eventually arrived at and relations improved somewhat, but oil production in South Sudan was not resumed in 2012. The confrontation had serious negative repercussions on economic and social conditions in both countries. Rwanda and Uganda once again became entangled in another new intensification of the on-going conflicts in the eastern DRC. A joint sub-regional solution was pursued in the context of the ICGLR, but not concluded before the year’s end. The year saw practically no changes in the prevailing political situations in the countries of the sub-region. No national elections were held during the year, with the single exception of Somalia where a newly constituted parliament, composed of nominated representatives of traditional clan elders, elected a new president, who subsequently installed a new government. Local elections in Djibouti brought an unexpected strengthening of opposition voices, but no serious challenge for the ruling regime. The sub-region’s macroeconomic performance was again quite mixed and, considering the persistent global financial and economic crisis conditions, moderately satisfactory, although in most cases GDP growth was somewhat lower than in the preceding year. In contrast to the exceptional drought conditions in most of the Horn of Africa in 2011, climatic conditions were by and large relatively normal throughout the sub-region and brought regular harvests, avoiding the necessity for any exceptional external food aid. Eri- trea, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Tanzania were the best economic performers, with GDP growth rates of around 7%, while most other countries only achieved quite moderate growth rates in the range of between 2.5% and 4.8%. Sudan and South Sudan were complete exceptions to this due to the effects of their problems with oil production: while Sudan’s GDP contracted by 4.4%, South Sudan’s complete shut-down of its oil industry led to a disastrous GDP contraction of over 50%. Most countries were struggling with noticeably higher than usual inflation rates, which fuelled growing popular dissent almost everywhere. The most extreme cases were again Sudan and South Sudan, with inflation rates of 35% and 45%, respectively. No particularly noteworthy developments were recorded with respect to the various sub- regional organisations. South Sudan’s and Somalia’s membership applications to the EAC were deferred, while the EAC made further routine progress in many integration areas and was widely regarded as the most advanced regional economic community in Africa. Not much visible progress was made concerning the plans for an extensive envisaged tripartite FTA (made up of COMESA, EAC and SADC). The long-overdue conclusion of a full EPA between the EU and the EAC was also again deferred. Comoros joined the IOR-ARC as its 20th member. No further progress was made on reaching an expected new agreement on the sharing of the water resources of the River Nile between upstream and downstream riparian states. Despite some recent optimism in this regard, the conclusion and signing of a new treaty was again resisted by Egypt and Sudan. Eastern Africa • 277

Political Developments

Both Sudan and South Sudan experienced a very difficult year, largely as a result of their hostile confrontation in the aftermath of their separation and South Sudan gaining its independence in July 2011. The dispute over mutually agreeable transmission fees for the transport of the South’s oil via Sudanese pipelines to Port Sudan on the Red Sea escalated to such an extent that the Juba government completely shut down its oil production for most of the year, thereby depriving both countries of substantial parts of normally expected crucial revenue. This had strongly felt negative repercussions on the economic and social well-being of the vast majority of the population in both countries, but the governments nonetheless managed to contain the rising social unrest and to remain on top of any opposition elements. No permanent peace solution was yet in sight for Sudan’s crisis-ridden Dar- fur region after almost a decade of an extremely complex interplay of politically-motivated rebel activities, government reprisals and violent actions by disparate criminal groups. The level of outright fighting remained relatively low, but there was a general lack of security. In other localised conflicts in areas near to the border with South Sudan in Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces, local population groups had been rebelling against Khartoum since 2011. Sudanese President al-Bashir continued to be subject to an ICC arrest warrant on charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur, but again received signs of solidarity from many African and Arab governments. In South Sudan, President Salva Kiir and his former liberation movement continued to control all political institutions, but there was clear evidence of severe internal disagreements and of sharp rivalries along ethnic and regional lines. Traditional cattle raids between ethnic groups repeatedly led to casualties and to thousands of people becoming IDPs. No change was again discernible with respect to the domestic political situation in Eritrea. The authoritarian regime remained in undisputed control, continued with its harsh repression of all potentially dissenting voices and showed no sign of permitting even limited public debate on political issues. A substantial refugee exodus from Eritrea continued unabated, but various exiled opposition groups still failed to make any noticeable impact on the internal situation. The political situation in Ethiopia was exposed to an unforeseen drama by the sudden death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who had for over two decades been the single dominant figure of the ruling authoritarian regime. Under his leadership, a de facto one-party state with absolute control over the parliament and the regional assemblies had become entrenched. In the prevailing repressive political climate, Meles and his ruling party saw no need for explicit transparency, open political discourse or a conciliatory approach towards the weak opposition. Contrary to many adverse predictions, the closed system quickly managed to arrange an outwardly smooth leadership transition by installing Meles’ deputy, Hailemariam Desalegn, as the new prime minister. Initially, this did not lead to any visible changes in the political climate and the government’s general development strategy. 278 • Eastern Africa

Communal elections in Djibouti brought an unexpected shake-up for the complacent authoritarian regime of President Guelleh and his long-ruling party coalition, when an independent list surprisingly won the majority in the capital city and installed its leader as mayor. Although this did not seriously challenge the entrenched political power situation, it motivated an energetic rejuvenation of the presidential party in expectation of facing an optimistic opposition in parliamentary elections in early 2013. After two decades of constantly changing conflict situations, enduring chaos and the complete absence of modern state structures in Somalia, a new optimism began at last to emerge regarding chances for a fresh start and for slowly overcoming all the social, political and material damage of the recent past. At the end of a lengthy and circuitous transitional process, a new president was finally installed in September in Mogadishu, followed by a new government in November, although they had still only limited authority over some parts of the territory of Southern Somalia. This was a major step forward, as it gave the country international recognition that had long been withheld. Radical Islamist groups, particularly al-Shabaab, nevertheless continued to subject considerable parts of the population to their draconian rules and regularly launched armed attacks against all representations of formal state institutions. In some rural areas, clan-based local leaders were, however, able to establish a limited semblance of political order in defiance of the Islamist extremists. Mogadishu saw an upsurge of economic activity and the return of many Somalis from the diaspora, but was still not free from recurring terrorist attacks and suicide bombings by al-Shabaab. The internal situation in Somaliland remained generally stable and allowed for the normal administrative functions of a regular state to be carried out. However, there was continued lack of progress with respect to Somaliland’s desire for full international recognition as an independent state. Despite the improved situation in Mogadishu, the Somaliland authorities were adamant in rejecting all calls for re-integration into the rest of Somalia. Puntland also maintained its status as a semi-autonomous state in practice, but without any declared intention of becoming fully independent; a new rapprochement with the rest of the country still seemed possible. Kenya experienced another year full of political excitement, changing political align- ments and rumours about possible strategies for the next elections, due in March 2013. But governmental stability ultimately prevailed and the power-sharing grand coalition of the two main political camps, created under pressure in early 2008 in the aftermath of hor- rendous post-election violence, held together. Typically of Kenya’s volatile political scene, throughout the year speculation was rife about the ambitions of all the leading politicians and about the creation of new, mostly ethnically-oriented political parties and/or alliances. By the end of the year, two main electoral alliances had been forged which opinion polls indicated were equally strong; their presidential contenders were Prime Minister Raila Odinga and one of his deputies, Uhuru Kenyatta. Much public attention remained centred on the case of four prominent individuals (including Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto) who were formally indicted by the ICC as primarily responsible for the Eastern Africa • 279

2008 post-election violence. Despite the threat of ICC proceedings in 2013, both Kenyatta and Ruto insisted that they were top candidates in the upcoming elections. In Tanzania, President Kikwete and his long-ruling government party remained in undisputed control of all political institutions, but were confronted with a stronger and more assertive opposition than in the past. This clearly manifested itself in parliament and in the media. In response to an attempt to bring a parliamentary motion of no confidence, Kikwete sacked a number of ministers alleged to have been involved in corrupt practices and tried to regain some of the credibility that he was clearly losing among the general public. Several instances of social and religious unrest led to fears that Tanzania’s often acclaimed stability and social harmony were in danger of being eroded. Factional feuding between opposing wings of the ruling party was much in evidence during a lengthy party election process. A constitutional review commission held extensive public hearings throughout the country and many contentious issues were raised, but no indicative recommendations for a new constitution emerged during the year. A rising number of voices in the semi-autonomous Zanzibar archipelago were demanding a revision of the existing Union arrangement with the mainland. Uganda celebrated 50 years of independence in a somewhat calmer political atmosphere than had been prevailing in the election year of 2011. President Museveni’s government was able to maintain full control over all public affairs, but faced considerable public discontent and sympathy for opposition protest demonstrations, which continued to be harshly suppressed by the security forces. On the other hand, the majority of the rural population still seemed to be largely supportive of the entrenched political system. Quite outspoken public criticism of the government was possible, but any real opposition impact on policy remained very limited. Increasingly numerous critical voices were also raised from within the ruling party and a group of its MPs, who were no longer willing to always follow the prescribed party line, much to the annoyance of the president. The authoritarian domestic political situation in Rwanda remained unchanged. Presi- dent Kagame and his ruling party exerted absolute control over all aspects of public life and firmly suppressed all potentially dissenting voices. After a lengthy trial, a key opposition figure was sentenced to imprisonment on conspiracy charges, notwithstanding strong protests by many outside observers. Despite the outward appearance of exemplary stability and unity in the political system, there were signs of internal dissension and cracks in the inner circles of the regime. Against rising foreign criticism by hitherto supportive donors and the (temporary) suspension of some aid funds, the regime attempted to pressurise the population into mobilising more local resources for the country’s development. In Burundi, no reconciliation was yet in sight between President Nkurunziza and his ruling party on the one hand and, on the other, the alliance of opposition parties that had boycotted the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010. The opposition parties were left in a weak extra-parliamentary position, with their most prominent leaders remaining in exile, while the government secured its position by using strong-arm tactics of harassment 280 • Eastern Africa and, allegedly, even the extra-judicial killing of suspected opponents. The general security situation remained precarious, but there was no return of identifiable politically-motivated guerrilla activities, as rumours sometimes had it. Seychelles enjoyed a return to a relatively normal and calm political atmosphere after a rather turbulent election year in 2011. President Michel and his long-ruling government party remained in full control of all spheres of public life, but made conciliatory gestures towards the opposition. In a common all-party forum, a consensus was sought on the revision of the existing electoral laws that had been at the root of the election boycott. Comoros experienced a second unusually calm and peaceful year, after the political scene had for years been habitually fluid and characterised by tensions between the leaders of the three constituent islands of the Union. In his first full year in office, the new Presi- dent Dhoinine was able to consolidate his own authority and to gradually free himself from the influence of his predecessor, Sambi. Not all inter-island rivalries were eliminated, but a relatively cooperative style was introduced and the government was able to introduce long-overdue social and economic reforms. In the entire Eastern Africa sub-region there were practically no changes in Freedom House’s annual assessment of political rights and civil liberties in 2012 (only reductions by one point regarding civil liberties in Kenya and Rwanda). While none of the 13 sub-regional countries scored top points (on a scale of 1 at the top to 7) in the ‘free’ category, seven countries were listed in the ‘not free’ category (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan). Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan remained among the lowest-rated countries in the world (with scores of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties), while Djibouti, Ethiopia, Rwanda and South Sudan were only slightly better (with scores of 6 for political rights), and in civil rights Ethiopia and Rwanda also scored 6, and Djibouti and South Sudan 5. Six countries were categorised as ‘partly free’ (with both political rights and civil liberties in the 3–5 point range). Among these, Seychelles and Tanzania were again judged the best (with 3 points in both categories), followed by Comoros (3 and 4), Kenya (4 and 4), Uganda (5 and 4) and Burundi (5 and 5). TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2012 once again revealed wide discrepancies between the countries of the sub-region. Of the 176 countries listed, Rwanda and Sey- chelles achieved outstanding top positions with overall rankings of 50th and 51st, respectively, and scores of 53 and 52 points (out of 100); both countries practically maintained their 2011 positions and were well ahead of the rest of Eastern Africa. By contrast, Somalia was again rated as one of the worst countries (ranked 174th with 8 points), while Sudan (ranked 173rd with 13 points) and Burundi (165th with 19 points) were also at the very bottom of the list. The remaining countries, like most African countries, ranged somewhere between 36 and 25 points in the following order: Djibouti (94th), Tanzania (102nd), Ethio- pia (113th), Uganda (130th), Comoros (133rd), Kenya (139th) and Eritrea (150th). Similar divergences between countries were discernible with regard to press freedom, as indicated in the 2013 Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders (with scores Eastern Africa • 281 ranging from 0 to 100). Of 179 listed countries, Eritrea for the sixth consecutive year ranked last (scoring 85). Somalia (ranked 175th), Sudan (170th), Djibouti (167th) and Rwanda (161st), with scores ranging from 74 to 55, were also again judged to be general offenders against the principle of freedom of the media. The relatively best marks for press freedom were given to Comoros (ranked 51st, score 25), Tanzania (70th, score 27), Kenya (71st, score 28) and Seychelles (93rd, score 29); this constituted a considerable fall in the ranking for Tanzania (by 36 places) and an improvement for Kenya (by 13 places). The remaining countries formed a middle group with scores ranging from 29 to 40: Uganda (104th, improved by 35 places), South Sudan (124th), Burundi (132nd) and Ethiopia (137th). From a global perspective, the sub-region was considered to be stagnating towards the bottom of the list. Freedom House’s similar Press Freedom Report 2013, covering all events in 2012, showed comparable results, but with some notable variations for specific countries. Out of a total of 197 listed countries, six Eastern African countries appeared in the category ‘partly free’: Comoros (ranked 96th), Tanzania (106th), Kenya (112th), Uganda (118th), Sey- chelles (120th) and South Sudan (131st). The press situation in the remaining countries was judged to be ‘not free’, ranking in the following order: Burundi (162nd), Djibouti (164th), Rwanda and Sudan (174th), Ethiopia (177th), Somalia (182nd) and Eritrea (194th).

Transnational Relations and Conflict Configurations

Again, no substantial progress was made towards bringing the Darfur conflict inSudan , on-going since 2003, closer to a sustainable solution. Limited fighting between various rebel factions and government forces continued to occur throughout the year, and over 2 m people were still forced to remain in IDP camps. Widespread lawlessness and banditry prevailed in the absence of regular state structures. The large hybrid UN-AU Mission in Sudan (UNAMID) remained tasked with protecting the civilian population and performing a peacekeeping role, but its effectiveness was severely restricted and it was not able to suppress continued belligerent activities. After the independence of South Sudan in 2011, new conflict zones had emerged along the uncertain border. A promised referendum to determine the disputed status of the oil-rich Abyei area was again not held, and a UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) remained deployed to prevent the outbreak of full hostilities between northern and southern forces. In parts of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states, local population groups who preferred to be linked with Juba rather than Khartoum continued to carry out rebel activities against the Sudanese authorities. In South Sudan, recurring violent clashes, often traditional cattle raids, between ethnic groups and emerging dissidence among various historical leaders of the independence struggle against the North threatened to destabilise the new state, but this was nevertheless largely contained. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) remained restricted in its narrowly- defined mandate and could do little to prevent or suppress an outbreak of hostilities. 282 • Eastern Africa

The population in remote areas in the triangle between South Sudan, the CAR and the DRC still continued to be victimised by small remnant groups of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which had until 2006 terrorised large parts of northern Uganda, but had since been completely driven out from there. Although the LRA was no longer a domestic Ugandan issue, the Ugandan military was still pursuing LRA leader Joseph Kony and his fighters in the CAR and DRC, with logistical support from about 100 American military advisers being provided to the national armies of all three countries, but without any tangible success. An American NGO created a short-lived international media frenzy with an internet campaign depicting Kony’s atrocities and calling for his capture. Eritrea remained seriously isolated in the sub-region and at loggerheads with all other governments, with the partial exception of Sudan. There was still no permanent solution in sight for the border conflicts with either Ethiopia (dating from the full-scale 1998–2000 war) or Djibouti (partially resolved with Qatari mediation in 2010). There were no open military confrontations along the disputed borders, but no agreement on mutually accepted frontiers, either. Eritrea was still trying to be re-admitted to IGAD, but failed due to its perceived continued support for the al-Shabaab Islamists in Somalia. All neighbouring countries had for many years been significantly affected by the insecurity and turmoil in the south-central part of Somalia and were now greatly relieved by the end of the long transition period, culminating in the installation of an internationally recognised new president and government. Despite remarkable improvements in the situation in Mogadishu and other towns, radical Islamist groups still controlled large parts of the countryside, imposed strict Islamic rules on the population and repeatedly launched armed attacks on installations and representatives of the government. With EU and US support, a new national police force and army continued to be trained and to expand their operational capacities, but had yet to become an effective force against al-Shabaab. Security protection by the AU peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) therefore remained essential. AMISOM’s numerical strength was further increased in accordance with the raised UN mandate to a total of about 17,000 military and police personnel. Troops from Burundi, Uganda and Dji- bouti were formally joined in July by contingents from Kenya, who had begun to operate on their own in Somali territory in October 2011. Another contingent from Sierra Leone was promised and underwent training, but had not yet arrived. IGAD repeatedly discussed the Somalia problem at ministerial and summit meetings and was fully supportive of the new political dispensation. The threat by Somali pirates to international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and along the East African coast remained, but showed a most remarkable decline since the peak year in 2010. Further intensified and coordinated international anti-piracy activities proved to be quite effective, although at very high cost. A largely stable naval presence and a more aggressive posture, including some strikes on land, plus more guards on the commercial vessels, helped to discourage acts of piracy. About 25 military vessels from EU countries, under NATO command and from China, India, Korea, Japan and Russia participated in Eastern Africa • 283 the coordinated anti-piracy surveillance, supplemented by air patrols. Djibouti, Kenya and Seychelles were of key importance as support bases for these operations in the sub- region. Most of the pirates operated from the shores of Puntland, with others based in Southern Somalia. The Puntland authorities were increasingly successful in containing pirate activity carried out from their territory, helped by rising anti-piracy sentiment among the population. Piracy statistics differed between sources, but all clearly indicated a very substantial decline. A study on the economic cost of Somali piracy in 2012 by the One Earth Future Foundation listed 20 hijackings (against 28 in 2011) and 62 attempted attacks (189 in 2011). In eight cases a total of $ 32 m was paid in ransoms, compared with 31 cases and $ 160 m in ransoms in 2011. Piracy almost came to a standstill in the second half of the year. The study calculated the total cost of Somali piracy to the global economy at a phenomenal $ 5.7 bn to $ 6.1 bn, down by 12.6% compared with 2011. This included the cost of military operations, higher ship speed, re-routing of ships, security equipment, prosecution and prison and insurance; ransom and recovery only accounted for 1% of the total. At year’s end, 1,190 captured pirates were in detention in over 20 different countries, of whom 470 were outside Africa, while 400 were in custody in Somaliland, Puntland and Mogadishu. Kenya and Seychelles played a valuable role as countries where apprehended pirates could be correctly prosecuted and imprisoned for as long as there was no trustworthy judiciary in Somalia, although both found this responsibility difficult to fulfil. Burundi continued to be affected by the aftermath of the disputed 2010 elections and continuing rumours about the possible return of armed rebel activities, although these were never fully substantiated. The leader of the last former rebel movement was reported to be hiding in the neighbouring DRC and to be forging new alliances in preparation for renewed rebel assaults on Burundi. The government declared a number of ambushes to be simply criminal activities and harshly suppressed any suspected opponents. The Great Lakes Region, with its wide-ranging significance across several national borders, continued to witness the complex interplay of many groups and interests from various countries in two sub-regions: Eastern Africa and Central Africa. Contrary to the two previous years, when inter-state relations had been relatively unproblematic and clearly less tense than for a long time, 2012 brought renewed sharp confrontations and concerted multilateral efforts to contain the situation and prevent further inter-state hostilities. It all began in April with the emergence of M23, a new rebel group in the DRC, which controlled large parts of North Kivu province in the following months and in November took Goma without meeting resistance. In June, a draft version of a report by a UN group of experts was leaked, which showed evidence of active support for the M23 from Rwanda, and to a lesser extent also from Uganda. For months, both Kigali and Kampala vehemently denied any involvement in the events in eastern DRC, but relations with Kinshasa naturally became very strained. This brought to the fore other regional leaders who were concerned about the potential outbreak of a new major conflict. The idea of a ‘neutral force’ to be stationed along the DRC-Rwanda border to prevent any direct hostilities and to neutralise all 284 • Eastern Africa perceived ‘negative forces’ (i.e. various rebel groups) was first mooted at an extraordinary ICGLR summit in mid-July in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), on the margins of the AU summit. A subsequent series of meetings by defence ministers and of more extraordinary ICGLR summits in August, September, October and November pursued this further, but without concrete results. Bilateral peace talks between M23 and the Kinshasa government, with Uganda as mediator, started in December, but brought no result before the year’s end. Tanzania offered in September to supply a troop contingent to the envisaged ‘neutral force’, and an extraordinary SADC summit in December in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) decided to deploy SADC troops to the eastern DRC under Tanzanian command. UN peacekeeping activities in the sub-region continued to face severe constraints. The presence in the eastern DRC of the large UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) had only a limited success in containing an overspill of rebel raids (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, Allied Democratic Forces, LRA) into neighbouring East African countries and in stabilising the internal Congolese situation, but remained inactive when M23 took control of Goma. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) was tasked with monitoring the internal security situation in South Sudan after the attainment of the country’s independence. The large hybrid UN-AU Mission in Sudan (UNAMID) continued its struggle to satisfactorily fulfil its peacekeeping role in the embattled Darfur region. The UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) had been deployed in 2011 to prevent the outbreak of open hostilities in this disputed border area between Sudan and South Sudan. The indictment of Sudanese President al-Bashir for crimes against humanity in the Darfur conflict, issued by the ICC in 2009, again had few practical consequences and only partially restricted his international travels. Most African and Arab governments condemned the ICC move as unjustified and an expression of a one-sided persecution of alleged African perpetrators. In January, prominent Kenyan politicians Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were formally charged by the ICC for crimes against humanity in connection with Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence. Despite their cases being pending, they were standing as candidates for president and vice-president, respectively, in elections in March 2013.

Socioeconomic Developments

The macroeconomic performance of countries in the sub-region was again quite diverse, but on the whole reasonably satisfactory. They continued, by and large, to weather the effects of the persisting global financial and economic crisis better than had initially been feared, although generally experiencing some further slow-down. In contrast to the exceptional drought conditions in 2011, it was climatically a relatively normal year that led to average harvests almost everywhere. Overall growth rates achieved about the same levels as in 2011, with the singular exceptions of Sudan and South Sudan, which experienced Eastern Africa • 285 severe GDP contractions due to the politically-motivated shut-down of oil production in South Sudan. According to preliminary IMF figures for April 2013, the 2012 GDP growth rate for SSA was 4.8% (against 5.3% in 2011). Of all Eastern African countries, Rwanda (7.7%), Eritrea and Ethiopia (7.0%) and Tanzania (6.9%) managed to achieve particularly outstanding growth, but except for Tanzania these figures nevertheless indicated a slight slowdown. For Ethiopia it was the ninth consecutive year of exceptional growth, albeit with a clear declining tendency from a peak (12.6%) in 2005. Djibouti (4.8%) maintained its relatively solid growth path of recent years, while Kenya (4.7%) showed some slight acceleration, but still clearly remained below its full potential. Somewhat lagging behind and noticeably below the African average were Burundi (4.0%), Seychelles (2.8%), Uganda (2.6%) and Comoros (2.5%). Sudan suffered a second year of GDP decline (−4.4%) as a result of the loss of transit fee revenue for oil from South Sudan, while the latter’s GDP contracted catastrophically by 53% due to the complete shut-down of its oil production. No reliable GDP figures existed for Somalia. Most countries officially announced cautious monetary policies and modest inflation targets, but were effectively faced with significant average consumer price increases, largely a result of consistently high global food prices and oil costs. The IMF’s preliminary estimate of the 2012 average SSA inflation rate was 9.1% (compared with 9.3% in 2011). Not surprisingly, the track records of individual countries differed widely, with some far exceeding the continental average. Clearly top of the list were South Sudan (45%) and Sudan (35.5%) due to their general economic crisis situations. High double-digit inflation rates were also experienced in Ethiopia (22.8%), Tanzania (16.0%), Uganda (14.1%), Eritrea (12.3%) and Burundi (11.8%). At the other end of the scale, the best performer was Djibouti (3.7%), while the remaining countries had acceptable inflation rates in the 6%–9% range. Practically all countries in the sub-region (except Eritrea) had a considerable negative current-account balance, in contrast to the only slightly negative SSA average of −2.8% of GDP (due to surpluses on the part of major oil and mineral exporters, which strongly skewed the average). Seychelles had by far the highest current-account deficit, at 22% of GDP, followed by Tanzania (15.8%), Burundi (15.6%), Djibouti (13.4%), Sudan (11.2%), Rwanda and Uganda (10.9%). The remaining countries had deficits in the 5%–9% range, with the single exception of Eritrea, with a current-account surplus of 2.3% of GDP. A good measure for the intensity of domestic development efforts, without simply rely- ing on the inflow of aid funds, is the volume of government revenue (excluding grants and expressed as percentage of GDP). Most of the countries in the sub-region remained somewhat below the yardstick of the SSA average of 26.5%. The EAC as a group achieved only 19.4%, which was nevertheless a continuing small improvement over previous years. Seychelles (38.5%), in line with a long-standing past record, Djibouti (29.0%) and Kenya (24.7%) were able to demonstrate high domestic revenue generation. In contrast, 286 • Eastern Africa exceptionally low rates were recorded for South Sudan (9.2%) and Sudan (11.5%). Com- paratively low rates were also obtained in Uganda (12.7%), Ethiopia (13.7%), Rwanda (13.9%), Comoros (14.0%), Burundi (15.1%), Eritrea (16.0%) and Tanzania (18.2%). All these countries (except Eritrea) relied heavily on the influx of external grants (in very different forms) to meet government expenditure. UNDP’s 2013 HDI (with 2012 data) again clearly highlighted considerable variations in the sub-region in respect of general socioeconomic development levels. With the exception of Seychelles, all other Eastern African countries (out of 187 listed) appeared in the low human development category. Seychelles, with an HDI value of 0.806 and ranked 46th, was by far the highest-ranked African country, at the end of the very high human development category. Kenya (HDI value 0.519, ranked 145th) and Tanzania (0.476, ranked 152nd) had a slightly higher HDI value than the SSA average of 0.475, while Uganda (ranked 161st), Djibouti (164th), Rwanda (167th), Comoros (169th), Sudan (171st), Ethiopia (173rd), Burundi (178th) and Eritrea (181st) showed a lower-than-average HDI. Somalia and South Sudan were not listed. The World Bank’s Doing Business Report regularly assesses the general ease of doing business in 185 surveyed countries, based on ten different categories of indicators, and thus provides a valuable overview of the prevailing business climate. As of mid-2012, Rwanda (ranked 52nd) and Seychelles (74th) were considered the leading business-friendly economies in Eastern Africa, while Djibouti (171st) and particularly Eritrea (182nd) were clearly in the opposite category of countries that largely obstructed private business ventures. The remaining countries, ranging from Uganda (120th) to Burundi (159th) all belonged to an intermediate group of countries that in principle desired to foster more business activities, but were still hampered by an overburdensome bureaucracy, legal weaknesses and other impediments. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2012–1013 provided a somewhat similar attempt to compare the economic attractiveness of altogether 144 listed countries (with only seven from the sub-region included). Again, Rwanda (ranked 63rd) and Seychelles (76th) were considered to have the most competitive economic environment, while Burundi (144th) was at the tail end of the list and Kenya (106th), Tanzania (120th), Ethiopia (121st) and Uganda (123rd) were in the lower third of the global ranking.

Sub-regional Cooperation and Sub-regional Organisations

The EAC held its 10th extraordinary summit on 28 April near Arusha (Tanzania), taking note of the on-going verification exercise of South Sudan’s membership application and signing a protocol on cooperation in defence. Upon expiry of her six-year term as deputy secretary-general, Ugandan Beatrice Kiraso was replaced by her compatriot Jessica Eriyo. On 29 November, the heads of state met for a second retreat on infrastructure and financing in Nairobi (Kenya), which was preceded by ceremonies for opening the new EAC Eastern Africa • 287 headquarters building in Arusha and commissioning the upgraded Arusha–Athi River (near Nairobi) road. At the 14th ordinary EAC summit on 30 November in Nairobi, under the theme ‘Invest- ing in 21st-century infrastructure for deeper integration’, the rotating chairmanship passed from Kenya’s President Kibaki to Uganda’s President Museveni. The summit noted progress on a road map for a political federation, but without making any firm commitments. The council of ministers was directed to commence official negotiations with South Sudan on its application to join the EAC, Tanzania having withdrawn its objections. The council was also instructed to undertake a verification process with regard to Somalia’s application, which had been formally submitted on 28 February. The undeniable progress of the EAC also seemed to make membership, or at least observer status, attractive to other neighbouring countries, such as Ethiopia, Sudan, the DRC and Comoros, but this remained in the realm of speculation and was as yet far from official. The summit deferred a decision on a draft protocol on an envisaged Monetary Union that had been under full negotiation by a high-level task force since early 2011, indicating a road map for establishing a Monetary Union over a ten-year period. A cautionary attitude on this crucial integration step prevailed in view of constant criticism by the East African Business Council and many other business leaders that there were still many obstacles blocking the smooth implementation of the requirements of both the valid Customs Union and Common Market protocols. Many of the relevant regulations had still not been incorporated into national legislation, and bureaucratic hurdles and a host of non-tariff barriers continued to severely hamper the formation of a genuine Common Market. Despite these obvious shortcomings, the EAC was generally regarded as a role model for Regional Economic Communities in Africa, noticeably ahead of other organisations. The five-year term of the sittingEast African Legislative Assembly (EALA) ended in May. In its last session, it passed the EAC budget for 2012–13, amounting to $ 138.3 m, a slight increase over the previous year. Of this sum, 49% was allocated to the EAC secretariat in Arusha, 29% to the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, 9% to the EALA, 7% to the Inter-University Council and 3% to the East African Court of Justice (EACJ). The budget was heavily donor-dependent, with 70% of the total expected to come from contributions from external development partners. In July, two full-time EACJ judges took up office in Arusha. Again, no substantial progress was made on the protracted controversial issue of signing a full EPA with the EU. In December, the European Parliament, at the request of the AU, extended by two years the January 2014 deadline for finally concluding this long- expected trade pact. The selection of new EALA members (nine from each state) by the national parliaments turned out to be fiercely contested, with the selection based on the principle of reflecting the relative numerical strength of parties in the respective parliaments. On 5 June, the 3rd EALA elected Margaret Zziwa from Uganda as its new female speaker in an unexpected contest against a fellow Ugandan party member who had been her government’s declared favourite. 288 • Eastern Africa

The 16th COMESA summit was held on 23–24 November in Kampala (Uganda). Uganda’s President Museveni assumed the rotating chairmanship from Malawi’s President Joyce Banda. Other than the host, only five heads of state attended the routine meeting, which was devoid of any major new initiatives. Uganda had just joined COMESA’s FTA, while the DRC and Ethiopia were still working towards this step. The transition period for the attainment of the COMESA Customs Union was extended by a further two years to address outstanding issues and to allow all 19 member states to align their national tariffs with agreed common external tariffs. Secretary-General Sindiso Ngwenya, from Zimbabwe, was confirmed in his post until 2018. Museveni stressed that he regarded COMESA as an economic integration venture, but that aiming at a political federation was unrealistic. After the June 2011 summit in Johannesburg (South Africa), little publicly visible progress was made with regard to the ambitious plan to create a grand Tripartite FTA made up of all 26 member states of COMESA, EAC and SADC, stretching from the Cape to Cairo. However, four technical-level meetings of the Tripartite Trade Negotiating Forum did take place during the year in Zambia, Mauritius, Tanzania and Egypt, and tried to move the agenda forward, although it was clearly behind the initially foreseen schedule. The various overlapping memberships of individual countries in different sub-regional organisations made the intended move extremely difficult. The longer-term goals centred on three distinct pillars: trade and services, infrastructure, and industrialisation. By year’s end, uncertainty over the next steps seemed to prevail. The hitherto rather inconspicuous ICGLR gained enhanced international recognition as the most appropriate sub-regional institution to deal with the renewed conflict escalation in eastern DRC and the ensuing deterioration of relations between the Congolese, Rwan- dan and Ugandan governments. Under the chairmanship of Uganda’s President Musev- eni, a series of extraordinary summits were held in Addis Ababa (15 July) and Kampala (7–8 August, 8 September, 8 October, 24 November) to discuss the insecurity in eastern DRC and to search for ways to contain the situation. On 24 November, South Sudan was admitted as the twelfth member of the ICGLR. Within the ICGLR forum, a vague consensus eventually emerged to install a “neutral intervention force” in the DRC’s North Kivu province to control all belligerent groups and to prevent cross-border movements between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. Details of the concept changed rapidly and were not fully spelled out by the year’s end. However, Tanzania offered to provide troops for such a force and contributions from South Africa and SADC also seemed to become a possibility. The formulation of a concrete mandate remained for 2013. Again, no tangible progress was made towards the revitalisation of the CEPGL, ongoing since 2007, mostly with support from Belgium and the EU. The small secretariat in Gisenyi (Rwanda) struggled to keep up a semblance of activities, but had almost no funds. While Rwanda paid the agreed contributions, the CEPGL budget was hamstrung due to Burundi’s and the DRC’s accumulated arrears. Eastern Africa • 289

IGAD’s 20th extraordinary summit was held on 27 January in Addis Ababa. The meeting underscored the imperative to move IGAD up a notch towards effective integration, called for the fast-tracking of the Minimum Integration Plan and commended efforts towards the establishment of an FTA to enable the alignment of IGAD with the envisaged Tripartite FTA. However, in all these areas hardly any concrete measures were taken towards implementation. Regarding the political realm, IGAD organs were mostly occupied by the situations in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, although without making a significant impact. Some renewed efforts were directed towards IGAD’s original key mandate to coordinate agricultural policies against the constant dangers of drought. Eritrea’s attempts to gain re- admission remained stalled, without any discernible new initiatives. Some further progress was made towards the establishment of the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) as one of five components (with military, police and civilian elements) of the AU’s envisaged African Standby Force. The EASF was considered to be probably the most advanced of the five units and almost ‘mission ready’, but had to await the AU’s target date 2015 for full operationalisation. So far, the EASF had not become involved in any of the sub-regional conflicts, other than by contributing a police component to support AMISOM in Somalia. Of the 14 official EASF member countries, four (among them Eritrea and Tanzania) were not actively participating; South Sudan had applied for membership. In July, the IOC acquired a new secretary-general, Jean-Claude de l’Estrac from Mau- ritius, and moved into its new secretariat building in Ebène (Mauritius). The Seychelles held the extended presidency throughout the year, since no ministerial council meeting was held. The IOC’s activities remained rather modest, mostly concentrating on some technical cooperation programmes with EU support. The organisation portrayed the specific problems of its island states at the Rio+20 conference, tried to promote a closer inter-island connectivity and, with regard to politics, was primarily concerned with the persistent crisis in Madagascar. A major common focus was on the Indian Ocean’s dominant problems of illegal fishing and Somali piracy. A new IOC anti-piracy unit was opened in June in Seychelles. Comoros was admitted as the twentieth member of the IOR-ARC during its 12th ministerial council meeting on 2 November in Gurgaon (India), and the USA was admitted as the sixth dialogue partner. A decision was made on reciprocal observer status with the IOC due to their similar objectives and adjacent premises. India retained the IOR-ARC chairmanship and in January provided a new secretary-general, K.V. Bhagirath. The long- standing and almost moribund organisation clearly gathered some new momentum and initiated more practical cooperation venues. India and Australia appeared to be the main driving forces for reinvigoration. Piracy and maritime security were the main topics, but environmental cooperation, fisheries, tourism, academic exchange, trade and investment were also in the focus. 290 • Eastern Africa

The water ministers of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) member states held their 20th council meeting on 5 July in Kigali. South Sudan was admitted as the tenth NBI member, a strategic Five-Year Plan 2012–1016 was approved, and Teferra Beyene from Ethiopia was appointed for a two-year term as the new executive director. The parallel 2nd Nile Basin Parliamentarians’ Forum called for more country contributions to the NBI and for an end of the decade-long discussions about a permanent institutional set-up. However, there was still no formal conclusion to the protracted negotiations for a new consensus treaty on the shared utilisation of the water resources of the Nile river system by all riparian states. Two downstream countries (Egypt and Sudan) still vehemently opposed the text of a Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) that had been signed in 2010 and 20011 by six upstream countries as a key step towards the intended establishment of a fully-fledged permanent Nile River Basin Commission. Egypt rejected the CFA text in fear of losing its power of veto over any changes to the historical water rights formulated in colonial-era treaties in 1929 and 1959. All upstream countries had, however, long been adamant that they would no longer be constrained in making fuller use of the water resources. During 2012, the six signatory states still deliberately delayed the CFA’s ratification in order to allow Egypt and Sudan to consider their options, while the DRC and South Sudan were expected soon to join the CFA signatories. Separately, Ethiopia tried to find a triangular mechanism with Egypt and Sudan to alleviate their fears of its huge Blue Nile dam construction plans.

Rolf Hofmeier Burundi

In 2012, Burundi celebrated the 50th anniversary of its independence. The year was marked by increasing consolidation of the political dominance of the ruling ‘Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces de Défense de la Démocratie’ (CNDD-FDD). Despite some timid attempts at promoting political dialogue with opposition leaders in exile, the dominant party built on its 2010 electoral triumph to further establish its hegemony, in particular in Burundi’s rural areas where, with the support of the CNDD-FDD youth wing, opposition parties’ political action was suppressed on several occasions. Although some violent clashes were reported and insurgent activities were documented by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, the year saw no armed rebellion capable of posing a serious security threat to the regime. The relationship between the government and the UN presence in Burundi was marked by some tension, related inter alia to an inquiry around alleged extrajudicial executions and continuing disagreement over the mandate and composition of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the establishment of which was announced by President Nkurunziza on several occasions. A major donor conference held in October was seen as a solid success for the government. Civil society remained very outspoken, including in its campaign against corruption, despite repeated cases of intimidation by security forces, in particular the intelligence service. Economic growth remained quite modest, with no substantial acceleration in sight. 292 • Eastern Africa

Domestic Politics

The control of the legislature and the government by the CNDD-FDD gave rise to institutional stability. The extra-parliamentary opposition coalition established after the 2010 elections was weakened by the exile of most of its leadership, by major internal divisions – both at the level of the coalition and within its member parties – and by an increased clampdown on political party activity, particularly outside the capital city, Bujumbura. Throughout the year, it became increasingly clear that, although the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement signed in August 2000 remained largely respected by all political players, the Agreement offered no solution to the current political crisis, which was no longer primarily of an ethno-political nature, but rather pertained to the survival of (not only de iure but also de facto) multi-partyism in Burundi. The government of President Pierre Nkurunziza remained – at least formally speaking and in accordance with the Constitution – a coalition government. In reality, the political dominance of the CNDD-FDD left little room for its coalition partners, the ‘Union pour le Progrès National’ (UPRONA), with one vice-president and three out of 21 cabinet ministers, and the ‘Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi Nyakuri (FRODEBU Nyakuri), with one cabinet minister. Furthermore, an internal split continued to paralyse UPRONA (see below). There were two government reshuffles, with the entry in February of Issa Ngendakumana (FRODEBU Nyakuri, Hutu, Ngozi) as minister in charge of good governance and privatisation and Tabu Abdalla Manirikiza (CNDD-FDD, Hutu, Bururi) as minister of finance, and the appointment in May of Léontine Nzeyimana (CNDD-FDD, Hutu, Makamba) as minister in charge of EAC-related matters. Though all three newcomers were Muslims, this seemed to be more a matter of coincidence than an indication of that religious community’s growing influence on the government of Nkurunziza, himself a very active and outspoken born-again Christian. In the absence of a parliamentary opposition, the National Assembly and the Senate were hardly meaningful in exercising parliamentary control over government action. Leg- islative work – all of it at the initiative and under the control of the government – was quite intensive throughout the year. Among the most important legislative reforms, new (and so far non-existent) legislation on the status of the political opposition was most controversial (see below). At a national congress of the CNDD-FDD in February, a new party leadership was elected. Somewhat unexpectedly, former provincial governor Pascal Nyabenda (a Hutu from Bubanza) was elected chairman. Contrary to his predecessor Jérémie Ngendakumana – who, in April, was elected by the National Assembly to become one of Burundi’s representatives in the third Legislative Assembly of the EAC – Nyabenda did not belong to the military wing of the movement. Two vice presidents, Victor Burikukiye (Hutu) and Joseph Ntakarutimana (Tutsi), were elected as additional members of the party’s executive committee. The main decision-making organ, however, remained the Burundi • 293

Council of the Wise, composed of 11 members and chaired by Nkurunziza (who also proposed new Council members for election by the party congress). As Nkurunziza had been directly elected President of the Republic in 2010, he continued to lead the CNDD-FDD, which was but one illustration of the overlap between the party and the state. In April, Geneviève Kanyange and Denis Karera were elected as the new leaders of the women’s league and the youth wing of the CNDD-FDD, respectively. The youth wing, known as the Imbonerakure (‘those who see from afar’), had become an increasingly important political and security actor. Former Imbonerakure chairman Ezechiel Nibigira was appointed as Burundi’s ambassador to Kenya. Throughout the year and in all provinces, the Imbon- erakure became increasingly active and visible, according to some (including Minister of Public Security Gabriel Nizigama) in supporting the National Police in order to safeguard public security, while others (including civil society and independent media) expressed fear that they were being gradually transformed into a paramilitary militia, paving the way for total control of the country by CNDD-FDD by the time of the next general elections in 2015. On some occasions, Imbonerakure youth were seen parading in military uniforms and carrying guns. By the end of the year, the CNDD-FDD announced that thousands of new members had joined the party. According to some observers, the Imbonerakure played an important role in a forcible recruitment campaign. UPRONA organised a national congress on 16 September. Charles Nditije (a Hutu from Bururi province, Rutovu commune), the candidate proposed by the outgoing party leader Bonaventure Niyoyankana and former president Pierre Buyoya (also from Rutovu commune), was elected as new party chairman. More importantly, the organisation of the congress was strongly disputed by a significant dissident wing of the partyand it was held in a context marked by political and judicial chaos. As a result, UPRONA was left more internally divided than ever. Senior dissident executive committee members had previously been suspended in August 2011. This decision had given rise to judicial proceedings before the Supreme Court. By remarkable coincidence, the Court gave its judgment five days before the national congress, annulling the 2011 decisions on the dismissal of former executive members and, as a consequence, also nullifying the decision to call the congress. In response to the Court ruling, Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana eagerly added to the confusion by first withdrawing his permission to hold the congress and then eventually permitting it, subject to possible appeals against decisions taken at the congress. In its opposition to the alleged “mascarade”, the dissident wing (‘le Courant de la Réhabilitation’) was supported by cabinet minister Julien Nimubona, and this was widely perceived as a vote of no-confidence by the minister in both the old and the new UPRONA leadership. The ‘Alliance des Démocrates pour le Changement au Burundi’ (ADC-Ikibiri), an ad hoc opposition alliance established after the 2010 local elections, lacked the cohesion and strategy to transform itself into a credible, unified, long-term political actor. While ADC-Ikibiri chairman Léonce Ngendakumana (‘Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi’; 294 • Eastern Africa

FRODEBU), based in Bujumbura, repeatedly insisted on the need for political dialogue with the government, the other key opposition leaders, notably Agathon Rwasa (‘Forces Nationales de Libération’; FNL), Alexis Sinduhije (‘Mouvement pour la Solidarité et la Démocratie’; MSD) and Léonard Nyangoma (‘Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie’; CNDD), did not return to Burundi. Former FRODEBU spokesperson Pan- crace Cimpaye, one of the most outspoken critics of the Nkurunziza government while in exile in Belgium, returned to Burundi on 1 July, but completely refrained from public political activity in the second half of the year. In January, Sinduhije was arrested while transiting at the airport of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), presumably as a result of an Interpol Red Notice circulated on the basis of a Burundian arrest warrant. Three weeks later, Sinduhije was released and left for Uganda. The position of the FNL – probably the most important member party of the ADC in electoral terms – became increasingly ambiguous throughout the year. On several occasions, the FNL was in disagreement with the strategy adopted by ADC chairman Ngendakumana, e.g. regarding ADC participation in the political dialogue held at Caux (Switzerland) and in the debate around the establishment of a new Electoral Commission (both see below). Prior to any political dialogue, Rwasa requested that the official party leadership – which in 2011, at the instigation of the CNDD-FDD, had been handed to the government-friendly dissident FNL wing led by Emmanuel Miburo – was returned to him. Furthermore, according to the final report by the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, published in November, the FNL (though reportedly divided and weakened) as well as Sinduhije were actively engaged in armed rebellion activity on DRC territory. This obviously cast doubt on the (non-violent or violent?) strategy of at least part of the ADC coalition and undermined its request for political dialogue with Nkurunziza’s government. According to the UN Group’s report, Sinduhije was the local leader of the ‘Front pour le Peuple Murundi – Alliance divine pour la nation’ (FPM-Abatabazi), a new rebel movement chaired, according to its own website and radio-station, by Guillaume George Majambere, a Burundian national residing in Brussels (Belgium). In response to the UN Group’s report, both FNL leader Rwasa and Sinduhije denied the allegations. While the ADC consistently refused to take part in the activities of the permanent Political Parties Forum, despite the replacement of the Forum’s convenor, Melchiade Nzopfabarushe, by Festus Ntanyungu (both CNDD-FDD), some ADC parties (but not the FNL) participated in a meeting in Caux in June. Although it produced no tangible results, the Caux meeting, presented as a training session in political leadership, constituted a first step towards a more comprehensive political dialogue and allowed for a first exchange between some (though not the most senior) CNDD-FDD representatives and some ADC leaders about preparations for the 2015 elections. Hope for a durable easing of political tension was, however, soon quashed. On several occasions, opposition parties were prevented from organising political meetings. In November, police roadblocks on two occasions blocked ADC leaders on their way to political meetings in Rumonge (Bururi province) and Gatumba (Bujumbura rural province). Burundi • 295

Political tension also rose because of the appointment of a new Electoral Commission by Nkurunziza, with the approval of the CNDD-FDD-dominated parliament but without involving the extra-parliamentary opposition. Although parliament convened in an extra ordinary session, a first attempt to appoint a new Electoral Commission failed in September, probably as a result of UPRONA insisting on continued negotiations. After the mandate of the outgoing Electoral Commission was extended for an additional three months, a new Commission was appointed in December. The Electoral Commission, in charge of organising the 2015 presidential, legislative and local elections, continued to be chaired by Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, whom the opposition held responsible for the allegedly fraudulent 2010 elections. In reaction to this development, ADC chairman Ngendakumana issued a statement on what he considered as the end of electoral democracy in Burundi, suggesting that “other means” might be necessary to put Burundi back on the road to democracy. Equally worrying for the political opposition, Nkurunziza and CNDD-FDD chairman Nyabenda repeatedly announced a parliamentary initiative to amend the Constitution and the Electoral Code as necessary steps to prepare for the 2015 elections. By the end of the year, it was not clear which provisions were likely to be revised. Major speculation arose around the possibility that Nkurunziza might stand for another (third) presidential term in 2015. Nkurunziza himself left it to the party to decide on its 2015 presidential candidate and, should he be proposed by the party, to the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of a possible third term. In May, it was discovered that a possible impediment to his candidature – a death sentence by the Bujumbura Court of Appeal that dated back to 1998 – had been secretly lifted by the Supreme Court in July 2011. A new law on the status of the political opposition was adopted in October. After the law on political parties adopted in 2011 – which most parties refused to abide by – this new legislative reform further strained relations between the government and ADC-Ikibiri. The new law recognised the role of the opposition, both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, as a political actor and guaranteed certain rights to opposition parties, including their access to public media. The law also provided for a leader of the opposition, defined as the chair of the party – not represented in government – that obtained the largest number of seats or, alternatively, votes in the National Assembly elections. Some privileges and immuni- ties were granted to the head of the opposition. As a transitional, and most controversial, measure, the opposition leader for the 2010–2015 period was to be elected by consensus among the extra-parliamentary opposition parties. Failing such consensus, the chairman of the party that obtained the largest number of votes in the 2010 elections was to become opposition leader. After the carefully designed split of the FNL this provision enabled Emmanuel Miburo – generally perceived as a close ally of the CNDD-FDD – to become leader of the opposition, a move that ADC-Ikibiri categorically rejected as a mockery. While the impact of armed rebel activity remained very limited on Burundian territory and never constituted a serious security threat to the regime, some joint operations were conducted by the Congolese armed forces and the Burundian security forces (the army as 296 • Eastern Africa well as the ‘Service National de Renseignement’ [SNR]), clearly targeting nascent insurgent activity across the DRC border. In May, the local media group IWACU documented a military operation resulting in the arrest and killing of two suspected rebel leaders in DRC’s South Kivu province, including Pierre Claver Kabirigi, self-declared leader of the ‘Forces pour la Restauration de la Démocratie’ (FRD-Abanyagihugu). In a cross-border operation in October, some Burundian soldiers were reportedly ambushed and killed. In September, FNL general Aloys Nzabampema declared war on the Burundian government. On behalf of Agathon Rwanda, FNL spokesperson Aimé Magera immediately denied that the FNL had any intention of resorting to the use of armed violence and instead reiterated the FNL’s request for political dialogue. In October, fighting took place between the Burundian army and the new FPM-Abatabazi (see above) insurgency for two days in the Western province of Cibitoke. For the first time since the 2010 elections, army spokesperson Baratuza declared that “armed rebellion activity” had occurred on Burundian territory. So far, the government had consistently referred to previous violent clashes as activities of armed criminal gangs without a political agenda. The leadership of the army and the national police force was replaced in November. A potentially very destabilising event in a country where the principle of civilian supremacy over military affairs had been unknown until recently, this replacement was carried out remarkably smoothly and fully in accordance with the ethno-political balance stipulated by the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement and the Constitution. Prime Niyongabo (Hutu and active in the CNDD-FDD at the time of the rebellion) was appointed as new chief of staff of the National Defence Force, and Fabien Nzisabira (Tutsi and active in the former ‘Forces Armées Burundaises’ [FAB] government army under the then control of UPRONA) as deputy chief of staff. André Ndayambaje (Tutsi and former FAB member) was appointed as director general of the National Police Force, and Godefroid Bizimana (Hutu, CNDD-FDD) as deputy director general. The intelligence service, the SNR, the third component of the national security forces and the branch with the worst reputation in respect of human rights violations, was not affected by the reshuffles. Despite strong external criticism and a very negative perception of his personality and performance, Adolphe Nshimirimana continued to lead the SNR. Nshimirimana and Nkurunziza, both of whom had belonged to the initial leadership of the military wing of the CNDD-FDD in 1994, had been colleagues from the very early days of the armed insurgency and it had become increasingly clear that the president was unable and/or unwilling to dissociate himself from Nshimirimana, despite the reputational cost to Nkurunziza’s regime. In March and November, Nkurunziza publicly congratulated the security forces on their outstanding performance. Despite a fall in the number of documented politically motivated killings, the human rights record remained a source of domestic and international criticism of the government. In January, 16 of the 21 persons indicted for their role in the September 2011 massacre Burundi • 297 in Gatumba, which cost the lives of 36 civilians, received prison sentences. However, serious doubts remained as to whether those most responsible had been brought to justice. In May, HRW published a report on political violence in Burundi. Adding to the publicity for the report, Interior Minister Edouard Nduwimana ordered HRW representatives in Bujumbura to cancel a press conference and report launch and to stop distributing copies of the report. In a detailed reaction to the report, government spokesperson and secretary- general Philippe Nzobonariba rebutted the allegations and accused HRW of deliberately tarnishing the image of the government. In June, Prosecutor General Valentin Bagorikunda established an ad-hoc commission of inquiry charged with investigating crimes that “certain institutions and organisations classify as extra-judicial executions or torture”, a clear reference to reports by national and international human rights NGOs and the UN. The Commission produced its report in August and concluded that, although some of the killings documented by the NGOs and the UN had indeed taken place, none of them could be considered extra-judicial executions as defined under international law and that alleged impunity for those killings was grossly exaggerated. The government referred, inter alia, to the arrest of a deputy police commissioner in Gitega (known as ‘Rwembe’) to refute allegations that human rights violations were left unpunished. Opposition party MSD called for the establishment of a truly independent international commission of inquiry to conduct the investigations. In an unusual move, the human rights division of the UN office in Burundi (BNUB) issued a press communiqué regretting the very narrow definition that the ad-hoc commission of inquiry used to classify killings as extra-judicial executions. For the first time in the history of Burundi, five cases of torture were formally brought to the attention of the UN Committee against Torture under the individual complaint procedure. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Burundi’s independence on 1 July, Nkurunziza declared a presidential pardon granting the release of over half of the country’s prison population. Little progress was made in the field oftransitional justice. Although Nkurunziza on at least three occasions announced the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commis- sion (TRC) before the end of the year – thus giving a very high political profile to Burundi’s long overdue process of dealing with the past – hardly any progress was made during most of the year. However, in November, a draft bill was discussed by the cabinet and, in December, the bill on the establishment of a TRC was tabled for debate in the National Assembly. There were some important discrepancies between the bill and the outcome of the 2010 national consultations on transitional justice, and it remained uncertain whether a TRC was likely to be established before the 2015 elections. While CNDD-FDD was eager for a TRC that it might easily control, there was little appetite among other political actors (in particular UPRONA) for this and, more importantly, BNUB and other donors were unlikely to finance a TRC that failed to meet certain essential independence and impartiality criteria. The work of the national Land Commission (‘Commission Nationale Terres et 298 • Eastern Africa autres Biens’; CNTB), established to settle land-related disputes, was controversial among predominantly Tutsi observers. A majority of cases brought before the CNTB involved disputes between (mostly Hutu) returnees who had left the country and settled as refugees in Tanzania (sometimes for nearly three decades) and de facto occupants (mostly Tutsi, many among them IDPs) of their land. In April, UPRONA formally requested the dismissal of CNTB chairperson Sérapion Bambonanire, whom it accused of promoting ethnic divisionism. In November, land disputes led to house destructions and other violence in the commune of Ruhororo, Ngozi province. Relations between the government and civil society – which it generally perceived as being pro-opposition, Tutsi-dominated and disconnected from the rural population – remained tense. Draft new media legislation was strongly contested by most radio stations and, after some amendments to the initial draft suggested by media professionals had been accepted, parliament nevertheless failed to adopt the law. Two judicial cases that attracted major (national and international) media attention involved civil society activists. In May, 14 people were sentenced to life imprisonment or lengthy prison sentences for the killing of anti-corruption activist Ernest Manirumva in April 2009. Twenty national and international human rights organisations issued a joint statement protesting against the deliberate shortcomings of the judicial investigations and the failure to tell the truth about the politically-inspired assassination. In June, a radio journalist and Radio France Internationale correspondent, Hassan Ruvakuki, was sentenced to life imprisonment for having interviewed FRD-Abanyagihugu, thus allegedly participating in acts of terrorism. A campaign was organised calling for his immediate release. Domestic political divisions were also reflected in Burundian communities abroad. In both Sweden and Belgium, for instance, two competing diaspora movements were established, one perceived as being pro-CNDD-FDD, the other claiming to be more neutral.

Foreign Affairs

Relations between Burundi and its neighbouring countries remained generally friendly, notwithstanding tensions between Rwanda and the DRC occasioned by the launch of a new armed rebel movement (M23) on Congolese territory. On the one hand, as noted above, Burundi engaged in some joint military operations with the DRC, while, on the other, it succeeded in safeguarding smooth relations with Rwanda. The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Burundi on 1 July were attended by delegations from 45 countries, including six heads of state. The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of BNUB, Karin Landgren, left Burundi in June and was replaced by Parfait Onanga-Anyanga. In December 2011, BNUB’s mandate had been extended until February 2013 and, despite some reluctance on the part of the Burundian government, it was generally expected that the UNSC would further extend the UN presence. Burundi • 299

Burundi’s relations with China intensified further, including by the donation of military equipment to the value of approximately $ 3 m. Chinese aid overall in a variety of sectors (energy, health, education, etc.) doubled compared with 2011. Preparations were also made for Radio China International to broadcast in Burundi. In January, Burundi opened an embassy in Iran and in October talks were initiated about the re-opening of an embassy in Saudi Arabia. In September, President Nkurunziza travelled to India, where he received the New Model of African Leadership award. In October, Burundi formally submitted a request to become a member of the Common- wealth, finding inspiration in neighbouring Rwanda’s admission in 2009. In October, former president Pierre Buyoya (UPRONA) was appointed as AU High Representative for Mali and the Sahel. Some 5,000 Burundian soldiers remained deployed in the AU Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) peacekeeping operation. Allegations that troops had not received four months’ salaries as a result of embezzlements of funds were rejected by the Burundian army, which admitted that there had indeed been some delay in the payments.

Socioeconomic Developments

In March, civil society organisations called for a general strike to protest against the sharp increase in prices of consumer goods. The immediate occasion was a decision by the state-owned company REGIDESO to increase the price of water and electricity for the second time in less than half a year. The strike was particularly successful in Bujumbura. Both the government and the national security council strongly protested against the general strike, and the minister of internal affairs seized the occasion to impose additional restrictions on the official registration of civil society movements and to create a new, government-friendly civil society network, the ‘Plateforme Intégrale de la Société Civile Burundaise pour l’Efficacité de l’Aide au Développement’. In reaction to the strike, the president announced a suspension of VAT on some of the most essential consumer goods until the end of the year. This also had a positive impact on the remarkably high rate of inflation, estimated at an average of around 18% for the year (compared with less than 10% in 2011). After years of relative stability, the Burundian currency (franc) depreciated sharply against the US dollar. The GDP growth rate remained rather modest at an estimated 4.1%, almost unchanged from the previous year and with no substantial acceleration foreseeable in the near future. Burundi remained at the very bottom of the Global Hunger Index. The celebration of 50 years of independence was an occasion for the government to launch 50 development projects throughout the country, including the construction of hospitals, schools, sports infrastructure, administrative buildings, etc. Top politicians, including the chairman of the National Assembly, Pie Ntavyohanyuma, travelled across the country to launch the highly appreciated initiatives in all provinces in person. 300 • Eastern Africa

The year was marked by the organisation of an international donor conference, with around 400 participants, in late October in Geneva, crowning preparations for the second PRSP, for which funding was pledged by donors attending the conference. Under the chairmanship of Burundi’s second vice president, Gervais Ruyikiri (CNDD-FDD, Hutu), the government delegation succeeded in obtaining pledges of close to $ 2.6 bn. While it remained to be seen what this would mean in terms of actual disbursements, the pledges exceeded the government’s own expectations. In addition to good technical preparation by sectoral departments of the various ministries, the conference was also successful because of the government’s deliberate decision to allow active and visible participation by civil society organisations. As part of a decentralisation campaign, development performance was evaluated per commune (the local municipality level) for administrative governance, financial management and social and gender inclusion. For the capital city, Bujumbura, marks were generally low (well below 50%) while communes in the rural provinces performed much better, the commune of Busiga (in Nkurunziza’s home province of Ngozi) obtaining 91%. In the World Bank’s annual Doing Business Report released in October, Burundi ranked 159th (out of 189 economies), improving its ranking by 13 positions. In December, the ‘Office Burundais des Recettes’ announced that fiscal revenue collection had increased by 12% compared with 2011. The national budget for 2013 was adopted in parliament, with an increase of 16.1%, with funds particularly earmarked for investment in economic growth sectors. Amidst considerable controversy and despite protests by the anti-corruption watchdog ‘Observatoire de Lutte contre la Corruption et les Malversations Économiques’, a concession for the exploitation of the port of Bujumbura was granted to the South African company Global Port Services in December. Corruption remained a top political priority. In August, Burundi was ranked second best (after Rwanda) among the five EAC member states in TI’s East African Bribery Index but, in December, Burundi was ranked 165th (out of 176 countries) on TI’s global Corruption Perceptions Index. This report was published shortly before Nkurunziza’s launch of the national anti-corruption week. Reiterating the importance the government attached to ‘zero tolerance’ of corruption, he expressed dismay over the report, and asked TI to revise it.

Stef Vandeginste Comoros

Viewed against the country’s turbulent past, with its numerous coups and secession attempts, 2012 turned out to be the second year with an unaccustomed degree of relatively calm political normalcy. President Ikililou Dhoinine, in his first full year in office, managed to consolidate his position and to gradually free himself from the influence of his predecessor. The long-existing frictions between the three islands of the ‘Union des Comores’ and their political elites had still not disappeared and remained a potential threat, but their importance had significantly declined. The contentious Mayotte issue and ambivalent relations with France continued to dominate the foreign policy front, which also saw a turning towards Asia and the IOR-ARC. In December, Comoros finally obtained the long-awaited debt relief under the HIPC initiative in recognition of a moderate improvement in the economic situation and the initiation of some reform measures.

Domestic Politics

Upon his inauguration in May 2011, President Ikililou Dhoinine had been widely perceived as an inexperienced and unassuming disciple of his dominant predecessor, Ahmed Abdallah Sambi. The latter had been instrumental in the selection of Dhoinine as the presidential candidate of Sambi’s political baobab camp, to which the governors of the 302 • Eastern Africa two biggest islands, Ngazidja (Grande Comore) and Anjouan, also belonged. It was quite apparent that Sambi had ambitions to continue to exert some influence from the wings and might even contemplate an eventual return to active politics. This inevitably led to a cooling of the relationship between the two men and to recurring clashes and infighting between their followers in various public positions and in the military, but these fell short of any open confrontations. Dhoinine preferred a relatively unobtrusive style of leadership, but quietly strengthened his hand by gradually appointing his own followers to key positions. The existence of a considerable number of small political parties continued to be of little practical relevance in a system where party programmes were considered largely irrelevant and the main political camps tended to be loose alliances centred around specific leading personalities. Rivalries for responsibility between the Union government and the island governors, which had severely hampered good government performance for years, were much less in evidence than in the past, but still had to be reckoned with. By and large, the country seemed to have finally found a relatively harmonious and widely accepted balance between the many divergent interest groups. The oath-taking ceremony for judges of the Supreme Court in mid-January completed the last remaining gap with respect to the establishment of all judicial institutions required by the 2001 Fomboni constitution. A parliamentary crisis that lasted almost three months resurrected the old divisive demons of Comorian politics, when a group of MPs launched a petition in late March for the resignation of Parliamentary Speaker Bourhane Hamidou, accusing him of mismanagement and undeserved privileges. He refused to resign and mounted a counterattack on several MPs. The crisis rumbled on for several weeks until a compromise was imposed in June through the intervention of the president. Hamidou lost most of his executive powers, but was allowed to retain the ceremonial role of speaker. At the close of the parliamentary session, he felt obliged to apologise to the population for parliament’s behaviour. In late December, the president of the Constitutional Court was relieved of his functions by a majority decision of the court following allegations of breach of discipline and unbecoming behaviour, but a judge could not be removed during his six-year tenure, so he remained nominally in post. In April, the leader of an amateurish putsch attempt in November 2011 on Anjouan was convicted to three years’ imprisonment. On 8 February, the Appeal Court finally concluded a lengthy process and cleared former army chief General Salimou Amiri and some co- accused of charges of plotting a rebellion in 2010, but Amiri continued to be held under house arrest for his alleged complicity in the assassination of Colonel Combo Ayouba in June 2010. The Supreme Court subsequently, in early July, ruled that it was not competent to judge this case, and on 2 November Amiri was finally acquitted by a criminal court for lack of evidence. The verdict was widely acclaimed, since Amiri had been a national hero as the military leader of the 2008 Anjouan invasion that ended Mohammed Bacar’s attempted secession. The exculpation of Amiri was also seen as resulting in a loss of credi bility for Sambi, since the case had all along had highly politicised implications resulting Comoros • 303 from Sambi’s removal of Amiri from his army post in mid-2010. Amiri now sought full rehabilitation, amid rumours of a possible new military role. On 10 October, President Dhoinine took a major step towards consolidating his leadership and clearly asserting his own authority by making two key appointments that brought in close personal loyalists and removed office holders known to be close to Sambi. Former prime minister (in 2002), and a long-standing political heavyweight, Hamadi Madi Bolero was appointed as the president’s chief of staff, including responsibility for defence, and Colonel Youssouf Idjihadi was installed as new army chief. The latter replaced Colonel Abdallah Gamil, who had been appointed by Sambi in 2010 after Amiri’s forced removal. Bolero, like the president, hailed from Mohéli, the smallest and oft-neglected island. He was a member of the opposition party ‘Convention pour le Renouveau des Comores’, but insisted that he was appointed in his personal capacity. In contrast, Bolero’s predecessor, Mmadi Ali was a member of the ‘Front National pour la Justice’, a moderate Islamist party close to Sambi. This move clearly strengthened Dhoinine’s position in the short run, but it remained to be seen whether there would be a backlash from Sambi’s camp or more generally from parties suspicious of any concentration of power. Towards the year’s end, there were hints of plans for the possible creation of a new presidential umbrella party by merging several smaller ones, but this remained unclear. Carried forward from 2011, there was further conflict in January between the government and Islamic ulema over the licensing of alcohol sales. A short-lived exclusive alcohol import licence was quickly rescinded and demands for a complete alcohol ban were not approved. Religious leaders, with possible links to Sambi loyalists, created a commission to fight against the general degradation of morals in the country. Although Dhoinine had in January encouraged journalists to expose cases of corruption, in April the interior minister stopped the distribution of a supplement of the government- owned newspaper ‘Al-Watwan’, which contained articles on corruption and waste in the public sector, and suspended the managing editor. In another case of media censorship, a journalist was subsequently detained on libel charges for the alleged defamation of a high- ranking politician. Nevertheless, in an indication of some apparent success in Dhoinine’s anti-corruption drive, Comoros rose ten places in TI’s latest Corruption Perception Index (to 133rd out of 176). A new institutional conflict between the Union government and an island authority arose when Anjouan Governor Anissi Chamsidine unilaterally suspended the monopoly enjoyed by ONICOR, the government rice import agency, in mid-August. This was in reaction to apparent critical rice shortages during the Ramadan period. Chamsidine’s intention to grant import licences to private traders was sharply criticised by the central government. The monopoly on the import of rice, the Comorian staple food (which constituted over 10% of total imports), had been in existence since 1982 and had been repeatedly criticised, but was a delicate political issue. Only limited steps were taken to clarify the almost perennial issue of a well-defined decentralisation policy that would specify the 304 • Eastern Africa competencies of the Union and island authorities and also include specific regulations on the role of municipalities.

Foreign Affairs

The long-standing conflict with France over the status of Mayotte, the archipelago’s fourth island, continued to be a national focus, but led to less emotional unease than in many previous years. In March 2011, Mayotte had officially obtained the status of France’s 101st département and a peripheral territory of the EU, although all Comorian governments had always insisted that Mayotte should remain an integral part of the Comoros under international law. This formalisation of Mayotte’s integration into the French state seemed now to have been reluctantly accepted as an inevitable fait accompli by most of the political class and the population at large. Bilateral Comorian-French relations thus continued to be characterised by considerable ambivalences between the Mayotte conflict and Comoros’ substantial dependence on France as a major traditional economic partner and donor. In July, celebrations were held to commemorate the centenary of colonisation and coexistence with France. A February visit by two French generals followed up the new military cooperation agreement that had been signed in September 2010 after an 11-year suspension. The visit served primarily to audit Comoros’ concrete needs with regard to military training and setting-up a coastguard to strengthen anti-piracy measures. President Dhoinine, in a speech at the UN General Assembly on 29 September, naturally raised the Mayotte issue as usual, but in a very restrained and unaggressive way, calling on France to enter into a dialogue over the Mayotte question and to end the humanitarian tragedies of people perishing in the sea when trying to reach Mayotte in small unseaworthy boats. This related to demands for the rescinding of the notorious ‘visa Balladur’, introduced by the then prime minister in 1995, to deny Comorians legal entry to Mayotte without a visa. The abolition of the visa Balladur was also the main focus of the annually celebrated ‘Journée Nationale Maore’ on 12 November. Otherwise, the government continued to pursue an open-door foreign policy within the very limited scope available to it, and attempted to maintain similarly cordial relations with Western powers (particularly France and the USA) and with China, Iran and many Arab countries (particularly Kuwait, UAE and Qatar), in the expectation of attracting aid or commercial investments from these diverse sources. In early November, Comoros joined the IOR-ARC at a ministerial meeting in India in an attempt to actively widen its spectrum of diplomatic partners to other Indian Ocean neighbours. Dhoinine insisted on his prerogative to determine general foreign policy orientation and pursued a relatively intensive international travel schedule by personally attending many summits of global or regional organisations (including the AU, Arab League, UN Rio+20, UNCTAD, OIF and COMESA). Full participation in some organisations was hampered somewhat, however, Comoros • 305 by the legacy of previous governments in accumulated arrears of membership contributions. In mid-February, Comoros, Seychelles and Tanzania signed an agreement in Vic- toria (Seychelles) on their common maritime borders. The January arrival of a group of Sudanese security advisers to strengthen Dhoinine’s presidential guard precipitated some rivalry with Iranian intelligence operatives who had previously been brought in by Sambi. Many local leaders had all along been suspicious of Sambi’s support for closer links with Iran in many different areas.

Socioeconomic Developments

In mid-December, the IMF and World Bank declared that Comoros had at last reached the long-awaited completion point under the HIPC initiative, making it eligible for comprehensive debt relief under both HIPC and the MDRI. This marked the end of the country’s HIPC process, which had started in June 2010 with the attainment of the decision point. As the 35th country to have reached the completion point, Comoros was very much a late- comer compared with other countries. The debt relief of $ 176 m represented a 59% reduction in Comoros’ future external debt service payments over a period of 40 years. 86% of the total would come from multilateral creditors and the rest from bilateral and commercial creditors. Annual external debt service payments were projected to fall by 69% from an average of $ 14 m for the period 2013–2021 to $ 4 m. Despite this significant alleviation, Comoros was nevertheless still considered vulnerable. The decision by the Washington institutions constituted a notable reward for the Dhoi- nine government’s performance, since the HIPC process had appeared unattainable until mid-2011 due to serious policy slippages in the areas of fiscal and structural reform. The IMF and the World Bank clearly appreciated that the new government had swiftly introduced critical corrective measures to steer the reform agenda back on track. They included the satisfactory implementation of the country’s first full PRSP for the 2010–14 period, the maintenance of macroeconomic stability, progress in public financial management, efforts to reduce the unsustainable public wage bill, strengthened mobilisation of domestic revenues and the appointment of effective managers in key civil service positions. A new determination to overcome the perennial weaknesses of the Comoros’ governance system raised expectations for substantially improved macroeconomic and growth prospects, but most remained to be concretely implemented in the future. IMF missions in March and September performed the third and fourth reviews of the three-year ECF approved in September 2009, and concluded that the programme targets had by and large been met. In June, the IMF approved an extension of the ECF arrangement until December 2013. The reviews provided the key data and general assessments of the situation for the December debt relief decision. A joint IMF and World Bank November progress report on the implementation of the PRSP also presented a moderately positive 306 • Eastern Africa performance. The World Bank approved a new project to support the economic reform process and the public finance management system. Preliminary statistical data for 2012 confirmed a stabilised moderate macroeconomic performance, but were still far from portraying a dynamic surge in the economy. The GDP growth rate was expected to have slightly increased to about 3%, moderately better than in 2011 (2.5%), but clearly higher than earlier annual averages of around only 1%. The average inflation rate for the year of about 6% was largely due to the restraining effect of membership in the franc zone, whereby the franc Comorien remained pegged to the euro and supported by France (at FrC 492 : € 1). Substantial remittances from the numerous Comorian diaspora, increased receipts under the economic citizenship programme and inflows of aid funds remained essential to counterbalance the traditional enormous structural trade deficit. Increased export revenues of about $ 25 m (practically all from cloves, vanilla and ylang-ylang) covered just one-eight of the slightly reduced import bill of around $ 200 m, due largely to the unchanged heavy dependence on the import of food staples. The current-account deficit remained stable at around 7% of GDP, while foreign exchange reserves reached a new high of $ 178 m, providing a comfortable safety cushion. As a result of some unexpected non-tax revenues from the economic citizenship programme, the government budget presented an unusual surplus of about 1.4% of GDP. In mid-December, parliament approved the new budget for 2013, which again envisaged a small fiscal surplus. Of the budgeted revenue of FrC 61 bn (up by 7% over 2012), about 43% was expected to come in the form of external aid. One third of expenditures was intended for investment and the rest for recurrent government operations. A fundamental reform or privatisation of notoriously badly managed parastatal companies, particularly key public utilities (electricity, water and telecoms) had for years been demanded by the IMF and the World Bank as a central item in debt relief discussions, but little progress had been made because of resistance from powerful vested local interests. Recurring power and water crises were a constant burden in the daily life of the population and for the economy. The regeneration of Ma-Mwe, the ailing power and water company, through the planned assistance of a competent foreign partner was for months blocked by rivalry between a private Saudi group and a public Sudanese firm, which were each favoured by different feuding politicians, and the issue remained unresolved. Protests by the largest trade union and an IT consumers association further delayed the planned privatisation of ‘Comores Télécom’, but the government finally had to budge when this became a condition for the debt relief decision. In November, a call for expressions of interest by potential investors was issued, with a formula of 51% ownership for the investor, 34% for the government and 15% for the staff. The ‘Banque de Développement des Comores’ and the ‘Société Nationale des Postes et Services Financiers’ were also candidates for privatisation; in the latter case, workers objected strongly to an envisaged split into two units. Privatisation was generally hampered by the low level of interest on the part of potential Comoros • 307 external investors, who did not see much promise in the Comorian economy. This assessment was also reflected in the country’s unchanged low ranking (158th) in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2013. The level at which investment pledges to the tune of $ 540 m made at a March 2010 conference in Doha (Qatar) were honoured again remained very disappointing. Promises were repeatedly made but, apart from various Qatari projects, no substantial investments materialised. New hopes emerged with the Islamic Development Bank’s intention to take charge of the coordination and implementation of the Doha agenda. Expectations were also raised in respect of the still uncertain prospect that oil would be found in Comoros’ extensive coastal waters, based on recent finds along the East African coast. A first exploration licence was awarded to a Kenya-based company in April. Sub- sequently, two vice presidents started quarrelling intensely over their responsibilities for this promising new field. The state’s financial managementshowed considerable improvement. In the past, public servants had been used to irregular payment of wages and sometimes to many months of salary arrears. All arrears were now cleared and efforts were made to reduce the high public wage bill (accounting for about 40% of government expenditure) by eliminating a large number of “shadow workers” identified by an employment census. Several weeks of torrential rain and floods in late April and May caused substantial physical damage, but only limited humanitarian losses. These were the heaviest floods for decades and were generally perceived to have been caused by the effects of climate change. An international appeal for assistance was primarily met by increased help from the Como- rian diaspora in France and elsewhere. In late May, a large national conference deliber- ated on the general crisis aspects of ‘la vie chère’ (expensive life), addressing the general weaknesses of the vulnerable islands’ economic and social situation and in particular their extraordinary degree of food dependence, with more than half of the country’s food being imported; 84% of households were estimated to be experiencing various degrees of food insecurity.

Rolf Hofmeier

Djibouti

Despite some modest advances towards introducing limited democratic elements into the political system, the authoritarian regime of President Ismail Omar Guelleh remained in undisputed full control of all aspects of public life. Local elections in early 2012 brought a surprise win for a newly constituted independent list over the long-ruling dominant government coalition in the capital, Djibouti-Ville, and the installation of its leader as the new mayor. The shock defeat of Guelleh’s RPP party demonstrated its precariously hollow state and led to attempts at its rejuvenation. A modification of the electoral laws ahead of parliamentary elections in February 2013 opened up promising opportunities for participation by opposition parties that had boycotted all elections for a decade in objection to the unfair electoral system. Guelleh continued to represent his small state at many international forums and to pursue the vision of transforming Djibouti into an important commercial hub in a strategic sub-region. General economic performance was relatively satisfactory and a number of ambitious new projects got underway or were planned.

Domestic Politics

Initially, no surprises were foreseen for Djibouti’s second communal and regional elections on 20 January, since the existing opposition parties had once again opted for a boycott 310 • Eastern Africa because the very uneven playing field meant there was no chance of a fair contest. Apart from the governing ‘Union pour la Majorité Presidentielle’ (UMP) coalition, with the president’s ‘Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progrès’ (RPP) as its dominating core element, only a few independent lists had been registered. With a countrywide participation of 55% of the 159.000 registered electors, the UMP obtained 70% of the total votes cast and all the seats (except one) on the regional councils of the five rural regions, although a new independent list ‘Rassemblement pour l’Action, la Démocratie et le Développement’ (RADD) got 22% of the national vote. In Djibouti-Ville (whose residents make up two- thirds of the country’s total population), the turnout was only 44% and the UMP, although they obtained a relative majority, thus failed to get the required support of 25% of the city’s total electorate. This unexpectedly necessitated a second round of voting on 10 February. The RADD’s surprisingly good electoral performance gave a fillip to a vigorous campaign with a focus on glaring social problems, poor public services and high levels of unemployment. The population seized the opportunity to express its discontent and overturned the first-round majorities, now handingRADD a second-round victory with 68% and 53% of votes in the city’s two constituencies. To some observers’ surprise, there was no obstruction of the RADD campaign by state organs and the contest took place without incident. The result was validated without any objections and the youthful RADD leader, Abdourahman Mohamed Guelleh, was installed as mayor of Djibouti-Ville on 18 March. The traditional opposition parties, however, dismissed him and his list as puppets of the regime, since he had formerly been an adviser of Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dil- eita. The RADD victory certainly did not represent a fundamental challenge to the solidly entrenched political system of President Ismail Omar Guelleh, widely dubbed IOG, but it was nevertheless widely perceived as a shock defeat for the president’s RPP. The regime did not have to fear a local version of the Arab Spring, but applications by the opposition parties to hold public demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the civil unrest in February 2011 were refused by the authorities. The result of the regional elections served as a wake-up call for both the RPP and the UMP, since their weaknesses and unpopularity had been clearly demonstrated. In July, a critical internal evaluation report came to the conclusion that the RPP had in its long years in power simply become a hollow shell without structures or a clear sense of direction and that it definitely needed a new focus and the rejuvenation of its leadership. A significant reshuffle of top positions in the RPP was then undertaken on 23 September, and a number of young ministers were promoted. Long-serving Prime Minister Dileita was ousted as RPP deputy chairman and replaced by Defence Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed, while Finance Minister Ilyas Moussah Dawaleh assumed the post of secretary general. In view of the coming parliamentary elections, the UMP coalition also rearranged its leadership positions in mid-December. The UMP presidency was again passed from Dileita to Abdoulkader, while representatives of the four smaller parties serving as RPP’s junior coalition partners completed the line-up. Djibouti • 311

Hints had for some time been made about a cautious opening up of more democratic space in the political system with the intention of improving the regime’s image. Steps towards changes in the electoral laws were thus initiated from the top by the president and the cabinet, but without any public discussions or even consultations with the UMP coalition partners. On 29 November, the parliament unanimously passed a new law introducing an element of proportional representation for 20% of the seats in the legislature, thus lessening the effects of the existing block-voting system in large constituencies. This disproportionately favoured the dominant coalition to the detriment of smaller opposition parties and had been the cause for past opposition boycotts. No progress had yet been made to determine the exact structure and functions of a new senate, which was to have been created after changes to the constitution were made in April 2010. In September, the ‘Centre des Démocrates Unifiés’ was formally registered as the ninth political party, claiming to hold a centrist position. Its founder was Omar Elmi Khaireh, a former MP for the ‘Front pour la Restauration de l’Unité et de la Démocratie’ (FRUD), a partner in the UMP, and it was therefore widely perceived as being close to the ruling regime. The new electoral law offered improved chances for the opposition camp, but its various components needed some time to come to a joint position on whether to participate in the February 2013 parliamentary elections or to call again for a boycott. By the year’s end, there seemed to be a clear inclination to end the decade of electoral boycott and participate in the elections, but definite registration positions did not have to be taken till January. A ‘Union Sacrée pour le Changement’ was created by a number of the existing opposition parties as a provisional umbrella body for the formation of a united opposition coalition. A new and not yet legalised ‘Mouvement pour le Développement et la Liberté’ (Model) included several Muslim dignitaries and presented itself as having a moderate Islamist orientation. Despite the regime’s attempts to create a more liberal image for itself, there was absolutely no doubt about its undisputed full control over all aspects of public life and its undisguised authoritarian characteristics. This was apparent inter alia in the arrest of a critical opposition journalist in August and brutal firing by police in late December on a protest march by unarmed youth and school children in Obock, resulting in one death and several injuries. Towards the year’s end, the illegal external wing of the FRUD made a number of largely symbolic attacks on public installations in the northern Afar-populated parts of the country, but they had no noticeable impact on public life.

Foreign Affairs

Most attention continued to be focussed on relations with neighbouring countries in the conflict-prone Horn of Africa region. The border situation with Eritrea remained calm without any hostile incidents, but again no progress was made in the wake of the mid-2010 confrontation towards a final demarcation of the border, and relations remained frosty. 312 • Eastern Africa

The government continued to take a close active interest in the complex political developments in Somalia, its ethnically closely linked and crisis-ridden neighbour. Full political support was at first maintained for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu and then even more strongly extended to the new Somali government after its installation in September. In February, the 21st meeting of the International Contact Group on Somalia was held in Djibouti. The TFG’s president in February called on Guelleh to solicit further support from Djibouti, and in November the new Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was received for an official state visit. In May, the Djiboutian military contingent of the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia was augmented to its full strength of 960 soldiers, taking charge of the Hiiran region. Friendly relations and close cooperation were maintained with the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, for which Djibouti continued to serve as a crucial link to the outside world. During a visit by Somaliland’s President Silanyo in February, Guelleh again underlined his desire that Somaliland’s authorities should participate in the on-going Somali reconciliation talks and not remain completely aloof. Relations with Ethiopia, Djibouti’s large neighbour and a hegemonic player in the sub- region, remained by and large unproblematic. Most questions related to the management and possible improvement of the infrastructural and trade links on which both countries depended, although in very different ways. Ethiopia was by far the most important client of Djibouti’s ports, but in turn was dependent on the port services and continued to be dissatisfied with recurring problems of congestion there. The 2011 emergence ofSouth Sudan as an independent state gave rise to some expectations of Djibouti potentially being able to serve as a transit service centre for that country, although this did not seem an immediate prospect. Nevertheless, a tripartite committee was created and an MOU formulated on the joint planning of common infrastructural plans by Djibouti, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The US had plans to further expand its military base, which had become of growing importance due to its strategic geopolitical location. More than 3,000 US troops, civilians and contractors worked at Camp Lemonnier, where they trained foreign forces, gathered intelligence and delivered humanitarian aid, all as components of the fight against Islamist extremism in the sub-region. Fighter jets and drones were permanently operating from the base in outings over Yemen and Somalia. Visits by the AFRICOM commander, General Carter Ham, in February and July underscored the value of Djibouti to the US. Substantial local investments were made for the expansion of the facility. The rents for the US, French and Japanese military installations continued to provide the government with significant and stable revenue. Earlier fears of a possible further reduction in the strength of the French military presence had so far proved unfounded. An EU mission in September discussed plans for a further strengthening of Djibouti’s role as a logistical support base for all international anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. President Guelleh again had a very full international travel schedule and persisted in representing his tiny nation at many international forums, such as the AU, OIC, Arab Djibouti • 313

League, ACP and Non-Aligned States summits, UN conferences, the February Somalia conference in London, etc. All this was in pursuance of Guelleh’s ambition to increase Djibouti’s visibility in the world. In mid-July, he visited China with a business delegation and concluded agreements for more Chinese public and private investments in Djibouti. Close links continued to be maintained with the Arab Gulf states, particularly Dubai and Qatar, while deliberate efforts were made to further diversify the scope of external relations. At the January AU summit, Djibouti was re-elected for another two-year term as member of the Peace and Security Council, in direct competition with Eritrea and Ethiopia. The country continued to receive pledges of aid and to attract private foreign investments, and it was by and large spared any criticism by Western governments of its authoritarian regime and civil rights violations because of its valuable strategic location in an international conflict zone.

Socioeconomic Developments

The macroeconomic environment saw some improvement over 2011, a particularly difficult year, which had been marked by probably the worstdrought in 60 years in the Horn of Africa region, the effects of which were still being felt by significant segments of the population. The UN drought appeal for 2011/12 had identified 206,000 persons as vulnerable, almost a quarter of Djibouti’s total population. The overall economic performance in 2012 was again mixed, but with signs of a moderate upturn. The GDP growth rate was estimated at 4.8%, just a slight improvement over 4.5% in 2011, largely driven by a further recovery in port activity and trade with Ethiopia. Inflationseemed to have been stabilised at an average of around 5%. The current-account deficit was substantially reduced to about 2% of GDP, down from a 2011 peak of 12%, largely as a result of lower food import prices and fewer capital goods imports due to a lull in large investment projects. Foreign reserves remained high at a stable $ 238 m, with the Djibouti franc remaining pegged to the US dollar under a currency board arrangement (at a rate of 177 Dfr:$1). Estimated exports (in fact mostly re-exports) of about $ 100 m continued to be dwarfed by imports of almost $ 500 m, thus maintaining the traditional huge structural trade deficit. Thebudget outturn for 2012 was estimated to have shown a deficit of 1.8% of GDP, thus failing to meet an initially prescribed surplus target of 0.5% of GDP, due to insufficient progress on the reduction of subsidies and other current expenditures. In the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2013’ assessment, Djibouti continued to be ranked very low (171st out of 185 countries), which was indicative of its prevailing very restrictive business climate. Almost all major commercial and business ventures needed high-level political patronage to be successful, limiting prospects for a more dynamic and transparent economic environment. An IMF mission in March conducted the sixth and final review of the September 2008 three-year ECF arrangement, which had been extended to June 2012 and augmented in financial volume to total disbursements of $ 34 m. No immediate follow-up credit 314 • Eastern Africa arrangements were concluded during the year. The IMF felt that the government’s general performance under the ECF had been weak, but it recognised that this had been mainly due to exogenous factors, such as the global context and regional drought in 2012, and in consequence approved the non-observance of the originally agreed performance criteria. The ECF-supported programme had been aimed at addressing poverty and growing social imbalances through enhanced macroeconomic stability and improved economic management. However, major infrastructure investments and construction activities in recent years, driven by substantial FDI inflows, had not so far had much noticeable impact on social conditions. Continuing deep economic disparities and a high unemployment rate (estimated at 60%) remained as key challenges. Both the IMF and the World Bank clearly saw a need for more focussed social and development spending and substantial structural reforms, but at the same time for maintaining macroeconomic stability and consolidating the fiscal situation through an expansion of the revenue base. Djibouti’s generally deficient socioeconomic standard was clearly reflected in its unchanged lowHDI rank (164th out of 186). Port operations, after a slump in 2010, continued to show a good recovery with regard to Ethiopian transit traffic and transhipment figures for the Doraleh container port. Somewhat delayed expansion plans for doubling its capacity (to 3 m 20 ft equivalent units) at an estimated cost of $ 330 m seemed now to come to fruition, and construction was expected to start in 2013 for completion in 2015. A 12 December ceremony marked the start of construction of an entirely new third port at Tadjourah, which was intended to serve northern parts of Ethiopia upon completion of a new railway line to Mekele. The port was financed to the tune of $ 36 m by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Devel- opment. Other ambitious planned investment projects included a major ship maintenance yard, a new shipping terminal for minerals in Ghoubet, the construction of a 300 MW geothermal power station near Lake Assal, and a desalination plant. In particular, the geothermal power plant, to be built by a Chinese state company, was given highest priority by Guelleh with a view to overcoming Djibouti’s perennial energy problems. After years of uncertainty, construction of a new standard-gauge railway line finally started in mid-year in Ethiopia. It would connect Djibouti with Addis Ababa and replace the old dysfunctional Ethio-Djiboutian railway built by the French. Chinese companies were expected to complete the works by 2016. Several government leaders on various occasions made reference to a ‘Vision Djibouti 2035’, intended to serve as a long-term orientation for highly ambitious plans to make Dji- bouti an international service centre and a maritime hub in imitation of the models of Dubai or Singapore. This vision contrasted starkly, however, with the reality of a country with a high level of social discontent and unemployment, reliant on foreign investors and the skills of foreign workers for the implementation of practically all projects, and lacking a dynamic indigenous private sector. For the time being, the vision was really nothing but a dream.

Rolf Hofmeier Eritrea

There were no changes to the political and economic system. In spring, President Isaias Afewerki disappeared from the public view for almost a month, giving rise to speculation that he might be in poor health or even dead, and making it clear that no procedures were in place to appoint his successor. The involvement of high-ranking military officers in illegal activities such as smuggling and human trafficking increased, while the mass exodus to avoid unlimited periods of national service accelerated. Many prominent Eritreans sought asylum abroad, including members of the national football team and the Olympic team. Ethiopia conducted several military incursions into Eritrean territory, allegedly directed against armed opposition forces supported by Eritrea, without any perceptible response by the Eritrean government. The death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had no immediate effect on Eritrean-Ethiopian relations. The chronic shortage of consumer goods and inadequate energy supplies continued, as no positive impact was made on Eritrea’s economy by gold revenues. The Canadian company Nevsun had to admit that it had seriously overestimated the gold reserves at the Bisha mine. 316 • Eastern Africa

Domestic Politics

Eritrea remained an autocratic dictatorship with totalitarian tendencies. President Isaias Afewerki showed no willingness to engage in overdue political and economic reforms. Speculation about his state of health was fuelled when he was not seen in public from 29 March to 27 April. His sudden disappearance from the state media gave rise to rumours that he might be sick or even dead. On 23 April, Information Minister Ali Abdu answered Voice of America’s questions regarding the president’s whereabouts by claiming he was in good health and had been on a far-ranging tour of the country. On 27 April, Ali told the BBC that it was not in line with his government’s political culture to put the president on television in response to “cheap propaganda”. However, one day later Isaias re-appeared on television and stated that he had been abroad (in an undisclosed country) the week before and had travelled through various regions of Eritrea after his return. He claimed that his wife had alerted him to the rumours concerning his health and so he had decided to give an interview. The inconsistency of these stories provoked a wide range of speculation. While some opposition websites surmised that the president was seriously ill – he was known to suffer from alcohol-related liver problems – another theory suggested that the disappearance had been orchestrated by Isaias in order to test the reactions of his political entourage and the general public. The incident made it clear that there were absolutely no provisions in place to regulate the presidential succession. Eritrea had had no vice president since the arrest in 2001 of the then-incumbent Mahmoud Sherifo, a member of the G-15, and the constitution did not set out any relevant procedures regarding the appointment of a new president. Some commentators believed that Isaias wished his son Abraham Afewerki to take over, but it was unlikely that he would be accepted by the ruling elites. The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) remained the only permitted political party and no changes were made to the cabinet of ministers, whose impact on decision-making was extremely limited. In contrast, the major generals who headed the country’s four military command zones retained their powerful positions. They were involved in local politics and curtailed the power of the civilian governors of the six regions (zobas), while their involvement in illegal activities such as smuggling and trafficking of Eritrean refugees increased sharply. Major General Tekle ‘Manjus’ Kiflai, the commander of the western military zone bordering Sudan, was particularly infamous for being involved in a network of human traffickers composed of Eritreans (both military and civilians), Sudanese officials and members of the Rashaida ethnic group, who captured Eritreans in Sudanese and Ethiopian refugee camps and sold them to Bedouin gangs in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. They were raped and tortured in order to extort ransoms of up to $ 45,000 from their relatives in the diaspora before they were released. Information Minister Ali Abdu, so far a favourite of Isaias, left Eritrea in November and defected for unknown reasons. It was speculated that he had sought refuge in Canada. Subsequently, his father, one of his brothers and his 15-year-old daughter were arrested Eritrea • 317 and held at undisclosed locations. His position remained vacant and four other employees of the Information Ministry followed suit and fled the country. Several other prominent personalities defected in 2012. In August, Weynay Ghebresilasie, the flag-bearer of the Eritrean Olympic team in London, sought political asylum along with three other athletes in the 12-member Eritrean team. He told ‘The Guardian’ that the imposition of unlimited periods of national service had prompted him to remain in Great Britain. On 2 October, two air force officers defected and flew the Eritrean presidential jet to Saudi-Arabia, where they sought political asylum. The government sent a high-ranking delegation to Jeddah to negotiate the return of both pilots and the jet, but the Saudi-Arabian government refused their demands. The jet had been a gift of the Qatar government to Isaias. In November, the famous painter Michael Adonai also fled the country and sought political asylum in Australia. He was a veteran fighter of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), the predecessor organisation of the PFDJ, and had won numerous international prizes for his work. In early December, all 17 members of the national football team and their doctor defected in Uganda during the Cecafa Cup tournament, giving as a reason the requirement for unlimited compulsory military and national service. Since 2006, numerous members of Eritrean football teams had asked for asylum during tournaments abroad. The judicial system was not reformed and remained in very poor shape. The formal court system was weak and prone to government interference. Lack of clarity in procedures and a severe shortage of qualified manpower meant that it was unable to provide an efficient service. Civil law cases were mostly handled by respected religious and local elders who acted as informal mediators, applying customary law. The ‘special courts’ headed by military lay judges, whose main task was fighting corruption, became largely inactive, while a dramatic increase in corrupt behaviour was observed on the part of military officers, PFDJ cadres and administrative employees. Lower-ranking employees were often national service recruits, unable to survive without applying corrupt methods, while a ‘culture of greed’ seemed to have spread among the higher echelons of the military and the political elite. Corruption had apparently become widely tolerated by the government in order to appease the higher-ranking military by granting them access to illegal sources of income. The surviving members of the G-15, a group of high-ranking PFDJ members who had been arrested in September 2001 after demanding democratic reforms, remained in custody without formal proceedings. Most of them had reportedly died as a result of abysmal prison conditions, denial of medical treatment, or suicide. According to a statement by Report- ers Without Borders (RWB), three of the seven journalists detained in 2001 had died in recent years, meaning that only four were still alive. State media journalists who had been arrested in 2009 remained in prison. Eritrea continued to be ranked lowest in the world by RWB’s press freedom ranking. On 2 July, the UN Human Rights Council appointed a Special Rapporteur to investigate the Eritrean human rights situation, which it condemned as appalling. 318 • Eastern Africa

Religious freedom remained severely restricted and only the followers of the permitted faiths (Sunni Islam, and Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran Christianity) were allowed to practise their religion. The persecution of Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses continued. The number of religious prisoners was estimated at between 2,000 and 3,000, many of whom were subjected to torture and inhumane treatment. The regime continued to intervene in the internal affairs of the Orthodox Church and the Muslim community; the heads of both were handpicked by the government. The suspended Orthodox patriarch, Abune Antonios, remained under house arrest. Muslim groups regarded as radical or as opposed to the state-appointed mufti were hindered in their religious activities and hundreds of them had spent several years in detention. The possession of religious books by members of the armed forces continued to be prohibited. Fifty-three Jehovah’s Witnesses remained in detention for their refusal to participate in military training. Nevertheless, the number of religion-related arrests was lower than in previous years. In spring, the government started to arm civilians in the larger cities, mostly women and elderly people, and make them patrol as neighbourhood militias. The motive for this measure remained unclear, although it may have been related to Ethiopia’s incursions into Eritrean territory (see below). More probably, the purpose of arming citizens was to increase mutual mistrust. Eritrea’s huge army was not demobilised and the country remained one of the most militarised societies on earth. Due to the unlimited period of national service, which prevented the majority of Eritreans from earning a living, the mass exodus continued unabated. According to the UNHCR, between 800 and 1,000 Eritrean refugees arrived in Ethiopia each month, among them a large number of unaccompanied children. About 1,800 Eritreans a month made it to Sudanese refugee camps, in spite of shoot-to-kill orders still in place at the border. Thousands of these refugees fell victim to human trafficking gangs (see above). Eritreans wishing to flee were charged around $ 3,000 by corrupt military personnel to be transported to Eastern Sudan, where many of them were kidnapped by criminal traffickers, most often at the Shegerab camp complex. UNHCR reported that 551 refugees were abducted from there and transported to the Sinai Peninsula in 2012, mostly by Rashaida smugglers. Hostages without relatives who were able or willing to pay fell prey to organ harvesting or murder. Numerous refugees who had been released by their kidnappers were arrested and held in underground prisons by the Egyptian police. Those who reached Israel could be imprisoned as ‘infiltrators’ for up to three years under new Israeli legislation enacted in January. The political polarisation of the Eritrean diaspora continued. Government supporters persisted with fund-raising campaigns for the “resolute national rebuff ” of UN-imposed sanctions. However, the public visibility of government-sponsored events declined, as the opposition had been successful in creating awareness among many Western host governments of the various methods of coercion applied by the government to extract a 2% tax and additional funds from diaspora Eritreans. The youth movements Eritrean Youth for Change (EYC) and Eritrean Youth Solidarity for Change (EYSC) started a campaign Eritrea • 319 called ‘Arbi Harnet’ (Freedom Friday). They made hundreds of phone calls to Eritrea, encouraging the citizens to empty the streets each Friday evening. This was seen as an expression of civil disobedience in a totalitarian environment where it was impossible to carry protest to the streets. EYSC and EYC were also engaged in campaigns against human trafficking in the Sinai. The Eritrean National Conference for Democratic Change held a meeting in early December where it expelled the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of the Eritrean Kunama, because its leader, Kornelios Osman, had criticised Hamid Idriss Awate, widely honoured as the initiator of the armed struggle against Ethiopia in 1961. Kornelios labelled him an ordinary “shifta” (bandit), who had killed numerous ethnic Kunama. This event was a further indicator for the established opposition parties’ fixation with the past, while they failed to focus on developing suitable strategies to foster political change inside Eritrea. The ethnically-based militant opposition, including Afar, Kunama and Saho groups, remained largely inactive, probably due to lack of encouragement by the Ethiopian authorities to carry out armed insurgencies.

Foreign Affairs

In pursuance of the sanctions imposed on Eritrea in December 2009 (UNSC resolution 1907/2009) and 2011 (UNSC resolution 2023/2011), the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea delivered a letter to the UNSC on 27 June, which stated that Eritrea had dis- continued direct support to the al-Shabaab militias in Somalia, but had failed to comply with the sanctions resolutions in most other aspects. The group suggested that the Eritrean government had curbed its support to al-Shabaab due to frictions with the Shabaab leadership, the latter’s declining success on the battlefield, and enhanced international scrutiny. On the other hand, Eritrea had continued to deploy armed Ethiopian opposition groups, namely the Ogaden National Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Front via Somali territory. Moreover, it had trained members of the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF). The Monitoring Group further stated that Eritrea had violated the arms embargo by smuggling weapons through Sudan for commercial purposes. Senior military officers were involved in these activities, alongside human trafficking of Eritrean refugees to Sinai (see above). The group estimated the proceeds of these activities at not less than $ 3.6 million. Furthermore, it stated that the Eritrean government continued to collect taxes and “donations” from the diaspora by employing threats, harassment and intimidation, and there was no transparency with regard to the use of gold revenues of several hundred million dollars, part of which may have been spent on arms embargo violations and support for armed groups. Another grave violation of the UNSC sanctions was the on-going detention of prisoners of war (which Eritrea denied) from its armed conflict withDjibouti in 2008 and that Isaias continued to maintain his claim that the border conflict with Djibouti was non-existent. Two POWs who had escaped in September 2011 stated that at least five of their comrades 320 • Eastern Africa were still alive, but in bad physical shape due to harsh prison conditions. Eritrea showed no commitment to the Qatari-led mediation process, to which it had agreed in 2010, but which had not so far produced any results. As all this was in grave violation of UN resolution 1907/2009, the Monitoring Group recommended that the civilian and military officials responsible should be targeted for sanctions. So far, the international community had failed to impose asset freezes on Eritrean officials actively involved in breaches of the UN sanctions regime. Although the Qatar government did not publicly announce its displeasure with Eritrea’s behaviour, it re-established diplomatic relations with Ethiopia in November, which had been severed by Ethiopia in 2008 due to Qatar’s significant support for the Eri- trean regime. Both countries signed a series of cooperation agreements, and it seemed that Eritrean-Qatari relations had considerably deteriorated over the year. The political stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea following the border impasse continued, and the Ethiopian army conducted various brief military incursions into Eritrean territory. On 15 March, the Ethiopian government confirmed that its troops had attacked three military bases inside Eritrea, alleging that they had been training camps for ARDUF rebels who had attacked European tourists in Ethiopia’s Afar Region in January, killing five of them. A follow-up operation two days later against strategic Eritrean border positions was not officially confirmed by Ethiopia. The Eritrean government claimed that the objective of the attack was to divert attention from the “myriad of internal problems” the Ethiopian government was facing. In an interview with EriTV, Isaias accused the Wash- ington administration and the CIA, as “masters” of Ethiopia’s Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) government, of being behind the attacks. More clashes occurred around 25 May, when Eritrean and Ethiopian army units fought near the contested Badme border. Neither government officially confirmed the skirmishes, which were reported by various Ethiopian media and Eritrean opposition websites. Eritrean state media remained silent about the incident. Eritrea’s reluctance to condemn Ethiopia, despite its clear violation of international law in carrying out armed assaults on sovereign Eritrean territory, could be interpreted as a sign of fear that, if the conflict escalated, the desolate state of the Eri- trean army and its low morale as a consequence of a decade of forced conscription would become obvious. When Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi died on 20 August, there was no official reaction by the Eritrean government, nor was his death reported in the state media. Meles, as leader of the TPLF, had fought alongside the EPLF under the leadership of Isaias against the Ethiopian Derg regime from 1975 to 1991. Beynam Berhe, Eritrea’s Deputy Ambassador to the AU, signed Meles’ book of condolence on August 27, unlike Eritrean Ambassador to the AU, Girma Asmerom (previously ambassador to the US), who had been appointed in 2011 as the first official Eritrean diplomat at the Addis Ababa-based AU headquarters since the Eritrean-Ethiopian war (1998–2000). Meles’ successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, indicated in an interview with Al Jazeera on 8 December that he was willing to enter into talks with Isaias and even to travel to Asmara. This did not mark a change in Eritrea • 321 the official Ethiopian position, as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front government had claimed for years that it accepted the 2002 decision of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) “in principle”, but that its implementation was subject to “dialogue”, which Eritrea had denied, pointing to the fact that the EEBC decision was “final and binding”. In his New Year interview on 27 December, Isaias affirmed that there would be no talks between his government and Ethiopia. Throughout the year, Eritrea made attempts to re-join IGAD, but was not welcomed by IGAD’s key members, Kenya and Ethiopia. Eritrea had suspended its membership in 2007 in protest against Ethiopia’s military interference in Somalia on the side of the Transi- tional Federal Government. On 29 October, Kenyan President Kibaki said he welcomed Eritrea’s decision to rejoin IGAD “subject to the Government of Eritrea’s support for regional peace initiatives”. Eritrea had opposed IGAD’s peace-keeping activities in Soma- lia and had until recently sent support to the Islamist al-Shabaab rebels. On 1 November, Eritrea’s ambassador to Kenya told the press that Ethiopia had actively obstructed Eritrean efforts to re-join IGAD. Eritrean relations with Sudan remained close. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir visited Eritrea on 24 May to participate in the celebrations for the 21st anniversary of independence and to hold talks with Isaias on bilateral issues. Both countries had abolished mutual entry visa requirements earlier in the month in order to facilitate movement between them. However, in order to leave the country, Eritreans still required an exit visa, which was extremely hard to come by. In the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan, Isaias took sides with the north. He condemned South Sudan’s military seizure of the Heglig oil fields, but called for Khartoum and Juba to normalise relations. According to a report by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey Project, Eritrea had supplied the South Sudanese Democratic Army, a rebel group founded by the late General George Arthor, with arms and ammunition. However, in late October Eritrea appointed an experienced diplomat, Girmai Gebremariam Abba, as ambassador to South Sudan, while South Sudan offered its good offices in mediating in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, although this proposal did not materialise. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni visited Eritrea on 29 May, when a number of cooperation agreements were signed. The improved relations between the two countries could be interpreted as partial success in Eritrea’s endeavour to end its self-imposed regional isolation, probably with the intention of lobbying for the lifting of UN-imposed sanctions. UN sanctions resolution 2023/2011 condemned the use of the “diaspora tax” to destabilise the Horn of Africa region and insisted that the government should stop using extortion and other illicit means to collect taxes outside Eritrea. It also called for member states to hold responsible those individuals who were collecting taxes on behalf of the Eritrean government. As a consequence, Germany had instructed Eritrean Ambassador Petros Tseggai to stop collecting the tax in July 2011. Despite his assurance that this practice would end, the Eritrean embassy in Berlin and the consulate in Frankfurt continued collecting 2% of 322 • Eastern Africa

Eritreans’ incomes or social security benefits, but stopped issuing receipts. The German government did not look further into the matter. In September, the Canadian government ordered the Eritrean consulate in Ottawa to stop the collection of the 2% tax, making it clear that the consul’s credentials would otherwise be withdrawn. Eritrea agreed verbally, but Eritrean nationals living in Canada doubted that their government would give in to the demands. It was generally not possible for those who refused to pay the tax to obtain government services, and the government reportedly withdrew business licences from relatives living inside Eritrea if their kin in the diaspora refused to pay. Eritreans working in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE depended on passport renewals by Eritrean embassies in order to keep their work permits and could thus be easily coerced into paying. Eritrea–USA relations, which had been extremely poor over previous years, deteriorated further. In May, the USA closed its embassy in Asmara and suspended all major diplomatic and consular services. Norway, which had traditionally close ties with the Eritrean government, also announced plans to shut down its embassy. According to a report by the US-based strategy consultancy firm Stratfor Global Intel- ligence, both Israel and Iran had a military presence in Eritrea. The firm claimed that Israel maintained docks and small naval units in the Dahlak Archipelago and Massawa, and a listening post on Amba Sawara [Soira], Eritrea’s highest mountain. The main purpose of Israel’s presence was purportedly to track Iranian arms smuggling to militants in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. At the same time, Stratfor said that Iran had conducted military operations on Eritrean soil related to Tehran’s goal of controlling the Bab al-Mandab Strait. There was, however, no independent confirmation of these claims. Eritrea denied their accuracy via the government-controlled “Eritrean Centre for Strategic Studies”.

Socioeconomic Developments

The Eritrean economy remained firmly in the grip of the PFDJ and the military, and its performance deteriorated further. Throughout the year, the electricity supply was inadequate and the capital, Asmara, suffered regular blackouts. Due to the lack of infrastructure maintenance, the sewage system was in a deplorable state and drinking water was in short supply. The chronic lack of fuel, including kerosene for cooking purposes, worsened and Eritreans had to buy charcoal at exorbitant prices in order to prepare hot meals. Chronic food insecurity persisted throughout the country. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Eritrea could produce a maximum of 60% of its food requirements in a good year, although the government denied this and claimed that Eritrea was food self-sufficient. Field observations undertaken by UNICEF indicated that more than two-thirds of the population were unable to cover their basic food needs and about one third lived in extreme poverty. The nutritional status of children under five had deteriorated significantly over past years. The lack of government information onthe Eritrea • 323 humanitarian situation persisted, and no NGOs were allowed to work in the country in 2012. Large fertile areas in southern Eritrea remained unsuitable for agriculture because they had not been cleared of mines more than a decade after the end of the border war. The 2012 Global Hunger Index ranked Eritrea’s nutritional situation as “extremely alarming”. Primary school enrolment fell to a low of 43% from 67% in 2004, which was probably due to a lack of teachers, many of whom had joined the mass exodus from the country. The so-called Warsay-Yikealo Development Campaign remained in place for the tenth consecutive year. This campaign forced male Eritreans aged between 18 and 50, and sometimes even up to 60 years, and females aged between 18 and 27 to do national service for an unlimited period of time in exchange for pocket money that was not enough to sustain a family. They were employed on infrastructure projects, at PFDJ-owned construction companies or on cash-crop farms operated by the military. Those with higher education worked in the administration or as teachers, nurses and doctors. The government obliged the Cana- dian mining enterprise Nevsun to engage Segen Construction, a company owned by the PFDJ, which made wide use of forced labour, for construction works at the Bisha mine in the Gash-Barka Region. An HRW report stated that work conditions for Eritrean nationals at the Bisha project were appalling, and that the conscripts received inadequate meals. The availability of data continued to be extremely poor. In an interview with EriTV on 27 December, Isaias made it clear that, in his view, measuring the economic performance of a country based on “concocted statistical data” was meaningless. The government’s lack of transparency and the absence of financial monitoring of the government’s and the PFDJ’s economic and financial activities persisted. Both government and party-owned businesses were exempted from paying taxes and could make free use of forced labour provided by national service conscripts. The IMF estimated GDP growth at 7.5% in 2012 and predicted 3.4% for 2013. Inflation was 12% and, according to African Eco- nomic Outlook, the budget balance stood at −12.5% of GDP. Gold production continued at the Bisha mine, a joint venture between Canadian Nevsun Resources and the Eritrean National Mining Corporation (ENAMCO). However, in February Nevsun announced that it had seriously overestimated the gold reserves and only about half of the expected quantity of gold could be extracted (about 193,000 ounces). After exhausting the gold deposit, the mine was expected to produce zinc. Gold production amounted to $ 614 m in 2011 and $ 566 m in 2012, and it remained unclear how the government had used the substantial revenues it gained from the enterprise. There were no noticeable investments in the ailing infrastructure and fuel imports were inadequate. Australia-based South Boulder Mines continued exploring potash reserves at its Colluli project and claimed to have detected 194 m tonnes of potash. The Chinese SFCEO Group completed the acquisition of Zara gold mine from Australian Chalice mining for $ 78 m in early September, while ENAMCO bought a 30% share for $ 29 m in addition to the 10% share it already owned. The government held two national investment conferences, on 27 August and 17 December, with the 324 • Eastern Africa aim of attracting investment from diaspora Eritreans, who were encouraged to buy shares in enterprises such as ERI-Tel and the National Insurance Corporation. Finance Minister Berhane Habtemariam indicated that adjustments to the financial policy were planned to ensure economic growth by encouraging investment. However, it seemed highly unlikely that the government would loosen its grip on major Eritrean companies and introduce public monitoring mechanisms, which had so far been completely absent.

Nicole Hirt Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s political system suffered a blow when its dominant prime minister and architect of the authoritarian one-party state, Meles Zenawi (born 1955), died in August from an undisclosed illness, after 21 years in power. His position fell to his deputy, the southerner Hailemariam Desalegn, as confirmed by the central committee of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Hailemariam, one of the most loyal non- Tigrayan followers of Meles and groomed by him for a high position, remained very dependent on the dominant party elite, notably the TPLF party within the EPRDF. No policy changes or overtures were announced toward civil society or other political parties (represented in the 547-member parliament with just one seat) and political repression seemed to continue after Meles’ death. Opposition parties and other critics had practically no space in which to act. Economic policies continued to emphasise infrastructure development with the support of foreign capital, large-scale agrarian investment schemes on land leased to foreigners and party–linked business people, and efforts to increase the export base beyond coffee. There was again noticeable economic growth, but dependence on donor grants and loans remained very strong. Social and class inequality continued to increase. No changes were registered with respect to the problematic land policy, with the state as sole owner. Eco- nomic growth figures were, as usual, enough to mute any kind of criticism from ‘donor’ 326 • Eastern Africa countries, the World Bank and the IMF, who again demonstrated their utter indifference toward the social, political and human costs of Ethiopia’s coerced and biased growth model. Investments by India, China, Turkey and other ‘emerging countries’ were maintained. Foreign policy was marked by continuity: Ethiopia remained a partner of the USA in security operations in the wider region, was kept in an ongoing stalemate with Eritrea, maintained an armed covert political presence in southern Somalia to contain an expansion of the civil conflict into Ethiopia, and followed a policy of cooperation, intensification of economic relations, and intelligence exchange with its neighbours, Somaliland, Djibouti and Kenya. Relations with South Sudan also expanded. Tensions remained with Egypt about Ethiopia’s mega-dam being built on the Blue Nile. Alongside local protests, some misgivings were also expressed in Kenya about expected negative impacts of the large Gibe-3 dam on the Omo River on the environment and on economic activities dependent on Lake Turkana.

Domestic Politics

The government and the ruling party, the EPRDF, further increased their hold on state and society, with more local-level party recruitment, restriction of the political process to the party only, and more control of all important business sectors and state institutions. The formal boundary between party and state institutions was not respected. No visible changes occurred in the political and governance system or the media landscape, and state-dirigist economic policies continued as before. Ethiopian society was thus characterised by a continuing repressive atmosphere and a political system in the grip of the ruling party. The authorities, in line with what they regarded as necessary for a ‘developmental state’, used heavy-handed tactics against perceived opponents and non-party members. In the Freedom House ratings, Ethiopia was ranked low on ‘political rights’ and on ‘civil liberties’: scoring 6 on a scale of 7 – one of the lowest scores in Africa. A pluralist polity was therefore conspicuously absent, and ’democracy’ – while a popular slogan on state television and in policy speeches – stayed in the wings. The political elite, a complex conglomerate of dependent ruling party constituencies of ethno-regional elites in the Regional States, circled around the top ruling party leadership of the EPRDF, built around the core Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the central movement. Some emerging new middle- class groups that owed much of their rise to their appendage to and protection by the dominant EPRDF were important as a support constituency. Membership of the party was also seen as an informal prerequisite for gaining access to jobs, financial benefits, certain educational programmes and favourable court decisions. There was thus a powerful incen- tive to become a party member in a country where the labour market was non-transparent, the unemployment rate high (notably youth unemployment at an estimated 40%–45%), and access to a secure job often predicated on nepotism or corruption. Accountability and transparency mechanisms were not in place – unless the in-party political evaluation ses- Ethiopia • 327 sions (gim gema) on individual performance were seen as such. But these did not take place under legal or parliamentary scrutiny. The shock event of the year was the unexpected death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in a Brussels hospital, after an undisclosed illness that had kept him incommunicado since 26 June. Weeks of speculation and mystery ended when his death was finally announced on 21 August, although the actual date of his death and the nature of his fatal illness were not disclosed. A remarkable effort to ‘canonise’ his record almost immediately commenced, whereby any public expression of scepticism about his achievements and legacy was penalised. All public offices and government institutions were obliged to mourn and there were cases of people being accused for not having shown the required amount of grief. City authorities, notably in Addis Ababa, displayed mass produced portraits and sayings of the late national leader along all major roads. Leading party circles and the government has- tened to endorse the full continuity of Ethiopia’s policies in all fields and a redoubled effort to “realise Meles Zenawi’s vision for Ethiopia”. Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, a southerner and member of the Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Front (SEPDF), one of the four constituent ethnic-based units of the EPRDF, was named as the new prime minister a week after the announcement of Meles’ death. On August 23, he had immediately declared that Meles’ policies would be continued without change, including his economic policies, and proceeded to imitate the former leader’s style and rhetoric in his public appearances and statements. This was confirmed in his speech on 21 September to the House of People’s Representatives. All was part of a strenuous effort to maintain unity and ensure continuity of the EPRDF party regime. On 29 November, Hailemariam appointed two additional deputy premiers (in addition to one already in his place), an unconstitutional move allegedly at the instigation of the TPLF leadership to ‘balance’ power and ethnicity in the EPRDF leadership: each of the four constituent ethnic-based parties within the EPRDF was now represented. Debates about national policy were little in evidence in the media. The independent press was further reduced, with only a handful of weeklies (such as ‘The Reporter’ and ‘The Monitor’) perilously surviving amidst government pressure and threats, and at risk of the government challenging or even ruining the reputation of those who tried to question its policies and modes of operation. The few economics weeklies (such as ‘Addis Fortune’ and ‘Capital’) rarely wrote about political and social matters. A number of court cases against journalists and civil society figures revealed that the judicial system was unable to deliver what would be commonly accepted as proper justice: relevant evidence and credible witnesses did not play a role and all cases were based upon the highly controversial anti-terrorism proclamation of 2009, although it contradicted the 1995 Ethiopian Constitution. For example: Woubshet Taye, former deputy editor of the defunct weekly ‘Awramba Times’, was given a 14-year prison sentence in January on charges under the anti-terrorism law after publishing a critical assessment of the ruling party’s performance over its 20-year rule; Yusuf Getachew, editor of the Muslim weekly 328 • Eastern Africa

‘YeMuslimoch Gudday’, was arrested after a raid on his house because he had expressed support for large Muslim demonstrations (and his two chief journalists went into hiding); the journalist Re’eyot Alemu was detained in prison and given an additional penalty in August, when she did not show the ‘required’ grief on the death of Meles Zenawi; journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega was also kept in prison on a dubious verdict. In July, an entire edition of the weekly ‘Fitih’ was impounded, and it was closed down later in the year under government pressure, as were ‘Ethio-Channel’, ‘Negadras’ and ‘YeMuslimoch Gudday’. Two Swedish journalists, J. Persson and M. Schibbye, who had been arrested and jailed in 2011 for moving around in the Somali (Ogaden) Region without the required papers and for attempting to talk to local people and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) members about the armed conflict in the Somali Region,were released in September, after continued pressure from the EU and Sweden. Political opposition was given little space and less prominent leaders faced harassment. For instance, in June, two members of the opposition All Ethiopia Unity Party (AUEF) in North Gondar Zone were arrested and disappeared. On June 27, Andualem Arage, vice chairman of the opposition front ‘Medrek’, and Unity for Democracy and Justice Party official Natnael Mekonnen were declared guilty of ‘terrorism and treason’ – charges it is difficult to accept. The sentences (life and 18 years, respectively) were seen as absurd and abusive. Human rights organisations, as well as the annual US government report on human rights in Africa, stated that torture was regularly used in Ethiopian prisons. Police and security forces largely operated with impunity. Despite social and political developments within Ethiopia being well-documented by (local) journalists, researchers, travellers, and NGO staff, policy-making bodies within and outside the country showed little inclination to accept evidence-based analyses, let alone fresh thinking in the domains of political organisation, socioeconomic policy or law. Various armed resistance movements remained active but kept a low profile: the ONLF in the Somali Region 5, the Oromo Liberation Front in the west and east of the country, and a few smaller groups in the north, e.g. the Ethiopian Peoples Patriotic Front and the Ethiopian Unity and Freedom Force. There were some reports that they carried out hit-and-run attacks on prisons in the towns of Adigrat and Debre Marqos, and burned down business premises of ruling party adherents in Metemma, on the Sudan border. The government routinely accused them of being ‘Eritrean agents’. Religious tensions were frequent, illustrating the ongoing dynamics of the competition in evidence for a number of decades, between Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Orthodox, and Protestants vs. traditional believers, especially in the south. Within the Mus- lim community, there were also disputes and clashes over different versions of Islam, and its doctrines and public role. Salafist and Wahhabi-inspired ‘reformist’ groups regularly attacked Sufi Muslim communities, mosques and sheikhs. The Protestant and Evangelical communities continued to grow, reaching an estimated 20% of the total population. There were no reported lethal clashes between believers of different faiths. Ethiopia • 329

In June, the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC), the controversial Patri- arch Abune P’aulos died unexpectedly after a brief illness. Disunity in the EOC and demands voiced in the large Ethiopian Christian diaspora in the USA, where the previous (deposed) patriarch, Abune Merkorios, resided, meant that no successor had been chosen by December. The continued stand-off between the government and the Muslim community, notably in Addis Ababa, was significant. Muslim civil protest was huge and persistent throughout the year. While fears of radicalisation and possible violent action by certain radical Islamists in the country were by no means imaginary, the government aggravated things with its heavy-handedness and policy of repression, and especially by its imposition of what was called ‘Ahbashism’ on the Muslim Supreme Councils in the country – appointing members of the al-Ahbash Muslim organisation, based in Lebanon and with a small number of followers in Ethiopia, as custodians and teachers of the constitutional precepts on religion and state, and of a more moderate Islam. This was to counteract the perceived growth of Wahhabist and Salafist radical versions of Islam. Since late 2011, the government, in an effort to instil what it regarded as a moderate, non-Salafist version of Islam in the state-supported Muslim Supreme Councils in the country, had employed Sufi-leaning al-Ahbash teachers and this continued through the year, generating opposition. Large-scale demonstrations regularly took place after Friday prayers at the premises of the Aweliya School and Mission Centre, a stronghold of orthodox, scriptural Islam (long financed by Saudi Arabia), and later also at the capital’s Anwar Mosque. They stayed peaceful, but various Muslim diaspora websites made calls for more radical action and violent jihad. Demonstrations in other cities and in the countryside followed. In April, five Muslims were killed by police during demonstrations in the town of Asassa, in July clashes with police near a mosque in the capital resulted in four dead and many wounded, and in October four people were killed in Gerba, a small town in the north. Members of an action committee formed at the Aweliya Centre in the capital were arrested in October. In December, 29 prominent Muslims (mostly members of the action committee) were charged with ‘terrorism’ offences and were to stand trial in 2013. Weekly Muslim demonstrations continued throughout the year, and drew support from the Christian, notably Orthodox, community. This also led to a decline in communal clashes between the two faith communities.

Foreign Affairs

Ethiopia became more assertive in its foreign policy and regarded itself as the undisputed hegemon in the Horn of Africa region, in line with its growing economic role and its investments in trans-frontier infrastructure investments (the Blue Nile and Gibe-3 dams, a new railway to Djibouti, electricity cables to Kenya, plans for an oil pipeline from South Sudan across Ethiopian territory to either Kenya or Somaliland), and its role in IGAD and the AU and at the UN climate and other conferences. Ethiopia supplied troops for the 330 • Eastern Africa

Abyei and Darfur peace-keeping forces in Sudan and elsewhere. In total, it had more than 5,000 troops in various African trouble spots. Good relations with Kenya were maintained, and military action in Somalia against the al-Shabaab movement was gradually coordinated, although Kenya’s invasion of Somalia in October 2011 had taken Ethiopia by surprise. Djibouti lived mainly on Ethiopian port fee charges and transit trade and remained a stable partner, as did Somaliland, with Ethio- pia keeping an eye on the port of Berbera for future use. Ethiopia kept troops along the South Somalia border buffer zone, and still had troops in Somalia’s Beledweyn-Baidoa area in December, assisting the Somali government militarily. It continued to support the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu and, after 20 August, the newly installed successor federal government under President Hassan Mohamud. Relations with Sudan were kept business-like, but there was an element of tension due to the large Blue Nile dam, built only some 45 km from the Sudan border. Relations with South Sudan expanded, with Ethiopia seeing it as a potential supporter/client state. Many Ethiopian private investors and traders moved to open businesses in Juba. Ethiopia’s relations with Saudi Arabia were superficially amicable but experienced tensions below the surface. The Saudis were weary of the Renaissance Dam, and there were also regular cases of Ethiopian maids and migrant labourers being abused in Saudi Arabia, as well as apprehensions about the export of radical Islamism. Relations with Eritrea continued in stalemate. There was no movement regarding the border dispute, and both governments kept substantial armed forces near the frontline. Ethiopia admitted making two forays into Eritrean territory in March to hit Ethiopian rebel group hideouts. Eritrean opposition groups in exile received continued support from the government. Ethiopia kept its international position as an important player in north-east Africa. It was a prominent member in the AU, IGAD and other international forums. On 27 January, Meles chaired IGAD’s 20th Extraordinary Summit Meeting in Addis Ababa. Just before his death, he participated in the 22nd World Economic Forum on Africa, held on 9–11 May in Addis Ababa under the theme ‘Shaping Africa’s Transformation’. On May 18, he was one of four African leaders to attend a high-level meeting on global agriculture and food security in Camp David (USA), held on the margin of the G8 summit. Shortly afterwards, he left for Brussels (Belgium), where he would enter hospital. The new prime minister, Hailemariam Dessalegn attended the inauguration of Somalia’s new premier, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, on 16 September in Mogadishu, and on 28 September addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. In December he made a state visit to Kenya. Ethiopia maintained its economic and development aid links with Western donor countries (the EU and the USA) and continued its role as a partner in regional security matters (and anti-terrorism campaigns) in the Horn of Africa and wider Red Sea region. Little if any criticism of its domestic political record was expressed by its Western or Asian international partners. Ethiopia • 331

During the year, Ethiopia was visited by many foreign dignitaries and policy makers. From 23 to 30 January, many African leaders assembled in Addis Ababa for the 18th AU summit. Also in January, Jia Qinglin, a high-ranking Chinese official, held talks with Zenawi. On 1–3 March, IMF Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara visited Ethiopia. On 17 April, South African Minister for International Relations and Cooperation Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane attended the 2nd Joint Ministerial Meeting between South Africa and Ethiopia. Also in April, the World Bank’s new president-elect, Jim Yong Kim, visited. In July, Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi was in Addis Ababa for an AU summit and for talks on a Nile waters agreement. In July too, International Organisation for Migration Director General William L. Swing and UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres visited for talks and to visit a refugee camp in western Ethiopia.

Socioeconomic Developments

Economic growth was again registered in agriculture, services and industry, but somewhat below target. While overall production increased in the agrarian sector due to good weather, expansion of areas under cultivation and productivity increases, it was not sufficient to attain food self-sufficiency. The food security situation remained precarious, and while there was no famine, in August about 3.7 m people were estimated to be in need of food aid and humanitarian assistance. Some 6–8 m food-insecure people were under the Productive Safety Net Programme. The paradox of GDP economic growth concurrent with conditions of mass food insecurity was not solved, because these two processes ran on separate tracks: development via massive donor funding of infrastructure projects and (land) investments, and failing support and opportunity for the roughly 13 m smallholders, because investments by foreigners, state/party-affiliated persons and rich domestic investors were made in large-scale commercial ventures, not in smallholder activities. This fitted the new government aim of national food security, not individual or household food security on the local or regional levels. The number of landless people thus increased by tens of thousands. Ethiopia was ranked 100th in the list of 105 countries in the Global Food Security Index: a disappointing result after 21 years of ruling party policy aimed at food self-sufficiency and security. While economic data varied widely, as usual, according to the sources used (even the World Bank and UN agencies gave different figures), Ethiopia registered an estimated real GDP growth of about 6%–7%, still one of the fastest growing non-oil economies in Africa. Total GDP was in the range of $ 41 bn. An important contributor to growth was the good harvest: according to the Central Statistical Agency, food output was 21.9 m tonnes, 7.4% more than in 2011, due to better weather conditions and a 2.2% expansion of cultivated land. According to government figures, there was also significant growth in industry (17.9%), and services (11.5%). Employment patterns did not change much: agriculture 332 • Eastern Africa employed an estimated 80% of the work force, industry 6% and services 14%. Industry saw the gradual expansion of cement, textile and leather production. Official unemployment figures were not provided, but it was estimated that at least 29% of the working-age population of about 39 m did not have a job. Population growth was about 2.7%. Some 29% of the population remained below the official UN poverty line. An underestimated factor adding to GDP was the growing inclusion or ‘capture’ of the informal economy in the state’s registration frameworks, in which the government invested much effort. The government continued strenuously with the implementation of its ‘Growth and Transformation Plan’ (2010), an almost sacred, non-negotiable economic blueprint for the development of infrastructure and a commercial agrarian economy. Foreign donor funds kept flowing in as usual. For example, the UK providing close to $ 400 m, the US more than $ 600 m, and various EU countries followed suit. The British DFID, true to its reputation, saw no problem in assisting the government in its policies, including helping with the mitigating effects of the forced relocation of peoples in the south to make way for dam construction, mega-plantations and resettlement schemes. This Western donor support was in addition to World Bank and IMF funding, much of which went to support the PBS (‘Protection of Basic Services’) programme, a positive-sounding scheme but one that reinforced the political grip of the government on local society, supported the (forced) relocation and villagisation of people across Ethiopia, and undermined local livelihoods. The state budget was $ 6.1 bn, while expenditure amounted to $ 7.2 bn. The published budget deficit figure was −2.7% of GDP. According to the government’s own figures in July (for budget year July 2012–July 2013), the total budget was to be nearly $ 8 bn. The current-account balance deficit was −$ 2.95 bn., up almost $ 1 bn from the previous year. Taxes and other domestic revenue supplied 14.5% of the state budget. Some $ 1 bn in the state budget was expected to come from external sources. Public (government) debt was about 44% of GDP, no different from last year. In December, external debt was estimated at $ 10.0 bn, up $ 1.5 bn from 2011. Total international aid to the country (including loans and grants) reached more than $ 3 bn., but foreign direct investment remained modest at an estimated $ 105 m–$ 110 m. Most government spending was on infrastructure, mega-dams, education and health coverage, defence and security, cadre training, and commercial agriculture projects. Emerging countries active in Ethiopia, such as India and China, concentrated on infrastructure outlay, agricultural commodities, business investments and trade. In July, the French company Alstom signed a € 250 m contract with Metals & Engineering Corpora- tion of Ethiopia to supply turbines and generators for the hydroelectric power plant of the Grand Renaissance dam. In January, it was revealed that the UK government was ready to provide € 15 m to € 17 m funding for Ethiopia’s controversial ‘special police’ in the Ogaden region. Ethiopia • 333

Annual inflation was 23%: beginning at around 33% at the beginning of the year but going down to 17% in December. This high rate – although much lower than in 2011 – caused economic instability and ate away at the earnings of the lower-middle and working classes. The IMF repeatedly expressed caution regarding inflation-related risks, and worries were also expressed concerning the unreasonable expansion of credit to public (i.e., state) enterprises and the restrictions on private banks and on lending to private businesses. The World Bank, although generally supporting government policies, issued some statements about the lack of benefits of growth felt by low-income and poor groups (20%–30% of the population). Preparations were made to construct a power transmission line from the Gibe-3 dam to Kenya, for the future export of 400 MW of electric power, a $ 1.2 bn project to be funded by the World Bank, the French Development Agency and the AfDB. As in previous years, Ethiopia received most of its income from abroad in the form of remittances by migrants. The total sum was unknown, due to the largely unregistered transfer of funds, but was again estimated at $ 1.5 bn. Apart from this contribution, the Ethiopian diaspora – notably in the US – remained staunchly critical of the Ethiopian regime. Exports of gold, leather products, flowers and khat were all up, while coffee exports – still the largest foreign exchange earner – were stable and somewhat disappointing. Export earnings were dented, however, by the undiminished high port fees of about $ 1 bn that Ethiopia had to pay to Djibouti, a country effectively existing as a service centre for the Ethiopian state and business classes. Imports amounted to $ 10.6 bn, up almost $ 1 bn. from 2011, and consisted notably of petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, machinery, consumer and luxury items, and textiles. The trade deficit remained high at about $ 7 bn. Ethiopia’s main trading partners were Saudi Arabia (10%), China (9.9% and growing fast), the US (7.6%) and India (4.6%). As in previous years, Ethiopia continued negotiations on membership with the WTO, but the process dragged on and was not concluded. Urban areas saw more in-migration from the countryside. Urbanisation reached 18% and kept growing fast. The building boom in most major cities continued, but the urban masses suffered from high food price inflation, unemployment and poverty, leading to several desperate deeds, as on 24 April when a man set himself on fire on Menelik Square in central Addis Ababa, shouting: “I have nothing to eat.” He later died of his injuries. Endur- ing poverty and bad governance in many rural areas led to a significant outflow of tens of thousands of people to the cities and abroad. Some 150,000 children lived on the streets. Investment in the education sector was maintained and quantity-wise the sector saw more growth. The literacy rate in urban areas was alleged to have increased to 78%, and in rural areas to almost 40%, although these seemed optimistic figures. Universities again took in large numbers of students, but almost 50% of graduates could not find work and had to enter the informal sector (street trade, day labour, petty crime, etc.). Persistent calls 334 • Eastern Africa for more quality instead of quantity and more freedom in education were heard. The top people in the educational institutions were virtually all party members. The government put more emphasis on technical and vocational education training, to which 80% of high school graduates were to be directed, with the rest going to higher education. Cell phone penetration reached 18% of the population, but Internet penetration was only 1.7%. National health expenditure amounted to about 4.9% of GDP. The construction of the two mega-dams, the $ 5 bn ‘Renaissance’ dam on the Blue Nile and the Gibe-3 dam on the lower Omo River, continued, and the Ethiopian public continued to pay their obligatory ‘voluntary’ contributions, deducted from state employees’ salaries, to finance them. This was because international (World Bank, AfDB) funding had been refused or fell short, in part due to doubts about the ecological, political and social feasibility of these ambitious schemes. The Blue Nile dam was turning out to be very expensive, now estimated to cost ca. $ 5 bn, and the Gibe-3 dam was seen to be causing ecological and social damage to local populations of cultivators and agro-pastoralists, labelled “primitive and backward” by the government. Many of them lost their land, homes and herds, and saw their cultures denigrated and assaulted. Dozens of local people from the Mursi, Nyangatom, Kara and Bodi ethnic groups and others also died, allegedly due to poisonings, shootings and livelihood destruction. Local people were sometimes told to give up herding and cultivation and to settle down in newly designated villages. The government said it “ . . .would give them food aid for the coming years”. Plans to herd the local people into such resettlement villages and to prohibit pastoralism were underway, with the international ‘donor’ community, as usual, dogmatically concentrating only on GDP growth and nothing else, and keeping quiet. However, FDI remained modest at an estimated $ 206 m, with Turkey and India accounting for 59%. The leasing of large tracts of agricultural land to foreign and domestic investors continued. The state-owned Sugar Corporation also went ahead, taking over huge areas in the south-west for its own mega sugar plantations, removing local people in the process, and forcing them into new villages. Some of these schemes were led by TPLF-affiliated ex- generals. The whole effort was accompanied with much military action and intimidation, and thousands of agro-pastoralists were threatened. Government plans to concentrate them in a limited number of villages were deeply resented locally and were resisted. The entire process remained very controversial and abusive, and there were many reports of violent incidents – difficult to check in detail due to government intimidation and suppression of independent newsgathering and the penalising of local people, but no doubt with a strong basis in fact. Local journalists and researchers were also pressurised to tell only ‘good news’, and some internalised the message and went so far as to deny any abuses on the ground. On 28 April, gunmen in the western Gambella region attacked a large commercial farm owned by Ethiopian-born Saudi businessman Mohammed Al-Amoudi and killed five workers, among them a Pakistani, and injured nine. In southern Ethiopia, there were regular skirmishes between government armed forces and local people whose livelihoods Ethiopia • 335 were threatened, with hundreds of victims. Several massacres were reported by human rights monitoring groups. For example, in October in the south-west, government troops expelled about 130 people from their villages to claim the land, which was to be allocated to others for gold prospecting. No international news agency picked up such stories. In January–February, in the Gurafarda area, west of the southern town of Mizan, local communities of previously resettled people from the drought-stricken Amhara Region were violently expelled at the instigation of the local state administration. These tens of thousands of displaced people did not receive adequate compensation or alternative housing, and lived as IDPs somewhere in the south. This and similar incidents went uninvestigated, with donor country embassies unaware of, or indifferent about, the veracity of the allegations of abuse. ‘Ethnic’ clashes led to some 100–150 deaths and the displacement of thousands, e.g., in Moyale town, in Gambela region, and in the Borana-Gabra area. In various global rankings of governance and business freedoms, Ethiopia fared little better than in previous years, but its image improved due to its economic dynamics and upbeat business spirit in the growing metropolis of Addis Ababa and a few other cities, such as Awasa, Meqelle and Bahir Dar. Although these rankings and the data sources on which they were based needed to be viewed with caution, they indicated changes. On the Legatum ‘Prosperity Index’, measuring wealth and well-being, Ethiopia was placed only 133rd (of a global total of 142 countries). On TI’s corruption perception index, however, it did better, ranked 113th (out of 176), moving up from last year – a result that might come as a surprise, especially to rural Ethiopians, who complained constantly about bribery and nepotism. On the influential HDI for 2012, however, Ethiopia was only 171st (out of 176 countries), despite its much touted progress on the MDGs. On the ‘Index of Eco- nomic Freedom’, the country also fell several places and was in the (lowest) category of ‘repressed’ economies. Ethiopia’s ‘developmental model’ gave no evidence of a rights-based approach, although this was to be discerned in nominal form in the constitution and was still a preference of both its citizens and various UN agencies. Ethiopia’s peasants were on the receiving end of the ‘Growth and Transformation Plan’ of September 2010, with the possible exception of a minority of richer ‘model famers’ who got some material support and other benefits, though at the cost of their independence and with obligatory membership of the ruling party. Population growth showed few signs of slowing down and, with an extra 2 m added each year, the country maintained its growth rate of 2.7%. The total population reached about 88.5 m, compared with 35.4 m in 1980. The pastoralist sector felt the continued onslaught of government policy, directed at its gradual ‘transformation’ – read: termination – as an economically viable way of life. The government’s aim, as hinted at in the ‘Growth and Transformation Plan’, was to sedentarise pastoralists and turn them into controllable cultivators. Various statements by Ministry of Agriculture officials underlined this aim. No consideration was given to the fact that most pastoralist habitats were utilised 336 • Eastern Africa effectively for livestock-raising and were unsuitable for long-term permanent agriculture, or would require disproportionate investment in irrigation, roads and other facilities. An apparently puzzling aspect of Ethiopia’s ‘growth economy’ was the steadily increasing number of people trying to leave the country: political refugees and economic migrants seeking greener pastures in neighbouring countries or preferably further afield. Apart from the regular number of politically harassed people, many of the unregistered economic migrants complained of high tax burdens, poverty, unemployment, job discrimination, or inability to pay their debts for fertilisers and other inputs. Tens of thousands of impoverished and desperate Ethiopians went to Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern destinations. According to new reports from international organisations and NGOs, organised human trafficking also increased, which led to criminal gangs taking a stronger hold on these migratory flows. On the route to Yemen via Puntland or Djibouti, this led to regular excesses such as hostage taking, kidnapping, blackmail, and even deliberate drowning and killing of migrants near the shore. The Ethiopian ‘maid trade’ to the Middle East, as well as the offering of ever-growing numbers of children for adoption, also continued, with as yet unproven but persistent allegations that the Ethiopian government and ruling party agents benefitted from this financially (via licensing offices and other shady ‘services’). As in previous years, the perilous journey across the Red Sea to Yemen led to hundreds of people drowning or dying in other ways during or after the crossing. The number of refugees from neighbouring countries reached 376,410, with an estimated 225,000 Somalis, 86,000 Sudanese, 4,000 from Kenya, and 63,000 from Eritrea, a country from which 700 to 800 mainly young people entered Ethiopia every month.

Jon Abbink Kenya

The year was dominated by the run-up to general elections scheduled for March 2013. As in 2007, the main contenders coalesced into two broad coalitions, while the only other candidate with a significant following trailed far behind. Foreign relations continued to be overshadowed by the case against a number of prominent Kenyan leaders at the ICC. The accused reacted angrily to statements by foreign powers that encouraged Kenyans not to elect candidates charged with crimes against humanity, arguing that such interventions represented an unwarranted infringement of Kenyan sovereignty. Although political uncertainty weakened the confidence of domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investors, the combination of a fiscal stimulus package, favourable rains, and heavy investment in infrastructure, ensured that the economy continued its steady recovery following a destabilising episode of political disorder and ethnic violence in 2007/8.

Domestic Politics

Kenya had introduced a new constitution in August 2010, but many of the most important clauses lacked specific details and instead mandated the National Assembly to draft and pass legislation in order to finalise the design and implementation of the political system. As a result, lawmakers spent the next two years scrambling to pass the more than 50 Acts 338 • Eastern Africa needed to breathe life into the new political dispensation, and the changes required by the new constitution were thus the focus of much government business and political debate in 2012. The most successful part of this process was the reconstitution of the judiciary. The credibility of the legal system had received a boost with the creation of a Supreme Court and the appointment of Willy Mutunga, a respected lawyer and former head of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, as its Chief Justice in July 2011. In particular, the greater independence of the Court suggested that it might not be as vulnerable to political pressure as the High Court had been in the past. In contrast to previous procedures for judicial appointments, Supreme Court justices were first recommended by the Judicial Service Commission and then approved by parliament. The president’s formal role was limited to confirming the names he received from the legislature, although his informal influence remained considerable. However, not all signs were so positive. The appointment of Eugene Wamalwa as justice and constitutional affairs minister in late March raised concerns of renewed political interference in the judiciary. Wamalwa was known to have a close relationship with Uhuru Kenyatta, one of the leaders who stood indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. According to outgoing Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo, Wamalwa had been selected because he was seen to be a safe pair of hands who could be trusted to look after Kenyatta’s interests in relation to the ICC proceedings and potential domestic prosecutions. Wamalwa’s appointment also proved to be controversial because it coincided with the request for a further extension of time by the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commis- sion (TJRC), which was tasked with documenting historical injustices, pursuing justice, and promoting healing, reconciliation and national unity. Despite having already received an extension in August 2011, the Commission quickly ran into difficulties with meeting its new deadline of 3 May. The TJRC highlighted three important tasks that remained incomplete: the holding of a national reconciliation conference (scheduled for July), the consideration of amnesty, and the finalisation, publication and dissemination of the report. But critics were quick to point out that the process was taking too long and that, if an extension was needed, it should have been applied for well ahead of time. Public confidence in the TJRC took another hit on 2 August, when Wamalwa filed a motion in parliament seeking a third extension. The media cited ‘internal wrangling’ within the Commission as reason for the delay, while Wamalwa argued that while regretting the delay he did not see any value in having the Commission hand over a ‘half-baked’ report. However, civil society groups questioned this explanation, hinting that the Commission had only been given an extension after it had agreed to drop certain lines of enquiry that were potentially embarrassing to those in government, and alleging that both the TJRC and the government were afraid of releasing the report – which covered a number of major political controversies – in the run-up to the elections. Subsequent events supported this interpretation. Kenya • 339

Against the backdrop of Wamalwa’s appointment, the vetting of the judiciary, a process entrusted to the Judges and Magistrates Board, came to be seen as a litmus test of the political and judicial will to effect real change. The Board comprised ten prominent jurists from Kenya and around the world (including South Africa, Ghana and Zambia). On 23 February, the Board began its first task of considering the position of eight appellate judges. Of these, Appeal Court President Riaga Omollo, and Justices Samuel Bosire, Emmanuel O’Kabasu and Joseph Nyamu were recommended for dismissal on 25 April. The Board found that, during the investigations into the Goldenberg corruption scandal, Nyamu had incorrectly dismissed proceedings against Interior Security Minister George Saitoti, while Bosire had refused to call former president Daniel arap Moi to the witness stand. Bosire also stood accused of condoning torture in the aftermath of the failed coup that sought to remove Moi from power in 1982. However, lawyers representing the judges secured a court order to suspend their removal pending their appeals. As these cases were heard by judges who themselves were in line for vetting, the Law Society of Kenya feared that the judiciary would collude to defend their own but, to the surprise of many Kenyans, these delaying tactics proved futile and the Board’s original decision was confirmed. A second determination of judges, who had previously served at the High Court but had since become Supreme Court judges or members of the Court of Appeal followed on 20 July, when Mohammed Ibrahim and Roselyne Nambuye were found to be unfit for office. A third determination regarding High Court judges on 2 August removed Jeanne Wanjiku Gacheche, while a fourth determination on 21 September found that Joyce Khaminwa was unsuitable on medical grounds. The Board’s willingness to act in these cases, and Mutunga’s willingness to confirm their decisions, enhanced public confidence in the process. However, despite this flurry of activity, by the end of the year the reform of the judiciary remained incomplete. Some judges had not been vetted, especially at the lower levels, and clearing the backlog represented a major challenge. The Board could only vet so many judges at a time, and every dismissal of a judge reduced the capacity of the judiciary until suitable replacements were appointed. At the same time, when the Board’s investigations revealed evidence of impropriety, the cases that the judge in question had presided over needed to be reviewed, and in some cases reheard. The four judges dismissed in April had presided over 109 cases. At the time it was estimated that at least 30 of these cases would need to be re-opened, and this number had risen as more judges had been struck off. How- ever, the appointment of new High Court and Appeal Court judges went a long way towards ameliorating the potentially disruptive impact of the vetting process, as did the recruitment of new administrative staff to positions that had been left unmanned for years. In the second half of the year, attention turned to the battle to replace President Mwai Kibaki following the end of his two terms in office. Under the power-sharing government that was created to bring an end to the post-election violence of early 2008, Kenya’s 340 • Eastern Africa political elite had first fragmented and then reformed. Despite having been close allies in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in the 2007 elections, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and the then minister of education William Ruto had fallen out in mid-2011. This facilitated the emergence of a new alliance between Ruto and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta when it emerged that the two men would be charged with crimes against humanity by the ICC. This ‘coalition of the accused’ – popularly known as UhuRuto – initially received strong support from Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, who was unsuccessfully deployed as an emissary to persuade Kenya’s international allies to support efforts to have the ICC case dropped or postponed. This ‘KKK alliance’, so named because Kenyatta, Musyoka and Ruto represented the Kikuyu, Kamba and Kalenjin ethnic communities, respectively, had the potential to mobilise three of Kenya’s largest ethnic groups, making it a formidable electoral machine. Moreover, the alliance appeared to have the backing of Kibaki, who dallied with the idea of supporting a non-Kikuyu ‘compromise candidate’ but ultimately accepted Kenyatta as his successor, he being the senior Kikuyu leader and protector of Central Province interests. With the deputy prime minister, vice president and president on board, it also seemed clear that such a coalition would have the backing of the state and hence the advantages of incumbency that are so influential in neo-patrimonial political systems such as Kenya’s. As this alliance broadened its reach, it became known as the G7 because it brought together seven prominent Kenyan leaders, including Kenyatta, Ruto, Luhya leader Eugene Wamalwa, and Kamba leader Charity Ngilu. Another leading figure within this group was Interior Security Minister George Saitoti, who had announced his presidential ambitions as early as 2011. Saitoti had been involved in a number of controversial episodes of Kenyan politics, most notably the Goldenberg corruption scandal, but he was also a political heavyweight with 30 years’ parliamentary experience. Moreover, his personal wealth and position as chairman of Kibaki’s Party of National Unity gave Saitoti considerable influence, which encouraged him to declare that he would contest the proposed G7 presidential primaries ahead of time. Despite only receiving 0.9% of the vote in an opinion poll on the presidential election conducted in May, some commentators still believed that Saitoti could emerge as the leader of the G7 if Kenyatta were barred from contesting as a result of the ICC proceedings. This outcome always seemed unlikely, as the formal case against Kenyatta was not scheduled to start until after the elections and the legal provisions for preventing a candidate from standing were ambiguous and therefore vulnerable to appeal, but the resulting uncertainty led to heated speculation. In addition to his wealth and influence, Saitoti would have been a plausible stand-in for Kenyatta. As internal security minister he had developed a more prominent public profile through his coordination of the domestic response to the security threats arising from radical Islamic groups and the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a secessionist group that demanded better treatment for Kenya’s coastal region. Throughout the year, Kenya • 341 the activities of the MRC continued to make front-page news, as government officials attempted to link the Council to Somalia’s al-Shabaab. However, MRC leaders consistently denied these allegations and on 25 July the High Court lifted the ban on the organisation, declaring that it was an unconstitutional restriction on freedom of speech. Indeed, although many MRC leaders and supporters were Muslim, it was not an explicitly religious organisation, nor did it have explicitly religious goals. Rather, the MRC represented the widespread frustration of many economically and politically marginal communities in and around Mombasa at their relative neglect by the central government since independence. However, the MRC’s threat to boycott the election did cause confusion about whether its supporters could participate in the process and what would happen to those who did not, which may well have had a negative impact on voter registration levels at the coast. At the same time, public confusion over the MRC’s composition and aims fuelled fears of a violent uprising. Saitoti’s role at the forefront of efforts to protect Kenyans meant that he was well placed to benefit from public anxiety about the potential threat to security from within and without the country. Saitoti’s ambiguous ethnicity might also have been an asset in an election campaign, as it would have enabled him to broaden the appeal of the alliance to a wider set of ethnic communities: despite having Kikuyu heritage, Saitoti often presented himself as a Maasai leader. As a result, some G7 strategists calculated that he might be able to simultaneously inherit Kibaki’s Kikuyu support base and mobilise the country’s more politically marginal communities. However, Saitoti’s career was cut short on 10 June, when he was killed in a helicopter crash. Although it appeared to have been an accident caused by a combination of poor safety procedures and human error, rumours quickly circulated that he had been killed by one of his political rivals – a valuable reminder that assassinations had been a regular part of Kenyan political life just two decades earlier. As the main political contenders came to terms with the fallout from Saitoti’s death, the G7 struggled to retain momentum and eventually unravelled, in large part because there was no way to integrate so many leaders with their own presidential ambitions into one election campaign. As political alliances once again fragmented and reformed, the most surprising development occurred on 4 December, when Musyoka surprised many Kenyans by joining forces with Odinga. The vice president decided to leave the UhuRuto camp largely because he felt that he was consistently undervalued and recognised that he would be marginalised in a Kenyatta/Ruto government. As part of the KKK alliance, he would have lost the post of vice president – which Kenyatta had already promised to Ruto – and would have had to settle for a less prominent position. However, Odinga, weakened by the defections of Ruto and another important ally, Musalia Mudavadi, had little choice but to offer Musyoka the vice presidency and a prominent billing in the campaign. Thus, the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) was born, bringing together Odinga’s ODM and Musyoka’s Wiper Democratic Movement Other prominent members included 342 • Eastern Africa

FORD-Kenya and its Luhya leader, Moses Wetangula, whom Odinga hoped would enable him to defeat Mudavadi among his own community in Western Province. The formation of CORD galvanised Kenyatta and Ruto. In the weeks preceding Musyoka’s announcement, there had been strong rumours that Musalia Mudavadi would join their alliance as a ‘compromise’ presidential candidate. These rumours appeared credible because, as deputy prime minister and leader of the United Democratic Forum (UDF), he had a number of advantages over Kenyatta. Most notably, Mudavadi had not been implicated in the post-election violence and was therefore more palatable to donors (although not an angel, having been prominently involved in the Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal). This promised to shield UhuRuto from international censure and to allay the fears of the middle class and the business community, a small number of whom had already started to channel money to Mudavadi, with encouragement from Kibaki himself. The president appeared to have initially hoped that, by supporting the election of a less controversial and non-Kikuyu president, he could secure his legacy – but he later backed off from this position when it became apparent that the Mudavadi bandwagon had stalled and his showing in opinion polls was not going to reach double figures. Selecting Mudavadi would have also had some real advantages for Kenyatta and Ruto. To date, every president of Kenya had either been a Kikuyu or a Kalenjin. As a result, there was a serious risk that, by standing for the presidency, Kenyatta would make it easier for Odinga to rally Kenya’s smaller and more politically marginal communities to CORD. As a leader of the Luhya community, which had often supplied presidential running mates but rarely presidential candidates, Mudavadi’s candidacy would have denied Odinga this option and allowed Kenyatta and Ruto to depict their own campaign as multi-ethnic and inclusive. In turn, this would have reduced the potential for inter-communal violence. There was also speculation that, as with Saitoti earlier in the year, UhuRuto wanted to keep Mudavadi close in case the courts ruled that Kenyatta could not stand. It appeared that these considerations had won out on 4 December, when it was announced that Mudavadi had signed a Memorandum of Understanding to join Kenyatta and Ruto as the presidential candidate of what became known as the Jubilee Alliance. As part of the deal, the three leaders agreed to split cabinet seats equally between their parties – Kenyatta’s The National Alliance, Ruto’s United Republican Party, and Mudavadi’s UDF. But this was where the problems started. Under Kenya’s new electoral rules, coalitions had to record how they would distribute the three most senior leadership positions with the Registrar of Political Parties – a new provision designed to prevent the post-election disputes that had undermined ruling coalitions in the past. As Ruto had already been given the position of vice president, the only two posts remaining were president and leader of government business. Although Kenyatta appeared to recognise that standing aside could yield real benefits for his coalition and the country, most commentators agreed that it was unlikely that he would be prepared to occupy the bottom rung on the leadership ladder – especially as he and his family provided most of the funding for the Jubilee campaign. Kenya • 343

Signs that Kenyatta was having second thoughts about the deal quickly surfaced. Most notably, discussions over how the Jubilee Alliance would select its flag bearers stalled over the question of how leaders should be selected. While Kenyatta argued that the process should be thrown open to party members, Mudavadi recognised that the coalition’s rank- and-file supporters were unlikely to support him and so pushed for a top-down procedure in which the main positions would be decided by the leadership behind closed doors. Kenyatta’s refusal to accept a process that would benefit his Luhya colleague was clear evidence that he was no longer prepared to relinquish his presidential ambitions. After negotiations ground to a halt, the coalition was forced to announce that its convention, scheduled for 18 December, would have to be postponed. Amidst the confusion and uncertainty, the Jubilee Alliance lost momentum. Even so, no one expected Kenyatta’s dramatic statement that he had no intention of honouring the deal that he had made with Mudavadi because the ‘devil’ had made him sign it. How significant a role the spirit world actually played remained unclear. A more likely explanation was that the need to meet the deadline for the registration of coalitions and the announcement of the Odinga-Musyoka alliance had stung Kenyatta into approaching Mudavadi, and that the advice of moderates within his team had led him to sign an agreement that he was always unsure about. Thereafter, he came under pressure from two important sources: first, Ruto, who was concerned that, because Mudavadi was not involved in the ICC proceedings, he could not be relied upon to protect his allies from prosecution and argued that Kenyatta should reconsider; and second, Kenyatta’s supporters and financial backers, who feared that they might be squeezed out under a Mudavadi presidency – as they had been under the tenure of Kenya’s only non-Kikuyu president to date, Daniel arap Moi – and publicly called for Kenyatta to stand. Along with his own personal ambitions and fears, these pressures ultimately led Kenyatta to renege on the deal. Publicly humiliated, Mudavadi had little option but to quit the Jubilee Alliance, which he did on 21 December. He subsequently announced that he would contest the election as the presidential candidate of the Amani Coalition, which brought together the UDF, New FORD-Kenya, and the remains of the Kenya African National Union. This left Kenyatta and Ruto in charge of a predominantly Kikuyu and Kalenjin movement, although NARC-Kenya’s leader Charity Ngilu left CORD to rejoin the Jubilee Alliance on 10 December. However, Ngilu’s determination to shop around for the best deal did her no favours; the media ridiculed her “flip flopping” and neither coalition treated her as a serious political player. Opinion polls released towards the end of the year suggested that Kenyatta’s intransigence might be costly. While both candidates were typically placed on 42%–48% of the vote, most polls suggested that Odinga would win more votes than Kenyatta, but not more than Kenyatta and Mudavadi combined. However, questions remained about whether Kenyans would actually vote primarily along ethnic lines, and whether running mates would be able to rally their supporters to presidential candidates from different communities. 344 • Eastern Africa

Another source of uncertainty was how many Kenyans would register to vote, and whether differential registration rates would advantage one candidate or another. Having initially failed to procure the equipment needed to introduce biometric voter registration (BVR) as a means of identifying voters by their fingerprints, theElectoral and Indepen- dent Boundaries Commission (IEBC) announced that it had dropped plans to use the new technology. In large part this was because the Commission realised that going through a second round of procurement would throw the electoral timetable off track. However, pressure from parliament and encouragement from some donors led to a rethink and ultimately biometric kits were purchased, using a Canadian loan. The process was successful in persuading voters that it would be much harder to rig the election, but introducing BVR effectively cut short the time period for registration and created logistical challenges, because voters could not register unless kits were in place and working. Partly as a result of the compressed timetable, it became clear that the IEBC would not be able to meet its initial goal of registering 18 m voters. Some opposition leaders implied that the IEBC had supplied more kits in areas loyal to the Jubilee Alliance as a result of political pressure. Civil society groups and donors raised a different set of concerns – about the lack of voter education. Low-level violence throughout the year also depressed voter registration in areas such as Baragoi and Tana River, where over 100 people died and 30,000 were displaced in local clashes between the Orma and Pokomo communities. Although it was often unclear how these related to national struggles, there was considerable evidence that they were orchestrated by local political leaders, including Assistant Minister for Livestock Dhadho Godhana, who was arrested on 12 September and charged with funding the violence. Nevertheless, although the proportion of women and young people was disappointingly low, the IEBC managed to register 14.3 m Kenyans. Not only was this a national record, but it was also well above the 12.5 m for the referendum in 2010, and about 60,000 more than in 2007 – despite well over a million ‘ghost voters’ having been removed from the roll. Moreover, although there were higher levels of registration in Kikuyu areas, this followed the pattern of previous elections and could partly be explained by the intense politicisation of the Kikuyu community against the ICC and Odinga, and the proximity of Central Province to Nairobi, which made it easier for Kikuyu leaders in the capital to mobilise their community. With opinion polls giving Odinga a narrow lead, and Kenyatta’s supporters registering at higher rates, the election remained too close to call as the year drew to a close. It was clear that Mudavadi and five other presidential candidates would not be able to mount a significant challenge.

Foreign Affairs

Kenya’s international relations continued to be overshadowed by the ongoing ICC investigation. On 23 January, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber announced that the charges against Kenya • 345

Minister for Industrialisation Henry Kosgey and former police commissioner Mohammed Hussein Ali would be dropped for lack of evidence. However, charges were confirmed against William Ruto, broadcaster Joshua Sang, Uhuru Kenyatta, and cabinet secretary Francis Muthaura. From this point on, the ICC proceeded with two separate cases. One concerned Ruto and Sang, alleging that they had organised Kalenjin militias to attack supporters of their political rivals in the Rift Valley. The other focused on Kenyatta and Muthaura, alleging that they had organised counter-attacks against members of the Kalen- jin community. Following the confirmation of the cases, civil society groups increased the pressure on President Kibaki to sack Kenyatta and Muthaura. Although Kenyatta initially rejected the demands, publicly reiterating his intention to contest the presidency come what may, they both stepped down from their cabinet responsibilities on 26 January. However, Kenyatta only resigned from his post as finance minister and retained the position of deputy prime minister, which led many to question the sincerity of his gesture. The decision not to pursue the charges against Kosgey and Ali was far more significant than many realised at the time because, along with Ruto’s defection to the Kenyatta camp, it meant that no Odinga ally was involved in the case by the time it went to court. This placed the ODM leader in a difficult position, because it enabled Kenyatta and his allies to depict the ICC intervention as an international conspiracy designed to ensure that Odinga would win the 2013 elections. In response, Odinga, who had previously been a vocal supporter of the ICC, adopted a much lower profile, deliberately cultivating the image of a concerned bystander with no direct stake in the controversy. But this did not prevent the UhuRuto team from using the ICC as a common enemy against which to unify and mobilise their communities, or from attempting to undermine Odinga’s domestic legitimacy by depicting him as a national traitor prepared to sell out Kenya to meddling foreign powers. The prospect of Kenya being ruled by leaders charged with crimes against humanity by the ICC also put many of Kenya’s traditional international allies in a difficult position. Although the US was not a signatory to the ICC, Washington made it clear behind the scenes that it was in Kenya’s own interest for Kenyatta and Ruto to withdraw from the presidential contest. However, the US was forced to take a back seat in public because Ambassador Godec, although assigned as chargé d’affaires at the Nairobi embassy in August, was not officially accredited until January 2013. President Kibaki did not give him an earlier audience, and Godec steered clear of controversial public statements. In his absence, the most visible foreign representatives to explicitly address these issues were former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had been responsible for handing over the names of those suspected of involvement in post-election violence to the ICC, and UK High Commissioner Christian Turner. Annan caused outrage amongst the ranks of the Jubilee Alliance when he urged Kenyans not to vote for ICC indictees, who he said could not carry out their duties as they would not be able to travel abroad, while Turner explained 346 • Eastern Africa on television on 22 October: “The electoral matter is a Kenyan affair. But neither myself nor other government ministers talk to or engage with indictees.” This had the unfortunate consequence of linking the ICC proceedings to the former colonial power, an association that the UhuRuto camp sought to manipulate as the election campaign reached its climax by developing a radical critique of foreign ‘meddling’ that made reference to Kenya’s colonial subjugation by Britain, equated the ICC suspects with anti-colonial prisoners such as Uhuru’s father, and as a result resonated with many Kenyans. However, the impact of the UK’s stance was diluted by disagreements within the donor community about how to respond to the trials. All ICC signatories were bound by a legal obligation not to engage with state leaders who refused to comply with the Court or had been found guilty and had yet to be arrested. But although evidence emerged throughout the year that witnesses were systematically being bribed to change their testimony or intimidated – and in the worst cases killed – to drop it, Kenyatta and Ruto officially remained in compliance with the ICC throughout the year, giving donors the option of treating them as innocent until proven guilty. The UK took a more vocal and hardline approach because Foreign Secretary William Hague wanted to send a clear message that large-scale human rights abuses would not be tolerated. But other donors felt that this was a counterproductive strategy and avoided making public statements on the matter. The message from the US was also more complex than it first appeared. Concern that Kenyatta might win the presidency was tempered by America’s reliance on Kenya as a key ally in the war-on-terror in the Horn of Africa. Throughout the year the US remained broadly supportive of the activity of Kenyan troops in Somalia and, after Kenya formally joined the American-funded AU mission in Somalia on 6 July, helped to pay for it. The 2011 invasion had followed a series of kidnappings near the Kenya-Somalia border. The government claimed that members of the radical Islamic group al-Shabaab had entered Kenya, committed the attack, and then taken captives back over the border. The deployment of Kenyan troops was intended to create a buffer zone that would insulate the country against Somalia’s insecurity. It also had the attractive side benefit of boosting Kenya’s influence in its resource-rich neighbour. The main aim of the operation was to gain control of the strategically important port of Kismayo. On 28 September, Kenyan troops launched an amphibious assault, landing forces on the beach. According to a military spokesperson, the attack, supported by the Somali National Army and Ras Kamboni, a local militia, met with “minimum resistance” from al-Shabaab. The defeat of al-Shabaab in one of its strongholds was good news for the US and confirmed Kenya’s value as an ally. However, the operation was tainted by accusations of human rights abuses including rape and torture, which led American policy makers to consider withdrawing their support for the invasion. According to HRW, Kenyan security forces were also “ ‘beating and arbitrarily detailing citizens and Somali refugees” in the Kenya-Somalia border area. Kenya • 347

Following the invasion, al-Shabaab threatened reprisals. On 12 January, they claimed responsibility for killing six people and abducting three more in Gerille town, Wajir district. A number of attacks followed, including a grenade attack on 18 November that killed six people in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area, popularly known as ‘Little Mogadishu’ for its large Somali population. The attack was notable because, although al-Shabaab did not claim responsibility, it prompted a heavy-handed response from Kenyan security forces, who arrested hundreds of Somalis after the explosion. This in turn fostered anti-Somali senti- ments and encouraged the looting of Somali properties by groups of angry youths. The deterioration of relations with the UK and USA encouraged the government to strengthen its ties with other partners. Ironically, in July it was Odinga who was tasked with fostering Kenya’s already close relationship with China in a meeting with Vice President Xi Jinping, held in the wings at the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Odinga stated that Kenya would welcome further investment by Chinese companies in the areas of oil, ports, infrastructure and electricity. This was reflected in trade figures that revealed Chinese exports to Kenya had increased by 18% in the first quarter of the year. As a result, China became the second largest source of foreign goods, overtaking one of its main rivals, India, but still behind the UAE.

Socioeconomic Developments

The government’s economic policy continued to be guided by an IMF-backed programme designed to promote economic growth by strengthening infrastructure and implementing structural reforms, including deregulation and privatisation. As a result, the government continued to enjoy the goodwill of the IMF and its financial support. The IMF conducted the third and fourth reviews of the three-year ECF originally approved in January 2011, and augmented in December 2011 to a volume of $ 750 m. The government’s reform programme was judged to be generally on track. However, domestic and regional barriers constrained progress towards the declared goals. Domestically, elite competition over economic influence and political control complicated the sale of state assets – in part because the actual ownership of private stakes in parastatals was often shrouded in mystery. The focus of the legislature and political leaders on implementation of the new constitution and the run-up to the elections created further problems, because it drew attention away from the process of privatisation. Consequently, the government made little progress towards its goal of disposing of some or all of its stake in 25 state enterprises. Regionally, the smaller countries within the EAC remained fearful of Kenyan economic and political domination. As a result, they were naturally reluctant to remove further barriers to trade until they felt that their industries and producers could compete in an open market. In the case of smaller economies, such as Burundi, and low-capital economies, such as Tanzania, this was some way off. However, recent finds of oil and gas in Kenya, 348 • Eastern Africa

Tanzania and Uganda raised hopes that the infrastructural development and improvement in transport networks necessary to export natural resources would create the foundations for deeper regional integration. Trade figures revealed some cause for optimism: in 2011 Tanzania (9.5% of total exports) and Uganda (9.7%) were the main destinations for Kenyan goods, ahead of traditional European trading partners. At the same time, trade with other regional neighbours increased – including to South Sudan, a strategically important market given both countries’ determination to pursue joint infrastructure projects. In order to kick-start economic growth, the government continued to implement a fiscal stimulus package in 2012. Higher government spending was in part funded by an expansion of the tax take, with the remainder financed through a combination ofdomestic and international borrowing. This pushed up the national debt, with the public debt burden reaching 52% of GDP – up from 44% in 2008. Similarly, Kenya’s stock of debt increased from $ 7,607 m in 2008 to $ 11,025 m in 2012. As a result, debt-servicing payments increased from $ 412 m to $ 699 m over the same period. In response, the government pledged to tighten its belt from 2013 onwards in order to reduce the debt burden, but this seemed unlikely to be realised as the cost of elections and the implementation of the new system of decentralised government would make it extremely difficult to reduce expenditure. The stimulus package contributed to a gradual economic recovery following two years of slowdown in 2008/9. Favourable rains in the early part of the year, combined with investment in infrastructure and the uptake of banking services by the middle class, supported steady economic growth. One promising infrastructure project was the launch of a new commuter rail line in Nairobi in November, which enabled 20,000 residents to quickly commute between the central business district and a brand-new train station in the Syokimau suburb ten miles away. But the most significant venture was undoubtedly the new Lamu Port and Lamu Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor, a $ 23 bn project officially launched by presidents Kibaki and Salva Kiir of South Sudan on 2 March. The main components of the corridor included the construction of a railway to connect Lamu to Juba, an oil pipeline to South Sudan and Ethiopia, an oil refinery, three airports and a road network. GDP grew by 4.7% in 2012, a slight increase over the 4.4% recorded in 2011. The continued global economic crisis and high interest rates in the first half of the year contributed to constrain a faster economic expansion, although concern about the potential for instability around the 2013 elections did not appear to have as deleterious an impact on growth as in previous election years. Consumer price inflation remained a cause for concern at 9.4%, largely a result of the fiscal stimulus package, high government investment in infrastructure, public-sector wages and election-related expenditure. However, this represented a significant decrease from the 14% recorded in 2011, and in October year- on-year inflation dropped to 4.1% – a 23-month low. Earlier in the year, a combination of Kenya • 349 rising domestic food prices and a weakening currency pushed up prices, but government action to tighten monetary policy in the second half of the year helped to strengthen the shilling, while higher food production following favourable weather conditions helped to reduce food prices. Tourism continued to be a mainstay of the economy. The number of leisure tourists had risen in 2011 to a new high of 1.32 m, supporting an increase in official earnings from KSh 73.7 bn in 2009 to KSh 97.7 bn. Tellingly, the profile of tourists entering Kenya also changed during this period. In contrast to the historical pattern, the number of European arrivals had fallen slightly over the last two years, while Chinese tourists recorded the biggest increase. In a promising development, the number of people visiting Kenya from other African countries had also risen considerably. It was not all good news, however. A Virgin Airlines decision to withdraw from Kenya, citing low profitability, was a setback because it significantly reduced the options for people travelling from the UK and much of Europe and the USA. However, this came as welcome relief to Kenya Airways. Initially, the future had looked bright for Kenya’s national airline. Having been founded in 1977, Kenya Airways became in 1996 the first flag-carrying airline in Africa to be privatised. It was now 30% owned by the government and 27% owned by KLM, with the rest of its shares in private hands. As part of the KLM partnership, it rapidly expanded its routes across the continent and was currently ranked fourth in Africa in terms of seat capacity. In 2012, Kenya Airways increased its fleet from 31 to 34 planes and flew 3.6 m passengers, up from 3.1 m in 2011. As a result, the airline announced an annual turnover of KSh 100 bn for the first time. But the airline had struggled to remain profitable in recent years because competition from Virgin and British Airways kept prices low. This was compounded by the weak shilling, which effectively increased costs abroad. The announcement of an operating loss of KSh 5.5 bn in November led a newspaper to run a headline “Kenya Airways’ worst year”. Between January and November, its shares lost half their value – the worst performance of any listed company – although the Nairobi Stock Exchange Index actually rose by 30%. Worse still, the airline’s attempts to raise the funds needed to reverse its fortunes were undermined when a rights issue intended to raise KSh 20.7 bn was only 70% subscribed. Only when KLM and the government stepped in to purchase shares, and the IMF bought in for a 9% stake, was the target reached. Despite these difficulties and Virgin’s decision to end its Nairobi route, the government finally approved the construction of a new runway at Nairobi airport in December. Better news came in the field of extractive resources. In October, Australia’s Base Resources began a capital-raising exercise for $ 300 m required for the development of a mineral sands project at Kwale. The site was expected to enter production before the end of 2013. On 27 March, a British company, Tullow Oil, announced the discovery of commercially viable oil fields in Turkana in a joint venture with Canada’s Africa Oil Corporation. 350 • Eastern Africa

The find, a 20-m. oil reservoir that exceeded both companies’ expectations, had significant economic and political implications. Economically, it encouraged Tullow and others to drill more exploratory sites in the hope of further finds on a similar scale. At the same time, it raised hopes that the government and the oil companies might work together to strengthen the infrastructure connecting Turkana to Nairobi and to export routes, better integrating this long-neglected region both domestically and regionally. Politically, the find added another layer of complexity to the relationship between Kenya and the UK. Foreign Secretary William Hague had been keen to promote a mantra of “trade not aid”, but Britain’s decision not to talk directly to Kenyatta or Ruto put human rights ahead of profit. While this was celebrated by human rights activists and supporters of the ICC, it raised difficult questions for UK companies dependent on the good will of the Kenyan government to make good on their investments. If Kenyatta was elected and failed to comply with the ICC, forcing the UK government to turn its back on Kenya, would companies such as Tullow be prevented from doing business – and in the process lose ground to companies from countries less concerned about their trading partner’s human rights record, such as China? In this way, the political uncertainty surrounding the ICC and the elections gave a range of international investors pause for thought.

Nic Cheeseman Rwanda

The ruling RPF continued to maintain strict controls on political and public life. The regime, led by President Paul Kagame, faced little internal political opposition. Progress continued in the fields of public service delivery and the economy. The RPF lost some standing with its international donors following its vigorous denial of military involvement through proxy militias in the neighbouring DRC. Following the release of a UN report that accused the government of supporting military rebellion in eastern DRC, a number of donors suspended aid disbursements. Relations with donors remained strained throughout the year, despite concerted government efforts to discredit the UN report. Bilateral relations with the DRC once again deteriorated somewhat, with Congolese President Kabila demanding that Rwanda stop supporting rebels in the DRC’s eastern provinces, although Rwandan troops were undertaking joint operations with Congolese army units on DRC territory and economic cooperation agreements between the two countries also remained simultaneously under negotiation. Regional peace talks failed to resolve the conflict in eastern DRC, despite Rwanda’s wish to cooperate with the Congolese army to contain the conflict. The dip in available foreign aid constrained the government’s development plans, as aid accounted for some 35% of budgeted revenue. Foreign aid cuts, combined with higher international interest rates, the continued global recession and lower domestic public spending, slowed Rwanda’s economic growth to a still-healthy 6.5%. Poverty decreased 352 • Eastern Africa for the third year in a row in urban areas, and decreased slightly in rural areas for the first time since the 1994 genocide.

Domestic Politics

The ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) continued to dominate all levels of socio- political life, from the lowest levels of the administrative bureaucracy up to President Paul Kagame’s cabal of advisors. There was some flux in the president’s inner circle of military advisors. In January, senior military officers who were once close advisors to the president were arrested, including air force commander Lieutenant-General Charles Muhire and the head of military intelligence, Richard Rutatina. The latter’s arrest sent shock waves through the military rank-and-file, as he had held his post for just six months, having been appointed in July 2011. Colonel Joseph Nzabamwita, Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) spokesman, reported that Rutatina and his military colleagues had been arrested as part of Rwanda’s anti-corruption drive for illegal business dealings in resource minerals smuggled from the DRC. Private sector leaders, many of them RPF members who had returned to Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, felt that the president’s office was bringing trumped up charges against Rutatina and others in efforts to remind them that it was Kag- ame who controlled the military. Whatever the reason, the shake-up among Kagame’s aides continued a broader trend of domestic disillusionment with the RPF. Members of the RPF’s core constituency – urban, educated and English-speaking Tutsi – felt that Kagame had lost his vision of ethnic unity and economic prosperity for all Rwandans. In addition to the continuing trend of government scapegoating of the political opposition and increasing tolerance of nepotism and bribery among members of the ruling clique, domestic critics also noted the selective way in which those closest to Kagame were able to benefit economically from their relationship with him, while those who questioned the policies or practices of the government were accused of corruption. In December, TI acknowledged this trend in its 2012 Corruption Perception Index, with Rwanda dropping a full point in overall rank from 2011, and a note that Rwandans regularly had to pay bribes for basic service delivery. Rwanda responded to the criticism, highlighting that it was the least corrupt country in East Africa. Notably, dissatisfied Tutsi were not clamouring for increased democracy or a more economically inclusive Rwanda. Rather, dissatisfaction with the regime was expressed in complaints about their lack of access to credit and other economic spoils of RPF rule. There was thus no organised or viable opposition to Kagame’s political might. The president still commanded the loyalty of much of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), so a coup was unlikely. Political opponents of the regime, ethnic Hutu, Tutsi and Twa alike, continued to regularly accuse Kagame of increasing authoritarianism and of trampling on civil and political rights and freedoms. International and domestic human rights organisations regularly accused the RPF government of harassment and intimidation of political Rwanda • 353 opponents and journalists. In contrast to previous years, the RPF did not deny its control of the political sphere, citing the need for state security and economic growth to take priority over political freedoms. In April, founding president of the opposition Social Party (PS- Imberakuri), Bernard Ntaganda, remained in prison after the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against his conviction for endangering state security and promoting ethnic divisionism. HRW alleged that the charges against Ntaganda related solely to his public criticisms of the government’s reconciliation policy. Frank Habineza, leader of the Democratic Rwanda Green party, returned to Rwanda in September, having fled in July 2010 following the murder of his party’s vice president. The government rejected Habineza’s request to register the party and the Greens had to cancel a planned November congress because government authorisation was refused. In April, the trial of Victoire Ingabire, president of the ‘Forces Démocratiques Unifiées’ (FDU-Inkingi) party, finally concluded following 18 months of stops and starts. She was charged with six offences, three of which were linked to treason and terrorist acts, while the other three – genocide ideology, ethnic divisionism and public incitement – were linked to her public criticism of government reconstruction and reconciliation policies. In October, Ingabire was found guilty of conspiracy to undermine the government and of genocide denial and was sentenced to eight years in prison. International and domestic human rights groups called into question her access to a fair trial and due process, noting in particular the meddling of officials from the president’s office and the Ministry of Justice in coercing and intimidating witnesses. Throughout 2012, members of the FDU-Inkingi and PS-Imberakuri were arrested, threatened or detained. In September, armed men abducted and questioned Alexis Bakunzibake, PS-Imberakuri’s vice president, asking about the party’s activities, membership, funding and links to other opposition parties in Rwanda and eastern DRC. Also in September, eight FDU-Inkingi members were arrested and detained without charge in Kibuye, accused of holding illegal meetings and collaborating with the Hutu chauvinist ‘Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda’ (FDLR) based in the DRC. The RPF continued to maintain that the FDLR was a destabilising presence for Rwandan peace and security, as its primary goal was to finish the Tutsi genocide of 1994. As far back as 2002, military analysts had thought that the FDLR posed no serious threat to Rwanda’s security, as it lacked financial and moral support, both internationally and regionally. In addition, following intense demobilisation and reintegration programmes funded by the international community, the FDLR numbered only between 400 and 2,000 fighters, hardly the numbers needed to overthrow the RPF/RPA. In October, police detained two high-ranking members of the FDU-Inkingi overnight in Muhanga (formerly Gitarama), secretary- general Sylvain Sibomana, and representative for Kigali Martin Ntavuka, after they made critical comments about the government during an informal conversation on a bus. Two journalists for the Kinyarwanda-language newspaper ‘Umurabyo’, Agnès Uwimana and Saidati Mukakibibi, remained in prison for endangering national security. 354 • Eastern Africa

In April, the Supreme Court reduced their sentences from 17 to 11 years, and from seven to four years, respectively. In August, the editor of the Kinyarwanda-language newspaper ‘Umusingi’, Stanley Gatera, was arrested and charged with ethnic discrimination and sec- tarianism in response to an opinion editorial he authored on marital stability. He received a one-year sentence in November. In June, unknown actors abducted Idriss Byringiro, a journalist with the English-speaking newspaper ‘The Chronicles’. He reported this to police in Kigali, but in July was arrested for making a false statement about his abduction to the police and was awaiting trial. In April, Epaphrodite Habarugira, an announcer at Kinyarwanda-language Radio Huguka, was arrested and charged with genocide ideo logy after mixing up the words reserved for identifying Tutsi survivors of the genocide on air during a newscast. He was acquitted in July, having spent three months in detention on charges of promoting genocide ideology. In June, Tusiime Annonciata of the English- speaking radio station Flash FM was beaten unconscious after police accused him of trying to enter a parliamentary session without permission. International donor representatives resident in Kigali continued to voice concern about the various restrictions on freedom of expression and lack of political openness, reminding the government that neither the FDU-Inkingi nor the PS-Imberakuri posed any real threat to its political power. Highlighting this fact was the muted presence in Rwandan politics of the external opposition Rwandan National Congress (RNC) throughout 2012. Kagame regularly and forcefully denounced the RNC, particularly following the trial in absentia of the RNC’s four founding members in Rwandan military courts in January 2011. Inter- national and domestic political analysts believed that the RNC currently posed no serious political or military threat, noting that it had been unable to raise significant financial or moral support from Rwandans living in the diaspora, thus limiting its influence abroad and at home. Kagame’s strongly negative depiction of the role of the RNC in domestic politics continued the president’s year-long tendency to remind both international observers and domestic audiences of the broad-based support that the RPF’s post-genocide reconstruction and reconciliation policies enjoyed. Throughout the year, Kagame urged Rwandans to be proud of the economic growth, state security and peace the country had enjoyed since the RPF came to office. He even remarked on several occasions, including in his holiday message in December, that Rwanda was politically open because it was an openness that “rests in Rwandan political culture and is one that is meaningful to Rwandans, all of whom value peace, security and stability”. As evidence, Kagame regularly cited his government’s amendments to the 2008 genocide ideology law. Human rights advocates had regularly criticised this law for its lack of precision in defininggenocide ideology and ethnic divisionism. The revision, which was before parliament for passage into law in December, offered a narrower definition of the offence of ‘genocide ideology’ and a reduction in prison sentences. At the same time, it retained offences related to minimising the genocide and criticising the government as threats to free speech. In November, the international media watchdog, ‘Article 19’, Rwanda • 355 criticised the government for its inertia in amending the media law, to which the government had committed itself in June 2011. ‘Article 19’ also criticised the government’s near-total control of the media, including its continuing role in determining who was a journalist and what counted as media. The revision remained in draft form at the end of 2012. In October, Reporters without Borders released its annual media assessment, noting an improvement in the government’s treatment of journalists but expressing continued concern about the political uses of the media law to suppress press freedoms. The community-based gacaca traditional courts finally closed in June, having tried almost two million genocide-related cases over the years. International critics of the gacaca courts, lead by HRW and Penal Reform International, alleged that the courts violated the right to a fair trail and permitted the harassment and intimidation of witnesses, the corruption of judges and government interference. Kagame, speaking at the formal closure of the courts in Kigali in June, highlighted the positive aspects of the gacaca process, including the speed of the courts, the broad-based participation of the local population, and the part it played in establishing a record of information about events during the 1994 genocide. In January, Leon Mugesera, a minister in the former Habyarimana government, was returned to Rwanda from Canada for trial on charges of planning and inciting genocide. Mugesera, with the support of international human rights groups, argued that he would not receive a fair trail in Rwanda, citing the irregularities in Ingabire’s case, which had started in 2010. Mugesera’s trial started in October, after much legal wrangling about official languages. The government insisted that his case be tried in Kinyarwanda, while Mugesera wished to prepare his defence in French. In April, the referral chamber of the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) transferred the case of Jean-Bosco Uwinkindi to Rwanda’s national courts. This marked a major milestone in Rwanda’s relationship with the ICTR and jurisdic- tions in other countries that had previously declined to transfer genocide cases owing to fair trial concerns. In May, preliminary hearings in Uwinkindi’s case were held in Kigali. By November, a total of eight cases had been transferred from the ICTR to Rwanda’s domestic courts. In June, the appellate division of the EAC’s East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruled in the case of Lieutenant Colonel Rugigana Ngabo, finding that his detention without trial was indeed illegal. Rwandan military police had arrested Ngabo, the brother of exiled RNC founding member General Kayumba Nyamwasa, in 2010 on charges of endangering state security and inciting ethnic violence. Ngabo’s case came before the EACJ thanks to a habeas corpus application by his sister in November 2010.

Foreign Affairs

As in previous years, foreign affairs were again dominated by Rwanda’s presence (critics would say interference) in the eastern DRC. In June, in a leaked interim report, a UN Group of Experts (GoE) accused the Rwandan government of supporting a military 356 • Eastern Africa rebellion in eastern DRC, known as M23. The GoE report concluded that Rwanda supported the rebellion in part by recruiting boys and young men to join its ranks, as a means to pursue its own economic ends. The GoE also reported that these young soldiers were recruited and trained in Rwanda. The Rwandan government, led by Kagame and Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, vigorously denied the allegations. In July, the government submitted a formal rebuttal to the UNSC, which questioned the standard of proof and reminded the international community of the continued threat that the Hutu-extremist FDLR posed to Rwandan security. Undermining the plausibility of the government’s denial was its long history of military involvement in eastern DRC, dating as far back as the mid-1990s, between the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Rwanda Defence Force (RPA/RDF) and the mutineers. Rwanda’s primary proxy in eastern DRC was the Congrès National pour la Défense du People, and its troops had previously fought with the RDF. Many of Rwanda’s bilateral donors, including the US, the UK, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and the EU, suspended or delayed the release of aid to Rwanda shortly after the leaked publication of the GoE report. In September, the UK government released half of the budget aid it had suspended in July, despite continued concerns that Rwanda was backing the M23 rebellion. Other bilateral donors continued to debate in their respective capitals whether or not to resume budget funding for Rwanda’s ambitious post-genocide reconstruction programme. By the end of the year, only the US had released suspended aid. The international community sent a mixed message about its concern regarding Rwanda’s military presence in eastern DRC in October, when Rwanda was elected to the UNSC for 2013–14. The UN GoE and HRW denounced the election as giving rise to a conflict of interest, given the continued involvement of Rwandan troops in eastern DRC. In August, Kagame and Mushikiwabo began active telephone diplomacy with key donors in European and North American capitals, culminating in a December conversation with US President Obama in which Kagame was warned that any support for the rebel group M23 was inconsistent with Rwanda’s stated desire for stability and peace. Behind closed doors, analysts noted that Kagame was impatient with donors who were beginning to insist on accountability for Rwanda’s human rights abuses in the DRC. In Kigali’s anxious wait to see whether donors would cut foreign aid, the government agreed in mid-July, at an extraordinary ICGLR summit in Addis Ababa (on the margins of the AU summit), to the establishment of a neutral force to contain the fighting in eastern DRC. The heads of state of Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda subsequently pursued this further in August, at an ICGLR meeting in Kampala. However, the meeting yielded little, as there was no agreement on the composition of a neutral fighting force. Rwanda was wary of the UN, insisting that the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC had cost donors an average of $ 1.4 bn per year since 1998, without clear achievements. The mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO was to have expired on 30 June. The UNSC adopted resolution 2053, extending MONUSCO’s mandate to protect civilians and to reform the Rwanda • 357

DRC’s security sector for one more calendar year. Both Burundi and the DRC preferred an expanded UN force, and publicly supported extending MONUSCO’s role in the region. The ICGLR meeting ended with an agreement to search for ‘home-grown’ solutions to the eastern DRC crisis. Regional defence ministers were charged with assessing the potential logistics, size and composition of a neutral force. In September, much to Rwanda’s chagrin, the ICGLR proposed a joint verification mechanism to monitor troop movements in eastern DRC. By the end of the year, the 4,000-strong proposed regional force had yet to be set up. In October, senior government representatives, including Kagame and Foreign Minister Mushikiwabo, were in New York to attend a UN high-level meeting on the situation in eastern DRC. Also in attendance were UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and representatives of the AU and EU. Three days of meetings culminated with Rwanda refusing to sign a joint statement condemning external support for M23 rebels. Just three weeks later, in late October, the UN GoE released its final report, stating that both Uganda and Rwanda were supporting M23 rebels in eastern DRC. Congolese President Kabila finally entered the fray, calling for international sanctions against Rwanda. His plea received little attention, potentially due to Rwanda’s impending taking up of its seat on the UNSC. Whatever the reason, Rwanda was not subjected to sanctions by year’s end. As expected, relations with the DRC remained central to Rwanda’s foreign policy. Cooperation with Kinshasa cooled considerably over the course of the year, despite continued collaboration between the RDF and the DRC armed forces to contain the security threats posed by the Hutu-chauvinist FDLR, and other disaffected armed groups and militias in eastern DRC. The low point in DRC-Rwandan relations was in November, when Rwandan troops killed a DRC soldier near Goma during a cross-border skirmish. The clash marked the first encounter between the two armies since 2001, and came amid growing regional and international tensions about Rwanda’s military role in eastern DRC. DRC President Kabila took the opportunity to reaffirm his support for the planned neutral fighting force, which Rwanda flatly refused to accept. In November, in a surprise advance, the M23 rebellion took control of Goma, the North Kivu regional capital. DRC armed forces were unable to resist the assault of the M23 rebels and retreated to their base in South Kivu. The attack highlighted the weakness of DRC state institutions as well as the lack of control that Kabila had in the DRC’s vast eastern region. Presidents Kabila and Kagame met in Uganda in late November in an effort to defuse rising tensions and continued to discuss the parameters of a regional peace deal, but no deal had been struck by the end of the year. Behind the negative bustle regarding Rwanda’s military role in eastern DRC, the government solidified diplomatic and economic relations with China. In December, a technical and economic agreement entailing a $ 9 m interest-free loan was signed. The deal followed Kagame’s visit to China in September to attend the World Economic Forum’s sixth Annual Meeting of the New Champions (known as Summer Davos). At the meeting, 358 • Eastern Africa

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged Chinese companies to invest in Rwanda, and pledged a total of $ 25 m in grants and interest-free loans. Relations with France were less cheery, despite a warming of relations throughout 2011. In February, France recalled its ambassador after Kigali refused to accredit Paris’s intended new envoy. Kagame considered that the nominee, Hélène de Gal, was too close to former French foreign minister Alain Juppé, who had been minister at the time of the 1994 genocide. The cooling of Franco-Rwandan diplomatic ties followed a January decision in a French court that exonerated Kagame and members of the RPF after some French circles had previously accused him of triggering the 1994 genocide. Relations did not improve throughout the year. In December, Rwanda’s chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, accused France of harbouring known genocide suspects on French soil, including members of the inner circle of then-president Habya- rimana. France had consistently held that indictments against Rwandans living in France were politically motivated, and had refused to agree to extradition requests from Rwanda. Other European countries, including Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, similarly refused, and instead brought domestic proceedings against Rwandan genocide suspects in their national courts. Rwanda’s military cooperation with the USA, through its Africa Command (AFRICOM), remained strong, with several high-ranking officers visiting Rwanda and numerous joint military operations during the year to share best practice in mission preparedness and deployment capability. Rwanda remained a model of post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation to be emulated across Africa and the rest of the world. Kagame received an honorary doctorate from the American William Penn University in May and another in March from Faith Uni- versity in Istanbul (Turkey). In February, Kagame received the African Leaders Malaria Alliance award for his country’s leadership in health policy and, in October, the African Peace Personality award, winning an online vote by African university students for his post-genocide leadership.

Socioeconomic Developments

The government continued to promote its policy of national unity and reconciliation as the basis of social reconciliation and political harmony. President Kagame lauded achievements in institutional governance, technocratic competence, a zero-tolerance corruption policy, and continued economic growth. As foreign aid cuts of up to 50% of Rwanda’s budget threatened to derail the development agenda in the second half of the year, the government intensified its public commitment to economic growth and a home- grown version of democracy. In October, in a speech before the AU, Kagame highlighted Rwanda’s commitment to good governance, underlining the success of the government’s imhigo contracts programme. These performance contracts required local government officials to make commitments to Kagame to meet specific development goals in their Rwanda • 359 bailiwicks in accordance with national policy objectives. When sector-level government officials, all appointed and paid by the RPF, did not meet the goals set out in their performance contract, they were relieved of their duties by a council of their peers, citing either corruption or incompetence. In October, at the national conference marking the sixth anniversary of the imihigo programme, the government credited the performance contracts with increased poverty reduction and improved service delivery in rural Rwanda. In February, the Rwandan Household Survey (known as EICV, a recording of poverty rates from 2005 to 2011) was released to much domestic acclaim, as it reported a 12% reduction in rural poverty rates, marking a dramatic decline from the first EICV report in 2004. The report did not, however, address Rwanda’s underlying economic inequality. A Rwandan Civil Society Platform study released in March reported that Rwanda’s Gini coefficient had more than doubled in the past 30 years, rising from 0.27 in 1985 to 0.53 in 2011. In April, the Interior Ministry imprisoned the author of the report, and embargoed its distribution. International critics of the government’s rural development policies contended that official claims about poverty reduction were masking rural hardship and malaise, and they also called into question the methodology used to compile the report. Critics focused in particular on the government’s continued policy of demolishing thatched-roof homes in favour of homes with iron-sheeting roofs and cement floors. According to UNDP, nearly 60% of Rwandans were subjected to the policy, which required country people living in thatched homes (known as nyakatsi) to rebuild, at their own expense, a ‘modern’ cement home. In December 2011, at the completion of the ‘End Nyakatsi’ campaign, the Ministry of Local Government announced that it would continue through 2012, until all of Rwanda’s estimated 125,000 thatched homes had been converted to cement houses. In January, local government officials at sector and cell levels told HRW that they felt a lot of pressure to implement the nyakatsi directive as the central government did not provide sufficient resources for now homeless citizens to rebuild ‘modern’ homes. In September, the World Bank’s worldwide governance indicators ranked Rwanda as the fourth least-corrupt state in Africa, and the least corrupt in East Africa, marking no change from the 2011 rankings. In response to this ranking, and citing TI’s Corruption Perception Index, Rwanda’s Chief Ombudsman Aloysia Cyanzaire, commented that it felt that Rwanda’s ranking had improved since 2011, noting the importance the government placed on reducing corruption. As in the past, Rwanda’s perception that it made a poor showing in the World Bank rankings was blamed on rural dwellers, with the ombudsman quoting a June report from Global Integrity that rural Rwandans rarely recognised corruption, thus making it hard to eradicate it at the local level. In December, during the annual ‘Anti-Corruption Week’, the government affirmed its commitment to clamp down on local-level corruption in rural areas, citing this as the prime target for improvement to underpin its policy of zero-corruption and good governance. 360 • Eastern Africa

The government continued the implementation of its Roadmap 2017 economic and poverty alleviation policy, which was first introduced in December 2010. It appeared, although no official statement was made, that Roadmap 2017 was meant to supplement the government’s Vision 2020 policy, introduced in 2000, in key areas of domestic economic policy. Roadmap 2017 aimed to make Rwanda a middle-income country by 2017, with a median average annual income of $ 1,000 per capita. In addition to a series of lofty economic and social goals, the roadmap also attempted to position Rwanda as a regional trading and services hub. Throughout the year, the government invoked the Roadmap as the backbone of its plan to modernise the economy through industrialisation and service provision, including the development of export strategies for cash crops, increasing national energy production and extending financial services to Rwanda’s poorest citizens. Roadmap 2017 also called on Rwandans to redouble their efforts to make the country economically self-sufficient. The local and international media continued to have concerns about Rwanda’s ability to implement its ambitious economic plan, given the economic crisis in Europe and the suspension of donor funds. In August, Kagame sought to silence sceptics with the introduction of the Agaciro (Dignity) Development Fund to make up budget shortfalls through compulsory donations from Rwandans from all walks of life, including those living abroad. In November, the Economist Intelligence Unit estimated that Rwanda had lost some 35% of its total budgeted foreign aid revenue ($ 79 m), despite the ability of the Rwandan Revenue Authority to increase tax receipts by 8%. In Decem- ber, speaking at his annual holiday address, Kagame claimed that Rwandans had donated some 20 bn Rwandan Francs (Frw), roughly $ 32 m, and that those funds would be used to make up the budget shortfall and to promote the country’s economic development without the meddling of foreign donors. Ordinary Rwandans felt the pinch of the government’s requirement to donate to the Agaciro fund. For example, in October, the government instituted a hiring freeze in the civil service, and required bureaucrats to ‘donate’ a portion of their regular salary to the fund. Peasants were also forced to give 10% of their earnings to the fund, which for many was a particular hardship, despite government claims in its report on poverty alleviation that peasant incomes had risen by an average of 18% between 2005 and 2011. The practical effect of this increase was that average household income rose by a mere Frw 150 ($ 0.40) per month, making a mandatory Agaciro Fund donation an additional hardship on already-stretched rural incomes. Throughout 2012, the government rolled out the implementation of the second phase of its National Land Use and Development Master Plan, first introduced as part of the Roadmap 2017 programme in January 2010. The plan had three phases, the first being the merger with the Master Plan of the local land usage policies that were devised in 1998. The second phase was the creation of an urban development plan, and the third was the implementation of the Master Plan, once the peasantry had been taught how to use their land efficiently. In the second phase, representatives of the Rwanda National Rwanda • 361

Resources Authority streamlined rural peasants’ small (less than 0.5 ha) plots into larger, more economically viable plots that were then to be used for cash crops. As in 2011, the government displaced countless subsistence farmers, placing control over land use in the hands of appointed local government officials. The Master Plan augmented the government’s 2010 mono-cropping policy and shaped the food security and poverty levels of rural households. The policy made it illegal for subsistence farmers to grow crops for their family’s nutritional needs. Instead, they were told by local authorities to grow coffee, tea and other export crops that earned foreign currency. In July, a Swedish consulting firm, in a report to the FAO, found that the land tenure system and the land use master plan were diminishing overall agricultural outputs and were having an impact on food security in rural Rwanda. Prime Minister Pierre-Damien Habumuremyi dismissed the claim in August, noting that good weather throughout the year resulted in higher than expected agricultural yields, which in turn protected the country’s economic growth in the face of external international pressures. In November, the IMF commended Rwanda for the satisfactory implementation of its economic programme, but also cautioned need to closely monitor public spending, despite the obvious consequences this would have for the government’s ambitious economic growth plans. The IMF representative also suggested that the suspension of donor aid constituted a serious threat to Rwanda’s economic stability, and that Rwanda’s alleged military presence in eastern DRC could be the excuse that Western donors needed to reduce aid commitments in the face of domestic economic pressures at home. Kagame, speaking at a press conference in Kampala in early December, scoffed at the idea, noting that Western donors understood their commitment to Rwandans since the 1994 genocide. He also reminded the international journalists present that his government continued to increase its business competitiveness, noting that in the World Bank’s 2013 Doing Busi- ness Report Rwanda ranked 52nd out of 185 economies. When asked about what the aid cuts meant for Rwanda’s ability to meet the UN MDGs to eradicate extreme poverty and the equitable use of land, the president dismissed the idea and assured those present that his country was on target. UNDP Rwanda released a report on Rwanda’s MDG commitments in July, noting that the country was on target to meet the goals on gender equality in primary and secondary education, primary school enrolment rates, and reducing HIV/ AIDS and malaria prevalence, as well as reducing maternal mortality, reducing climatic shocks and improving access to the financial sector for low-income earners. Also in July, the World Bank reported that Rwanda’s GDP per capita had declined for the first time in three years. In 2011, per capita GDP was $ 593. In 2012, it declined slightly to $ 583, far short of the Roadmap 2017 target of $ 1,000 per person per annum. Finance Minister John Rwangombwa presented an expansionary budget in June. The donor cuts had yet to be announced when the budget was released, and it focused on both capital expenditure and improving infrastructure. By the end of the year, it was clear that 362 • Eastern Africa the dip in levels of foreign aid was a real constraint on government spending, despite the IMF’s November endorsement of government economic policy. GDP growth remained steady at an estimated 7% for 2012, due to good weather, increased commodity prices for tea and coffee, and strong tourist receipts. Inflation rose again in 2012 to 7.8% (up from just 3% in 2010). The government announced improvements to its FDI strategy in Septem- ber to improve the horticulture, telecommunications and mineral sectors.

Susan Thomson Seychelles

The domestic political scene experienced a return to a calm environment of normalcy after an unusually turbulent election year in 2011. President Michel and his long-ruling Party Lepep remained without any serious challenge, but were concerned to present an open liberal image and to make conciliatory gestures towards the political opposition. All parties cooperated amicably on electoral reforms that were expected to provide improved common ground for all political players. Michel further intensified his efforts to enhance the small island state’s image on the international stage. The economic performance was again quite satisfactory, with another record year for the tourism industry, further moves to liberalise the economy and improve the investment climate, and continued praise from international organisations. Somali pirate activities remained a serious threat and a heavy burden, while continuing to attract international attention to Seychelles as an important hub for concerted anti-piracy efforts.

Domestic Politics

As a result of clear victories in the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections, in the latter case due to a boycott by all but one of the opposition parties, President James Michel and his long-ruling Parti Lepep (PL, People’s Party) began the year with practically 364 • Eastern Africa undisputed control of all aspects of the political scene. The composition of the National Assembly, with just a single opposition MP, naturally tended to give the impression of a de facto return to a one-party regime. The PL leadership was, however, quite keen to avoid this and to create a more conciliatory climate with regard to the other political parties and general civil society interests. The controversies between government and opposition had long centred mainly around demands for an unpoliticised public service, independent judiciary and electoral body, and the liberalisation of the media. Michel had already broken with many traditions of the former single-party era, but had still to contend with some old socialist elements within the PL and continued to be viewed with suspicion by the strongest traditional opposition party, the Seychelles National Party (SNP), and its leader Wavel Ramkalawan. Demands for electoral reform had formed the core of the political confrontation during 2011. After the dilemma of the one-sided parliamentary elections, it had dawned on all sides that a new move towards reaching a consensus needed to be made. At the end of an unusually turbulent political year, 2012 offered an opportunity for renewed closer cooperation in this tiny community of barely 90,000 people. A Forum for Electoral Reform, with two representatives each from the five registered political parties and the Citizens Democracy Watch, as well as the five members of the Electoral Commission and a representative of the Attorney General, had been initiated in late 2011 to consider a road map for generally agreed electoral reforms, and it was constituted in January. The PL gave an assurance that the Forum’s recommendations would be accepted and implemented by the government and also hinted at the possibility of new parliamentary elections on the basis of reformed electoral laws, but this never materialised. The Forum held a series of public hearings throughout the year and ran on beyond the six months originally planned for its deliberations. Priority was given to a review of the contentious Public Order Act, which prohibited the holding of any public meetings without explicit police permission. In September, proposals for a new liberal Public Assembly Act, doing away with the narrow restrictions, was submitted to the president, but had not become law by year’s end. No complete overhaul of election-related contentious issues was accomplished during the year, but the smooth functioning of the Forum and the more conciliatory general attitude of all involved nevertheless contributed to the return to a relatively normal political climate and an end to the previous year’s ferment. In addition, with the government’s generally successful economic and social policies, the opposition parties had few concrete opportunities to mobilise public opinion against the PL. Throughout the year the opposition camp was thus by and large relegated to the margins. On 15 March, in a gesture of friendly cooperation, the president met in the state house with David Pierre, the official leader of the opposition in the National Assembly and the sole MP of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM). They subsequently held regular monthly meetings in a cordial atmosphere without much public attention. The PL held its 26th congress in late January and routinely confirmed Michel and Vice President Danny Faure in their party positions of president and secretary-general, Seychelles • 365 respectively. A major restructuring of the government and cabinet reshuffle was undertaken by Michel in early March. This included an enlargement of the cabinet from nine to 12 ministerial positions, the appointment of six new ministers and of a number of other senior civil service and parastatal personnel. The intended rejuvenation of the government machinery also included a better gender balance, with the appointment of three women ministers. The governor of the central bank, Pierre Laporte, was given responsibility for a newly created finance, investment and trade ministry, taking over the finance portfolio, which had until then been held by Faure. Alain St Ange, the successful head of the Seychelles Tourism Board, was appointed as tourism and culture minister. Michel thus relinquished his responsibility for tourism, but added hydrocarbons policy to his other remaining ministerial responsibilities (defence, legal affairs, information and youth). In early August, the controversial Indian-born businessman, Dr V. Ramadoss, was forced to resign from the PL and its central committee after a newspaper he owned published a cartoon that upset Michel. A parliamentary by-election on 10 August, following the forced resignation of a PL member, provided a test of the government’s popularity. A new PL candidate easily won almost two-thirds of the votes, while an independent candidate, a popular cycling cham- pion known to sympathise with the SNP, received 30%. The PDM’s Jane Carpin, who had been instrumental in 2011 as a dissident SNP MP in the dissolution of the National Assem- bly and the calling of early elections, got only a disappointing 8%. The government’s confidence was confirmed by this outcome.

Foreign Affairs

Michel continued to pursue the promotion of active public diplomacy with the intention of enhancing the visibility of his mini-state on the international stage. In particular, he used various international appearances to underline the specific problems of small island states and to raise concern about the inherent dangers of climate change. Seychelles had already for years seen itself as an active member of the group of small developing island states. The government started to campaign for the possibility of its candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UNSC in 2017. Plans were also considered for opening two more new embassies. A February state visit to Great Britain was considered a particular success for Michel, giving him the opportunity of meetings with Queen Elizabeth II and UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, while also attending the international Somalia conference. Earlier in February, Michel had gone to India to further strengthen existing political and economic relations and to discuss regional security issues with this major power in the Indian Ocean region, and India’s President Patil paid a reciprocal visit to Seychelles in late April. In May, Michel attended the opening of the Seychelles section of a joint Indian Ocean pavilion at the Yeosu Expo in South Korea, and in late August made a state visit to Sri Lanka. Further pledges of investment funding were made by China. 366 • Eastern Africa

In July and August the country twice played host to meetings held under the auspices of SADC aimed at bringing to an end the bitter leadership conflict inMadagascar . In the serene Seychelles environment, South Africa’s President Zuma and Michel, in his capacity as IOC chairman, tried to mediate in the first personal encounter of the two Madagascan contenders, but with no immediate success. In mid-March, Michel was in Mauritius as guest of honour at the Independence Day celebrations, with Mauritian President Ram- goolam reciprocating by attending the Seychelles National Day celebrations on 19 June. The two countries made history by concluding an agreement for the joint management of a large area of the continental shelf in the Mascarene Plateau without UN or other outside involvement. However, Seychelles’ most immediate foreign policy concerns remained connected with the continuing Somali piracy activities in large parts of the Indian Ocean, despite a general decline in intensity of pirate attacks compared with previous years. The country’s geographic location made it a strategic hub for many international anti-piracy operations, whose participants used Victoria as a convenient port of call and resource base between long patrol engagements at sea. Global concern about the dangers of Somali piracy led to far more international focus on Seychelles than was commensurate with its size. It continued to be widely praised, including by the UNSC, for its role in prosecuting apprehended pirates when no other country in the sub-region, apart from Kenya; was willing and able to undertake this important task – one that had become a heavy burden for such a small country. In February, 67 convicted pirates were in custody and a further 33 newly apprehended suspects were accepted by March, together accounting for about 20% of the overall prison population, the highest percentage anywhere. In March, a first group of 17 pirates was transferred to Somaliland to serve their jail sentences there, providing welcome relief for the Seychelles and also reflecting the improving political situation in Somalia. Total direct and indirect piracy-related costs to the economy were estimated at about 4% of GDP. In August, construction started of a UK-funded regional anti-piracy prosecution and intelligence coordination centre. On 5 November, two elderly fishermen were given a high- profile welcome home upon their release after a full year as pirate hostages.

Socioeconomic Developments

In the face of a global recession, the Seychellois economy showed remarkable resilience and the general macroeconomic performance again turned out to be relatively satisfactory despite a slump in the growth rate and a rise in inflation. The government continued successfully to adhere strictly to its reform course, introduced in late 2008 to ward off a near-collapse of the unsustainably indebted and heavily welfare-oriented economy. This change of policy orientation towards a liberal market outlook and an investor-friendly climate had since then stabilised the situation to a remarkable extent. The HDI ranking improved further, up by six positions to 46th in the very high human development category, Seychelles • 367 by far the highest of any African country, also reflected the well-balanced attainment of both economic and social goals. In the World Bank’s Doing Business Report 2013, Sey- chelles moved up slightly to rank 74, sixth in SSA. For the first time, Seychelles was listed in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index 2012/13 and ranked fourth among SSA countries. With an annual per capita income of $ 22,615 (PPP), Seychelles was clearly in a different league from most of the rest of Africa. All MDGs were achieved. The PL’s 2011 election victory and the calm political atmosphere could be taken as indicators that the population by and large was appreciative of the stability and standards that had been achieved. Nevertheless, the GDP growth rate slowed down considerably to an estimated 2.7% (compared with 5% in 2011 and 6.2% in 2010). Consumer prices saw a noticeable increase with an average inflation rate of 7.1% for the year (compared with 2.6% in 2011). With a June inflation peak of 8.9%, the highest for 32 months, the authorities tried to break the trend and postponed the planned introduction of a 15% VAT (to replace the goods and services tax) by six months to 1 January 2013. The Seychelles Rupee (SR) depreciated noticeably during the first half of the year, but then recovered again to an average annual exchange rate of SR 13.7 per $ (compared with 12.4 in 2011). Foreign exchange reserves continued to grow slightly to about $ 300 m, equivalent to a comfortable 3.2 months’ import coverage (compared with just two weeks’ in late 2008). The structural deficit of the tiny import-dependent island’s balance of trade hardly changed, however, with imports ($ 904 m) amounting to almost double the value of export ($ 510 m), about half accounted for by tuna fish and most of the rest by oil re-exports. The (provisional)current-account deficitwas lowered from a revised 25.9% in 2011 to about 21.5%, with good prospects for further improvements in coming years, mainly due to growing service industry receipts. The key tourism sector had another excellent year and had a major impact on the stabilisation of the economy, since it contributed about a quarter of GDP. Visitor numbers again increased by 7% to a new record of 208,000; while arrivals from the traditional European markets stagnated, this was amply compensated by growing tourist numbers from China, Russia and the UAE. Tourism earnings were up by 5% to $ 305 m. Despite an astounding unemployment rate of less than 3%, fears were occasionally expressed of alleged competition from foreigners for local jobs, but this was largely the result of a mismatch between available skills and unreasonable expectations. The government continued with a policy of strict fiscal discipline in pursuance of its goal to gradually redress the huge debt that had been accumulated during the era of the welfare-oriented socialist policies under Michel’s predecessor, René. For the fifth consecutive year, a (preliminary) overall budget surplus of an estimated 1.8% of GDP was achieved. The primary fiscal surplus (excluding interest payments) was equivalent to 5.9% of GDP, considerably higher than the budgeted target of 4.7%. The total public debt had been reduced to 77% of GDP (compared with 150% in 2008), consistent with the target for 2018 set at a manageable 50%. External debt was down to 42% of GDP, a strong decline 368 • Eastern Africa from 90% in 2008. The restructuring of past debts had largely been completed. In appreciation of the government’s commendable efforts, Fitch in February maintained its two-year old good B credit rating for Seychelles, with a stable outlook. IMF missions in March, June and October conducted the fifth and sixth reviews of the government performance under the $ 31 m three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arranged in December 2009. All quantitative targets were found to have been met, while items on the broader structural reform agenda, such as tax reforms and further privatisation of parastatal enterprises, were also considered to be moving well ahead. A one-year extension of the EFF to December 2013 and an augmentation of access ($ 10 m) were subsequently granted. The World Bank in April formulated a new three-year $ 21 m Country Partnership Strategy for Seychelles, the first such programme after two decades. In support of the government’s reform agenda, a $ 7 m sustainability and competitiveness development policy loan was then approved in September. A fundamental restructuring of the loss-making national airline Air Seychelles had become inevitable in late 2011. This led in January to the ending of all European flights, concentration on a regional flight network and the conclusion of a strategic partnership deal with Etihad Airways, a fast-expanding airline from Abu Dhabi. Etihad took a 40% share in Air Seychelles and injected a further $ 25 m as a loan, while the government remained a 60% shareholder. The subsequent improved performance of the airline and its close cooperation with Etihad was a helpful factor in facilitating the continuing growth of tourist arrivals. Only modest progress was made with respect to the intended privatisation or successful commercialisation of other publicly-owned enterprises. The planned withdrawal from the banking sector was slower than expected, with only 23% shares of the Seychelles Savings Bank taken up by the public (rather than the 40% offered in the first phase). The Seychelles Petroleum Company incurred heavy losses in the operation of its fleet of five tankers, and the conversion of the Public Utilities Company into a commercially viable enterprise also encountered severe problems despite unavoidable tariff increases. Plans for opening a stock exchange had not materialised by year’s end. Prospects for possible oil or gas finds in the Seychelles’ extensive maritime zone were given a concrete impetus with the start of seismic surveys in December. A first wind power project, started in March, was expected soon to contribute about 10% of national electricity needs. The May arrival of a submarine fibre-optic cable connection with the outside world (via Tanzania) was celebrated as a historic event; it became fully operational in mid-August. The fishery sector, the second pillar of the Seychellois economy after tourism, continued to suffer from the negative effects of the pirate scourge in the Indian Ocean. The production of canned tuna was nevertheless up by 5.9% to a six-year high of 32,000 tonnes, but still below the 2005 peak.

Rolf Hofmeier Somalia

Three important changes seemed to mark a turn-around in Somalia’s political turmoil: the installation of a new post-transition federal government with a new leadership, the reduction of piracy activities, and the further retreat of a weakened al-Shabaab, the main spoiler in the political process, to the countryside, losing support but not defeated. While the country remained divided into three political zones, Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland, which did not experience a rapprochement, there were sparks of hope for a slow recovery of Somalia through a combination of political progress, military action and ongoing economic activities. Political instability and the Islamist-terrorist threat, however, prevented the emergence and consolidation of democratic structures, civil society organisations, a fully functional justice system, and a secure, free media landscape. Most favourable was the situation in Somaliland, which, despite great challenges and growing tensions, largely kept its democratic structures working and held local elections. Groups of al-Shabaab- affiliated combatants continued to be based in the Puntland Galgala and Golis mountains and in large parts of south-central Somalia. Somalia struggled with the aftermath of the 2011–12 famine, in which almost 200,000 people perished. All three Somali regions continued to cope with an estimated 1.2 m IDPs, largely maintained by international humanitarian organisations and donor country funding. The WFP alone had a 2012 budget of about $ 83 m for Somalia. 370 • Eastern Africa

In general, living conditions and the socio-political situation remained dismal for most of the population, with a lack of security, food scarcity, high crime rates, corruption and high levels of violence, including gender violence. Increased foreign interest was evident in two international conferences on Somalia’s future (held in London [UK] and Istanbul [Turkey]), and in an increased foreign presence, with some countries opening liaison offices or even an embassy. Somalia nevertheless remained one of the most politically unstable countries in Africa, as evidenced by continued terror attacks by the radical Islamist al-Shabaab, which claimed countless victims, the precarious reach of federal and other authorities and the great lack of service provision. The main economic resource was cash remittances from overseas Somali communities. The Somaliland and Puntland regions remained autonomous political areas, with their own institutions, budgets and policies. The stand-off between Puntland and Somaliland on the disputed frontier districts was not resolved. There was some rapprochement between the new federal government in Mogadishu and the Somaliland government.

Domestic Politics

Somalia continued to struggle with insecurity, political instability, food provision problems and lack of sustained economic development. A new phase of state reconstruction began with the advent of a new federal government in August, when the ‘transitional phase’ was officially ended. During the year, the military situation in south-central Somalia gradually turned in favour of the Transitional Federal Government’s (TFG) forces and the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops supporting it. The latter received credit for its steadfast attitude and persistence in tackling the radical Islamist al-Shabaab movement (‘Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahiddin’), including outside Mogadishu, contrary to the expectations of the various analysts who had in recent years advised ‘dialogue’ with al-Shabaab, which the movement itself had always rejected. Al-Shabaab withdrew further from important towns and areas in the south, but was not defeated. The movement retained cells across Somalia, including in Puntland and Somaliland, but it became increasingly unpopular due to its uncompromising and terrorist tactics, which alienated more and more segments of the population, including the youth, women and clan elders. Throughout the year, al-Shabaab, which in February affirmed its link to the ideology of al-Qaida, carried out numerous terror attacks, targeted killings and draconian punishments of civilians, once again showing it had no positive agenda for Somalia and no inclination for talks on the country’s political future. Ethiopia’s military presence increased in the northern Beledweyn and Baidoa areas, to counterbalance the expanding Kenyan role in the south and west and to secure the Ethiopian border. The ‘Roadmap for ending the Transition’ led to the formation of a new 825-member National Constituent Assembly (NCA), with the support of delegates from Puntland, the Somalia • 371

Ahlu as-Sunna wal Jama’a movement (ASWJ) and the Galmudug Region. A meeting of 135 not fully representative clan elders and delegates selected the NCA members on 5 May. On 1 August, the NCA, in a major step at the end of a lengthy transitional period, ratified a new permanent federal constitution, despite protests against it (for being ‘un-Islamic’) by some religious leaders. On 20 August, the prescribed end-date of the transition period, a 275-member federal parliament was inaugurated. Since regular parliamentary elections were not possible in the prevailing circumstances, MPs were nominated by traditional and clan elders (based on the 4.5 formula – one representative from each of the four large clan families, and five to represent the smaller clans and non-clan groups) and then vetted by a technical selection committee with authority to eliminate candidates who did not meet certain minimum criteria. Eventually, a new federal government emerged, with a new president and prime minister. On 10 September, parliament elected a new president. In a contest that began with 22 candidates, the MPs in the final run-off did not return the incumbent Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed to power but unexpectedly elected a relatively unknown but respected civil society activist, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a member of the Hawiye Abgal Wa’eysle sub-clan and close to the al-Islah movement, a Somali branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Sheikh Sharif conceded defeat. Hassan was seen as marking a fresh start. In 2011, he had set up the Peace and Development Party and was also active as a businessman. He was inaugurated on 16 September. The surprising outcome of the presidential election reflected serious disenchantment – perhaps short-lived – among the general public and clan elders with the ‘kleptocratic’ TFG government under Sheik Sharif, which had built a reputation for making donor aid money disappear in mysterious ways. For instance, a UN Monitor- ing Group investigation suggested that for every $ 10 of the total of $ 131 m in funding received by the TFG in 2009–10, $ 7 never made it into the state coffers. On 6 October, the new president named Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid of the Darood Marehan clan, as his prime minister. He had been active as a businessman in Kenya and was married to Asha Haji Elmi, an influential Somali peace activist. Shirdon named his new, surprisingly small, ten-member cabinet on 4 November. An unexpected precedent was set by the selection of two women: Foreign Minister Fawzia Yusuf Hajji Adan and Minister of Social Development Maryam Kassim. Reflecting the new president’s priorities, one of the first policy documents issued was the National Security and Stabilisation Plan, which had been in preparation with UN and AU assistance since 2011 and was passed by presidential decree on 8 August. It was also known as the Six Pillar plan (the ‘six pillars’ being: stabilisation, peace-building and reconciliation, economic recovery, collaborative international relations, delivery of services to the people, unity and integrity of the country). It defined the process by which the federal government would “lead in re-orienting the policies, structures and operational capacities of security and justice institutions and groups in Somalia”. The aim was to increase access to justice for people in areas liberated from al-Shabaab and to begin the 372 • Eastern Africa establishment of an independent judiciary and wider justice system “capable of delivering justice for all citizens”. After his inauguration, the president made a number of visits to regions outside the capital. Military and civil support for the government was provided by the EU Training Mis- sion Somalia and several US programmes. Turkey also made a significant contribution, and countries contributing troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) (Kenya, Djibouti, Burundi, and especially Uganda) and Ethiopia also provided vital operational- level support to Somali defence forces fighting alongside AMISOM. Other partners, such as Italy and the UK, gave bilateral financial support. Risks in developing and implementing government policies still arose from a certain lack of representativeness of the government and from dependence on external funds and the plans of the donor community and of IGAD (dominated by Ethiopia), which often played a divisive role. Tension was also emerging between the agenda of the UN’s Somalia mission, led by Tanzanian diplomat Augustine Mahiga, and its ‘road map’ and the strategic goals pursued by IGAD and AMISOM. The UN had raised AMISOM’s authorised strength to about 17,000 military and police personnel; the Kenyan contingent was formally integrated into AMISOM in July in a follow-up to its unilateral invasion of Somalia in October 2011. The slow but on-going decline of al-Shabaab and the extension of the federal government’s reach did not mean that all Somali (clan) regions would simply unite behind the latter. After August, a new political initiative by local leaders in the southern areas of Lower Juba, Middle Juba and Gedo led to the idea of establishing Jubaland (population around 1.3 m) as a political entity in former (and still partly) al-Shabaab-controlled territories, including the important port town of Kismayo. This proposal, supported by IGAD, revealed tensions over the formation of the new federal Somalia, and the as yet very limited powers of the new federal government to prevent or influence that formation. In Puntland, President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, referring to the constitution, sought a one-year extension of his four-year mandate. This was granted but generated internal opposition. On 18 April, the Puntland Constituent Assembly adopted a new state constitution recognising a multi-party system. In August, legislation was passed to allow for the registration of political associations to compete in the local elections scheduled for 2013. A Transitional Puntland Electoral Commission was formed and by September it had registered six new political associations. Somaliland held local council elections on 28 November, the second such elections in the past decade. They were marred by multiple incidents of civil disturbance and violence; for example, police opened fire during a demonstration in Zeila, killing one person and injuring 12 others. These elections produced three parties (the legal maximum) to be designated to contest parliamentary elections in 2013 and thereafter: the Kulmiye (‘Unifier’) Party, the Somaliland National Party (Wadani), and the Justice and Welfare Party (UCID). The four other remaining political groupings – those that had contested the local elections, Somalia • 373 but lost – had to be associated with or integrated into the three main parties. This was intended as a mechanism to reduce divisive clan-based politics. In the regional state of Galmudug uncertainty prevailed due to the absence of its president, Mohamed Ahmed Alin, who was taken ill. Efforts by the Mogadishu government to mediate between rival candidates and discuss the region’s future status in the Somali federation were inconclusive. Security remained precarious throughout the year, primarily due to al-Shabaab terror. On 31 January, for instance, they beheaded at least 13 people for ‘collaborating’ with the ASWJ. On 8 February, a restaurant in Mogadishu was bombed, leaving nine people dead and 37 wounded, while another attack in Somalia’s National Theatre just as Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed was to speak, killed four people. On 27 August, al-Shabaab members killed a UN employee in Merka. On 12 September, a suicide bomber attacked the Jazeera Hotel in Mogadishu while the new President Hassan Mohamud was meeting with foreign delegates. There were reportedly around ten casualties. On 20 September, there was a similar attack on the Village Restaurant in the capital, killing more than 15 people, including the head of Somalia’s National TV and three journalists, although al-Shabaab did not claim responsibility for this incident. Also in September, al-Shabaab members killed Mustafa Haji Mohamed, the father-in-law of ex-president Sheikh Sharif and a federal MP, in the capital. On 29 October, al-Shabaab ambushed and killed Somali army general Mohamed Ibrahim Farah (Gordan) in El Wargow village, near Merka and, on 12 November, they killed seven soldiers and three civilians in an ambush on an Ethiopian convoy near Baidoa. Al-Shabaab was gradually forced back from its various strongholds and suffered many casualties. In February, Ethiopian and Somali troops seized the strategic city of Baidoa. In March, al-Shabaab attacked the town of Dhusamareb but were beaten back by ASWJ fighters and 100 al-Shabaab militants were reported killed. On 22 March, Ethiopian and Somali troops seized Hudur in Bakol region from al-Shabaab, and later in the year Guri’el, Dhusamareb, Waradhumale, Gobo, el Bur, Deynile region, Afgoye, Afmadow, Esaley airstrip, El Ma’an port, Balad, Mahas, and others followed. In the Lower Juba region, however, al-Shabaab held territory, benefiting from support among the local population. In the regions and towns where they were driven out, al-Shabaab responded with suicide terror attacks, claiming dozens of victims. Their aim was to sabotage the new political process and snuff out the optimism that was emerging among the population. In November, the Somali army killed a top al-Shabaab commander in Sokohola, a Mogadishu suburb, and captured military equipment. Also in November, Puntland forces captured Mohamed Nuh Aden (‘Abu Hafsa’), head of al-Shabaab’s assassination division and former security chief to al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, and also arrested an al- Shabaab logistics man, Abdirazak Hussein Tahlil, in the town of Galkayo. A former leader of al-Shabaab forces in the Banadir region, Ali Mohamed Hussein, made a unique 374 • Eastern Africa statement on 17 May, saying he was willing to condemn the group and separate from it, and asking forgiveness from residents of Mogadishu and all Somalis who had been harmed by the actions of al-Shabaab during his tenure. In August, Somali government troops and AMISOM captured the town of Merka from al-Shabaab, and the big prize, the port city Kismayo, al-Shabaab’s main stronghold and supply lifeline, fell on 28 September, after months of slow encroachment by Kenyan and Somali federal forces. A large flow of civilian refugees escaping the city had preceded the assault. In early December, AMISOM and government forces took Jowhar, a town 90 km north of Mogadishu and, later in the same month, Puntland commandos carried out a night raid on an alleged al-Shabaab outpost in the Golis Mountain Range, killing two al-Shabaab members and capturing equipment. Characteristically, on 24 September a spokesman for the radical Islamist movement ‘Hizbul Islam’ announced that his group was discontinuing its association with al- Shabaab, now that it was weakened and on the retreat. He (incorrectly) asserted that his organisation was “only nominally united with al-Shabaab”. The Ras Kamboni militia, also allied to al-Shahaab for several years, had already disassociated itself from them. This revealed a familiar Somali pattern of alliances shifting in response to the logic of the current situation. Al-Shabaab perpetrated most of the human rights transgressions that occurred, including targeted killings, torture, beheadings, extra-judicial executions, amputations, forced marriages and rape. They also restricted civil society organisations and humanitarian agencies in famine areas and extorted money from business people under the threat of torture. Elements of the government forces were also regularly involved in incidents of undisciplined violence towards civilians as well as intimidation, extortion and unlawful killing. For the independent media, conditions remained insecure and dangerous. While there was a significant measure of press freedom, journalists were always under threat of retaliation by both the government authorities and al-Shabaab. In September, al-Shabaab beheaded Mogadishu journalist Abdirahlan Mohamed Ali, and in the same month assassinated radio reporter Hassan Yusuf Absuge. During the year, 18 journalists were killed and many others harassed, imprisoned and threatened in Somaliland, Puntland and south- central Somalia. Radio stations were forcibly closed down in al-Shabaab-held areas, while the Somaliland authorities forbade the opening of independent FM radio stations, threatened several journalists and temporarily closed down the private Horn Cable Television station. The Puntland authorities repeatedly harassed, beat up or arrested journalists, and gunmen killed several reporters. The Voice of Peace radio station in Bossaasso was looted and closed by Puntland police. In almost all cases, revelations of corruption and security breaches by the media were cited as justification. The conflict between Puntland and Somaliland over the mainly Warsangeli- and Dhulbahante-inhabited Sanag, Sool and Ayn border regions was not resolved, and the Somaliland military remained in place. With some local support, these three regions Somalia • 375 claimed separate political status under the name of Khaatumo. This problem undermined Somaliland’s endeavour to become a unified independent, democratic country and constituted a major challenge for Somaliland’s President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo. Foreign forces, including some US special teams, remained covertly active in Somalia. Several air strikes on al-Shabaab leaders and hide-outs were carried out by ‘unknown forces’, for example on 24 February, killing some of the movement’s top brass, and on 20 March on the al-Shabaab-held town Diif. Kenya also carried out air strikes, including on 7 January, killing 60 al-Shabaab militants, and on 8 August on the village of Birta-Dheer near Kismayo. On the night of 11 January and on 12 January, the French military carried out an unsuccessful operation in Bulomarer in an attempt to rescue a French hostage held by al-Shabaab, which resulted in the death of two French soldiers and reportedly 17 al- Shabaab militants and eight civilians.

Foreign Affairs

Each of the three Somalias pursued its own foreign policies, but most of the initiative was taken by the new Mogadishu federal government, which was seen and treated by the international community as the legitimate Somali government. Somaliland was still not recognised as an independent legal entity, which limited the amount of political and development-related support it was able to generate. An important event was the London Somalia Conference held on 23 February, well- prepared by the UK Foreign Office. The presidents of Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland were there, with several ministers. Its purpose was to prepare for the post-transition era after August, to determine aid needs in the stabilisation, reconstruction and economic revival of Somalia and to define the modalities of foreign engagement in this process. Somaliland participated in this conference in its self-perceived status as an independent state in the making and not as a Somali region to be under Mogadishu. The Somali diaspora communities also had significant involvement in the conference. The three annexes to the final communiqué defined a Joint Financial Management Board, principles for support to Somalia’s security and justice sectors, and principles for international support (non- humanitarian) to local areas of stability in Somalia. In the wake of the London conference, several rounds of talks were held between Mogadishu and Hargeisa, but with little result. Somaliland showed no intention of joining the rest of Somalia. From 31 May to 1 June another Somalia conference was held in Istanbul, organised by the Turkish leadership, which had major ambitions in the wider Middle East and Northeast Africa. Some competition between the UK (and the EU) and Turkey was thus visible. The Turkish involvement was well-received overall in Somalia. The Turkish government also invited more than 300 Somali civil society representatives, including traditional leaders, to Istanbul for a separate meeting. Some in the TFG regarded this as “undermining the Somali government”. 376 • Eastern Africa

International visitors to Mogadishu included UK Foreign Secretary William Hague on 2 February; Director-General of the International Organization for Migration William Lacy Swing on 3 February, and Turkey’s deputy premier, Bekir Bozda, on Turkish Airlines maiden flight to Mogadishu on 6 March. Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore visited in July and Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson on 18 September. US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sher- man came on 4 November; and Norwegian Minister of International Development Heikki Holmås on 20 December for talks with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Another foreign visitor was Arab League envoy to Somalia Mohamed Abdallah Idris in December. In February, the rap star ‘50 Cent’ Jackson visited Dolo refugee camp to raise awareness on hunger and poverty issues. On 31 January, UK International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell visited Punt- land, followed on 6 June by Dutch Minister for International Cooperation and European Affairs Ben Knapen, who met Vice President Abdisamad Ali Shire, the minister of ports and counter piracy and other Puntland officials. On 8 March, a European delegation arrived in Puntland to assess EU-funded anti-piracy projects. In February, during the London Conference, Somaliland’s leaders President Ahmed Mohammed Silanyo and Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdillahi Omar signed a Somali land Development Corporation agreement with the UK government. In March, Somalia’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Omar addressed the European Parliament with a plea for the recognition of his state and a call for development assistance. He also held discussions with the European Commissioner for Development. Somaliland Aviation Minister Moha- mud Hashi Abdi visited Addis Ababa in June to sign a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia’s civil aviation authority and Ethiopian Airlines for direct flights between Hargeisa and Addis Ababa. In early August, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Somalia’s (then) President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and other Somali government officials in Nairobi (Kenya). In late November, new Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud visited Ethio- pia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Addis Ababa and, on 21 December, he made official visits to Kenya and Uganda.

Socioeconomic Developments

Living conditions, especially in the south, remained dismal for the majority of the population. There was a pervasive lack of security, service provision, employment and personal safety. Food scarcity, lack of health care, high crime rates, corruption, and high levels of violence, including gender violence and sexual harassment, marked the lives of many. Several economic activities, especially the building industry, nevertheless continued to pick up, although the export base of all three Somalias (goats and other livestock, charcoal, incense, wildlife products) remained very narrow. Other products were hides, fish and Somalia • 377 bananas for export, and rice, sugarcane, mangoes, sesame seeds and beans for the domestic market. After August, the new government announced plans to stimulate the economy, expand and simplify the tax system, and combat corruption and nepotism. The development of a new public finance management system was also initiated. The mainstay of national income in all three Somali regions was cash remittances from the large Somali diaspora (more than 1.3 m worldwide). The total amount received was estimated to be at least $ 1.3 bn, and was used for the survival of families, business investment, educational purposes and construction. Effective national governance was not achieved but Somalia maintained a thriving informal economy, largely based on livestock, remittances, informal trading and telecommunications. Figures for the national budget, government spending, import and export sums and investments were hard to come by due to the largely informal nature of the Somali economy and the high level of corruption and shadow activities. On 28 December, the new government’s budget, after being initially rejected, was approved by parliament. It amounted to $ 151 m, of which $ 31 m was earmarked for the development of social services and $ 11 m for the security forces. The two largest sources of government revenue were customs duties from Mogadishu port and the international airport. Levies on telecoms and urban businesses yielded the rest, but the budget deficit was substantial and was covered by donor funding. Towards the end of the year, the government had tightened revenue collection controls, removed commercial checkpoints in Mogadishu, and announced its intention to outsource the management of Mogadishu port. These measures increased private sector confidence in the government. By December, federal tax revenues had increased by 15%. Agriculture was the most important sector, with livestock accounting for about 59% of GDP and more than 50% of export earnings. Industry accounted for 7.5% of GDP and services for some 34%. The registered GDP of Somalia was estimated at almost $ 2.6 bn, and the growth rate at ca. 2.5%–3%. The chief imports were petroleum products, sugar, sorghum, corn, qat, machinery and electronic goods. The value of imports (about $ 1.3 bn) was almost 2.5 times the value of the country’s exports. International aid flows to Somalia during the year amounted to about $ 499 m. FDI in Somalia during the year reached only about $ 105 m, most of it private capital, although this was an increase. In coordination with the UN, the EU prepared a $ 6.5 m plan to restart the fisheries industry in the post-piracy era, in cooperation with the government. In September, the conquest of Kismayo by Kenyan and Somali federal forces chased al-Shabaab from the port and revealed huge stockpiles of charcoal, export of which had been one of the movement’s chief sources of income. In Somaliland (population about 3.5 m) a budget was approved in April, amounting to an estimated $ 147 m, an increase of 23% over the previous year. The government allocated more than $ 11 m to upgrade health care, education, water resources and the agricultural sector. Some 25%–30% of the budget went to the security forces, which numbered 378 • Eastern Africa

25,000–30,000 people, but the country had no air force. The budget was far below what was required for effective state functioning and service provision. The officialPuntland budget for 2012 was only $ 38.5 m, also very low for a country of 3.2 m. people and with great security problems. Puntland’s exports were livestock, canned fish and some frankincense, myrrh and gum arabic. Oil exploration projects continued in Somaliland and Puntland, with the involvement of various foreign companies, such as Ophir Energy (UK-based), Australia-listed Jacka Resources in Somaliland, and Africa Oil of Canada and Range Resources (USA) in Punt- land, yielding some promising finds. The Turkish-British company Genel Energy also started exploration. New discoveries of oil and mineral deposits in Somaliland raised the region’s economic stakes, but investment was hampered by its insecure political status. Piracy declined, although it remained a significant source of income for many Puntland- based pirates. It fell to its lowest level since 2008 due to continued international maritime action in Somalia’s coastal waters. Pirates attacked 70 ships during the first nine months of the year, compared with 199 for the same period in 2011. From July to September, only one ship reported an attempted attack by Somali pirates, compared with 36 incidents in the same three months of 2011. As of 30 September, suspected Somali pirates had 11 vessels in their possession and were holding 167 crew members hostage, numbers that, according the International Maritime Bureau, had declined to 4 and 108, respectively, in late December. The pirates also kidnapped aid workers, and tortured and killed some hostages. For example, on 28 February they killed two hostages aboard a captured ship. A Danish anti- piracy unit took over the ship and freed the 16 remaining hostages. On 10 December, Puntland government forces rescued 22 hostages after a two-week stand-off with Somali pirates holding the MV Iceberg 1 off the coast of Mudug region. Three pirates were killed and three others captured. Two hostages had died in captivity. Puntland forces entered the pirate base-town of Gara’ad on 22 December in an attempt to apprehend pirates and discourage inhabitants from hosting them. There were growing signs that local society in Puntland had become wary of the impact of pirate activities. The deterioration in security, the rising consumption of alcohol, qat and other drugs, economic challenges (such as local rises in the price of basic consumer goods, buying on credit), the pirates’ arrogance, and the erosion of social and Islamic values were resented. Complaints about loose morals, prostitution and negative impacts on family life, etc. increased. The humanitarian situation remained critical throughout the year: 3.8 m Somalis were estimated to be in need of assistance, 2.1 m of whom requiring life-saving aid, while the remaining 1.7 m were in danger of easily falling back into crisis if livelihood support was not sustained. Malnutrition and mortality rates remained high, with overall acute malnutrition rates exceeding 20% in parts of southern and northern Somalia. However, figures in December indicated an improvement in the general food security situation, with a 16% reduction in the numbers of people in need of life-saving assistance compared with the Somalia • 379 previous reporting period. Improvements were mainly attributed to sustained humanitarian interventions and improved food stocks following the main harvest in June. Nevertheless, the country as a whole remained on external life support. Unemployment continued to plague all three Somalias, with the Somaliland government appealing to the international community to support it in developing a $ 130 m youth employment fund, among other measures, to stem illegal emigration. Child labour was pervasive. The education system remained seriously under developed, and needs were only partly met by government primary and secondary schools, private schools and Qur’an schools. Vocational training schools and universities were also few and small-scale. The economy saw increased urban development and investment, with rural activities such as subsistence agriculture and pastoralism losing ground due to continued instability and violence. Almost 40% of all Somalis lived in urban settlements. Further expansion of mobile phone and Internet facilities took place, and their quality and quantity made Somalia one of the best-served African countries in ICT. About 10% of the population had a mobile phone, while some 2% had Internet access. There were a few dozen Internet providers. The country hosted about 1.2 m IDPs, living in camps and temporary settlements such as those in the Afgoye corridor northwest of Mogadishu. While thousands returned to their places of origin, such as Mogadishu, the majority remained, waiting for assistance to return. The town of Bosaasso remained a hub for the illegal and dangerous emigration of Ethiopians and Somalis to the Arabian Peninsula.

Jon Abbink

South Sudan

2012 was South Sudan’s first full calendar year as an independent state, and it proved to be a very difficult one on a number of fronts. The key issue was that of relations with Sudan, which deteriorated right from the beginning of the year when failure to implement an agreement on oil led South Sudan to close the taps on its oil wells. This in turn led to a massive fall in government revenues, which impacted heavily on the official economy, while the worsening relations with Sudan contributed to the poor security situation, particularly in the north of the country. Living conditions for the vast majority of the population continued to be extremely difficult in a country with almost no modern infrastructure and a need for substantial food aid from abroad.

Domestic Politics

The core of the government remained largely unchanged. President Salva Kiir had been in power since the creation of the autonomous government following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party and the South’s Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in 2005 and the subsequent death of the SPLA/M’s then leader, John Garang. Kiir’s own position in 2012 came into question 382 • Eastern Africa towards the end of the year, when there were reports of a possible coup attempt, though its seriousness was never clear and he appeared to survive comfortably. Particularly important at the heart of the government was the continuing cooperation between President Kiir, who comes from the Dinka, the largest ethnic group and for decades the backbone of the SPLA, and Vice President Riek Machar, the most influential of the Nuer, who have historically been rivals of the Dinka. A number of ministers in the government of the dominant ruling SPLM were, like Kiir, former SPLA fighters and the close ties between politics and what was now the national army were symbolised by the way that both were flying the same flag, that of the old SPLA. There were opposition parties but they were very weak. Best known was the SPLM-Democratic Change, led by a former Sudan foreign minister, Lam Akol, but he was suspect due to his relations with Sudan and no major threat to the SPLM politically. In addition, many in the SPLM regarded it as a ‘movement’ rather than a ‘party’ and were not fully committed to a ‘multiparty’ system (though Western countries were keen to support the idea). At the same time, the media appeared to be increasingly muzzled. Radio and television were controlled by the government, but while there had in the past been a lively free press there was increasing concern during the year at signs that this might come under threat, with a growing number of attacks on journalists, including at least one murder. That was mirrored by a decline in government transparency, and, in October, a UN human rights official was expelled for reporting atrocities by SPLA forces. The SPLM dominated government at all levels. While there had been an effort to distribute ministerial offices on a broader ethnic basis, in practice senior officials often appeared to patronise those close to them ethnically when appointments were made. The civil service had expanded since independence in July 2011 but it often appeared that this had been in response to pressure for jobs, while trained personnel remained in short supply, with policy delivery generally falling well short of hopes and expectations. There was a bi- cameral legislature with 332 seats in the National Legislative Assembly and a 50-member Council of States, but in practice both were dominated by the SPLM executive. The ten state governments had significant local powers, at least on paper, but suffered from their dependence on the centre for funds, with poor revenue bases of their own, and thus tended to follow the national government’s line. They were also prone to the creation of bloated local bureaucracies that owed more to patronage by governors and other senior figures, often of an ethnic character, and were frequently inefficient. Below them were more local authorities, but their capacities varied widely. The worsening financial situation forced Kiir to announce austerity measures, which included cuts in salaries, the largest item of public expenditure. These cuts caused some unrest amongst government employees at all levels. At the same time, government-provided public services, such as health and education, remained very poor, and in many rural areas largely non-existent. Corruption was widespread and took many forms, including fake contracts and inflated payrolls. It was increasingly seen as a problem, especially as government finances had South Sudan • 383 become tighter during the course of the year. In May, Kiir sent a letter to 75 serving and former officials asking for the return of money corruptly acquired after it had been estimated that, since the establishment of the government in 2005, $ 4 bn had gone missing, but by the end of the year only $ 60 m had been returned. The Anti-Corruption Commission continued with its work but, with corruption widespread at all levels, there was little public confidence that the practice could be brought under control. Security remained a problem in many areas. The national army – still called the SPLA – was relatively well funded, taking the largest slice of the budget at $ 582 m, though this was down in 2012 from a high of 40% to 28% of the total budget. However, its quality and discipline remained mixed. A police force was also developed, often with recruits from the SPLA, many of whom were illiterate. Security challenges existed particularly in the northern areas towards Sudan, especially in Jonglei and Unity states, and reflected a combination of local, national and international factors that gave rise to conflict. Major local clashes early in 2012 between rival tribal groups involved the Murle and the Lou branch of the Nuer. In part these were due to traditional practices, including cattle raiding and rivalry over grazing rights, and other land disputes in a context of weak local security forces. In addition there were rivalries over access to local government posts. Vice Presi- dent Riek Machar, himself a Nuer, undertook to bring about peace and a conference was held with local civil society support. At the same time, militias developed that reflected the national ambitions of local militia leaders, often with connections to the SPLA. Notable amongst such militias was the South Sudan Democratic Movement/Army. Its former leader, George Athor, a defector from the SPLA, had died in December 2011 and was succeeded by Peter Kuol. In February, it was announced that Kuol was returning to the SPLA, but in April he was reported to have defected once more. At an international level, the government accused Sudan of supporting militias, apparently in response to the latter’s allegations that the SPLM supported rebels belonging to the SPLA-North and the Justice and Equality Movement fighting in Sudan. One Murle militia leader, James Gai, was arrested in Khartoum by the Sudanese government in September, apparently in a move to help the two governments improve relations at a difficult time. Overall, the level of fighting by militias declined somewhat in 2012, but many areas still appeared fragile and capable of giving rise to incidents that could lead to significant numbers of fatalities. In addition, in the majority of the ten states clashes of some kind were reported, generally over local issues such as land and access to other resources.

Foreign Affairs

Relations with Sudan continued to be the major foreign affairs issue throughout 2012. At the centre of the very difficult relationship wasoil . After South Sudan’s independence, the two countries had to re-negotiate the terms under which the 75% of the old Sudan’s oil that was located in the South would be pumped through the long pipelines that crossed Sudan 384 • Eastern Africa to the Red Sea coast. The CPA had set the figure at a 50/50 division of revenues, but after independence South Sudan wished to pay less than $ 5 per barrel for transit fees, while Sudan demanded more than $ 20. With no agreement in sight, at the end of 2011 Sudan was accused of ‘stealing’ oil after it sold two shipments on its own account, blaming South Sudan for not agreeing on the transit fees. In response, in January South Sudan suddenly announced that it was closing the taps on the oil wells, thus effectively preventing either country from receiving any revenues at all from its oil, though Sudan could continue to export its own reserves. The move came as a shock, and the international community soon began to apply pressure, fearing severe consequences for both countries. There were even fears of war breaking out between them. There were already accusations by both governments that the other was supporting internal conflicts that were on-going close to their mutual border, which itself was still disputed. In March, South Sudan suddenly sent its troops into Heglig, an area generally regarded as north of the border, from which Sudan was pumping oil. Some felt that the government was ramping up the conflict as a way of strengthening its domestic political position, as well as its bargaining position with Sudan. The SPLA appeared to be successful militarily, but the government pulled its troops back in the face of considerable international pressure. The incident did, however, encourage the AU and its lead figure on Sudan, Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, to press for fresh negotiations between the two countries. With the direct involvement of presidents Kiir and al-Bashir, agreement on terms for renewing the flow of oil was finally reached in September, but by the end of the year oil production had still not resumed. The oil issue and the threat of war also had the effect of impeding negotiations on other outstanding issues between the two states. The border itself remained an issue of dispute despite on-going negotiations, with the conflicts on either side of it generating considerable numbers of refugees and IDPs. The future of Abyei also remained outstanding. The CPA had included a referendum for its people to decide whether they wished to be in Sudan or South Sudan; but the two presidents were unable to agree on the timing and manner of a referendum. Questions of citizenship, with perhaps 750,000 Southerners still in Sudan, remained unresolved, as did responsibility for shouldering the former Sudan’s large national debt. In comparison with relations with Sudan, relations with South Sudan’s other neighbours were comparatively stable. All were worried about the possibility of war with Sudan and its potential effects on South Sudan and the entire sub-region and did their utmost to be supportive of the new government. With Mbeki organising talks at the AU in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was also doing its best to promote progress, not least because it had been importing a significant amount of its oil from Sudan and South Sudan. The death of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in August did little to change relations. At the same time, South Sudan maintained relations with Eritrea, not wanting to appear to take sides in its dispute with Ethiopia. Its East African neighbours, Uganda and Kenya, both increased their business interests in South Sudan during the year, and Kiir went in early South Sudan • 385

March to the opening of the construction of a new Kenyan port at Lamu, to which his government planned to build a new pipeline. In turning more to East Africa, South Sudan had in 2011 applied to join the EAC, but the EAC organs deferred a decision into 2013. The DRC remained problematic, with its unresolved instability in the east as well as the continued presence of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, which had operated in South Sudan in the past. The Arab states also wished to maintain cordial relations. Egypt had opposed the separation of South Sudan, fearing the possible consequences in relation to the vital issue of the Nile waters, but once secession had taken place it set out to maintain good relations. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states were also concerned about possible conflict with Sudan and maintained their interest, with Qatar particularly active. The stoppage to oil exports was also of concern to the importing countries, especially China. China wished to remain close to both South Sudan and Sudan and urged them to continue to negotiate on all outstanding issues, and Kiir made a visit to Beijing. With China’s oil contracts having originally been negotiated with Sudan, it became necessary, following the independence of South Sudan, for China to negotiate afresh with the government in Juba. In addition to China’s involvement in the oil sector, private Chinese companies and even small entrepreneurs increasingly took up the business opportunities that South Sudan offered, especially in construction and other infrastructure projects. Other Asian states maintained their interest not only in oil, but also in possible land deals that could lead to agricultural exports. This possibility also attracted the interest of oil-rich Arab states. Western countries also showed continued interest, though with growing concern not only about relations with Sudan, but also about developments within South Sudan itself. Considerable international aid came from Europe and North America, from both governments and NGOs. There were growing concerns over many issues relating to governance at all levels, as well as to the fear that South Sudan remained heavily dependent on donors for much of the limited service delivery that took place. The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, visited Juba and was appointed as an advisor on these issues. In addition South Sudan remained heavily dependent on food aid, with around half the population estimated to be in need in 2012. Delivery of much of this aid involved Western donors and agencies, and there were concerns that indigenous production had not been able to take more of the load, in spite of the fertility of large areas of the country. There were also concerns that the government should be taking a greater role in development in all sectors. One clear example noted was the heavy reliance on foreign aid to supply medical support in a country with a wide range of diseases, many of them preventable. The AU was actively engaged with South Sudan in 2012, especially with regard to its AU High-Level Implementation Panel, led by Thabo Mbeki, which was operating from Addis Ababa and endeavoured throughout the year to achieve agreement between South Sudan and Sudan on the outstanding issues between the two countries. The UN Mission to 386 • Eastern Africa

South Sudan (UNMISS) was also heavily involved, with some moments of tension. These included the expulsion in August of the UNMISS human rights officer, Sandra Beidas, for accusing SPLA troops in Jonglei state of torture, rape and abduction, and an accusation by UNMISS that the SPLA had shot down a UN helicopter in December. The dispute between South Sudan and Sudan was also discussed at UN headquarters in New York, with repeated calls for the two sides to return to serious negotiations.

Socioeconomic Developments

The national economy was badly hit by the government’s decision to turn off the oil taps in January, since oil exports generated 98% of government revenues. GDP figures were estimated to have fallen by 55%. However, in practice the effect was not as great as some, especially outsiders, had feared. One reason for the limited impact of the loss of revenue and consequent austerity measures that started in February was that there had been little trickle-down to the majority of the population from the oil income. Thus the majority, many of whom were largely self-subsistent, did not experience an immediate major drop in living standards. In towns, however, the situation was worse, especially as inflation rose sharply, up to 79% by May. This was reflected in the fall in the value of the currency. While the government endeavoured to hold it at South Sudan pounds (SSP) 2.7 to $ 1, on the black market it fell to SSP 4–5 to $ 1. On paper, per capita income was nearly $ 1,500, a higher figure than for neighbouring Uganda and Kenya, but in practice most South Sudanese were much poorer, with many dependent on food relief. In addition, the flow of oil since the signing of the CPA in 2005 had allowed the government to build up significant reserves, though the level of the reserves was kept obscure. When Finance Minister Kosti Manibe presented his budget proposals for 2012–13 in June, he made it clear that these financial reserves would be significant in financing it, though he did later admit that they would not last to the end of 2012. The budget itself was set at SSP 6.5 bn. Once again, the largest individual item of expenditure was for the army and police, though as a percentage this was down from previous highs, while total public sector salaries (including security personnel) accounted for the largest portion of the budget. The budget was to be financed not only from reserves, but also by obtaining foreign loans and credit lines, despite warnings from the World Bank after the cutting- off of oil. However, with continuing uncertainty about an agreement on oil and concerns about levels of corruption, there was greater reluctance internationally to give loans. For credit lines, the government looked particularly towards the Gulf, especially Qatar, which made $ 100 m available in June, and at year’s end the government was seeking a further $ 200 m from the same source. China was another source of help, since it seemed that South Sudan still had significant oil potential in the longer term. International confidence was not helped by the continuing fall in the value of the SSP on the black market and the high level of domestic inflation, which at times topped 40%. The budget did, however, reflect South Sudan • 387 the difficult situation by introducing new cuts: capital expenditure projects from government funds were slashed and there were cuts to civil service salaries and allowances, with the latter soon generating widespread complaints. In March, the government staged an international investment summit in Juba, designed to present new opportunities. The wish was to grow and diversify the economy, making fuller use of its range of largely untapped resources and reducing its dependence on oil exports, though oil remained a major part of the plans. These included the development of new oil fields in Block B, in the troubled Jonglei state, where a consortium led by Total of France held the rights but insecurity had delayed development. The government was also keen to see the construction of a pipeline to Lamu in Kenya, which would reduce dependence on Sudan for oil exports. Though there was optimistic talk about this, there were serious economic and security concerns about such an ambitious project and, though a memorandum of understanding with Kenya was signed in January, no progress had been made on financing the scheme by year’s end. There were also plans for the country’s first oil refinery. Although 350,000 b/d had been exported before the shutdown, South Sudan imported almost all its own oil; after the shutdown, that meant buying oil from Kenya and Uganda at a much higher price. Apart from oil, South Sudan was believed to have considerable mineral potential, with gold in the far south in Eastern Equatoria and copper in the north-west around the disputed territory of Hofrat an-Nahas. There were also plans for three possible hydroelectric projects that could reduce dependence on oil for power supplies. Projects for a road network, in a vast country with only 300 km of tarred roads, included a new road from Juba to Nimule on the Uganda border paid for by the US. The current lack of all-weather roads was a deficiency that seriously impeded development. Another significant step in infrastructure was China’s signing of a $ 158 m contract to develop Juba’s airport, to be financed by a loan from Beijing. Indeed, construction of all kinds, mainly in the towns, especially Juba, was an area of growth. The towns were also the centre of service sector growth, from telecoms to food supplies, with East African businesses prominently involved in this expansion. Agriculture was another area for planned growth. A number of large commercial leasing deals were reported, though actual investment was considerably slower. There were also concerns that any such investments would be primarily aimed at export crops. South Sudan was well short of feeding itself, and small-scale farming for improved subsistence and local marketing was seen by many as the main requirement in the sector. However, apart from political and security questions, there were still constraints on business, such as the limited capabilities of the labour supply. Largely due to decades of war, educational standards were very low, while there was still a lack of investment in good quality education at all levels – a limitation that could well prove costly, at least in the short and medium terms. In Juba in particular, firms were heavily dependent on professional and skilled labour from East Africa, while the schools and universities continued to produce a growing number of graduates with comparatively low levels of educational attainment, 388 • Eastern Africa many of whom were recruited into government posts, often in spite of their lack of training and experience. This was a growing problem that might negatively affect both government and the attractiveness of the country to foreign investment. The government was also hopeful of continuing to attract aid. In addition to the basic food aid to around half the population, there was an influx of refugees from the fighting across the northern border in Sudan, as well as the growing numbers of IDPs uprooted by conflicts in South Sudan, especially in Upper Nile and Jonglei. The UN and its partner agencies increased humanitarian aid in 2012 from $ 763 m to $ 1.15 bn, with an estimated 4 m people dependent on the WFP. In addition, many South Sudanese also had amongst the poorest levels of access to health and education services in the world. In all, South Sudan was rated as one of the world’s most failed states, though it could be said that, as a state, it had barely started to come into existence.

Peter Woodward Sudan

Overall, 2012 was a difficult year for Sudan as it struggled to come to terms with the consequences of the secession of South Sudan in 2011. Relations between the two countries should have been negotiated by the time that South Sudan made its decision to become independent but, with relations becoming steadily worse, several issues were unresolved and were to be significant economically and politically, as well as impacting on security during the year. The most immediate effect of the separation was to deprive Sudan of most of the income it received from oil produced in South Sudan and exported via pipelines running north through Sudan to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. This loss of revenue had significant consequences in many areas of life, especially in the central regions of the country. A major impact was on the cost of living, which rose sharply from the beginning of the year and soon led to demonstrations. In addition to the deterioration in living conditions, there was still talk of efforts to bring about Sudan’s own Arab Spring and overthrow the regime of President Omar al-Bashir, which had held power since 1989, easily the longest period of government tenure since Sudan’s independence in 1956.

Domestic Politics

While the levels of challenge to the regime rose during the year, the government had become practised since the coup in 1989 at remaining in power in periods of popular discontent. 390 • Eastern Africa

Mindful of the popular uprisings of 1964 and 1985 that had brought down the military regimes in power at the time, it was determined to try to prevent any repetition of such events if it could. One tactic was to develop counter-demonstration methods, including isolating areas in which demonstrations took place – Khartoum has no accessible space equivalent to Tahrir Square – and the regime was prepared to use force when it was deemed necessary. With the government aware of the significance ofstudents in demonstrations, the influential University of Khartoum was closed in June. It was later re-opened, but in December there were riots on the streets led by students from a number of universities. Another source of discontent was the urban underclass, which found itself hit by inflation, but again the government took care to physically isolate any demonstrations and strikes. Both students and workers were being urged into action by the large Sudanese diaspora, which used social media increasingly widely. The government felt that theirs was a distant threat, however, and not likely to prove a major force within the country. Local media, meanwhile, were sometimes critical, but the government used selective intervention, such as redacting individual articles, banning whole editions, or closing papers temporarily, while also threatening the withdrawal of advertising with its vital revenue. At the same time as seeking to manage the press, the government also recognised that it could be a safety valve for domestic and international criticism at a time when it was seeking to present itself as a reforming regime. Another well-established practice in seeking to maintain power was the dividing of the opposition political parties. In 2011, the largest faction of the Democratic Unionist Party, led by Mohammed Osman Mirghani, had been persuaded to join the government, and it remained on board throughout 2012, though often adopting a semi-detached stance. At the same time, its traditional rival, the Umma Party of Sadiq al-Mahdi, stayed in opposition, though calling for political dialogue rather than violent confrontation with the government. In a move seen by many as trying to buy off these two largest of the long-established ‘traditional’ parties, the sons of both al-Mahdi (Abdel Rahman al-Mahdi) and Mirghani (Ja’afar al-Mirghani) were appointed as official advisers to President Omar Hassan al- Bashir and given offices in the Palace, his official home. A number of smaller parties came together with al-Umma and the Popular Congress Party (PCP), led by Hasan al-Turabi (the former éminence grise of the regime who split with Bashir in 1999), to form a block calling itself the National Consensus Forces (NCF), but their strength remained limited. The NCF did, however, reject government moves to involve them in its efforts to write a permanent constitution to replace the interim one introduced as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) made with South Sudan in 2005. The NCF argued instead that the proposed constitutional arrangements favoured the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and that there should instead be concerted peaceful efforts to bring down the regime. In November, the government made a further attempt to strengthen its political leadership through the four-yearly meeting of the Islamic Movement (IM). The IM was set up in 1999, following the split in the NCP that ousted Turabi, and was intended to broaden Sudan • 391 the Islamic base of the regime. The 2012 IM meeting seemed particularly significant since it was the first such gathering after South Sudan voted in a referendum to secede on the grounds of its rejection of an Islamic state. However, any hopes that the regime’s Islamic base might be expanded were checked by the refusal of other parties to participate. Instead of broadening the government, the IM looked as if it was facing growing internal divisions as the year progressed. At the same time, newer more hard-line Islamist groups had been developing, believing that the government had lost its ideological credentials and become increasingly identified with corruption. In November, there was talk of an anti-Bashir faction seeking to stage a palace coup, and former security chief, Salah Gosh, and 13 others were arrested. In addition, rumours circulated about Bashir’s health. In August, and then again in November he underwent operations in Saudi Arabia and there was talk of a cancerous growth in his neck. Inevitably, there was feverish speculation about a possible succession, and the chances of it being disputed and destabilising the government. All this pointed to an apparent weakening of the regime, although the opposition was still divided. It added up to uncertainty about the leadership of the NCP, coupled with the continuing opposition of a variety of groups and parties but, with the government hanging on and the security forces apparently still loyal, it remained a situation of political deadlock at the centre. The government also continued to face armed opposition in Darfur, the Nuba Moun- tains region of South Kordofan, and Southern Blue Nile. Of these areas of conflict, Darfur was the most longstanding, having erupted in 2003 into violence that left over 200,000 dead and another two million in IDP camps. On the ground, fighting continued intermittently throughout 2012, with tensions raised by the secession of South Sudan, which encouraged rebel groups to press their cases, including some calling for separation, while Khartoum accused the government of South Sudan of fomenting violence anew. In spite of the killing of its leader, Khalil Ibrahim, at the end of 2011, the Justice and Equal- ity Movement (JEM) remained the most formidable group in Darfur, with the backing of many of the Zaghawa population, while the government suspected it of still having links with Turabi’s PCP. Also still active were two factions of the Sudan Liberation Army, one led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed, generally seen as the leader of the Fur people, and the other by Minni Minawi. In addition to actions of the forces of the various movements, there was widespread lawlessness and banditry across the region. A 16,200 strong hybrid UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) force remained in place, supplemented by nearly 3,000 police, but it was limited in what it could achieve, while also suffering a number of fatalities. In spite of its size – it cost $ 1.5 bn per year – it found it hard to maintain order in such a lawless environment, although it claimed returnees were moving out of the IDP camps, particularly to western Darfur. At the same time, the government remained suspicious of all UN activities, especially as al-Bashir had been indicted by the ICC for war crimes in Darfur, and it often seemed obstructive of UNAMID’s activities and operations, while UNAMID for its part had to recognise that it was on the territory of a sovereign state 392 • Eastern Africa that was itself a member of the UN. With fighting continuing on the ground, efforts were underway in Doha to bring peace. One new faction, the Liberation and Justice Movement led by a former Darfur governor, Tigani Sessi, did make an agreement in Doha in 2011 but, with the government side still hanging tough and with differences continuing amongst the Darfur groups, no wider agreement was reached by the end of the year. Instead, some Darfur groups announced a common front, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), with opposition forces in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, in late 2012. The latter two forces were wings of the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), which had continued fighting in their respective areas after the main SPLA in the South made peace and went on to lead South Sudan to secession. The SPLA-N in South Kor- dofan, led by Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu, had many experienced Nuba fighters in its ranks and was the stronger of the two wings. The fighting caused considerable suffering to local communities, with the UN reporting war crimes and 70,000 people displaced within Sudan or becoming refugees in neighbouring South Sudan. International attention was drawn to the region by a visit during the year to the Nuba Mountains by the high-profile Hollywood actor George Clooney. The SPLA-N in Blue Nile was led by Malik Agar, a former governor of the state, and held land around the town of Kurmuk on the Ethiopian border. Over 1 m people were said by the UN to have been affected, with 200,000 fleeing as refugees to South Sudan and Ethiopia. In August, the government signed an agreement for humanitarian relief for the area, but by the end of the year it had not been implemented: instead human rights groups and others claimed that the government was systematically forcing the civilian population out of the affected areas, with some even describing the policy as being one of genocide. The government denied all such claims, but it generally had a difficult task to defeat these experienced forces in the rural areas and may have seen depopulation as a means of starving out the rebels. At the same time, it was able to retain control of the towns in spite of attacks and some temporary successes by the SPLA-N. It blamed South Sudan for the persistence of SPLA-N attacks and sought to include cross- border security in talks on oil between the two states. To some extent, the deadlock in fighting on the three fronts mentioned above mirrored the political deadlock in the capital, and there was talk of a possible link-up of the urban and rural opposition groups. At the same time, all the deadlocks remained fragile and predicting the course of possible change was fraught with uncertainties.

Foreign Affairs

The central issue of Sudan’s foreign policy concerned the unfinished business with regard to its new neighbour, South Sudan, and the pitfalls encountered in resolving the issues, even though it appeared to be strongly in the interest of both countries to do so. The most pressing issue for both governments was to achieve an agreement on the oil pipeline rent. The interim agreement in the CPA said that the revenues from the sale of oil Sudan • 393 from South Sudan exported through what was then northern Sudan would be split 50/50. Following South Sudan’s independence, it was necessary to negotiate a new deal between South Sudan as a sovereign state and its northern neighbour, Sudan, through which it wished to export its oil by pipeline on the basis of an agreed rent. South Sudan felt that the new agreement should reflect typical international rates, which would imply a sharp drop in the amount received by Sudan. Perhaps believing that South Sudan would be forced to concede, by the start of 2012, there had been no progress, with Sudan seeking over $ 20 per barrel as a transit fee and South Sudan offering less than $ 5, a figure much closer to average international rents. Shortly after independence in July 2011, South Sudan had accused Sudan of having cheated in its handling of oil revenues, and then of stealing oil by selling the oil itself without making payments to South Sudan at all. By January 2012, South Sudan felt that Sudan was deliberately prevaricating and decided to take decisive action by suspending the pumping of oil, perhaps hoping that the loss of revenue would hit Sudan more swiftly than South Sudan and that the former would be forced to negotiate honestly and fairly. Sudan’s relations with South Sudan plummeted rapidly, including the suspension of direct flights between Khartoum and Juba, and the suspension in April of talks between the two countries taking place in Addis Ababa under the auspices of former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and his AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP). There was even speculation of a return to war, with both governments talking in increasingly bellicose terms and moving troops towards the border. Sudan had long complained that South Sudan was supporting the SRF forces opposing it in South Kordofan and southern Blue Nile, as well as aiding Darfur rebels through South Darfur. Sudan’s view was underlined when in February South Sudan sent its armed forces into the Heglig oil field in South Kordofan in an apparent attempt to cut off one of Sudan’s remaining sources of oil. However, this overt armed incursion into Sudan brought immediate international condemnation and South Sudan came under pressure to withdraw its forces, which it did, though not before claiming to have inflicted a military defeat on Sudan. On the other side, al-Bashir claimed a victory for Sudan when South Sudan’s forces withdrew, and ordered the mobilisation of 100,000 more paramilitary forces of the People’s Defence Force, talking of taking the South Sudan capital, Juba. But the incursion also showed the vulnerability of Sudan in the border areas. That in turn led to speculation that some in the ruling NCP wanted to move into South Sudan to take over the oil-producing states of Unity and Upper Nile, situated immediately across the border. Fears of war encouraged the AU to call on the two governments to resume negotiations in Addis Ababa under AUHIP auspices. After much haggling, it seemed that a deal had finally been struck in August, under which Sudan would receive about $ 10 per barrel for oil flowing through the pipelines on its territory, a comparatively high figure by international standards, but one that reflected the length of the pipeline and the lack of any immediate alternative for South Sudan. In all, it was agreed that Sudan would receive just over 394 • Eastern Africa

$ 3 bn over the following three-and-a-half years. In September, Presidents al-Bashir and Salva Kiir met in Addis Ababa in an attempt to move matters forward, and agreement was announced on 27 September. However, by the end of the year oil from South Sudan was still not flowing and AUHIP was still trying to sort matters out. The problem was that, from Sudan’s point of view, an agreement on oil was only one of a number of unresolved issues and other agreements needed to be reached at the same time. Most urgent from Sudan’s point of view were its allegations that South Sudan was actively supporting the rebel movements across the vulnerable border between the two countries, especially the two fronts on which the SPLA-N was fighting. In theory, the border should have been agreed before 2012 and a 10 km demilitarised zone set up on either side, but in reality there were still a number of sections of the border on which no agreement had been reached. In addition, a referendum was to have been held in 2011 to decide whether the disputed area of Abyei would be part of Sudan or South Sudan, but the precarious state of security in the region meant that the referendum had not taken place. There were also other less urgent outstanding issues. There were still uncertainties over citizenship, especially with regard to up to 700,000 Southerners living in Sudan, mainly in and around the main cities. In March, an agreement was reached allowing for free movement between the two countries, following which Sudan began to exert pressure on South Sudanese still on its territory to decide their future citizenship. The external debt at the time of South Sudan’s separation was another matter that had to be decided. Sudan had indicated that it would take on most of the debt if there was international support for debt relief, but deteriorating relations with South Sudan had delayed this. The problems in relations with South Sudan fed into other foreign relations as well. Sudan particularly looked for help towards its Arab neighbours, though relations with them did not always run smoothly. The changing situation in Egypt appeared to make it difficult to define relations, though Sudan repeatedly professed its support for the Arab Spring. The changes in Egypt did not alter the priority that country gave to relations with Sudan which had long provided on-going support for Egypt’s position with regard to the Nile waters’ issue. Egypt’s most recent concern involved Ethiopia’s decision to build its Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile near its border with Sudan, with the aim not only of taking water for irrigation but also of generating hydroelectricity that could be exported to Sudan, Djibouti and perhaps even in time to Kenya. Egypt and Sudan continued to be concerned that this would entail a significant loss of water from the Blue Nile, which supplies far more water for both countries than the White Nile, flowing north from East Africa. In November, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt agreed to open talks and to commission expert reports on the new dam’s likely impact. The unforeseen death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia in August was not expected to alter his country’s generally good relationship with Sudan. Ethiopia also sent 4,000 peacekeepers to the Abyei region, where they had an impact in reducing the level of Sudan • 395 conflict locally and Sudan also announced the withdrawal of its own troops from the area. At the same time, the possibility of Ethiopian-Eritrean relations improving following the death of Meles Zenawi was welcomed in Khartoum, since Sudan’s relations with Eritrea were important for maintaining the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement with local former rebels. By 2012, a number of groups were starting to complain at the lack of fulfilment of government promises to develop the area amidst fears of renewed conflict. Sudan was thus able to maintain its balanced relations with both its eastern neighbours, while also hoping that economic ties with both could grow. In addition, it was able to continue its oil exports to Ethiopia from its own resources. To its north-west and west, Sudan continued to be concerned that the situation in Libya had released many of the weapons held by the former Kadhafi regime, some of which were finding their way into Darfur. Libya had long played a role in Darfur and at one time was closely connected to the JEM, though quite how it saw the JEM in relation to its own relations with Sudan was open to question, with Kadhafi often presenting himself as a potential peacemaker in that troubled region. However, with regard to Chad, another important neighbour of Darfur, Sudan was helped by the continuation of the 2011 agreement between the two countries, which had stopped their longstanding tit-for-tat support for each other’s rebels. With regard to the Gulf, Sudan continued to seek financial and political support from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, with Qatar in particular maintaining its role in Darfur negotiations. However there was some consternation, even within the regime, when Iran’s navy was allowed to visit Port Sudan in October. In response, amidst fears that it indicated Sudan’s renewed support for Islamic militants, Israel blew up the major arms manufacturing centre at al-Yarmook in Khartoum, which was operating with support from Iran and China. It was not the first time that Israel had intervened, ostensibly to prevent arms passing from Sudan to the north and possibly through the Sinai to Gaza, but it was the first time that such a large and public attack had taken place. Some of Sudan’s Arab neighbours were also concerned that Sudan was siding with Russia on the question of Syria and urging that there should be no international intervention, which Sudan thought might be taken as a precedent for possible action in its own conflicts. China continued to be seen by Sudan as supportive. With its interest in oil, mainly from South Sudan, China endeavoured to work behind the scenes to reconcile the two governments and get oil flowing again, though without success as the year ended. For China, the loss of oil from South Sudan was irritating, but other supplies were coming on stream. At the same time, China showed its interest in seeing further exploration for minerals in Sudan; as well as in infrastructure projects, including the raising of the Roseires dam on the Blue Nile and new dams on two tributaries, the Atbara and Setit rivers. Malaysia and India also maintained their economic interest in Sudan, especially with regard to oil and other minerals. 396 • Eastern Africa

Relations with the West continued to be somewhat distant. Sudan had hoped for some time that the signing of the CPA and the peaceful secession of South Sudan would bring improved relations with the US, and in particular the possibility of an end to American sanctions, which Washington had hinted at from time to time. The failure of Obama’s administration to take this forward was seen by some in Sudan as reflecting a US preference for South Sudan, as well as the continuing highly influential lobbying by human rights groups and others in the light of the continuing conflicts in Sudan. On more than one occasion, Washington felt it necessary to announce officially that it was not seeking the overthrow of al-Bashir’s government, but rather was continuing to urge both governments to resolve their differences and address their own internal problems. In November, the US once more renewed its financial sanctions on the grounds of Sudan’s support for terrorism. Some in the US wanted them dropped and relations improved, but the lobby groups in particular maintained pressure on the administration for their continuation and Israel’s accusations with regard to weapons leaving Sudan destined for Hamas added weight to the latter view. European countries and the EU did not figure very significantly in Sudan’s foreign relations in 2012. Trade links remained limited, and US sanctions inhibited commercial interests in the country, since all kinds of major international companies listed on the New York stock exchange were subject to the sanctions. At the same time, the indictments of al- Bashir and his minister of defence, Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein, by the ICC continued to hang over relations with Europe, as well as limiting al-Bashir’s travel plans. As for the EU, it was actively involved in humanitarian relief, especially in and around the country’s conflict areas, though on occasions finding these difficult to access. The UN showed concern for Sudan during the year. Its involvement in the hybrid UNAMID force in Darfur continued, though in practice the impact of the force on the ground remained limited in very difficult operating conditions. The UN also became concerned at the breakdown of talks and threat of war between Sudan and South Sudan, and in March the UNSC passed Resolution 2046 calling for a resumption of talks within three months on pain of the imposition of new UN sanctions. This threat encouraged talks in New York during the UN General Assembly in September and the agreement on pipeline pricing, but without leading to its implementation and the resumption of oil flows before the end of the year.

Socioeconomic Developments

The loss of approximately 40% of government revenue as a result of South Sudan’s decision to close the oil pipeline, and the failure to implement the agreement negotiated in September by the end of 2012, had a major impact on the government, the economy and the wider population. Although Sudan continued to produce its own oil at a rate of 110,000 b/d – which the government optimistically hoped to raise to 150,000 – this was clearly insufficient to check the impact of the loss of revenue from South Sudan’s Sudan • 397 oil exports. The Sudanese pound continued a three-year slide that saw it lose 50% of its value, while inflation rose towards 20%. In consequence, it was clear by the time of the budget in June that that there would have to be adjustments and cuts to subsidies. Among the most unpopular cuts was the subsidy on petrol. The government had hoped to raise new funds through the sale of Islamic bonds known as sukuk but, with the economy weakening sharply, these proved unattractive. On the monetary front, the government was effectively going along with the devaluation that was growing in the black market: the pound’s value fell in consequence from £S 2.76 to £S 5.5 to the dollar. There was widespread recognition that the crisis reflected the government’s failure to reach and then implement an agreement with South Sudan that could improve its revenues: instead the situation worsened as the year went on. There were calls for the resignation of Minister of Finance and Economics Ali Mahmoud Abdel Rasool, but al-Bashir stood by him. The government did, however, make austerity cuts of its own. Four ministries – Environment, Information and Commerce, International Trade, and Tourism – were axed, while the ministries of Energy and Mining were merged. In addition, nine presidential advisors were dropped as a sop to public opinion. Even before the cut-off of oil from South Sudan, Sudan’s economy appeared to be con- tracting after nearly a decade of rapid growth up to 2008. According to IMF figures,GDP growth in 2010 was down to 2.1%, and it was estimated to have actually contracted by over 4% in 2011. With the loss of oil pipeline revenues, expectations for 2012 were that it would have dropped by over 11%. The dispute with South Sudan also raised questions in 2012 about Sudan’s long-term hopes for development. In 2010, it had set up an Investment Encouragement Commission and was looking particularly for new investment from Asia, especially China, India and Malaysia, as well as from the Gulf and from Egypt. There were still lingering hopes that the US might lift sanctions and open the way for Western investment, but it was likely that there would have to be substantial political changes first, both internally and with regard to relations with South Sudan. A major area of concern during 2012 was the possibility of expanding Sudan’s own oil output to compensate for the loss of revenues from South Sudan. However, while the relevant minister talked of aiming for 180,000 b/d in 2013, there were real doubts about whether new exploration fields would be as productive as hoped. In January, a new licensing round was launched and some interest was registered in spite of the short-term problems. The China National Petroleum Corporation and Malaysia’s Petronas, both major players in Sudan’s oil development since the 1990s, led a consortium that was exploring the Red Sea offshore Block 15, for which there was some optimism. In Block 14, in north- west Sudan towards the border with Libya, a Canadian exploration company, Statesman Resources, had also reported positive signs. At the same time, there were hopes for potential in other mineral developments, with particular focus on gold. There was something of a people’s gold rush in parts of the north of the country, especially in Ariab towards the Red Sea Hills, an area known for its gold 398 • Eastern Africa since the days of the pharaohs, and this was accompanied by more orderly commercial interest, with a number of companies being granted licences. In September, the first gold and silver refinery was opened with a capacity of 300 tonnes annually, and the following month the first gold consignment was exported. Reports estimated total gold output for 2011 at about 50 tonnes, with the Ministry of Energy and Mining estimating that gold contributed around $ 2 bn per year – still far less than the revenue lost from the closure of South Sudan’s oil. Fears were expressed that Sudan’s pursuit of mineral wealth might deflect from investment in its huge agricultural potential. Around 80% of Sudan’s population were still involved in agriculture, though for many that was still largely of a subsistence character and they comprised most of the nearly 50% of the population who still lived below the poverty line. Attempts to build a modern agricultural sector had once centred on cotton, though since the 1970s they had focused more on expanding sugar production. From the 1970s, much emphasis had been put on the vast Kenana sugar scheme on the White Nile, and more recently there had been expansion of production in the same area, together with the opening in July of the White Nile Sugar Factory. Another longstanding small-scale agricultural export success was in gum Arabic, which was collected by farmers in western Sudan in particular and was widely used internationally in gums, and in the foodstuffs industry as a stabiliser. Production of grains, such as sesame and even wheat, also expanded, with increasingly mechanised agriculture. New strains of wheat were grown, with Egyptian firms participating. Like a number of other countries in Africa, Sudan was also trying to interest investors from the Gulf and Asia, particularly in leasing large areas of land to develop for themselves. A number of new leases were taken out, but by the end of 2012 several had yet to be developed. There was also continuing development in the business sector, though at a lower rate than in the early 2000s. The Sudan telecoms sector continued to grow, as throughout Africa. Vehicle manufacture continued with support from Asian countries such as South Korea and cars, lorries and tractors were built for what had become a rapidly growing market. The government-owned Military Industrial Corporation was also growing with backing from Iran and China. However, it received a major setback in 2012, when Israel blew up the al-Yarmook arms factory on the edge of Khartoum. Historically, Sudan’s economic development was hindered by its poor infrastructure. Originally, it was based on an extensive, if antiquated, rail network; there had been efforts to rehabilitate it with Chinese help and it did carry some freight, but improvement had been very slow. Attention now focused instead on the road network, which grew substantially, but thus far mainly in the north of the country, while poorer areas such as Darfur in the west still remained very poorly connected. Development of dams, however, continued at some pace. The completion of the new dam on the main Nile at Merowe was followed by the completion of the raising of the Roseires dam and the clearing of silt behind it. This dam, which cost $ 396 m, doubled electricity generation to 560 MW. In October, the Saudi Sudan • 399

Development Fund agreed a loan of $ 100 m for the Rumela dam on the Upper Atbara and the Burdam dam on the Setit River. When finished in 2015, these dams will not only add to electricity generation, but will also irrigate a further 500,000 ha of land, as well as helping to revive the New Halfa Scheme at Hashm al-Girba. The scheme was started when the building by Egypt of the High Dam at Aswan led to the flooding of much of Nubia, including Wadi Halfa, but output had since declined. The aviation network grew but remained rudimentary in character, and with a poor safety record. Longstanding plans for a new airport for Khartoum remained very slow in implementation, in spite of Chinese participation, and there was speculation that it might not be completed as originally intended. Overall, the sector was in need of an overhaul, which looked less likely in 2012 than a few years previously. Despite Sudan’s undeniable potential, its internal political problems, poor relations with South Sudan and record of corruption and bureaucracy continued to make all but the most friendly foreign investors wary.

Peter Woodward

Tanzania

President Kikwete and his long-ruling dominant Revolutionary Party (‘Chama cha Map- induzi’, CCM) were faced by an ever more assertive political opposition and by vocal criticism from civil society organisations, but nevertheless remained fully in control of all state institutions. Rising social and religious tensions led to unrest and demonstrations and raised fears about a possible end of Tanzania’s hitherto typically stable and peaceful political climate. Internal power struggles between various CCM factions were evident as the party tried to regain some of its lost credibility and was already gearing up towards the next elections in 2015. Countrywide public hearings were held to solicit views on the content of an envisaged new constitution, but no firm conclusions had begun to emerge. Highly divergent views on the delicate issue of the structure of the Union between Zanzibar and the mainland were prominently raised and created an element of uncertainty. Tanzania was poised to shoulder more responsibility for various sub-regional conflicts in the near future, while an old border conflict with Malawi escalated into a diplomatic confrontation. Macroeconomic performance remained relatively satisfactory and continued to be commended by international institutions and donors, but the population still saw little concrete progress and was by and large dissatisfied with the services provided by state institutions. Many large infrastructural investments were in the planning stage, and high expectations centred on prospects for Tanzania becoming a major gas producer. 402 • Eastern Africa

Domestic Politics

The government and the CCM were faced throughout the year by growing pressure from the main opposition party, CHADEMA (Party for Democracy and Development), which continued its efforts to increase its political weight and gain popular support. For the first time in Tanzania’s multi-party history, the CCM lost a parliamentary seat in a by- election to the steadily growing CHADEMA. The by-election on 1 April in Arumeru constituency (Arusha Region) had become necessary upon the previous MP’s death. Despite some minor incidents in the weeks before election day, the election itself was conducted in a peaceful atmosphere and without major problems. However, voter turnout reached barely 48%. CHADEMA’s candidate, Joshua Nassari, won comfortably with 54% against his CCM competitor (44%), the son of the deceased MP. Many observers highlighted the significance of CHADEMA’s historic victory as a harbinger of regime change in the general elections due in 2015. On 21 August, the Tabora High Court, in a judgment following a CHADEMA challenge, nullified the CCM’s victory in the October 2011 Igunga by-election on the basis of bribery of voters. And on 27 December, the Court of Appeal reinstated CHADEMA’s Godbless Lema as MP for Arusha, thereby overturning an earlier High Court ruling that had nullified Lema’s win in the 2010 elections. Hardly three weeks after CHADEMA’s Arumeru victory, several ministers came under fire when the National Assembly debated the reports of three parliamentary oversight committees, which revealed gross misuse of public funds. In addition, the tabled annual report of the Controller and Auditor General disclosed details of massive fraud. Several MPs demanded the resignation of seven cabinet ministers and one deputy minister, including the finance minister. On 19 April, the deputy leader of the official opposition and chairman of the parliamentary Parastatal Organisations Accountability Committee, CHADEMA MP Zitto Kabwe, threatened to initiate a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda unless the accused ministers stepped down. It was the first time in Tan- zania’s parliamentary history that the instrument of impeachment had been used. Kabwe made it clear that he was not targeting the prime minister himself, but the said ministers. Since the National Assembly’s members did not have the constitutional right to remove individual ministers, the motion was directed at the prime minister as the leader of government business. Opposition parties put aside their rivalries and supported the motion, and at least five CCM MPs also signed. By 22 April, the motion had the support of the required quorum of at least 20% of all MPs. However, Parliamentary Speaker Anne Makinda ruled out the possibility of a no confidence motion during the current parliamentary session for technical reasons. On 4 May, President Jakaya Kikwete carried out a cabinet reshuffle and dropped six of the embattled ministers and two deputy ministers; two of the accused ministers were shifted to other ministries. Three new ministers and ten new deputies were appointed, increasing the cabinet by five to 55 members and giving it a somewhat more technocratic appearance. Tanzania • 403

In the aftermath of the political crisis, which had further increased popular distrust in the CCM and added to CHADEMA’s credibility, the government increased its efforts to fight corruption and bad governance. On 29 May, the director of the Tanzania Bureau of Standards was suspended. In June, Pinda sacked 12 local government district executive officers in response to allegations of misappropriation of public funds. On 15 July, the managing director of Tanzania Electric Supply Company (TANESCO) and at least three other senior officials were suspended following allegations of embezzlement and abuse of office. A number of high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism were sacked in August in connection with smuggling live animals and other dubious activities. Transport Minister Harrison Mwakyembe suspended seven high-ranking Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) officers in August, including the director general, and disbanded the TPA board. In December, 12 other TPA officials were sacked following allegations of mismanagement. MPs were not spared either. On 2 August, Speaker Makinda appointed a subcommittee to investigate corruption allegations against several legislators in connection with the budget of the Ministry of Energy and Minerals. The CCM held its 8th National Congress in Dodoma on 10–13 November to elect a new leadership to serve for the next five years – and to prepare the party for the general elections in 2015. The Congress was the culmination of internal party elections from district to national levels and of party wing leaders, which had been conducted in several steps over a six-month period. The Congress aimed at giving the party a new image and burnish- ing its tattered public reputation, but was overshadowed by widely reported allegations of many cases of fraud and corruption in rivalry for leadership positions. Kikwete was re-elected as chairman with the votes of 99.9% of the almost 2,400 delegates. Zanzibar President Ali Mohammed Shein replaced his predecessor Amani Karume as CCM vice chairman for Zanzibar, as expected, and former secretary-general Philip Mangula became vice chairman for the mainland. Party veteran Abdulrahman Kinana was entrusted as new secretary-general with the clear task of reconciling the various feuding factions, while former UN deputy secretary-general Asha-Rose Migiro was given responsibility for political and foreign affairs as member of CCM’s secretariat. Kikwete surprisingly deferred the crucial decision on the composition of CCM’s new Central Committee, explaining that he needed time to acquaint himself with the newly-elected members of the National Execu- tive Committee (NEC). Earlier, in February, the NEC had at Kikwete’s instigation decided on important changes to the CCM constitution. In the future, NEC membership was to be a full-time post, no longer to be held concurrently with other public positions (even that of MP). This was intended to make NEC membership more secure, but also easier for the party chairman to control. A new Advisory Council, made up of former party chairmen and vice chairmen, was also instituted. According to an Afrobarometer survey, conducted between May and June, Kikwete still enjoyed a relatively high level of popularity, but his approval ratings had gone down 404 • Eastern Africa from 90 points in 2008 to 71 points in 2012. The decline was seen as related to lack of progress in the fight against corruption. About two-thirds of those interviewed expressed their confidence in the likelihood that the central government would solve the most important problems, despite complaining about the state authorities’ poor performance in reducing poverty. The constitution review process, started in 2011, was a significant issue throughout the year. After the government’s attempt to control the entire process had failed in 2011 as a result of pressure from opposition parties (namely CHADEMA) and civil society, the process sailed into calmer waters in 2012. At the heart of the debate was the Constitution Review Bill, which Kikwete had assented to in late November 2011, just one day after meeting a CHADEMA delegation. Although Kikwete had apparently ignored opposition concerns, some observers stated that a typical Tanzanian compromise might have been reached, allowing both the passing of the bill and a later incorporation of CHADEMA’s views – and the bill was indeed amended in early February, after lively parliamentary debates had taken place and the demands of CHADEMA and civil society organisations were met. The amended bill ensured transparent and comprehensive public participation. A Constitutional Review Commission was assigned to canvass public opinion regarding a revised constitution, prepare a draft constitution, call for a constitutional assembly to discuss the draft and finally organise a referendum on the revised draft. The Commission was given powers to act independently and the president’s office invited numerous societal groups to propose members. The Constitutional Forum (Jukwaa la Katiba), a coalition of more than 180 civil society organisations (CSOs), and two national NGO umbrella organisations called for a CSO convention in mid-March to decide on joint CSO representation on the Commission. The convention in Dodoma was attended by over 170 CSOs from all regions of the country. A list of 30 names was reduced to five and then to three, and was finally sent to the president’s office. Altogether, about 550 people were proposed to the president by various stakeholders. On 6 April, Kikwete announced the composition of the 30-member Constitutional Review Commission. The well-respected judge, former attorney general and prime minister Joseph Warioba was appointed as its chairman and former chief justice Augusto Ramadhani was named as his deputy. The members, half from each part of the Union, were selected from among well-known lawyers, academicians and representatives of civil society and the business sector. Despite some minor criticism, Kikwete was widely applauded for the wise selection of the Commission members. The Commission began its work on 2 July and completed the first phase in early January 2013. Groups of two Commission members each were formed and toured the country to conduct hearings to collect the views of the people. According to Commission Chairman Warioba, more than 1,700 meetings were held in all 30 regions; over 1.3 m people attended the hearings, almost 65,000 individuals made verbal contributions, and some 250,000 people made written submissions. The Commission also received electronic contributions by Tanzania • 405 e-mail and SMS. The hearings took place in a generally peaceful atmosphere and hardly any incidents were reported. In some cases, however, citizens complained that they had not been properly informed or that members of the public did not feel free to speak their mind in the presence of members of the local administration. Media coverage was high and the press reported frankly about criticisms of the government and the ruling party. The second phase, scheduled for January 2013, would serve to gather the views of organised groups, including state and non-state institutions, NGOs and political parties. As expected, a number of controversial issues were discussed, among them the status and structure of the Union between Zanzibar and the mainland, the powers of the president and the system of government and public administration, as well as some questions regarding the electoral system. Other issues were arguments against gay rights, arguments in favour of and against the death penalty, complaints about corrupt practices and mismanagement, and concerns about disunity and increasing crime and violence. Some hearings developed into broad discussions of general political issues and causes of discontent and concern. In Zanzibar, the two political parties that formed the Government of National Unity (GNU), the CCM and Civic United Front (CUF), disagreed on the format of the Union. Whereas the CCM called for the continuation of the current two-tier government structure, the CUF proposed a treaty-based structure, whereby an autonomous Zanzibar would be linked to the mainland through contractual agreements. The hearings also revealed a number of shortcomings in the constitutional process. It became clear that most people did not understand the role of the constitution in the political administration of their country. Thus, expectations were widespread that a new constitution would improve socioeconomic conditions for the people and ease daily hardships. It also was evident, that the frequently referred ‘views of the people’ were far from homogeneous. CSOs such as the Constitutional Forum argued that the whole process lacked a consensus- building mechanism to deal with differing opinions and work out solutions that would be acceptable to all. Several separate developments indicated a general societal tendency towards increasing conflict and a growing readiness to use violence as a means of conflict resolution.Vio - lent conflicts between CHADEMA and state organs, between Muslims and Christians and between the government and a newly emerged Islamist group, ‘Uamsho’ (‘Awakening’), in Zanzibar cost the lives of several people and caused fears that the long-lasting peace in Tanzania was in serious danger. On 24 March, CHADEMA launched its M4C (Movement for Change) campaign, which aimed at increasing the party’s financial base and expanding its presence beyond its current strongholds. As in 2011, the party’s efforts to increase its political reach provoked overreaction by the police. One person was killed on 27 August when anti-riot police tried to disperse a CHADEMA rally in Morogoro. On 2 September, Daudi Mwangosi, a well- known television reporter and chairman of the Iringa Press Club, was shot dead by police at close range when he was reporting on clashes between CHADEMA and police during 406 • Eastern Africa a political rally in a village in Iringa Region. According to eyewitnesses and photographic material, police officers attacked Mwangosi after he confronted them about an assault on another journalist. It was the first time Tanzania had witnessed a journalist killed while working. The killing was widely condemned both inside and outside the country, and the government was called upon to investigate. Three separate investigation committees – set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Commission for Human Rights and Good Gov- ernance and jointly by the Media Council of Tanzania and the Tanzania Editors Forum – determined that the police had used excessive force. While the Ministry of Home Affairs’ committee stated that the police were not responsible for Mwangosi’s death, the other committees found evidence that the journalist was deliberately killed by police and urged the government to take strong measures against those involved. The Legal and Human Rights Centre filed a case against the government at the ICC and submitted a petition to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Although one police officer was arrested and charged with murder, it remained unclear whether the authorities were willing to investigate the case thoroughly. The activities of ‘Uamsho’ in Zanzibar contributed to increasing tensions between its followers and the state and between Muslims and Christians – albeit on a comparatively minor scale. Registered in 2001 as a religious group, ‘Uamsho’ came up with a political agenda in 2012 and emerged as one of several groups campaigning for Zanzibar’s full autonomy. Demonstrations by ‘Uamsho’ supporters on 26 and 27 May turned violent, after police forces used tear gas. Groups of rioting youths blocked roads and destroyed shops, bars and other property, mainly belonging to Christians and mainlanders, and three churches were torched. ‘Uamsho’, which was accused of being behind the riots, distanced itself, however, and called for calm. The authorities reacted strongly, with an increased police presence and a ban on all religious demonstrations. When ‘Uamsho’ members met on 21 July in a Zanzibar mosque to mourn the victims of a disastrous ferry accident, riot police violently dispersed them, accusing ‘Uamsho’ of exploiting the prayers for purposes of political agitation. According to the police, 43 ‘Uamsho’ members were arrested following clashes with the police in Zanzibar’s Darajani area. The situation escalated again on 17–18 October, after ‘Uamsho’ leader Sheikh Farid Hadi Ahmed was reported missing. Supporters of the group demanded information from the police about the Sheikh’s whereabouts, blocked streets and looted bars and shops and fought with the police, who used tear gas. One policeman was hacked to death on his way home, but ‘Uamsho’ denied any involvement in the murder or in any kind of violence. Police arrested about 50 people, including Sheikh Ahmed, who had reappeared a few days after the riots. Many observers agreed that the riots were primarily caused by young hooligans and were motivated by socioeconomic rather than religious or political factors. However, ‘Uamsho’’s taking up a political agenda – and the support its secessionist and Islamist propaganda enjoyed – indicated that the group was able to fill a political gap that had opened Tanzania • 407 up with the creation of the GNU after the 2010 elections. The GNU forced the former opposition party, the CUF, into a more moderate stance towards the Union and towards the CCM. In the absence of any other strong political party, ‘Uamsho’ was clearly able to attract disaffected individuals who felt betrayed by the CUF. However, the latter was accused of having informal links with ‘Uamsho’, allegedly using the organisation as an instrument to work for CUF’s assumed anti-Union aims, which the party itself, as part of the government, could no longer campaign for. Whether ‘Uamsho’ supported anti-Christian actions or not, the attacks on churches indicated a radicalisation of a section within the Muslim society of Zanzibar and a deterioration in the usually good relations between Christians and Muslims, including increased suspicion between the two groups. The combination of rivalry between various Muslim groups, mutual distrust between Muslims and Christians in an already heated atmosphere, and a frustrated and violence- prone mostly young mob, joined by criminal gangs, led to a situation in which a minor incident was enough to cause riots in the Dar es Salaam suburb of Mbagala in mid-October. On 12 October, an angry mob stormed a police station and demanded that the police hand over a 14-year-old boy, who had been accused of desecrating the Qur’an. The Christian boy had urinated on a copy of the Qur’an during an argument with a Muslim friend about the assumed power of the Qur’an to turn anyone who defiled it into a snake. Police refused to hand over the boy and several 100 mostly young people started looting at least five nearby churches, destroying several cars and clashing for about five hours with the police. More than 120 people were arrested and a few days later 36 were charged in court with violence and vandalism. Dozens were injured on 19 October, when police used tear gas and water canon to disperse a group of about 200 people who had planned to demonstrate for the release of Secretary General of the Council of Muslim Organisations Sheikh Ponda Issa Ponda. Ponda and almost 50 of his followers had been arrested on 17 October on charges related to a land dispute with the National Muslim Council of Tanzania (‘Bakwata’). Ponda was also charged with inciting chaos and breaching the peace by allegedly calling for the violent demonstrations in Mbagala. Ponda and his organisation had for years been involved in power struggles with the state-affiliated ‘Bakwata’ over control of and influence on the Muslim community. Just a month before his arrest, Ponda had threatened to force the government-appointed Mufti Issa bin Simba and ‘Bakwata’ leaders to step down. Shortly after the October fracas, two clerics were severely injured in Zanzibar. On 6 November, the secretary of the Mufti of Zanzibar was injured by a liquid believed to be acid which was thrown on his face and body, and a Catholic priest was shot and seriously wounded on Christmas Day. Despite the different political contexts and the complex backgrounds of the events in Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, the coincidence of two religiously-linked violent events within a short period of time raised fears that Tanzania’s record on inter-religious harmony, one of the main pillars of Tanzania’s self-image, was in danger. Leading Christian 408 • Eastern Africa and Muslim representatives, as well as representatives of the state, strongly condemned violence and hatred, called for calm and expressed their deep concern about the fragility of Muslim-Christian relations and hence of peace in the country. Strikes and demonstrations indicated the population’s growing readiness to protest against at least perceived injustice and to risk conflict with the state. In January, medical doctors employed in public hospitals went on strike for about three weeks, demanding improvements in the health sector and an increase in their salaries. After the government agreed to meet their demands, doctors resumed work. In early March, they called for the resignation of the health minister and her deputy, because their demands had not been met. After a meeting with Kikwete, doctors announced the end of the strike to give the government more time, but took strike action again on 23 June, complaining that nothing had been done. This time, the government reacted harshly, declared the strike illegal, expelled about 300 assistant doctors and sent military doctors and retired medics to the clinics. The strikes were unpopular among wide sections of the population. Many people who were interviewed by the press expressed little sympathy for the doctors, accusing them of breaking their oath for selfish motives, despite already being relatively privileged. Activists from various NGOs announced that they were preparing to take legal action against striking doctors for causing the deaths of innocent people. On 26 June, one of the strike organisers, Stephen Ulimboka, was abducted, tortured and left for dead in a forest near Dar es Salaam. He was found severely injured by a passer-by. The government asserted that it had not been involved and offered to pay for Ulimboka’s medical treatment in India, but the doctors’ organisation rejected the government offer and flew him to a hospital in South Africa. Police arrested a Kenyan who admitted that he and other members of a criminal gang had been hired to attack Ulimboka. After his return from South Africa, Ulimboka accused the government of being behind the assault. After negotiations between the government and the Teachers Trade Union (TTU) about a rise in salaries failed, a teachers’ strike started on 30 July. In Dar es Salaam, pupils from several primary schools went onto the streets calling for the government to guarantee their right to a good education and to resolve the stand-off immediately. Police used tear gas to disperse the children. On 2 August, the High Court declared the strike illegal for technical reasons and the TTU called it off. The government decision to construct a gas pipeline from gas fields in the southern Mtwara region to Dar es Salaam provoked strong opposition from several thousand people demanding a share in the natural resources found in their region. A peaceful demonstration on 27 December was organised jointly by several political parties. The protesters wanted the government to construct energy plants and industries in their region in order to create local jobs, instead of taking the gas to Dar es Salaam. The government insisted on its plan to transfer the gas to the commercial capital and reminded the residents of the Tanzania • 409 south of the fact that all the resources of Tanzania contributed to the wealth of the nation as a whole. Prime Minister Pinda toured the region for three days and held discussions with stakeholders to explain the government’s plans. However, public pressure was such that even CCM politicians from the south opposed their own government’s decision. The demonstrations revealed a deeply-rooted distrust of the government’s willingness to care for the neglected south. On 31 December, Kikwete announced the results of the population census conducted in August. According to the data, Tanzania had a population of 44.9 m, with 43.6 m on the mainland and 1.3 m in Zanzibar, compared with the 34.4 m recorded in the 2002 census. This gave an annual growth rate of 2.6%, compared with 2.9% between 1988 and 2002. Kikwete urged Tanzanians to use more effective family planning measures. The census was also an issue in the power-struggle between Islamic organisations. Some Muslim organisations, such as ‘Uamsho’ and Ponda’s Council of Islamic Organisations, called on Muslims to boycott the census, since they believed that it was not conducted freely and fairly. They called for the census to ask the religious affiliation of Tanzanians, which was not part of the census questionnaire, in order to establish the number of Muslims, Chris- tians and followers of other religions. However, ‘Bakwata’ and other Muslim organisations supported the census.

Foreign Affairs

The long-standing border dispute with Malawi over Lake Nyasa resurfaced in July, after a meeting of a joint committee that had been formed in 2010 to resolve the dispute. The Tanzanian government called on Malawi to stop exploration for gas and oil in the north- eastern part of the lake until the stand-off between the two counties over the ownership of the lake and the demarcation of the border was resolved. The conflict had been simmering since independence; but escalated after the Malawian government contracted with a British company in 2011 on exploration for the large oil and gas deposits that were expected to be found beneath the lake. Since independence, Malawi had claimed the entire northern part of the lake (while the southern part was shared by Malawi and Mozambique), referring to a colonial treaty between the German Empire and Great Britain. The 1890 treaty ruled that the border between the two territories lay on the Tanzanian shore of the lake, but Tanzania insisted that, under international law, the border was in the middle of the lake. When the Malawian authorities restated in late July their claims to the entire northern lake and their right to exploration, aggressive statements by Tanzania’s Foreign Minister Bernard Membe and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Security and International Relations, Edward Lowassa, a former prime minister, raised fears of war. Their statement that – although a diplomatic solution was preferred – the Tanza- nian Defence Forces were prepared to defend the country, was extensively reported and 410 • Eastern Africa commented upon in the media. Generally, media and public opinion was strongly against any military option and called for a diplomatic solution. To calm the growing fears, numerous high-ranking politicians argued against a recourse to arms. During a SADC meeting on 18–19 August, Kikwete finally assured Malawian President Joyce Banda that Tanzania had no plans to go to war with Malawi. Despite subsequent meetings of the joint committee from 20 to 27 August, the rhetoric escalated again in September, when Malawi accused Tanzania of intimidating Malawian fishermen and called off a further scheduled meeting. While Tanzania claimed to prefer to continue with bilateral negotiations, Malawi wanted to take the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Talks resumed on 17 November and resulted in an agreement to disagree and to seek mediation from the SADC Forum of Former Heads of State. Both countries also agreed to take the issue to the ICJ if SADC mediation failed. On 21 December, the two countries submitted a joint application for mediation to the Forum’s chairman, former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano. Tanzania played an active role in the search for a solution to the renewed escalation of armed conflict in eastern DRC. At an ICGLR summit on 7–8 September in Kampala, the government offered to contribute about 800 soldiers to the proposed 4,000-strong ‘neutral’ intervention force that was intended to be deployed under an AU and UN mandate along the Rwandan-Congolese border. In a joint statement with the presidents of the DRC, Kenya and Uganda, Kikwete called upon the M23 rebel movement to leave Goma, cease hostilities and stop talking about overthrowing an elected government. The statement, issued at an ICGLR emergency meeting in Kampala on 24 November, also called on the DRC government to respond to the grievances of the M23. At an extraordinary SADC summit meeting on 8–9 December in Dar es Salaam, the community decided to deploy the SADC Standby Force in eastern DRC under an as yet undeclared AU and UN mandate, and endorsed Tanzania’s offer to lead the force. In August, Tanzania took over the chairmanship of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation (‘SADC-Troika’) from South Africa. As troika chairman, Kikwete was also involved in searching for a solution to the political deadlock in Madagascar, trying to persuade the two competing politicians not to stand in the expected 2013 elections, as the SADC roadmap had recommended. After talks with Kikwete, ousted president Ravalomanana declared on 11 December in Dar es Salaam that he would not stand but his rival, Rajoelina, left Tanzania after consultations with Kikwete without making a clear statement. On 20 November, Kikwete launched the Revised Strategic Indicative Plan for the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security (SIPO II). Apart from the border row with Malawi, Tanzania maintained cordial relations with all its other neighbours, with a major focus on the further intensification of the EAC integration process. The donor community remained concerned about problems in effectively fighting corruption and doubted the government’s willingness to enhance the anti-graft crusade. However, this only marginally affected generally good relations, which were char- Tanzania • 411 acterised by continuous substantial support for Tanzania’s development efforts. In May, Kikwete was one of only four African leaders to attend the G8 summit in Camp David (USA), taking part in a symposium on global agricultural and food security and soliciting support for Tanzania’s own ambitious agricultural investment programmes. On 25 June, the Bloomberg news agency reported that Iranian oil tankers had been re- flagged byZanzibar , thus enabling Iran to evade the oil embargo imposed by the EU and US. After some diplomatic embarrassment and an investigation, the Zanzibar authorities stated that they would deregister the 36 Iranian tankers, which had been registered through a Dubai-based agent without Zanzibar’s knowledge.

Socioeconomic Developments

The overall macroeconomic performance again continued to be quite robust and generally in line with the strong growth trend since the early 2000s. In this period, Tanzania had become one of the fastest growing and most consistently performing economies in Africa, albeit still characterised by a very low absolute level of material wealth. In the 2012 HDI, Tanzania remained ranked 152nd (out of 185 countries) in the low human development category. GDP per capita was estimated at about $ 540 and in PPP terms at $ 1,383. In the face of the continued global economic and financial crisis, Tanzania’s economy proved to be remarkably resilient. The GDP growth rate for 2012 was estimated at 6.9%, slightly higher than in 2011 and largely in accordance with the growth trend of most preceding years (range of 6%–7%). Climatically it was an average year, which allowed the agricultural sector to grow by about 4.5%, the highest rate for five years. Inflation had increased alarmingly in 2011 and remained high throughout the year, although with a slowly declining trend from 19.7% in January to 12.1% in December, underpinned by higher food output, a fall in global oil prices and a tight monetary policy. The average 16% consumer price inflation for the year (compared with 12.7% in 2011) was, however, a major cause of growing popular discontent. The exchange rate was unusually stable during the entire year, with practically no change in relation to the dollar (TSh 1,572 : $ 1). This stability was interpreted as a clear sign of widely prevailing confidence in the economy’s prospects. Thestructural trade deficitapparently declined by 8% to $ 4,345 m, equivalent to 14% of GDP (based on preliminary figures that are normally substantially revised). Imports grew only modestly, by 5% to $ 10,325 m, with oil alone accounting for one third. Exports, by contrast, surged substantially by 17% to $ 5,980 m, despite a small decline in the value of the main export, gold (accounting for 36% of total exports). Traditional agricultural exports experienced a strong recovery, but manufactured goods exports to regional markets also did well with more than 20% growth. On balance, 58% of Tanzania’s import needs were covered by its own export revenues. The (preliminary) current-account deficit was nevertheless estimated by the IMF to have grown considerably, to around 15% of GDP, the highest percentage for several years. 412 • Eastern Africa

Gross foreign reserves were somewhat strengthened at $ 4.0 bn by the year’s end, sufficient for a comfortable import coverage of almost five months. While theexternal debt had previously been substantially reduced to a low of $ 4.2 bn in 2006 as a result of concerted debt cancellations under the HIPC initiative, it had been creeping up again since then, reaching $ 10.6 bn at year’s end (compared with $ 10 bn at end-2011). IMF missions in March and September conducted the fourth and fifth reviews under the current Policy Support Instrument (PSI) operative since June 2010. In July, the IMF approved a new 18-month Standby Credit Facility for $ 225 m as a precautionary measure against potential downside risks of a global slowdown. Completing the fifth PSI review, the IMF commended the Tanzanian authorities for their prudent policy management and progress in stabilising the economy. The overall macroeconomic outlook remained favourable, with buoyant growth and declining inflation. Continued tight fiscal and monetary policies were considered crucial for securing sustainability. In the IMF’s view, the budget for 2012/13 appropriately balanced the country’s development and social spending needs with the debt-stabilising objective. Following a debt sustainability analysis, the IMF granted Tanzania an increase of its non-concessional debt ceiling from $ 1.77 bn to $ 2.86 bn, since the government had demonstrated a commitment to sound fiscal policies. Total external debt was given as 37% of GDP, while public external debt (30.4% of GDP) was well below the IMF’s threshold of 50%. New non-concessional loans were only intended for massive planned infrastructure projects. Plans for an entry into the international sovereign bond market did not yet materialise, however. On 14 June, new Finance Minister William Mgimwa submitted an upbeat 2012/13 budget to parliament in conjunction with a review of the previous financial year’s (provisional) outturn. Both revenue and spending figures in 2011/12 had again been below the original budget projections, and the overall fiscal deficitof about 5% of GDP turned out to be lower than predicted. In the IMF’s assessment, revenue collection had been strong and government spending was well-contained. In the new financial year, the government expected to raise a total TSh 15.1 trillion, an increase of 11.8% over the previous year. Of this total, 58% would be generated as domestic revenue, 15% from grants and concessional loans for development projects, 6% from general budget support by external donors and 8% from non-concessional borrowing. Domestic revenue was expected to attain a quota of 18% of GDP, compared with an anticipated 16.9% for the year to June 2012. On the expenditure side, only 30% was budgeted for development (down from 38%) and the rest for recurrent government operations. In a heated parliamentary debate, many MPs expressed concern about a narrow tax base and wanted the share of the development budget to be raised to 35%, but after five days of tension the budget was passed with an overwhelming CCM majority against all opposition legislators. No major changes to the tax regime were planned, but a strengthening of the traditional areas of revenue generation was proposed. The budget’s main objectives were geared to an improvement of economic infrastructure (particularly power and transport), which was perceived to be a key bottleneck hindering Tanzania • 413 faster economic growth. The general budget thrust was in line with the priorities of the Development Vision 2025, the current PRSP (known by the Swahili acronym as MKU- KUTA II) and the MDGs. An agro-business investment forum organised by the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) in November was intended to attract potential investors for commercial agricultural ventures, in particular the highly ambitious plan for a Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor, with expected investments of $ 3.4 bn over a 20-year period. This had for some time been promoted by Kikwete, including at the G8 summit in May, but response had so far remained quite restrained. The TIC identified 300,000 ha of land as available for local and foreign investors. Under the ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative, launched in 2009, the government continued to accord high priority to the modernisation of all aspects of agricultural development, including traditional smallholders. An agitated parliamentary debate in November, however, turned public attention to a prevailing concern about the fast-rising number of land conflicts and‘land grabs’, involving both foreign and local investors. As an appeasement measure, the government decreed ceilings for land deals to be effective from January 2013 (10,000 ha for sugar estates, 5,000 ha for rice farms). Recurring power failures, although not quite as bad as in 2011 when drought curtailed hydro-power generation, continued to be a restraining factor on the economy and a nui- sance to private households. Electricity tariffs were raised by 40% in January, but were still far too low to end the continuous losses of the state-owned power utility TANESCO. An application for further badly needed tariff increases was withdrawn in the face of strong consumer and industrial opposition. TANESCO accumulated outstanding debts to various independent power producers for resources needed to complement its own generating capacity. In July, the government had to clear a $ 30 m debt to Songas that threatened to terminate the supply of gas. TANESCO had long been badly managed and severely under- resourced. Only 14% of the population were estimated to have access to electricity. The deficient transport system had also increasingly been identified as a serious impediment to faster economic growth. After years of delay, the astonishing level of congestion in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam was at least partially tackled by the introduction of a rail commuter service and the start of construction of a bus rapid transit system. Many road sections in various parts of the country were upgraded, financed by either donor funds or commercial loans. Discussions again resurfaced about a complete upgrading of the central railway line, possibly including an extension to Rwanda and Burundi, and a new railway link from Tanga via Arusha to Musoma on Lake Victoria, but this all remained vague and inconclusive. In October, China offered a $ 42 m interest-free loan for the revival of the long ailing TAZARA railway link to Zambia. Optimistic expectations of an upturn in the economy gained further momentum in response to promising prospects for Tanzania’s mining sector, based in particular on the rapidly rising confirmation of substantial viablenatural gas and oil finds. Some exploration work had been undertaken since the 1950s without apparent success, and the first 414 • Eastern Africa extraction of gas had only begun in 2004 on Songo Songo Island. Since then exploration had intensified, mainly in Lindi and Mtwara regions and off-shore, and the confirmed volume of proven gas reserves was rapidly updated to presently around 33 trillion ft3. By June, 26 production-sharing agreements with 18 exploration companies were in existence, with more under discussion. Tanzania seemed poised to become a major gas producer in the near future, raising high expectations, but also fears of the well-known resource curse experienced in many other cases. The production and export of liquefied natural gas was foreseen as potentially feasible in 2021. In June, construction began of a 532-km gas pipeline from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam, financed by a $ 1.2 bn concessional Chinese loan. Tanzania’s first petroleum and gas conference in mid-October provided little clarity on the industry’s future, since only a draft version of a national natural gas policy was presented by the relevant ministry. A substantive policy paper was to go to parliament in April 2013. One key point was the expected split of the present Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation into a regulatory body and a revenue management fund. Due to the upsurge in exploration activities, the inflow of FDI had in 2011 almost doubled to $ 854 m, with over $ 300 m going into gas exploration and the rest into other mining projects and other ventures. The general East African excitement about oil and gas prospects also affected Zanzibar, but had also been the source of a fundamental dispute between the Zanzibar and Union governments since 2009. Although responsibility for the sector was not stated unambiguously in the Union constitution, Zanzibar adamantly insisted on full control over its potential oil and gas resources. In a surprise disclosure, Kikwete and Shein reached agreement in October on Zanzibar’s claims, thus paving the way for exploration activities in Zanzibar’s waters and at the same time removing one of the most contentious points in the constitutional debate. Gold production continued to contribute significantly to overall growth and exports, despite some slight setbacks. African Barrick Gold, the largest company, finally agreed in May to pay a higher royalty (4% instead of 3%), which the government had set in 2011, while the other two main producers still disputed this. An attempt by a Chinese state-owned firm to acquire a 74% share in African Barrick met resistance and did not succeed. Initial work began on the ambitious $ 3 bn project for the exploitation of the Mchuchuma coal reserves and Liganga iron-ore deposits in the south-west, which had been signed up to in 2011 by the National Development Corporation (NDC) and a Chinese firm. However, there was also growing resentment of the expanding presence of small Chinese traders, who were perceived by local businessmen and traders to be unfair competitors. Work started on setting up a uranium mine within two years, after strong environmental concerns and resistance in parliament had been overcome and UNESCO had granted a boundary revision of the Selous Game Reserve to separate off the mining area. Tanzania was poised to soon become a major uranium producer.

Kurt Hirschler & Rolf Hofmeier Uganda

2012 was a special year, as 9 October marked the Golden Jubilee of Uganda’s independence. Yet the mood was not particularly festive. Though the political unrest experienced in 2011 subsided to a large extent, political wrangles between government and opposition, as well as within the government camp and in the ranks of the opposition, continued. Rampant corruption increasingly became a matter of local and international concern, with a number of donors cutting down their financial assistance. The economy recovered slowly from the shocks it had experienced. Oil policies were much debated, though the start of production was not imminent. Whilst Uganda faced international criticism over its perceived activities in the east of the DRC, it became a mediator in the regional crisis. Ugandan soldiers continued to pursue remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) outside the country and to carry most of the load of the AU peacekeeping force in Somalia.

Domestic Politics

Though the February 2011 elections had not yet entirely disappeared over the horizon, speculation was already rife on the political line-up for the next presidential and parliamentary elections in 2016. Whilst President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni did not declare his intention to run again, it was widely assumed that he would. A number of younger MPs 416 • Eastern Africa of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), dubbed ‘rebels’, put their defiance on record. Museveni nevertheless continued to retain overall control of the political landscape and underlined this with the appointment of a minister without portfolio “in charge of political mobilisation” in a minor cabinet reshuffleon 15 August. On this occasion, Sam Kutesa, John Nasasira and Mwesigwa Rukutana were reappointed as ministers. All three had stepped down temporarily in 2011 in order to deal with corruption charges brought against them. The constitutional court dismissed their cases on technicalities, and the anti-corruption court eventually acquitted them in November, since the prosecution had failed to substantiate its case. Kutesa, an in-law of the president, returned to the foreign affairs portfolio and Rukutana was reinstated as labour state minister. Former government chief whip Nasasira was expected to become minister of general duties in the office of the prime minister after the post became vacant on 16 February with the departure of Khiddu Makubuya (a former attorney-general), who resigned along with Gender Minister Syda Bbumba (a former finance minister). Both were alleged to have been involved in inappropriate payments to a city tycoon in a compensation case. Expected to head the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development was Tarsis Kabwegyere, but after MPs expressed misgivings about his lack of sensitivity on gender issues, he was instead appointed to the post Nasasira was to take (and vice versa). Newcomers included Justine Kalule Lumumba, woman MP for Bugiri, as government chief whip, and Idah Nantaba, woman MP for Kayunga, as state minister for lands. Nantaba faced stiff opposition in the parliamentary appointments committee over her qualifications, but this was dropped under pressure by the president. The cabinet continued not to carry much real weight except in numbers. In addition to the president and the vice president, there were 30 full ministers (including the prime minister and his three deputies) and 49 ministers of state (including the envoy to the UN). The main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), saw a change in leadership. Long-serving party president Kizza Besigye resigned but did not rule out the option of running again as the FDC candidate in the 2016 presidential election. Besigye’s succession as head of the FDC was decided on 22 November at a delegates’ conference in Kampala’s Namboole stadium. The candidates were Nathan Nandala-Mafabi from Bugisu, the opposition leader in parliament, and Geoffrey Ekanya, MP for Tororo, both from the east, and retired Major General Mugisha Muntu, from Ankole in the west. Muntu won narrowly by 393 votes against Nandala-Mafabi’s 361, with Ekanya receiving just 17. There was an assumption that the election of a former army chief (1989–98) as head of the main opposition party might make the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) more amenable to change if the people should one day vote out Museveni and the NRM. The parties that had their origins in the pre-independence period, the Democratic Party, under the leadership of Norbert Mao, and the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), headed by Olara Otunnu, were most noted for their leadership quarrels, which led in the case of the Uganda • 417

UPC to a brawl when former national chairman Edward Rurangaranga was refused entry to the party head office. The parliament, though overwhelmingly dominated by the ruling NRM, did not automatically rubber stamp legislation. MPs turned out to be increasingly critical of government failures and acts of proven or perceived corruption. The president in turn at times showed contempt for independent-minded MPs, particularly those belonging to his own party. Nevertheless, the NRM usually had its way. On 30 May, parliament chose nine Ugandan members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), six of them belonging to the NRM and, on 5 June in Arusha, the EALA elected Margaret Nantongo Zziwa as speaker for a five-year term. She was the first female EALA speaker and won an unforeseen internal victory over fellow Ugandan NRM member Dora Byamukama. Africa’s youngest MP took her seat as MP for Usuk after a by-election in September: 19-year old Proscovia Alengot Oromait (NRM) succeeded her father Michael Oromait, who had died in July. At year’s end, a trial of strength evolved between the president and the parliament over the death of Cerinah Nebanda, woman MP for Butaleja, an NRM member known for occasionally taking positions critical of government, who died on 14 December. The post- mortem found evidence of alcohol and drug use, and the president assumed that the 24-year old may have fallen into bad company. Suspicions arose, however, that her death might be due to deliberate poisoning and that the government might be implicated, and there were moves to recall parliament to discuss the issue. A piece of legislation that attracted much controversy was the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Bill, called the Oil Bill, which was passed on 7 December, and was intended to regulate all relevant activities. It established, inter alia, the Petro- leum Authority of Uganda and was meant to provide “for an open, transparent and competitive process of licensing”. Most controversial was clause 9, giving the minister responsible for petroleum activities authority over “granting and revoking licences” and “negotiating and endorsing petroleum agreements”. Parliament initially opposed granting such wide powers to the minister, but the government position eventually prevailed with an overwhelming majority (though in the absence of half of all MPs). The pervasive problem of corruption took a new turn when a major fraud in the office of the prime minister was unearthed through investigations by the auditor general made public in October. It involved donor funds of at least $ 13 m earmarked for the rehabilitation of northern Uganda. This led to severe international criticism including by the World Bank, suspension of budget support by a number of development partners and a requirement to refund money to donors such as the Irish government. The protest movement that had sprung up in April 2011 lost some of its momentum. The group ‘Activists for Change’ (A4C) with its ‘Walk to Work’ (W2W) demonstrations was banned on 4 April. The ban also applied to its successor, 4GC, named after the national motto ‘For God and My Country’. Experienced protestor Besigye saw his freedom of 418 • Eastern Africa movement repeatedly blocked, and this turned into a cat-and-mouse game with the police. In a clash with opposition supporters, a police officer was killed in Kampala on 21 March. Ingrid Turinawe, head of the FDC’s women wing, on 20 April was assaulted when she was arrested whilst trying to join an opposition meeting. The opposition decided not to take part in the independence jubilee celebrations on 9 October in Kampala. Various forms of action were taken by a number of NGOs, reflecting the growing dissatisfaction with corruption and the mystery shrouding oil policy, which was particularly felt among the country’s educated and professional elite. New forms of action included calling for black clothing to be worn every Monday (‘Black Monday’) from 12 November to mourn the theft of public funds, and engaging in information campaigns, awareness drives and public debates. The UPDF saw some restructuring of the presidential guard, known as the Special Forces Group. The group, also tasked with the protection of strategic installations such as the oil fields, was renamed Special Forces Command (SFC) and now consisted of the First Special Forces Group in charge of VIP protection and of the Second Special Forces Group comprising motorised infantry, marines and tanks. The well-equipped SFC remained under the overall command of Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Museveni’s son. Having attained the rank of full colonel only in 2011, Muhoozi (born in 1974) was promoted to brigadier general in August. Museveni was quick to reject allegations that he was grooming him as his successor. Third deputy premier Moses Ali, a former Amin soldier, was promoted from the rank of lieutenant general to general, making him one of six UPDF generals (and the only one from the north), but this promotion was only of prestige value. The commander and chief of staff of the air force were relieved of their duties following the crashes of three helicopters on Mount Kenya and the death in August of seven soldiers whilst on their way to Somalia. The review of Uganda’s human rights record by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2011 was finally completed on 16 March in Geneva (Switzerland). The government indicated its acceptance of a number of its recommendations by, among other things, pointing out that the Prohibition and Prevention of Torture Bill incorporated central provisions of the Convention against Torture and that the Public Order Management Bill had been “withdrawn for further consultations”. NGOs voiced concern over arbitrary arrests and the use of excessive force by security forces. Though hampered by shortage of funds and sometimes criticised by civil society actors for lack of efficiency, the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) was in October rated Africa’s best human rights institution by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights; it received the Commission’s 25th Anniversary Award. The Prevention and Prohibition of Torture Act came into force in September, after parliament had passed the bill in April and the president had assented to it in July. It contained a comprehensive definition of torture, stated the inadmissibility of evidence and the prohibition of use of information obtained by torture, and made provision for the protection of victims, witnesses and persons reporting torture, as well as for compensation measures. The UHRC had advocated for the act for a number of years. Uganda • 419

The Amnesty Act, which had become operational in early 2000 and offered a pardon to all rebels who had taken up arms against the government since 1986, led to the granting of amnesty to more than 26,000 people, the largest number of whom were former LRA fighters. It was extended for a further year. Whilst provisions for resettlement and rehabilitation were retained, the amnesty clause in May was rescinded by the interior minister. Though this was within his powers, it led to criticism that LRA combatants who were still active could be deterred from surrendering. With regard to traditional leaders, tensions continued between the king of Buganda and Museveni. In October, kingdom leaders absented themselves from the independence celebrations and in December the king renewed calls for “federal autonomy”. The Rwen- zururu kingdom of the Bakonjo (only recognised by the state in October 2009) attempted to compel the loyalty of the acephalous Baamba and, as a result, clashes occurred in July, leading to the displacement of several hundred people in Bundibugyo district. The Bason- gora and Banyabindi living in the area claimed by the Rwenzururu kingdom insisted on having their own cultural leaders. In December, Bigwala, the traditional gourd trumpet music and dance of the Basoga, was added to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. Stanley Ntagali, born in 1955 in Kigezi, was enthroned as the new archbishop of the Church of Uganda on 16 December, with Ugandan-born Archbishop of York John Sen- tamu, representing the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Anglican communion. After John Akii-Bua’s Munich 1972 gold medal in the men’s 400-metre hurdles, Stephen Kiprotich became Uganda’s second gold medallist, winning the men’s marathon at the London Olympics, narrowly ahead of two Kenyan runners. Robert Asketill aka Bob Astles, the infamous British-born aide and henchman of Idi Amin, died on 29 December in Lon- don, aged almost 89.

Foreign Affairs

On 9 October, President Museveni welcomed numerous foreign dignitaries to Kololo airfield in Kampala for the jubilee celebrations, where he predicted that Uganda “will become a medium income country in the next few years and, certainly, a first world country in the next 50 years”. Apart from Tanzania, which sent its vice president, all neighbouring countries were represented by their heads of state. Other leaders present included current AU chairman Boni Yayi, president of Benin, and presidents Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. The Aga Khan was also in attendance. The UK’s Queen Elizabeth sent Prince Edward, Duke of Kent; Museveni said that his presence gave “us a lot of pleasure because he is the very person that handed-over the instruments of independence to our first Executive Prime Minister, the late H.E. Milton Obote”. 420 • Eastern Africa

The world organisation of parliaments, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), held its 126th Assembly from 31 March to 5 April in Kampala. The capital also hosted various meetings of the ICGLR and the 16th summit of COMESA on 23 November. On 30 November at the 14th ordinary EAC summit in Nairobi (Kenya), Museveni assumed the chairmanship for one year. By year’s end, the Ugandan president was thus concurrently serving as chairman of EAC, COMESA and ICGLR. An extraordinary summit of the ICGLR met in Kampala on 7–8 August. It dealt with the crisis situation in eastern DRC following renewed militia activities directed against the Kinshasa government. Participants agreed in principle to station a neutral international force there, but failed to agree on the details. Additional extraordinary ICGLR summits in Kampala followed on 8 September, 8 October and 24 November. Eventually, ICGLR leaders called on the DRC government to negotiate with the M23 mutineers and tasked Museveni with the role of mediator, but by the end of the year the peace talks, which started on 9 December and were planned to end on 18 December, had made hardly any progress. The turmoil in eastern DRC led to a new influx of Congolese refugees into Uganda, those registered by UNHCR numbering almost 48,000 by early October. Museveni’s role as mediator between the Kinshasa government and the M23 rebel forces was a delicate one since Ugandan actors were criticised in a preliminary UN report in October for having abetted the rebel forces (even though most of the blame was directed at Rwanda). This drew an angry denial, culminating in a letter from Prime Minister Mbabazi to the UN secretary-general threatening to withdraw the Ugandan soldiers from AMISOM in Somalia. The final report of the UN group of experts was nevertheless published as a UNSC document on 15 November, and stated that senior Ugandan government officials “provided support to M23 in the form of direct troop reinforcements in Congolese territory, weapons deliveries, technical assistance, joint planning, political advice and facilitation of external relations”. The UN report also pointed to another problem relevant to relations between Uganda and the DRC. The threat posed by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) re-emerged to some extent, though it was confined to the DRC side of the Rwenzori mountain range. The ADF had been active on the Ugandan side till the middle of the previous decade, but then seemed to have faded away. The ADF, originally an assortment of various anti-government groups, became increasingly Islamist and was eventually believed to have collaborated with al-Shabaab. The UPDF occasionally carried out reconnaissance and pursuit missions in the DRC, though without permission from the DRC authorities. Relations with South Sudan remained cordial on the official level and trade, much of it informal, boomed. However, a border dispute between Kajokeji County of Central Equa- toria state and Uganda’s Moyo district took an ugly turn when some Ugandan officials, including MPs, were detained for a few hours on 1 March by a South Sudanese administrator. In response, Ugandan demonstrators blocked the road to Kajokeji on 3 March and clashed with police. On 22 December, Museveni visited his counterpart, Salva Kiir, in Juba Uganda • 421 in an attempt to defuse the tensions, which were also caused by the alleged mistreatment of Ugandan traders. In May, the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) received a new commander, Lieuten- ant General Andrew Gutti, previously commandant of the UPDF Senior Command and Staff College in Jinja. His predecessor, Major General Fred Mugisha, returned to the UPDF as Joint Chief of Staff. By this time, AMISOM troop strength stood at 14,400. On 22 February, the UNSC in resolution 2036(2012) had authorised an increase from 12,000 to 17,731 uniformed personnel, which was only reached in November. After the military successes achieved against al-Shabaab in 2011, AMISOM now expanded its area of operations beyond Mogadishu. Troops from Kenya (which in late 2011 had made a military advance into Somalia outside the AMISOM context) and Djibouti joined the force, which had so far consisted only of soldiers from Uganda and Burundi. With about 6,200 troops, Uganda still provided the largest contingent. In August, it also deployed a 140-strong Formed Police Unit as part of AMISOM. On 7 November, in resolution 2073(2012), the UNSC authorised the extension of the AMISOM mandate until March 2013. The EU Somalia Training Mis- sion (EUTM) together with the UPDF continued to instruct Somali recruits in Bihanga Military Training School in Kamwenge district and 603 trainees, being the third EUTM intake, passed out in May. The LRA, which had long since ceased to pose a threat to Uganda, again carried out a number of attacks in the remote north-east of the DRC and in the CAR, though fewer than in 2011. No LRA attacks were reported in South Sudan. The number of IDPs and refugees resulting from LRA activities remained high at about 440,000, only 5% fewer than in 2011. Almost 348,000 of these IDPs lived in the DRC. In March, an international internet and media campaign orchestrated by the US-based NGO ‘Invisible Children’ called for more determined efforts to lay hands on LRA head Joseph Kony, but it quickly evaporated. The AU-led Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the LRA (RCI-LRA) was officially launched on 24 March and held its first ministerial meeting in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) on 8 May. The UNSC, in its 29 June presidential statement, welcomed the AU initiative and called “on international partners to provide strategic support”. In September, the Regional Task Force headed by Ugandan Brigadier Dick Olum received 2,860 troops (the authorised maximum strength being 5,000). South Sudan contributed 500 soldiers, the CAR 360, and Uganda 2,000. Thus it was primarily the UPDF that carried out the operations to destroy the remnants of the LRA, mainly in the CAR. The UPDF was backed by US logistical and intelligence support named “Operation Observant Compass”; the pro- longation of the mission of about 100 US soldiers deployed in 2011 had been announced by US President Obama in a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum on 23 April. The UNSC, in its presidential statement of 19 December, urged further progress toward operationalisation and implementation of the RCI-LRA, and called for an investigation of the LRA’s logistical networks and sources of finance, “including alleged involvement in elephant poaching and related illicit smuggling”. 422 • Eastern Africa

Strong links were maintained between the Stuttgart-based US Africa Command (AFRI- COM) and the UPDF. In order to improve efficiency in mission support, AFRICOM hosted a conference in Entebbe in February aimed at developing an ‘Adaptive Logistics Network’ with a central database containing geographic logistics information about specific areas. Also in February, US Marines of the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force trained a UPDF company in anti-terrorism operations, and an Africa Deployment Assis- tance Partnership Team including members of the Tennessee National Guard instructed a number of UPDF soldiers in deployment tasks, ultimately allowing interoperability with US forces. From 14 to 18 May, the second summit of land forces commanders took place in Kampala, facilitated by AFRICOM and attended by top officers from 36 African countries. They also visited Singo army base in Nakaseke district, where US (as well as British and French) trainers continued to train Ugandan soldiers for the AMISOM operation, including in urban warfare. Museveni’s visit to Moscow in December to mark the 50th anniversary of Ugandan- Soviet diplomatic relations and his meeting with President Putin was seen, at least in Russia, as a sign of his alienation from the US. The purchase of additional military hardware was also likely to have been a topic of discussion. The persistent interest of non-Ugandan media in the issue of homosexuality in Uganda was fed by international campaigning, including the public praise of gay and lesbian activists. The US State Department’s Human Rights Defenders Award for 2011 was given to the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CSCHRCL), founded in 2009 in response to proposed anti-homosexual legislation, by Secretary of State Hil- lary Clinton on 3 August during her visit to Uganda. On 24 September in New York, Pepe Julian Onziema, programme director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, and former Anglican bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a supporter of the cause of sexual minorities, were among the six recipients of the Clinton Global Citizen Awards presented by former US president Bill Clinton. On 30 September, the jury of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award decided to give the 2013 prize to Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, founder of the ‘Freedom and Roam’ organisation and recipient of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders in 2011. The unrelenting campaign by Western governments and NGOs against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, a private member’s bill that had first been tabled in parliament in October 2009 but had not been passed, backfired. In October, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, when attending the 127th Assembly of the IPU in Quebec (Canada), was given a dressing-down by the foreign minister of the host country over the matter. This led to her resolve to put the bill, so far treated in a dilatory way, back on the agenda. She even promised the passing of the bill as a “Christmas gift”, but this did not materialise. The CSCHRCL advised their international partners to press for informal talks with the Ugandan leadership but to desist from “any media/public admonitions” or “strong public statements threatening to cut aid . . . as this can lead to scape-goating”, as long as the bill was not being tabled again. Uganda • 423

Socioeconomic Developments

The economy recuperated and the Uganda Shilling (UGX) exchange rate stabilised, though still tending to depreciate. After the October 2011 peak in inflation at 30.4%, figures fell substantially, the October 2012 rate being 4.5%. Whereas the composite consumer price index showed an average inflation rate of 18.7% in 2011, it was 14% in 2012. In November, Uganda joined the COMESA FTA. COMESA and EU countries were the major export destinations. Relations with the IMF were back on track on 13 January, when the IMF completed its third review under the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) aimed at advice and monitoring. It stated that monetary policy had been “appropriately tightened” in the preceding nine months. A mission visiting in March noted that structural reforms were being pursued but also cautioned that “revenue enhancements would be appropriate” in view of the “relatively low tax-GDP ratio”. On the basis of the report, the fourth PSI review was completed on 5 June without formal discussions. The “tighter policies combined with weaker global demand” were expected “to reduce economic growth” during the year. Key risks were seen mainly to come from external factors. The fifth review was prepared by a further mission that visited in late October and early November, which recorded, inter alia, “faster-than- anticipated disinflation”. Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka read her second budget on 14 June. Her agenda for the financial year 2012–13, running from July to June, was headed ‘Priorities for Renewed Economic Growth and Development’. In her review of the past year, she noted that the country had “faced both global and domestic economic challenges”. Real GDP growth for 2011–12 was estimated at 3.2%, but she saw indications that the economy was turning around, calling for the supply side to be addressed. Thus “budget prioritisation, improving value for money, and better coordination across sectors” were required. In 2011–12 the balance of trade had worsened: while imports reached a total of $ 5.3 bn, exports amounted to only $ 4.1 bn. Moreover, service payments of $ 2.23 bn had to be made. Nevertheless, the overall balance of payments was positive, due to increasing inflows of remittances of $ 2 bn, FDI of $ 834 m and portfolio flows of $ 274 m. Kiwanuka saw the increase in production and sale of staple food crops to the region as one of the avenues for export growth. Contrary to the widely-held assumption that Uganda was disadvantaged by being landlocked, she described it as “land-linked” with neighbours “providing significant demand for our products especially food”. Expenditure for 2012–13 was anticipated to be UGX 11,157 bn, equivalent to $ 4.4 bn on budget day and an increase of 13.4% on the UGX 9,840 bn that had been projected for the previous financial year. There was less need than before for donor financing of the budget – put at 25%, whereas 29% had been projected to be covered by development partners in FY 2011–12. As before, infrastructure development in transport and energy headed the list of budget priorities, followed by support for “critical productive sectors” including agriculture and tourism, improving social services, namely 424 • Eastern Africa education, health and access to water, and strengthening the management of the public sector. In the field of tourism, the promotion of eco-tourism “in order to conserve our wildlife and heritage” was emphasised. Measures proposed to increase tax revenue included an extra 10% imposed on those having an annual chargeable income of UGX 120 m ($ 47,600). VAT at 18% on water was to be reinstated and excise duty on spirits based on local raw materials to be increased from 45% to 60%. There was good news for primary school teachers, scientists and other civil servants, with UGX 290 bn ($ 115 m) being provided for salary increases. The tax threshold for wage earners was raised from UGX 130,000 to UGX 235,000 per month, meaning that incomes below UGX 235,000 ($ 93) were not taxed. The ease of doing business was to be improved by establishing a ‘One Stop Centre’ offering “online registration services for the various licenses required”. The health sector’s share in the budget in September led to another controversy between the president and parliament resulting from the generally poor state of affairs of government health services, where about 40% of posts were unfilled due to poor remuneration. Attempts by MPs to cut the defence allocation in favour of health led to an angry reaction by Museveni. Eventually, the underfunded health sector received slightly more than planned and a promise was made to address the needs in a supplementary budget. Towards the end of the year, the financial dimension of the aid funds scandal involving the prime minister’s office unfolded when donor budget support to the tune of an estimated $ 260 m was suspended. In a Letter of Intent addressed to the IMF on 21 December, Finance Minister Kiwanuka stated that “growth-enhancing efforts have been negatively affected by the suspension of budget support by our development partners following a regrettable mishandling of public resources. We are deeply committed to restoring fidu- ciary assurances and rebuilding confidence.” The population and housing census due in 2012 was postponed to August 2013 owing to financial constraints. TheBujagali hydro-power plant on the River Nile was finally commissioned and went into operation. In June, it reached full capacity and produced 250 MW for the national grid, restoring a near-sufficient supply of electrical power. Estimates of crude oil reserves were updated to 3.5 bn barrels, but the expected start of large-scale production was further postponed and not envisaged before 2016. According to the 2011 AIDS Indicator Survey released in March, HIV prevalence had increased. The rate of infection, which had reached about 18% in the early 1990s had fallen to 6.4% (2004/05), but was up again in 2011 in the 15–49 years age group to 7.3% (women 8.3%; men 6.1%; urban dwellers 8.7%; rural population 7.0%). Prevalence was found to be highest among the widowed. As a cause of mortality, however, AIDS was far surpassed by malaria. Worldwide attention was drawn to a somewhat mysterious ailment affecting children in some northern districts. The ‘nodding disease’ caused violent nodding of the head associated with stunting. Some scientists linked it with the occurrence of river blind- ness. An outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Kibaale district caused 17 deaths. The end of the outbreak was announced in early October, but in November a second outbreak Uganda • 425 occurred in Luwero district. In the south-west, eight people were killed by an outbreak of Marburg viral haemorrhagic fever. The 2012 TI Corruption Perceptions Index, released in December and apparently not yet reflecting recent developments, ranked Uganda 130th, as in 2009 (compared with 143rd in 2011, and 127th in 2010). EAC partners Rwanda (50th) and Tanzania (102nd) again did better, Kenya (139th) and Burundi (165th) worse.

Volker Weyel

VII. Southern Africa

The sub-region once again benefitted from a year with comparatively little violence and civil unrest. However, the Marikana massacre carried out by police forces against miners on a wildcat strike in a South African platinum mine sent shock waves through the sub- region and beyond. It was evidence that the meaningful reduction of social disparities was a remote goal. Efforts towards the achievement of the MDGs showed little progress and poverty remained an unresolved challenge. All 12 countries in the sub-region were among the 15 members of SADC, the other three being the DRC, Seychelles and Tanzania. Madagascar remained excluded from SADC meetings because its membership had been suspended since the coup in 2009 in response to the still unresolved unconstitutional change of government. Little progress was recorded with regard to SADC mediation towards a political solution of the stalemate in Zimbabwe, while the authoritarian Swaziland 428 • Southern Africa monarchy continued to show its preference for repressive rule. In violation of its own nor- mative legal framework, SADC leaders continued to dismantle its tribunal. The economic situation was affected by the negative impact of the global crisis and progress towards further sub-regional integration was limited. SACU negotiations over revenue allocation continued. Below-average rainfall during the 2011/12 season reduced cereal harvests and increased food insecurity. EPA negotiations with the EU dragged on.

Elections, Democracy and Human Rights

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation released its sixth Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) on 15 October. As dubious if not controversial as such rankings might be, they nonetheless provide some kind of comparisons based on selected criteria and indicators. The IIAG had 14 sub-categories with 88 indicators under four different headings. Once again, Southern Africa was the best performing sub-region, with a score of 59.0 out of 100 on average compared with the continental average score of 51.2. It ranked highest in two categories – Safety & Rule of Law and Participation & Human Rights – and came second in the other two categories – Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Develop- ment. Despite this good score, one may conclude that the continent still has a long way to go in the areas of governance and socioeconomic performance. Measured against the beginning of the century, Angola and Zambia were among the seven African countries with the most significant improvements, while Madagascar recorded significant decline. Angola was for the first time not among the ten worst performers. The ranking was (rank out of 52 countries/score): Mauritius (1/82.8), Botswana (3/77.2), South Africa (5/70.7), Namibia (6/69.8), Lesotho (9/69.8), Zambia (12/58.5), Malawi (17/56.0), Mozambique (21/54.9), Swaziland (26/52.0), Madagascar (35/46.1), Angola (40/44.1) and Zimbabwe (47/34.4). Nine countries in the region ranked above the continental average and they included – surprisingly – Swaziland, which may be an indication of how relative such rankings and their indicators were. Elections took place in Angola on 31 August. Results confirmed the expected resound- ing victory for the dominant ‘Movimento Popular para la Libertaçao de Angola’ (MPLA) regime under President José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in power since 1979 and was the longest ruling head of state in the sub-region. Marred by irregularities, the result nevertheless showed a notable decline in MPLA hegemony and gains for the long-time opposition ‘Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola’ (UNITA), but dos San- tos and his inner circle remained in firm control over the country’s policymaking and its natural resources, which, according to well informed observers, made the president’s family one of the richest in the continent. In Lesotho, factional battles within the governing Lesotho Congress for Democracy resulted in a split and the formation of a new party, with general elections on 26 May. The results led to a re-alignment in the exercise of political Southern Africa • 429 power under a new government in a relatively peaceful atmosphere but with a more fragile coalition government. In some countries of the sub-region, political rivalries and initiatives towards transitions emerged in significant domestic political events during pre-election preparations. Mozambique saw the failure of President Armando Guebuza’s initiative to change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term in office in the 2013 elections. Given the decisive influence of the Frelimo party over the candidacies, the 10th Frelimo Party Congress, held from 23 to 28 September, had a significant impact on the line-up for the elections the following year, particularly through the party’s new central committee, which also elected the political commission in charge of party affairs, including nominations for the election. A constellation emerged, which made it impossible at the end of the year to predict who Guebuza’s successor would be. In contrast, the party congress of the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) in Namibia, held from 29 November to 2 December, contributed to a clear vision of the political future by making decisions that would lead to a predictable scenario. It paved the way for the orderly replacement of President Hifikepunye Pohamba after his second term in office as from March 2015 through elections to be held towards the end of 2014. Hage Geingob emerged as the designated presidential candidate and was within days promoted to the post of prime minister. His supporters were all voted into influential party positions and/or appointed into similar important cabinet ranks in subsequent initiatives taken by Pohamba, who seemed to fully support of the new leadership in formation. In South Africa, the politically dominant African National Congress (ANC) not only celebrated its hundredth anniversary in a series of events, but experienced a leadership contest at its 53rd Elective Conference in December. The execution-style killing by police of demonstrating miners at a Marikana platinum mine in August traumatised the country for some time but had no directly visible impact on policy debates within the dominant party. The expected attempts within the party to challenge President Jacob Zuma and prepare for a take-over by others who did not support his policies failed utterly and the Zuma camp emerged victorious on all counts. The election as the party’s deputy president of the former trade union leader turned business tycoon, Cyril Ramaphosa (who had a direct involvement in the ownership of the Marikana mine operated by Lonmin and was suspected of being a supporter of a strict law and order approach) came as a result of a last-minute nomination by the Zuma faction and was among the conference’s biggest surprises. Ramaphosa (once the candidate preferred by Mandela to be his successor, but who had opted out of politics after his defeat by Thabo Mbeki) was thus brought back into politics and this sparked speculation regarding the post-Zuma era. This was not on the cards yet, however, since Zuma showed his ability to exercise control over the party leadership and managed to remove the opposition from all relevant and influential party positions. The leaders of the ANC Youth League under Julius Malema were ultimately expelled from the party for what was considered to be disloyalty to the leadership. 430 • Southern Africa

In Botswana, continued efforts by opposition parties to establish an alliance capable of challenging the dominant party, which had been in government since Independence, failed to bear fruit in that they did not significantly strengthen opposition party politics. In Mauritius, dissonance among the various party leaders in the coalition government had no major impact on political stability, but cast its shadow on the elections due in 2015. In Zambia, new conflicts emerged over the Barotseland issue, where Lozi speakers felt disappointed by the new government, which did not live up to election campaign promises to give the region more autonomy. Separatist tendencies resurfaced but seemed to go little further than militant rhetoric. A peaceful transfer of political power in Malawi followed the death in office of Presi- dent Bingu wa Mutharika on 5 April. Despite hours of uncertainty and what seemed like efforts to hijack the office by Bingu’s relatives and close allies, Vice President Joyce Banda was ultimately sworn in as the new president, in line with the constitutional provisions, on 7 April. She would remain in office until the next elections, scheduled for 2014, and she immediately started to introduce a series of political reforms aimed at greater fiscal prudence. Her new approach to foreign policy issues also deviated markedly from the line pursued by her predecessor. Malawi was to have hosted the AU summit scheduled for 6 July but refused because it was unwilling to grant Sudanese President al-Bashir immunity from extradition by the ICC. While the AU insisted that Malawi, as host to the Sum- mit, had no right to refuse the attendance of any head of a member state, the Malawian government begged to differ. It also claimed to have insufficient funds to host the summit, which was relocated to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) at short notice instead. Political stalemates continued to hamper solutions in at least two countries. No major progress was achieved during the year under the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Zimbabwe. Despite continued mediation efforts by SADC, which had mandated South African President Jacob Zuma to continue to facilitate negotiations and preparations for elections, the political climate remained tense and dominated by mistrust. President Robert Mugabe managed to exploit the stagnant interim period to consolidate his support base in ZANU-PF. At its 13th annual conference in December, the party again confirmed that he was its presidential candidate for the elections expected to take place in 2013. The dispute over the installation of a legitimate head of state and government in Madagascar continued through a similarly prolonged and cumbersome mediation process without any major breakthrough or even progress. The country remained suspended from SADC while negotiations over acceptable election arrangements continued. During the year, elections were discussed and prepared in both countries, but with strong risks of manipulation. It was thought that SADC might be forced to undertake special measures to contribute to peaceful settlements of the political conflicts. InSwaziland , political protests against the monarchy and the lavish lifestyle of King Mswati III turned into preparations for a boycott of the rather symbolic elections announced to be held in 2013. Southern Africa • 431

Despite its relative stability, the sub-region continued to experience political repression and politically motivated violence. In Angola’s Cabinda region, the low-intensity military campaign of the separatist movement continued. Predominantly younger anti-MPLA demonstrators, who engaged in civil political protest in Luanda and in towns elsewhere in rejection of the political hegemony of the dos Santos dynasty, were assaulted, arrested and prosecuted. Popular protest in Swaziland was also met with the iron fist of the security apparatus. In Zimbabwe, the chronic political repression continued amidst fears of another escalation ahead of the elections. Signs of less repression emerged in Malawi under the new government that followed the death of President wa Mutharika.

Socioeconomic Developments

While the sub-region scored well in terms of governance indicators compared with other parts of the continent, socioeconomic indicators were less reassuring and left considerable room for improvement. It was estimated that, due to falling per capita income, about 70% of the sub-region’s approximately 240 m people lived on $ 2 a day or less. More than half of these, 40% of the total population, had to survive on $ 1 a day or less. Despite the sub-region’s relative wealth of natural resources, major segments of the population were among the poorest in the world and poverty remained a burning issue. About half of the states – including resource-rich economies such as Namibia, South Africa, Angola, Botswana and Zimbabwe, but also Lesotho and Swaziland – ranked among the countries in the world with the highest income inequalities, as measured by the Gini coefficient. Officially registered intra-regional trade had steadily declined since 1980 from some 21% to below 10%, and only some 2.4% of SADC trade was with the rest of Africa. A SADC senior trade policy advisor maintained in a research paper that overlapping membership of most SADC members in other sub-regional economic integration initiatives (such as COMESA and EAC) remained a hurdle to advancement and that internal trade liberalisation was bogged down over disputes concerning rules of origin, tariff liberalisation and non-tariff barriers. The common market originally envisaged for 2015 seemed far away, with most member states not complying with the agreed obligations. In September, the National Bank of Angola submitted an ‘Integrated Paper on Recent Economic Developments in SADC’ ahead of a meeting of the Committee of Central Bank Governors in SADC in October. It presented a regional economic outlook that was affected by the fact that economic activities were hampered by infrastructural problems, energy sector inefficiencies, dependence on primary commodities, and the financial crisis in the euro zone, combined with a likely rise in oil prices. Average GDP growth rate was predicted to fall below the targeted 7%, except in Angola, Mozambique and Zam- bia. The average inflation rate for the year was expected to be just below 10%. As the report concluded, growth in the SADC region would remain dependent on economic 432 • Southern Africa diversification, which could mitigate the effects of external shocks and global uncertainty. To keep fiscal and external deficits under control and contain inflationary pressures, countries were urged to monitor international food and oil prices. TI’s annual International Corruption Perception Index ranked several countries in the sub-region among the better performers in the continent. Botswana, with a ranking of 30 and a score of 65, was perceived as the least corrupt country in Africa, and Mauri- tius, Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa were among the ten least corrupt. The countries of Southern Africa ranked as follows (rank/score) among the 176 countries classified: Botswana (30/65), Mauritius (43/57), Namibia (58/48), Lesotho (64/45), South Africa (69/43), Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia (each 88/37), Madagascar (118/32), Mozam- bique (123/31), Angola (157/22) and Zimbabwe (163/20). On 20 November, UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS launched its annual global report. Southern Africa remained the region of the world with the highest prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, with about one third of the world’s HIV- positive people. According to UNICEF figures, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozam- bique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe continued to have HIV prevalence rates among adults (15 to 49 years) of over 10%. At an estimated 25.9%, Swaziland had the highest rate in the world, followed by Botswana (24.8%) and Lesotho (23.6%). With 5.6 m people infected, South Africa was home to more people living with HIV and AIDS than any other country. But as the UNAIDS report noted, in countries with the highest HIV prevalence in the world, rates of new HIV infections had fallen dramatically since 2001: by 73% in Malawi, 71% in Botswana, 68% in Namibia, 58% in Zambia, 50% in Zimbabwe and 41% in South Africa and Swaziland. The number of children newly infected with HIV fell by at least 40% between 2009 and 2011 in Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. The 16th Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF-16) was held in three complementary sessions during August. It focused on the assessment of the previous (2011/12) and forthcoming (2012/13) rainy seasons in the sub-region. These were important indicators for predicting harvests. According to the SADC secretariat’s August newsletter, poor rainfall during the 2011/12 season negatively affected regional cereal production and indicated a less favourable food security situation. An estimated cereal harvest of 31.47 m tonnes represented a drop of 7% from the previous year and an estimated overall cereal deficit of 5.5 m tonnes for the 2012/13 marketing year. The principal deficits were recorded for Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with surpluses in Malawi and Zambia. Maize harvests were predicted to decline by 4% to 26.1 m tonnes – the first regional deficit since the 2006/7 season. Overall deficits were also recorded for wheat, rice and sorghum/millet. The Regional Vulnerability Assessment Dissemination Forum was held on 30 July in Johannesburg (South Africa) and presented results based on eight national vulnerability assessment committees: 5.4 m people were estimated to be food insecure – a 37% increase over the previous year. More than a tenth Southern Africa • 433 of the population in Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe were assessed as being food insecure for a period of between three to eight months from July. Southern Africa generated almost 75% of its electricity from coal-powered stations, while hydropower accounted for about 20%. Other renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power were not considered to be major contributors to the sub-region’s electricity needs. During the tenth anniversary meeting of the Regional Energy Regula- tors Association in November in Windhoek (Namibia), a representative from the SADC secretariat summarised a preliminary technical report on the sub-region’s renewable energy potential. Estimated at 37,342 TeraWatt hours (TWh), solar energy (67%) and bio-energy (31%) were the main contributors, but largely underutilised. The hydropower potential in SADC was estimated at 1,080 TWh/year, while present annual production stood at 31 TWh. Of the SADC member states, Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland had no energy policy. Namibia, South Africa and Zambia were the only ones with a renewable energy policy, while Mauritius, although without a policy, had a strategy on renewable energy and was the only country with a renewable master and action plan. An increase in the uptake of renewable energy would ensure that SADC would be able to achieve a sustainable renewable energy mix in the sub-regional energy grid. The Southern African Power Pool – the coordinating authority for the planning, generation and transmission of electricity on behalf of member state utilities in SADC – expected to achieve a renewable energy mix in the energy grid of at least 32% of the total energy produced by 2020, which should rise to 35% by 2030. Another ambitious plan for promoting the sub-region’s socioeconomic prospects was finalised at a meeting of SADC ministers responsible for infrastructure on 28 June in Luanda (Angola) and finally adopted by the annual SADC Summit as the Regional Infra- structure Development Master Plan (RIDMP). Its conception dated back to the SADC Summit held in Lusaka (Zambia) in August 2007. RIDMP identified priority infrastructure projects to be implemented in the short-term (2012–2017), medium-term (2017–2022) and long-term (2022–2027) in line with the ‘SADC Vision 2027’. The three-stage plan covers six priority sectors – energy, transport, ICT, meteorology, water and tourism. The implementation of the identified projects is guided by the declared main strategic objectives of poverty alleviation and regional integration, with projected expenditure standing at $ 500 bn, and transport, energy and water to be allocated the major share of the funding. An interim assessment of progress towards the targets defined in theMDGs suggested that the SADC region had recorded improvements under five of the eight MDGs. It was likely to meet MDG 2 on universal primary education and the HIV/AIDS component under MDG 6 (but not the malaria and TB targets). Progress was also recorded for MDG 3 on gender equality, MDG 4 on the reduction of child mortality and MDG 8 towards a global partnership for development. MDG 1 on the eradication of poverty and hunger, MDG 5 on the improvement of maternal health and MDG 7 on environmental sustainability, however, remained remote goals. 434 • Southern Africa

Negotiations over the disputed EPAs achieved hardly any progress. Namibia continued to refuse to ratify an Interim EPA, despite increased pressure from the EU and threats that non-compliance by the end of 2014 would end the country’s preferential access to the EU market, which meant huge risks to local producers, especially in the agriculture sector. Angola and South Africa made no commitment to sign or ratify the agreement, either. Following the inauguration of the EU-South Africa Business Forum in Brussels at the 5th EU-South Africa Summit on 17 September, a joint statement on 18 September stressed the importance of reaching an agreement to finalise the negotiation of the EU-SADC EPA. The communiqué signed by Jacob Zuma, Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso said that agreement on the EPA would be mutually beneficial, but indicated no concrete progress on contentious issues. In contrast, the presence of Chinese companies and individual traders in commercial and other economic activities in almost all SADC states continued to increase. This gave rise to growing resentment among sections of the general population, who felt their livelihoods were threatened by the new competitors. Labour disputes between local employees and Chinese employers were reported in several countries, and some of the conflicts became violent.

Sub-regional Organisations

An extraordinary SADC summit was held on 1 June in Luanda, which dealt with ongoing mediation efforts but without producing concrete results. Noteworthy was the confirmation in the official communiqué of the Malawian government’s willingness to host the AU Summit in July, which was later cancelled and re-located at short notice. The 32nd annual SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government took place on 17–18 August in Maputo (Mozambique) and Angola’s President dos Santos handed over the chairmanship to President Armando Guebeza of Mozambique. The SADC member states celebrated the election of former South African foreign minister Dlamini-Zuma as chairperson of the AU Commission as a success, if not victory, for SADC. The sub-region had lobbied extensively, despite strong feelings in other parts of the continent that a high-ranking political office bearer from a dominant country should not have competed. Dlamini-Zuma’s candidacy was considered by critics to breach an unwritten agreement that such a position should be held by a citizen of a less influential AU member state. The summit paid special attention to the implementation of the Global Political Agree- ment (GPA) in Zimbabwe and progress towards the finalisation of a new constitution. The official statement was overtly positive and avoided any critical reference to the ongoing obstruction by President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF and it commended President Zuma’s hardly successful facilitation efforts as chairperson of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation. The role of facilitator was handed over to Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete as the body’s new chairperson. Southern Africa • 435

Another SADC extraordinary summit took place in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) on 7–8 December. It discussed the region’s political and security situation, especially the latest developments in the DRC, Madagascar and Zimbabwe. Regarding the DRC, the summit condemned hostilities by the M23 militia and affirmed the SADC block’s deployment of a Standby Force in eastern DRC under the Neutral International Forces (NIF). The NIF were established to carry out peace enforcement rather than just peacekeeping, but were not endorsed by the UNSC for operative deployment before the end of the year. The summit also commended Tanzania and South Africa for each pledging each one battalion and logistics support for the NIF. Concerning Madagascar, the summit urged Malagasy political stakeholders to adhere to and fully implement the Madagascar ‘roadmap’ and called for all parties to respect the dates for the presidential and parliamentary elections set for 8 May and 25 July 2013, respectively. The summit reiterated its decision that former president Marc Ravalomanana should be able to return unconditionally and that, in order to resolve the crisis, he and President Andry Rajoelina should not stand for election. On Zimbabwe, the summit again urged the parties to fully implement the GPA and to finalise the constitutional process including the referendum on the new constitution, which was under preparation for early 2013. The summit again refrained from making any critical comment on the continuing obstruction by President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF. President Kikwete launched SADC’s revised Strategic Indicative Plan for the Secu- rity Organ (SIPO II) in Arusha (Tanzania) on 20 November in the presence of over 200 delegates from SADC member states. While the document once again stressed the need for closer cooperation between the SADC organ and civil society, the political will for its implementation remained invisible and this lack of initiative was bemoaned by several observers. SIPO II retained some of the shortcomings that had limited the impact of its predecessor. It continued to be a non-binding policy document and hence legally not relevant for collective decision making. If this were not the case, it would allow for better enforcement on domestic policies by SADC member states in the spirit of the document. It also lacked an extension of the Regional Early Warning System (REWS), launched in 2010, to include a clear human rights dimension. The unresponsiveness of the REWS and SIPO to the protection and enforcement of basic human rights as essential aspects of human security was complemented if not reinforced by the continued dismantling of the SADC Tribunal. The SADC extraordinary summit held on 1 June in Luanda noted in its official communiqué “that the Region continues to consolidate democracy and the rule of law” – but it did not mention the Tribunal at all. In preparation for the 32nd official SADC summit on 17 and 18 August in Maputo, ministers of justice and attorneys general held another meeting from 11 to 15 June in Luanda to finalise their proposal on the Tribunal. There were reportedly suggestions that the Tribunal should continue with a different mandate. Ministers of member states held that human rights already formed an integral part of their domestic judicial system, which by implication stripped the Tribunal of its most important role. SADC leaders agreed at 436 • Southern Africa the Maputo summit that a new Protocol should be negotiated with a remit limited to inter- preting issues in dispute between member states that related to SADC’s formally adopted and ratified treaties and protocols. This effectively prevented any further individual access to the Tribunal by ordinary citizens and allowed the Zimbabwean government to avoid complying with earlier Tribunal rulings. Many observers accredited this change to the influence exerted by President Robert Mugabe, who often dominated SADC meetings in his role as elder statesman. Member states with dissenting views, most importantly South Africa, were reluctant to challenge him openly. However, civil society protests were fierce, if fruitless. The SADC Lawyers’ Associa- tion in a statement on 19 July urged that the SADC Tribunal be re-established with its full mandate and powers, expressing the hope that the new AU Commission chairwoman, South Africa’s former foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, “[would] not have to deal with embarrassments emanating from the region’s failure to observe its own laws and respect its own institutions.” On 23 November, the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) and the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) lodged a request for the African Court on Human and People’s Rights based in Arusha to use its advisory powers to determine whether the suspension of the SADC Tribunal was legal. According to PALU and SALC, it was unlawful since it impeded judicial independence, access to justice, the right to effective remedies and the rule of law. The request was supported by other prominent organisations such as the Africa chapter of the International Commission of Jurists and the SADC Lawyers Association. In an interesting twist, the Tribunal’s authority was reinforced in South African law: on 20 September, the Supreme Court of Appeal endorsed aspects of an earlier ruling by the Tribunal that upheld the claims of Zimbabwean farmers against the Zimbabwean government for violating certain SADC treaty obligations concerning the protection of basic human and democratic rights. SACU entered another year of negotiations about the formula for revenue sharing between its member states, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland, which was marred by the gross structural imbalances between the dominant South African economy and that of the other member countries – known as the BLNS states. Nego- tiations focused on a fair mechanism for distributing income from the oldest customs union in existence. The finance and trade ministers of the five member states meton 30–31 August in Windhoek. The unofficial focus of the deliberations was on the industrial policy implications of SACU, since the smaller members were frustrated over what they considered to be South Africa’s advantages as regional powerhouse that used SACU for its own benefit and to protect its own industry at the expense of industrial promotion in the other member states. The formulation of a common industrial policy was hampered by the fact that SACU member countries shared a common external tariff, which determined the income for one of the most important revenue pools of the smaller economies. The effect of this dependence was to limit the options open to these smaller economies vis-à-vis the South African Vii. southern Africa • 437 industrial complex. A research paper by the Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa presented in May had noted that increased industrialisation in South Africa would increase the free flow of goods to other SACU members and thereby stunt industrialisation there. At the same time, it would also cause a fall in SACU revenues, because South Africa, as the biggest revenue spinner, would produce more and import less. In the smaller economies, SACU earnings were a major source of government revenue. A SACU meeting of ministers on 7 December in the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund discussed the allocation of revenue shares for 2013/14. As the IMF 2012 Article IV Consultation for South Africa noted on 23 August, adverse developments in the global economy were hurting SACU members both directly and through spillovers from South Africa. The slowdown in world growth and commodity prices reduced SACU income and external demands. With the exception of Botswana’s pula, the local currencies of SACU members were also pegged to the highly volatile South African rand. Outward spillovers were hence a serious risk factor in times of economic uncertainty.

Henning Melber

Angola

The political year was dominated by the 31 August elections. In the run-up to the elections, opposition parties were surprisingly vocal in their criticism of the government, while youth protests faced administrative obstruction and increasingly violent repression. The elections were marked by irregularities and were won by the incumbent president and his party, with a comfortable majority. Abroad, the year was marked by the fiasco of the country’s engagement in Guinea-Bissau and continued dominance over the Portuguese economy; relations with the USA hit a low. Although the economy showed signs of recovery and diversification away from oil, socioeconomic conditions for the vast majority of the population remained dire and 10% of the population were affected by famine.

Domestic Politics

The Angolan family business in politics continued. In early January, the long-standing President José Eduardo dos Santos of the ruling ‘Movimento Popular para a Libertação de Angola’ (MPLA) appointed the former CEO of state oil company Sonangol, Manuel Vicente – his nephew by marriage – as minister of economic coordination. This newly created post to oversee and ‘improve the efficiency’ of the national economy gave Vicente wide-ranging competences and direct access to the president. This was widely seen as a 440 • Southern Africa move to increase Vicente’s political experience ahead of the elections. Vicente, reputed to be a capable manager but with little political clout within the MPLA, duly fulfilled his new role, not attracting much public attention until shortly before the elections. However, as elections were being prepared, the year started off with continued controversy around the National Electoral Commission (‘Comissão Nacional Eleitoral’; CNE). After the ruling MPLA had reached a compromise with opposition parties ‘União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola’(UNITA) and ‘Partido de Renovação Social’ (PRS) in December 2011 over the Commission’s composition and administrative independence, the Magistrates’ Court appointed Suzana Inglês, a veteran member of the MPLA’s women’s movement (‘Organização da Mulher Angolana’; OMA) as head of the CNE. The opposition argued that Inglês’ appointment did not fulfil four of the five stipulated requirements, especially those of being an active judicial magistrate (Inglês had been a judge in the 1980s), and being politically independent. While the Magistrates’ Court reiterated the legality of her appointment, Inglês stayed on to pass controversial regulations such as allowing members of the police and armed forces to cast absentee ballots ahead of voting day, and excluding opposition parties and media from attending CNE meetings. She also chose Deloitte’s to audit the voters’ register, without public tender. As critics pointed out, Deloitte Angola had close ties to the government, with several members of the government or their relatives serving either on its board or in the jury of its annual ‘entrepreneur prize’. However, as Inglês’ appointment increasingly became a rallying point for protests, the Supreme Court finally overturned her nomination in May, allegedly after having received the presidential placet, and replaced her with André da Silva Neto, an acting judge loyal to the regime. Much of the public debate also focused on the composition of electoral lists, which, after the constitutional changes of 2010, would indicate the parties’ candidates for president and vice president, and thus directly reflected internal party power shifts. The MPLA’s list, finally published in June after repeated delays, was awaited with particular interest. It confirmed Manuel Vicente as number two on the MPLA’s electoral list, and therefore as candidate for the vice presidency. An earlier attempt by dos Santos to impose Vicente as his running mate at a party congress in 2011 was rejected by the MPLA ‘old guard’, the veterans of the independence struggle. His confirmation as the party’s number two candidate indicated dos Santos’ determination and ability to overrule internal party dissent. Moreover, the placement of party stalwarts such as the then vice president Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos (‘Nandó’), at number 15, and Speaker of the National Assembly António Paulo Kassoma at number 41, were widely seen as a further proof that dos Santos’ had the upper hand over the party’s ‘old guard’. Opposition parties started finding their voice over issues of social justice, wealth distribution and the organisation of the elections. In May, UNITA successfully mobilised over 200,000 supporters in Luanda to demand free and transparent elections. However, the political scene was shaken up in March, when former UNITA luminary, Abel Epalanga Angola • 441

Chivukuvuku, formed a new party, the ‘Convergência Ampla pela Salvação de Angola – Coligação Eleitoral’ (CASA-CE), and proclaimed a ‘third way’ for Angola, to break up the historic MPLA-UNITA antagonism. CASA-CE attracted respected individuals from across the political spectrum, including the editor of the independent weekly ‘Folha 8’, William Tonet, for the Luanda electoral circuit, and Admiral André Gaspar Mendes de Carvalho ‘Miau’, son of a founding member of the MPLA, as Chivukuvuku’s running mate and vice-presidential candidate. Admiral Miau, who had so far abstained from politics, surprised the public by resigning from his military position to run for office, and voicing his criticism of an MPLA that had “lost its way”. For Zaire province, CASA-CE presented Makuta Nkondo, an independent deputy who had joined UNITA’s parliamentary faction in the previous legislative period, as well as Carlitos Roberto, the son of the founder of the ‘Frente Nacional de Libertação the Angola’ (FNLA), Holden Roberto. In record time, CASA-CE established party headquarters in all 18 provinces, and Chivuku- vuku campaigned on foot in the urban bairros and toured provincial towns on the pillion of a motorcycle, interacting closely with the population, an unknown sight in a country where politicians are usually whisked past in escorted motorcades. Smaller opposition parties faced discrimination and administrative obstacles. The Constitutional Court excluded 18 of the 27 registered parties from running, including the publicly outspoken ‘Bloco Democrático’ (BD) and ‘Partido Popular’ (PP). The BD had demanded the resignation of Governor of Benguela Armando Cruz Neto in January, and protested in May against the rescheduling of the elections from the initial date of 7 September to 31 August, the week of President dos Santos’ 70th birthday, saying that the lavish celebrations were likely to distract voters’ attention from the elections. The MPLA benefited from its incumbent status and the state’s financial reserves to present itself in a favourable light. Dos Santos, hitherto a rather aloof and distant figure in expensively tailored dark suits, multiplied his public appearances and trips to the provinces, often wearing more ‘African’ short-sleeved batik shirts or the ubiquitous red- black-yellow party garb. The launch of the MPLA electoral campaign on 23 June, in the National Stadium, was declared a “homage to its number one, the candidate of the people”, José Eduardo dos Santos, and was accompanied by performances from popular singers. Social media called the event a travesty, saying that, far from mobilising the 500,000 supporters the MPLA had predicted in order to trump the earlier UNITA rally, only 50,000 spectators were present, and they applauded the singers more than the president’s speech. The state-controlled ‘Jornal de Angola’, however, defended its euphoric coverage of the event – and its dead silence on all opposition campaigning – claiming that the support for the president, including the “enthusiastic masses” outside the stadium, exceeded one million people, “surpassing the grandiose popular support for Pope Benedict XVI” at his 2009 visit to Luanda. Anti-government youth demonstrations, which had started in March 2011, continued to be systematically broken up by police squads and plainclothes ‘thugs’ armed with 442 • Southern Africa mace spray and iron bars, who assaulted demonstrators under the noses of the police with complete impunity. Protest organisers’ homes were raided by caenches (heavies), who later defended their action on national television, posing as an “association of citizens for peace and stability”. During one of these raids, BD Secretary-General Filomeno Vieira Lopes, who had been present to support the youth protesters, suffered major injuries to his head and arm. Two activists, Isaías Cassule and Alves Kamulingue, disappeared and, despite sustained opposition pressure, their whereabouts remained unknown at the end of the year. In June, several hundred veterans (both ex-MPLA and ex-UNITA) advanced towards the presidential palace to demand the overdue payment of pensions and were dispersed by the police firing tear gas and live ammunition; at least two demonstrators died in the confrontations, with several more injured. In July, the national police, accompanied by pro-government militias and police dogs, surrounded the headquarters of UNITA’s youth wing, JURA, in Luanda, to impede the distribution of party political leaflets and posters across town. Youth activists reported being abducted from their home or university in unregistered cars and held in warehouses by unknown men under the threat of torture to dissuade them from protesting. Another protest leader, departing for Lisbon, saw his luggage temporarily confiscated at Luanda airport. Upon arrival in Lisbon, the Portuguese police found a kilo of cocaine in his luggage, but they believed his account and he was released shortly afterwards. The youth protesters’ critique of the ruling elite’s wealth clearly hit a raw nerve, and resonated with a frustrated population. Under this pressure, the MPLA therefore can- nibalised the opposition platform by running under the slogan “Angola: growing more to distribute better” and promised the construction of 2 m social houses – an ironic twist considering the MPLA’s failure to provide anywhere near the 1 m social houses they had promised to build during their previous term in office. Moreover, the ruling party successfully targeted the rural vote – traditionally seen as UNITA’s constituency – with a mix of open vote-buying and a thinly veiled threat of return to war, as army platoons were deployed to the interior ahead of the elections. Due to the increasingly tense situation, domestic and international observers braced themselves for widespread popular protests and violent confrontations between regime and opposition supporters around the 31 August elections. The weeks before and after the elections were eerily calm, however, and polling day itself strangely anticlimactic. In major cities, the day was marked by widespread abstentions, which reached 40% nation- wide including invalid and empty ballots (compared with 12.6% abstention in 2008). Some interpreted this as a sign of the population’s dissatisfaction and justified lack of confidence that elections could actually change the distribution of power in Angola, but opposition parties and youth activists complained of severe irregularities. In the capital, Luanda, where more voters were registered than in 2008, abstention reached 44%, but was concentrated mainly in those municipalities that had seen the most protests in the previous year, and where the opposition vote was strongest. Voters complained that they Angola • 443 had been turned away at the polling stations where they were registered, and about the presence of MPLA delegates to ‘oversee’ the process. Rumours about dead voters being included on the voters’ lists and the impossibility of verifying the electronic counting of the votes were further possible sources of errors. Human rights organisations, both at home and in exile, also reported the disappearance or arrest of several activists just ahead of the elections, which effectively muted popular protests. Domestic observers were systematically excluded, and the EU decided not to send an observation mission, allegedly for lack of financial resources, although many Angolans could not help but note the longstanding friendship of dos Santos with EU Commis- sion President José Manuel Durrão Barroso. The AU and SADC observer missions, however, declared the procedures “free, fair, transparent and credible”, noting only unequal access to media and the observer accreditation process as problems. The opposition parties UNITA, CASA-CE and PRS lodged a formal complaint with the CNE, which was dismissed for “procedural reasons”. A second complaint, filed with the Constitutional Court, was also rejected, although one of the judges, Maria da Conceição Melo, afterwards publicly voiced her disagreement with a decision she described as political. The elections thus resulted in a clear victory for the MPLA, which took 71% of the popular vote and 175 of the 220 seats in the National Assembly – 10% down from 2008, but nonetheless an absolute majority. Despite all the irregularities, UNITA almost doubled its representation, to 18% (32 MPs), while the newly formed CASA-CE gained a remarkable 6% and eight seats. The PRS only received 1.7% of the vote (three seats), while the FNLA, the third ‘historic’ party and former anti-colonial guerrilla movement, was reduced to 1.7% (two seats). It should be added, however, that the FNLA was handicapped by long-standing internal divisions, for which it blamed the government – a not entirely implausible accusation, considering the Constitutional Court’s invalidation of the FNLA’s party congress in February. Due to the MPLA’s comparatively low scores in the cities, the minister of territorial administration announced in October the postponement of local elections, originally scheduled for 2014 – officially because “technical conditions” were not met. The ruling party and state media interpreted the electoral victory of the MPLA as a plebiscite on President dos Santos’ continued, now 33-year rule. Dos Santos, for the first time confirmed by a completed, albeit indirect, electoral process since acceding to power in 1979, was sworn in on 26 September, and swiftly proceeded to a cabinet reshuffle. As Manuel Vicente was elected as vice president, his former position as minister of economic coordination was abolished; former vice president ‘Nandó’ was demoted to speaker of the National Assembly. Overall there were few changes, as 17 ministers kept their portfolios. The greatest surprise was the replacement of Minister of State and Head of the President’s Civilian Cabinet Carlos Feijó, the mastermind behind the 2010 constitutional change, by Edeltrudes Costa. Former vice minister Ângelo Veiga Tavares took over the Ministry of Interior from Sebastião Martins, who returned to the subordinate State Security and 444 • Southern Africa

Intelligence Services (SINSE). In addition, the former Ministry of Industry, Geology and Mines was divided in two, with Manuel Queirós appointed as the new minister of mining, indicative of the government’s desire to develop this dormant sector. As for Vicente, many commentators doubted his capacity to make a mark and speculated that he would probably only serve as ‘placeholder’ for this governmental term, allowing dos Santos to build up one of his sons, José Filomeno de Sousa dos Santos (‘Zénú’) as successor for 2017. This theory was supported by a presidential decree, which in October created the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Angola (‘Fundo Soberano de Angola’; FSDEA), with Zénú as one of the three chairmen of the board. The FDSEA, with a starting capital of $ 5 bn, and sustained by revenues from the production of 100,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was launched amidst great fanfare at its swanky Luanda headquarters. The Fund’s stated mission was to promote the diversification of Angola’s economy and generate revenues for future generations. Opposition parties and civil society observers remarked that the Fund’s legal guidelines had not been ratified by parliament, and that the appointment of the president’s son was unlikely to improve Angola’s dismal transparency record. Indeed, the Fund’s first investment was allegedly a £ 220 m office building in London; furthermore, the Fund’s liquid assets would be handled by Swiss-based Quantum Global Investment Management, whose board chairman, Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, was a business partner of Zénú dos Santos in their joint venture Banco Kwanza Invest, Angola’s first investment bank (formerly known as Quantum Bank Angola). Zénú, however, stated he would sell his shares in Banco Kwanza to prevent any conflict of interest. CASA-CE challenged the creation of the Fund in the Supreme Court, but no decision was taken until the end of the year. Despite a nominal improvement of two places in Reporters Without Borders’ ranking (to 130th out of 179 countries, up from 132nd in 2011), media freedom remained severely circumscribed, and Angola the worst of the Lusophone countries on the index. While the improvement in ranking was probably due to persistent civil society pressure on the government to respect constitutional liberties, intimidation and administrative harassment of independent media outlets continued. The 27 October edition of the weekly ‘Semanário Angolense’, which had reprinted UNITA leader Samakuva’s entire ‘State of the Nation’ speech, was seized and burned by the owning group, Media Investe, a holding allegedly controlled by commanders of SINSE. The Catholic broadcaster, Rádio Ecclésia, applied again in vain for the expansion of its signal beyond the limits of Luanda. The Syndicate of Angolan Journalists also deplored the negative campaign unleashed against the independent weekly ‘Folha 8’ in the public media in January, after the magazine had published a photomontage showing President dos Santos and two high-ranking regime figures behind prison bars. Public media were also discouraged from presenting the electoral programmes of opposition parties, trumpeting the MPLA’s government programme instead. Finally, the human rights situation, which deteriorated further in the run-up to the elections, remained dire, including developments beyond the electoral contest. In October, Angola • 445 the police raided a floating production and storage vessel off Soyo and arrested 15 oil workers who had started a strike to demand better working conditions and, in November, the police used dogs to disperse striking workers at Angola Telecom in Luanda. Forced evictions and housing demolitions, condemned by human rights organisations, continued in all major cities. In the diamond-producing Lunda provinces, human rights violations against the local population and artisanal miners continued at the hands of the military and private security companies (PSCs). In November, an artisanal miner was shot dead by guards working for the Bicuar PSC in Cafunfo, Lunda Norte. The same month, nine army generals, the owners of the PSCs accused of torture and human rights violations by Angolan activist and investigative journalist, Rafael Marques, hit back by suing him and his Portuguese publishing house for libel in a Lisbon court. In the oil-rich enclave province of Cabinda, where the separatist ‘Frente de Libertação da Enclave de Cabinda’ (FLEC) continued its low-level guerrilla campaign, the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) continued their counterinsurgency actions. FLEC leader Henrique N’Zita Tiago, speaking from his Paris exile, repeatedly offered a ceasefire and dialogue to the government, but no steps were taken to address the conflict. In Cabinda and the Lundas, the forced expulsion of ‘illegal migrants’, mainly into the DRC, continued, with reports of torture, beatings and rape at the hands of the armed forces.

Foreign Affairs

On 18 August, Angola handed over the rotating SADC-chairmanship to Mozambique. Angola’s commitment to the regional organisation remained largely rhetorical as it postponed again its implementation of the SADC FTA, despite previous commitments to adhere to it. This did not, however, impede Angolan government officials from claiming several SADC initiatives as Angolan successes – in July, for example, the ‘Jornal de Angola’ hailed Nkosasana Dlamini-Zuma’s election as AU chairperson as a great triumph for Angolan diplomacy and its leadership of SADC, when, in reality, Angola’s commitment to regional cooperation remained lukewarm at best. Moreover, relations with South Africa remained notoriously tense. Indeed, a state visit by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma to Luanda on 20 February lasted for only one hour; no media statements were given. South African investors also complained of difficulties in accessing the Angolan market, but bilateral trade nevertheless increased. Relations with the neighbouring DRC improved, as both countries tried to find a negotiated solution to their dispute over the maritime border in the oil-rich offshore waters at the mouth of the Congo River. In July, the Angolan Cabinet approved a joint exploration treaty for the disputed Lianzi oilfield. In exchange, the DRC tolerated sporadic incursions by FAA troops from Cabinda into DRC territory to rout FLEC guerrillas who had taken refuge there. 446 • Southern Africa

Angola’s engagement in Guinea-Bissau arguably resulted in the most dramatic developments in its foreign relations. Angola had sent a military technical mission (MISSANG) to Guinea-Bissau in 2011 to assist the unstable West African country with much-needed security sector reform. On the back of MISSANG, Angola also pledged financial assistance and investment, mainly in a large bauxite mining project. However, after the military coup in Guinea-Bissau in March, the new leadership accused MISSANG of importing offensive weapons and acting as a praetorian guard to the unpopular ousted prime minister, Carlos Gomes Júnior. On 9 April, Angolan Foreign Minister George Chicoty negotiated in Bissau with the transition authorities, but had ultimately to agree on MISSANG’s withdrawal. Subsequently, Angola lobbied the UN, in concert with the CPLP, to impose strict sanctions on Guinea-Bissau’s transition authorities, and called for the restoration of constitutional rule. However, ECOWAS’s more pragmatic approach of collaborating with the transition authorities, combined with the dispatch of a regional military observation mission, prevailed. Thus, Angola’s first attempt to project its leadership ambitions beyond its immediate neighbourhood were thwarted, not least by Nigeria’s influence within ECOWAS. Relations with Angola’s main Lusophone partners Portugal and Brazil remained excellent, dominated by the intertwining of strong commercial and political interests. With Brazil, Angola signed a police training treaty in March, to benefit from Brazil’s experience in ‘slum control’; in April, the Brazilian navy commander visited Luanda to strengthen naval cooperation. In Portugal, the Angolan elite increased their investments: President dos Santos’ daughter, Isabel, acquired substantial shares in multimedia production company Zon and the BPI bank, while state oil company Sonangol increased its direct and indirect stakes in Banco Millennium BCP to 13.7%. In turn, a Portuguese journalist, who had complained about overly positive coverage of Angola on Portuguese state television, saw his radio show suspended indefinitely, a further indicator of Angola’s strong and ever-growing influence in Portugal. Relations with the USA, however, deteriorated markedly. In May, the State Department denounced the human rights situation in Angola, accusing the government of political assassinations. In June, three US banks blocked the accounts of the Angolan embassy, claiming this was a preventive measure after the detection of allegedly irregular transactions. In return, the American ambassador to Angola was only accredited to observe the elections at the last minute, and while the US government congratulated the Angolan people on the elections, it refrained from extending the same wishes to President dos Santos and exhorted the CNE to investigate fraud allegations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s refusal to meet with Angolan Foreign Minister George Chikoty at the UN General Assem- bly in New York in September was perceived as a further snub. Interactions were thus mainly limited to trade relations, first and foremost in the oil sector; Angolan exports to the USA totalled $ 9.8 bn, a slight decrease from 2011. Angola • 447

In contrast, Angolan trade with China rose by over 38% from the previous year, to $ 30 bn in exports (mainly oil) and $ 3.7 bn in imports. At various mutual ministerial visits, the two governments signed further bilateral agreements, including one granting Angola a 95% export tariff discount, although more cynical commentators noted that this would simply reduce China’s oil bill. However, several opposition parties also accused the Chinese of illegally occupying land and employing minors, and complained about the influx of low-skilled Chinese migrants. The Angolan consulate in Beijing reported it had issued 1,800–2,000 entry visas per week to Chinese nationals. In Luanda, the police raided Chinese ‘mafia-networks’. In Namibe, the local population complained about the disorder caused by Chinese traders and, in the remote Kuando Kubango province, Chi- nese were accused of expropriating land to create rice plantations. Eclipsed by the media focus on China, Russia also strengthened its political and economic cooperation. In February, two bilateral agreements were signed and, in October, VTB-Vneshtorgbank announced a $ 1 bn credit line to the Angolan government, pledging a further $ 2 bn for private investment. State weapons manufacturer Rosoboronexport also announced its readiness to export Su-30 fighter jets to Angola. Shortly after the elections, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin bestowed the ‘Order of Honour’ on his Angolan counterpart, dos Santos. Western Europe also remained on the screen: Foreign Minister Chicoty visited France in March, with a view to strengthening ties, facilitating the granting of visas and establishing a partnership on cooperation in the area of policing, while European relations, mainly with the UK, Norway, and the Netherlands, continued to be dominated by commercial interests. The development of South-South partnerships also saw a strengthening of relations and commercial ties with Argentina, Cuba and Vietnam. In January, Cuba pledged to send 1,300 medical doctors to Angola over the year for medical practice and teaching. A five-day visit to Vietnam in February by Vice President Nandó resulted in the signing of new bilateral agreements on education, agriculture and investment policies, as well as a contract for the construction of 500,000 social houses in Angola.

Socioeconomic Developments

Angola recorded solid GDP growth of 7.4%, while inflation dropped to 9% by the end of the year – the first time in ten years it had fallen below 10%. Foreign exchange reserves rose to $ 30 bn, equivalent to eight months of imports, in November. According to an Angolan bank, oil production only made up 39% of GDP, while the non-oil sector grew to over 50%, driven mainly by construction, banking and agriculture. However, other sources indicated that oil production made up 47% of GDP, and 90% of government revenue. 448 • Southern Africa

Thus, the economy was still dominated by, and heavily dependent on, the oil sector. The country was Africa’s second oil producer, with production at around 1.8 m b/d. New pre- salt discoveries and investments in the processing of liquefied natural gas boosted productivity: in January 96 new oil discoveries were announced, and in December, construction at the new Sonaref oil refinery in Lobito began, after almost two years of delays over financing. However, the sector was still marred by non-transparency and corruption. A $ 32 bn discrepancy in government revenues published by the Ministry of Finance and state oil company Sonangol, revealed and criticised by the IMF in 2011, was explained in May by the government when it stated that $ 27.2 bn were missing due to poor record keeping but had in fact been spent by Sonangol on behalf of the government on housing, infrastructure and railways. That still left $ 4.2 bn unaccounted for. Equally, the US oil company Cobalt Energy came under scrutiny in the USA for its ties to minority stakeholder, Nazaki Oil & Gas, an Angolan company owned by then minister of economic coordination and former Sonangol CEO, Manuel Vicente, as well as Minister of State and head of the President’s Military Cabinet General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias ‘Kopelipa’, and head of presidential communications General Leopoldo Fragoso do Nascimento ‘Dino’. While Nazaki’s participation in Cobalt’s explorations appeared to violate the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Vicente stated that Nazaki’s stake did not breach any Angolan laws, and that, if this caused Cobalt problems in the US, the company might have to divest its shares in the operations – a not too subtle warning to foreign operators. Due to the government’s reluctance to improve financial transparency, relations with the IMF cooled again, and Angola announced that it would not seek to renew loans after the 2009 $ 1.4 bn stand-by agreement expired in February. In the World Bank’s 2012 ‘Doing Business’ report, the country fell from 163rd to 174th of 185 surveyed countries, mainly due to problems linked to taxation, investor protection and the registration of new companies. The head of the National Investment Agency, Maria Luisa Abrantes, one of the president’s ex-wives, deplored the report, saying it “endangered the mobilisation of private investment in the country”, and that Angola had a very competitive business environment. She also exhorted national statistics agencies to increase their interventions with international organisations responsible for such rankings. In December, the government also announced its intentions to reform the taxation system. To counteract the ‘dollarisation’ of the economy and to strengthen the local currency, the kwanza, the National Bank introduced new regulations for the oil sector, stipulating that all payments for goods, services and taxes should be made in local currency, through local banks. It was said that this legislation, introduced in October, would gradually triple the volume of transactions and boost the expanding banking sector, although it was unclear whether banks would be able to cope with the increased workload. The diamond sector accounted for only 1% of GDP, although Angola remained one of the world’s largest producers. The British company Lonrho started exploratory drillings in the Lulo concession in Lunda Norte, and reported promising results, including the find Angola • 449 of a flawless, 131-carat diamond. A cabinet reform strengthening the Ministry of Mining indicated the government’s desire to develop the non-diamond mining sectors, and a few first steps were taken in that direction: in Cabinda, phosphate deposits of an estimated 380 m tonnes were discovered, and Israeli-owned Vále Fértil Lda announced the investment of $ 182 m to start explorations. The agriculture sector saw some much-needed reforms to improve productivity and income generation. In Uíge, the National Coffee Institute (Inca) supported the restoration of 1,800 coffee plantations. Angola’s biggest export product in colonial times had suffered severely from years of neglect during the civil war. Other initiatives, such as the training of agricultural technicians and the granting of 250-ha plantations to 17 young agronomists in Kwanza-Sul province in December, were positive measures, although domestic production continued to be blighted by high labour, materials and transport costs and competition from imported produce. The socio-economic realities, however, remained dire. While the Ministry of Plan- ning dismissed in January the UNDP’s very critical 2011 HDI report as irresponsible and “without any scientific merit” for “not recognising the great commitments ofthe Angolan executive”, the year saw very few real improvements for the majority of the population. Indeed, shortly after the elections, the capital, Luanda, was beset by persistent water and power cuts. The government said the outages were the result of a drought that had decreased the water reserves of hydroelectric centrals, then went on to blame the “wartime destruction of infrastructures” – some ten years after the end of the war – when Luanda was inundated by torrential rainfalls in October. MPLA Secretary-General Julião Mateus Paulo ‘Dino Matrosse’ asked the population to be patient, as the government had been caught unprepared by the exponential population growth in the cities, and the problems could not all be solved overnight. Norberto Garcia, party secretary for political and electoral affairs in Luanda, recommended that citizens use power generators in the meantime. The drought had even more serious consequences in the south of the country. While local organisations had warned of the risk of famine from as early as May onwards, the problem was pushed aside by the authorities in the run-up to the elections. In early Octo- ber, however, the Catholic Church in Huíla stated unequivocally that people were dying of hunger, and said it was a scandal that a region so rich in mineral resources was subjected to an “assault of the elites” and neglected in terms of redistribution of incomes. Nation- ally, food production dropped by 400,000 tonnes, and 1.8 m people (of whom 553,000 were children) faced hunger, mainly in the provinces of Huíla, Huambo and Namibe, but also in Benguela, Moxico and Bié. The health system also remained in a dismal state. Speaking at the WHO regional commission session in November, new Vice-President Manuel Vicente recognised quite astutely that two doctors per 10,000 inhabitants was “manifestly insufficient”, and said the government was sparing no efforts to reduce infant and maternal mortality. UN estimates 450 • Southern Africa in fact indicated a reduction of infant mortality from 175 to 96 deaths per 1,000 live births since 2011 (83/1,000 according to other sources), although such a significant reduction was probably more indicative of the lack of reliable statistics than of stupendous advances in neonatal health, considering the dearth of hospital beds and affordable healthcare. Still, life expectancy also increased slightly, to 54.6 years. HIV/AIDS prevalence was estimated at a regional low of 3%, although specialists criticised the government for not taking the issue seriously enough, especially in urban and border regions, where new infections were rising. Human rights advocacy organisation Associação Justiça, Paz e Democracia also denounced the stigmatisation of people living with HIV/AIDS, as evidenced by widespread mandatory AIDS-tests in public institutions as a condition for the granting of scholarships, for example. Despite a nominal GDP per capita of $ 6,200, unemployment was rife, affecting an estimated 26% of the workforce, with two-thirds of the population surviving on under $ 2 a day. Although the MPLA had promised to create 1 m jobs by 2012, job creation was clearly insufficient, and this was exacerbated by the low skill base of the workforce, as access to education was still limited, and marred by nepotism and corruption. The teachers’ union stated in September that Angola would not reach the MDGs for education, since many children were still excluded from formal schooling, despite some progress regarding the number of schools and teachers. Most Angolans, especially women, were thus still working in informal commerce or subsistence farming.

Jon Schubert Botswana

The domestic political scene was dominated by the opposition parties’ cooperation talks that established the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) to challenge the domination of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). The UDC was made up of the Botswana National Front (BNF), the Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD; an off-shot of the BDP), and the Botswana Peoples Party (BPP). Consistent with its foreign policy principles, Botswana promoted good governance, democracy and human rights on the international stage. The country’s economy recorded some positive growth amid uncertainty in the global economic environment – once again demonstrating its volatility and the need to diversify to become less vulnerable as a result of mineral dependency. Unremitting social problems, which may pose a threat to the country’s stability, remained.

Domestic Politics

On 25 February, the BDP, in power for 46 years, mounted a colourful ceremony at the Uni- versity of Botswana stadium to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. Regional guests included Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete as a guest of honour, and South Africa’s Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe. Opposition parties were invited but stayed away. Surprisingly, Botsalo Ntuane, vice president of the BMD, leader of the opposition 452 • Southern Africa in parliament at the time and former executive secretary of the BDP, attended the celebrations in his personal capacity, much to the chagrin of his party. At the ceremony, the BDP welcomed into its fold, amongst others, Samson Guma Moyo, a former BMD treasurer and MP, some founding members of the BMD Youth League, and Kagiso Ntime, a former president of the BNF Youth League – a move intended to spite the opposition, and to demonstrate the BDP’s ability to attract new members, including those who had left for the BMD in 2010. There were several cabinet reshuffles. The retirement of Vice President Mompati Merafhe required a parliamentary by-election in Mahalapye West. The seat was won by Bernard Bolele of the BDP. Former minister of minerals, Ponatshego Kedikilwe, was appointed as the new vice president and President Ian Khama appointed his younger brother, Tshekedi Khama, as minister of environment, wildlife and tourism. This brought mixed reactions, including accusations that the president was protecting his business interests, particularly in tourism. The opposition cooperation coalition talks, called ‘Umbrella II’, resulted in discord within the faction-prone BNF. Following the collapse of ‘Umbrella I’ on 22 Decem- ber 2011, three opposition political parties (the BMD, BNF and BPP) proceeded with ‘Umbrella II’ talks without the Botswana Congress Party (BCP), which preferred a pact (cooperation) model to an ‘Umbrella’ coalition arrangement. However, divisions soon developed in the BNF, particularly within its executive committee, with some members of the party executive committee disagreeing with the party president over the coalition talks. Consequently, BNF President Duma Boko suspended some key members of the party executive committee, amongst them the party’s Vice President Isaac Mabiletsa MP, Secretary for International Affairs Mephato Reatile MP, Party Chairman Harry Mothei, Secretary General Akanyang Magama, Deputy Secretary General Nono Kgafela-Mokoka, Labour Secretary Maemo Bantsi and another member, Tiny Kojane. The suspended members were in favour of cooperation with the BCP and criticised the party president for committing the party to the ‘Umbrella’ talks without a mandate. They all left the party, apart from Harry Mothei and Maemo Bantsi, who only resigned from the executive committee. MPs Isaac Mabiletsa and Mephato Reatile left the BNF on 12 April, and joined the BCP and the BDP, respectively. Faced with these challenges, the BNF held a special congress on 5 May in Mahalapye, from which the party emerged resolute in its support for the ‘Umbrella’. The BMD, an offshoot of the BDP, held its inaugural youth congress on 26 May. It continued to lose some of its founding members to the BDP. BMD Vice President and Leader of the Opposition in parliament (through an opposition bloc) Botsalo Ntuane rejoined the BDP on 18 June. Two other senior and founding members of the BMD, Sydney Pilane (former party spokesperson) and Kabo Morwaeng (former national organising secretary) also left on 19 March and 27 June, respectively. Botswana • 453

The BCP, which stayed out of the ‘Umbrella’ coalition, became the main beneficiary of members defecting from other opposition parties, particularly the BNF. Mabiletsa joined the BCP on 12 April, along with Magama and Kgafela-Mokoka. Kentse Rammidi MP also resigned from the BNF, and joined the BCP on 14 May. A BDP youth member, Chillyboy Rakgare, joined the BCP following his suspension from the BDP after criticising Presi- dent Khama for “condoning corruption”. The resignations and defections resulted in the BCP president, Dumelang Saleshando MP, assuming the position of leader of the opposition in parliament on 6 July. Despite all these tribulations, the BMD, BNF and BPP went ahead with ‘Umbrella’ talks and launched the UDC on 10 November, with the BNF president as its leader, while the parties retained their separate identities. In turn, BNF and BMD MPs declared their intention of joining the UDC to the speaker of parliament on 23 November, which removed Saleshando from the position of leader of the opposition on 28 November, since the BCP and UDC now each had seven MPs. Even then some BNF activists challenged the party’s decision to join the UDC in court, arguing that its constitution did not allow it to join another political party. In the matter of the national public sector strike that had begun in 2011, the Industrial Court ruled that essential service workers were striking illegally. Various public-sector unions, under an umbrella of the Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions, appealed against the decision in the Court of Appeal. When the government dismissed a number of employees, the unions challenged their dismissal in the High Court, and a High Court judge, Justice Oagile Key Dingake, ruled on 21 June that they should be reinstated. The minister responsible for labour matters expanded the category of essential service workers, but the unions challenged this in the High Court, and the same judge ruled in their favour on 9 August. The government appealed against the decision. Meanwhile, public servants celebrated the first anniversary of Botswana’s longest strike in May. The Botswana Meat Commission (BMC), a cattle industry parastatal and a mainstay of the rural economy as well a major revenue earner for the country, attracted controversy after beef destined for the lucrative EU market was recalled. The beef was reported to have contained salinomycin (a growth-promoting antibiotic) at higher than EU permitted levels. As a result, the BMC was shut down. Allegations of maladministration led to the replacement of the chief executive officer. Minister of Agriculture Christian De Graaf appointed a task force to investigate the problems, which started work on 15 October. Another important parastatal, the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC), was also surrounded by allegations of corruption and maladministration after construction of a proposed Sino-Botswana glass factory in Palapye was halted in 2011. The project, Fengyue Glass Manufacturing (Botswana) Pty Ltd, was a partnership between the Chinese Shanghai Fengyue Glass Company (57%) and the BDC (43%), but a BDC Board forensic audit revealed that the partners in Fengyue Glass Manufacturing (Botswana) Pty Ltd were 454 • Southern Africa

Shanghai Fengyue Glass (British Virgin Islands) and BDC, with Shanghai Fengyue Glass Company (China) responsible for procurement, engineering and construction. BDC had contracted a company called G4 as its engineering consultant to supervise the project on its behalf, but G4 was reported to have failed; it had no previous experience in projects of this kind. Around P (pula) 500 m was to have been invested in the project, which had been expected to create around 500 jobs, and to produce 450 tonnes of float glass daily. Issues of corruption were dominant throughout the year. BDC’s managing director, Maria Nthebolan, and some senior executives were alleged to have mismanaged the glass manufacturing project, but by years’ end Nthebolan had refused to resign. Minister of Finance and Development Planning Kenneth Matambo was the managing director of BDC when Shanghai Fengyne Glass was awarded the project in preference to China Luoyang Float Glass Group (CLFG) – which had more than 50 years’ experience in the glass industry and had presented a lower quotation. It was alleged that Shanghai Fengyne Glass (British Virgin Islands) was licensed in July 2007, around the time when CLFG submitted a quotation to BDC, an investment arm of government. A parliamentary select committee probed allegations of corruption and mismanagement and submitted its report to the speaker of parliament in October. Minister Matambo threatened to sue parliament over the report amidst calls to resign. He had previously been acquitted of corruption in November 2011 for failing to disclose his interest in a company that had dealings with BDC. He refused to resign throughout his corruption trial, contrary to established practice, and Khama failed to relieve him of his ministerial position. Assistant Minister of Finance and Development Planning Vincent Seretse was charged with failing to disclose his interest in Serala Pty (Ltd), which had dealings with the parastatal Botswana Telecom- munications Corporation when Seretse was the latter’s chief executive officer. Seretse, like his senior minister, refused to resign. He was charged together with, amongst others, Paul Paledi, a businessman prominent in BDP circles. Once again, Khama failed to sack him. Such reluctance led to perceptions that Khama condoned corruption. In another case, involving land acquisitions, the High Court acquitted property magnate Seyed Jamali and Deputy Permanent Secretary of Local Government Victor Rantshabeng, because the state had failed to charge them within a reasonable time. The state appealed and the result of the appeal was pending at year’s end. One of the leading Chinese construction companies in Botswana, China Civil Engineering, and two managers, were charged with corruption for allegedly offering a bribe of P 250,000 to a permanent secretary in the Ministry of Infra- structure Science and Technology to assist in ensuring that a poorly constructed government senior secondary school in Shakawe was approved. Botswana’s anti-corruption agency, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) had registered a number of high profile cases in the recent past but had so far not succeeded in securing convictions. Convictions at lower courts were overturned by higher courts. Khama relocated the DCEC and the Directorate on Intelligence Services from the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security, presided over by his cousin, Rama- Botswana • 455 deluka Seretse, who was acquitted of corruption in October 2011, to the Ministry of the State President. This aroused mixed reactions from the public and the private media. The uneasy relationship between the government and Chief (Kgosi) Kgafela Kgafela II of the Bakgatla tribe continued. Kgafela, who was charged with illegally flogging people in his area, lost his bid to set aside the Botswana Constitution at the Court of Appeal on 27 April, in a case that he described as a “fraud”. He went into self-imposed exile in South Africa, where the majority of the Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela reside. Khama, using his constitutional powers, pardoned one of Kgosi Kgafela’s co-accused, Kgosi Mothibe Lenchwe. Although Kgafela lost his challenge to the Botswana Constitution, the findings of the Afrobarometer Survey of June/July suggested that 55% of those who participated in the survey supported a constitutional review. In another interesting development, Khama caused a public outcry when he pardoned army officers who had been convicted of the execution-style murder of John Kalafatis in 2011.

Foreign Policy

On 7 February, Botwana’s minister of foreign affairs and international relations criticised China and Russia for rejecting a UNSC resolution on Syria. On 27 March, Botswana condemned the overthrow of President Amadou Toumani Touré’s government in Mali by the military, and also rejected a military coup that took place on 12 April in Guinea Bissau. On 26 April, Botswana called for a cessation of the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan, and for Sudan to refrain from provoking South Sudan. It also called on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who had been indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, not to commit further crimes and pledged to arrest al-Bashir if he were to visit Botswana. ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda commended Botswana for its support. President Khama lauded the sentencing of Charles Taylor by the Special Court for Liberia for war crimes and crimes against humanity – noting that the conviction would send a message to other leaders. Khama also urged Malawi not to allow al-Bashir to attend the AU Summit in July. A series of official visits during the year underlined the comparatively high profile of Botswana’s foreign policy. Khama made an official visit to Germany on 6–9 February and British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited Botswana on 14–15 February, the first visit of this kind in 26 years. Zambia’s President Michael Satar visited on 19–21 March and caused some irritation when he urged Zambians residing in Botswana to consider returning to contribute to rebuilding Zambia. The Spanish King Juan Carlos visited (supposedly in secret) for elephant hunting on 18 April, but suffered a hip fracture. The royal excursion came under harsh criticism in Spain. Liberia’s President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson visited on 21–25 May, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma on 29–30 August, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on 11–12 September (around 2,500 Nigerians are resident in Botswana), and Zimbabwean Prime Minister Tsvangirai on 24–27 October. Botswana 456 • Southern Africa openly called for free and fair elections, adherence to the rule of law and respect for human rights in Zimbabwe. Two high calibre international conferences were hosted in Gaborone. The first-ever Summit on Sustainable Development in Africa was held on 24–25 May, attended by national representatives and officials of the ten signatory countries (including Namibia’s President Hifikepunye Pohamba). The 8th African Governance Forum was organised by the UNDP, UNECA and the AU Commission on 16–18 October and was attended by around 300 participants from 30 African countries.

Socio-economic Developments

The global financial crisis demonstrated the fragility and volatility of the Botswana economy by leading to a decline in diamond production. Nevertheless, GDP growth was put at 6.1%, much higher than the 3.5% initially anticipated by government and the IMF’s forecast of 4%. However, the economy was yet to realise pre-global financial crisis growth rates. The Botswana Core Welfare Indicators (Survey) of 2009/10 put the national unemployment rate at 17.8%. Macro-economic management remained prudent by targeting a budget surplus. The 2012/13 budget delivered on 1 February projected revenues of P 42.91 bn and total expenditure of P 41.76 bn, producing a surplus of P 1.15 bn. Customs duties contributed 33% of revenue followed by minerals at 28.1%. Budget deficits stood at P 2.2 bn for 2011/12, compared with P9.5 bn in 2009/10, according to government figures. Foreign reserves stood at P 57.7 bn as at the end of December, a decline of 4.3% from the previous year, owing to waning diamond revenues, which fell by 21.9%. Botswana’s sovereign credit rating by Moody’s stood at A2. Inflation remained at 7.4% in December, down from 9.2% in 2011. The IMF held its Article IV Consultation on 21 May–1 June and encouraged reforms to boost the business climate. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index of 2012/2013 placed Botswana 79th out of 144 countries. The country was under pressure from the IMF and the World Bank to reduce its public workers wage bill. The privatisation and rationalisation of public enterprises such as the Botswana Tele- communications Corporation (BTC) and the National Development Bank (NDB) was taking place in slow motion. The BTC privatisation completed the first phase, which entailed registering the new infrastructure company, Botswana Fibre Networks, and the service provider, BTC Limited in October and November, respectively. The government also ratified the BTC separation model in August. Citizen employees were expected to acquire up to 5% of BTC shares, with the assistance of Botswana Privatisation Asset Holdings Limited. A draft NDB Transition Bill was sanctioned and was to be taken to parliament. On rationalisation, the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre was established Botswana • 457 in April to replace the Botswana Export Development and Investment Authority and the Botswana International Financial Services Centre. Legislation to facilitate the fusion of the Botswana Postal Services and Botswana Savings Bank was approved by parliament in August. The government’s poverty eradication efforts were coordinated by the Office of the President. A Cabinet Sub-Committee for Poverty Eradication was established. The Min- istry of Finance stated that, as at October, 93,093 old age pensioners, 2,110 World War II veterans, 30,906 destitute persons, 1,275 community home-based care patients, and 40,766 vulnerable children were being supported by cash transfers, food baskets, feeding schemes, shelter and labour-based public works programmes. The government introduced a ten-year Affirmative Action Plan for the benefit of Remote Area Dwellers (including the San/Basarwa), who lagged behind the rest of the country as far as poverty levels were concerned, the intention being to establish a broad poverty strategy into which Remote Area Communities had an input. The government affirmed that it was constructing 651 homes for the destitute during the financial year, 222 of which were in Remote Area settlements. The IMF delegation commended the government’s poverty eradication efforts. Poverty continued to be a major impediment to the country’s development, with a poverty rate of 20.7%, according to the latest Botswana Core Welfare Indicators (Survey) of 2009/10 released in December 2011. Notwithstanding a collapse in mineral output and proceeds in recent years, especially diamonds, minerals continued to play a crucial role. Consistent with government’s policy of promoting value addition and beneficiation as well as creating additional jobs, a complete relocation of Diamond Trading Company (DTC) International from London to Gaborone was planned to make Botswana a major diamond centre. The government reported that DTC International had spent more than P 170 m on improving DTC Botswana. It noted a breakthrough when diamonds produced by De Beers were first ‘aggregated’ in Botswana in July. The Okavango Diamond Company was set up in February to buy and sell up to 15% of Debswana production in accordance with the new sales agreement. A further five diamond cutting and polishing companies were licensed, following the removal of the 2008 moratorium on licences for diamond cutting and polishing companies. The government reported that DTC Botswana traded diamonds worth $ 373.84 m (P 2.953 bn) in the first six months. It was anticipated that DTC Botswana’s local diamond trade would amount to $ 800 m (P 2.953 bn) a year in the medium term. The government affirmed on 5 November that it had ratified a revision of the Mines and Minerals Act, in part to enhance the competiveness of Botswana’s mineral legislation. HIV/AIDS was an additional major plight to Botswana’s development trajectory. The latest estimates put the national prevalence rate at 17.6%. The government, with the support of its development partners, implemented a number of programmes. As of September, 198,553 citizens were receiving anti-retroviral treatment, i.e. 98% of those estimated to be 458 • Southern Africa in need. Another successful programme was the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, which resulted in a fall in transmission to less than 5%. Moreover, the government stated that around 42,000 males aged 13–49 had undergone safe male circumcision by 5 November. The government was lauded internationally for these notable achievements.

David Sebudubudu & Maitseo Bolaane Lesotho

The factional battle that had been raging inside the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) culminated in Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili crossing the floor of parliament, taking a small majority of MPs with him, to form the Democratic Congress (DC). Con- tinuing to head the government, he led his new party into a general election called in late May. Although the DC emerged as the single largest party, its two major rivals, the All Basotho Congress (ABC) and rump LCD joined up with the small Basotho National Party (BNP) to form a new government under the ABC’s Tom Thabane. The transition from one administration to another was managed peacefully. Nonetheless, the fractiousness of Lesotho’s politics continued to raise concerns about stability.

Domestic Politics

The factionalism within the ruling LCD eventually boiled over on 31 January, when Prime Minister Mosisili dismissed three cabinet ministers and one deputy minister. Among them was Minister of Communications, Science and Technology Mothetjoa Metsing, who still remained the LCD’s secretary-general. He was generally identified as the leader of the ‘fire-extinguisher’ faction, which had long been feuding with the rival ‘fire-eaters’, led by Minister of Natural Resources Monyane Moleleki, which was supportive of Mosisili 460 • Southern Africa

(although in essence, the conflict was a battle for the succession to a prime minister who had been in power since 1998). The sackings came after the abandonment on 28 January of a special conference of the LCD after it threatened to degenerate into violence. The question for Metsing, as secretary-general, was now whether the special conference should be resumed or whether the party should proceed to its regular conference in order to elect a leadership that would take it through the forthcoming general election (which had to take place within the coming four months). In the end, the LCD held an elective conference on 31 March – but the political landscape had by this time been transformed by the prime minister’s launch of a new party. In June 1997, Ntsu Mokhehle, the veteran nationalist who had come to power as leader of the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) following the country’s return from military to civilian rule, had outpaced an internal rebellion by quitting his own ruling party. Taking a majority of MPs with him, he had crossed the floor to form the LCD, which had then become the government, forcing the BCP into opposition. Now, some 15 years later, Mosisili sought to emulate him by resigning from the LCD and forming the DC. When the parliamentary speaker announced the formation of the new party in parliament, a fractious debate occurred when MPs opposed to Mosisili objected that, under the constitution, three members who had been elected by proportional representation (PR) under the umbrella of the National Independence Party (NIP) and who now declared their support for the DC, were not allowed to cross the floor. With the matter left hanging, there was further acrimony when a leading member of the DC proposed a motion of confidence in the prime minister, only to receive the response from opposition MPs that the rules of the National Assembly only made provision for a ‘no confidence’ motion. When the matter was put to the house, the motion received the support of 63 of the 120 members, all 63 being former members of the LCD and NIP. Thereafter, King Letsie III, acting on the advice of the prime minister, declared parliament dissolved on 15 March, and announced the date for the forthcoming general election as 26 May. The election campaign that followed featured 18 parties contesting the 80 constituency and 40 PR-elected seats. Historically, Lesotho’s parties had been subject to fragmentation, new parties breaking away from established ones as a result of leadership disputes rather than any differences of policy. Most significantly, the Congress-tradition of the BCP had been subject to splits, eroding the massive majority support that the BCP had originally gained in 1993. The challenge facing the DC was greater even than that confronted by the LCD in 2007, for Mosisili’s popular base was narrower than ever before. Lesotho, it seemed, was facing a hung election, although it was generally accepted that the principal contestants were the DC, the LCD (now led by Mothetja Metsing) and the ABC, led by Tom Thabane. To be sure, the prime minister had done his best to attempt to re-arrange the electoral furniture. Most notable was the decision that, instead of having to vote on separate forms for constituency contests and the PR lists, voters would only be required Lesotho • 461 to vote once. In effect, this aided the larger battalions, as parties would now be required to contest as many constituency seats as possible to maximise their PR vote – a change which disadvantaged smaller parties, and as such was to be later strongly criticised by the Commonwealth Electoral Observer mission. With little to distinguish the manifestoes of the three major contenders, the elections were largely about the pulling power of personalities within the different regions. Inevi- tably, the various parties were taxed by nomination squabbles at constituency level, and the LCD complained to the Independent Electoral Commission that the DC had made off with its property and monies in 19 constituencies. When the Commission ruled in the LCD’s favour, it also banned the DC from campaigning in those constituencies for nine days, a ruling the DC chose to ignore. Nonetheless, although there were fears that the campaign would turn violent, it passed off largely peacefully, except for one incident in which supporters of opposing parties clashed with the DC at Thetsane, leaving 13 people injured. When the tally of the 80 constituency results was completed, the LCD emerged with some 41 seats (sweeping all 25 available in the five rural Districts of Mohale’s Hoek, Quthing, Qacha’s Nek, Thaba-Tseka and Mokhotlong in the south and east of the country). The ABC (whose strength was mainly in the urban and northern lowland areas) won 26, the LCD (strong in the north, but losing votes to the DC in other rural areas) 12, and the Patriotic Front for Democracy just one. However, when the distribution of PR votes was factored in, the major beneficiary was the LCD, which had come second in a large number of constituencies. The final seats tally for the new parliament was therefore: 48 for the DC, 30 for the ABC, and 26 for the LCD, with the remaining 16 seats split between nine other parties. Of the latter, five were won by the BNP, the historic rival to the BCP/ Congress tradition, which had ruled from 1966 until displaced by the military coup in 1986. As neither the LCD nor the ABC were likely to resolve their bitter differences with the DC, Mosisili’s days in office were numbered, and indeed, the ABC, LCD and BNP soon announced that they would form a coalition government led by Tom Thabane as prime minister, with Mothetja Metsing as his deputy, and the other cabinet seats divided more or less proportionately between the three parties. That the political transition from one Prime Minister and party to another proceeded peacefully, without the post-election conflict that many had feared, was attributable to several factors. One was that the various electoral observation teams (from the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, the Southern African Development Com- munity and the Commonwealth) all declared firmly that the election had been free and fair. Second, Mosisili had long accepted that change was coming, and in 2011 had secured the passage of an Act that provided generous pension rights for former prime ministers. Third, the army – possibly itself politically challenged by the fragmentation of the Con- gress tradition – remained neutral, tamed by the experience of South African intervention in 1998 and SADC strictures against any form of military adventurism. 462 • Southern Africa

Foreign Affairs

Symbolically, the most important event of the year was the completion of the new parliament buildings, funded and built by China. Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohlabi Tsekoa noted in receiving the keys to the building from the Chinese vice minister of commerce on 23 June that, in addition to the new parliament, China had financed many projects including construction of the ‘Manthabiseng Convention Centre, the Butha-Buthe Industrial Park, three secondary schools, expansion of radio and television coverage, and construction of the State Library and Archives. In August, the Chinese ambassador announced that 23 Basotho would be going to China to study, joining some 48 others who had been there since 2011 studying in a range of scientific and business related disciplines. Thirteen of the the new contingent would be officers from the Lesotho Defence Force, who would be studying in Chinese military academies. At this point, over 100 Basotho had gone to China under the Chinese African Scholarship Programme. Major relief for the country’s textile sector came with the extension of AGOA, under the terms of which duty was waived on clothing exported to the US from nominated countries. AGOA had been due to expire on 30 September but, on 2 August Congress agreed to extend the agreement until the end of 2015. Without renewal, 40,000 jobs in Lesotho would have been at risk.

Socio-Economic Developments

Lesotho’s economic prospects, never very bright, rested heavily upon its ability to harness its natural resources to provide water and energy to South Africa. The most significant venture in this regard was the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), Phase I of which had been inaugurated by a treaty between South Africa and Lesotho in 1986. The two countries proceeded with Phase II, related to the construction of the Polihali Dam. When completed, it would transfer water west to the Katse dam, thereby enhancing hydroelectric power development at ‘Muela. The construction of the project was expected to take some ten years, during which period it was expected to be the largest engineering project in Africa. The cost of the programme, as calculated from a base date in October 2007, was some M (maloti) 7 bn. In addition, planning continued for the Letseng wind farm in Mok- hotlong district by PowerNET Developments (Pty), jointly owned by South African and Basotho interests, whose main purpose was the generation of electricity from renewable resources. The proposed development would consist of 32 wind turbines, a control building, power lines, a substation and associated infrastructure and roads. Although the profitability of the project was questionable, valuable experience would be gained for a larger Lesotho Highlands power project that was being planned with Chinese assistance. The budget was presented by Ministry of Finance Tim Thahane on 18 January (an early date on account of the forthcoming dissolution of parliament). The proposed expenditure Lesotho • 463 of M 13.9 bn would lead to a predicted deficit of 0.9% of GDP (a significant improvement on the 17% deficit in the previous fiscal year). The total expenditure accounted for a recurrent budget of M 8.4 bn and a capital budget of M 5.4 bn. The long controversy that had dogged the operation of Chinese-owned companies entered a new round when in February a large team of investigators from the Lesotho Revenue Authority (LRA) raided the offices of China Garment Manufacturers (CGM), a long-established firm that arrived in Lesotho in 1987. The raid followed tip-offs that CGM was avoiding paying tax by paying two-thirds of the salaries of its 200 expatriates into a Hong Kong registered company, from which they were redistributed to Taiwan, China, India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The amount owed to the LRA was estimated at M 300 m, a large sum for a company whose recent operations had been unprofitable and which employed 3,000 workers. Elsewhere, a conflict broke out in June between Basotho workers and the management of the Chinese-owned Sinohydro Corporation, which was involved in the construction of the Metolong Dam. A strike, centred around a wage dispute but fuelled by allegations of racial discrimination, culminated in Basotho workers throwing stones at Chinese managers and workers. After the Basotho returned to work, Timothy Thahane, now minister of water affairs, ordered the Metolong Authority to set up a police post near the construction site and to hire a labour relations officer, who would report to his ministry. Head of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences Leshele Thoahlane claimed in the ‘Public Eye’ newspaper on 26 October that corruption was “rampant”. This may not have been unconnected to the state of public accounting – in December 2011 the auditor general had issued a damning report on the public accounts for the year ended 31 March 2009, citing a host of financial irregularities, including overspending by many ministries, unauthorised expenditure, poor financial management, overpayment of salaries and under-collection of payments for services. However, this was not enough to deter the new government from establishing in November a commission to review the salaries and benefits enjoyed by ministers, MPs and other senior officials.

Roger Southall

Madagascar

Madagascar’s fortunes rested almost entirely on the outcome of the ongoing political struggle, which stemmed from the 2009 overthrow of President Marc Ravalomanana. Andry Rajoelina, president of the High Authority for the Transition, took power with a broad but weak base of support from across opposition parties reflecting the diverse ethnic, geographic, and power spectrums. Yet the country’s governing ethos had changed. Rajoelina had solidified power at a cost. His powerbase was very narrow and his popular support diminished. Factional lines developed almost immediately between the president and Prime Minister Jean Omer Beriziky, appointed in late 2011 as a consensus candidate to gain international recognition. The conflict permeated all of public life, challenged the goal of new elections and further jeopardised the quality of governance. This set the tone for a year marked by political fragmentation but, perhaps surprisingly, international rapprochement and macroeconomic gains. While ever on the brink, the country managed, against all odds, to make progress on the most challenging political, social and economic issues without tempting state failure.

Domestic Politics

Andry Rajoelina became president as a 33-year-old business tycoon with one year of political experience as mayor of the capital, Antananarivo. With no elections left in a 466 • Southern Africa long electoral cycle, he was the sole opposition figure holding a major office and the only viable civilian leader to whom the military could hand power. Much of the bourgeoisie and new business class had joined marginalised political networks and operators to openly question Ravalomanana and, as a result, Rajoelina was a civilian candidate installed by the military but largely in debt to social and business groups. By coyly recognising those debts, he successfully retained power and maintained relative stability against all odds beyond the expectations of competing domestic power networks and negotiations on the international stage. But his narrowed political base became even more straitened during the year. With rare exceptions, his trust did not extend beyond three people: Mamy Ratovomalala (his chief of staff ), Mamy Ravatomanga (a businessman heading the Sodiat Group), and Finance Minister Hery Rajaonarimampianina. Every other member of his leadership team was micromanaged with limited purse and powers. The international community and parts of Malagasy civil society continued to voice concerns that the country was progressively sliding towards greater fragility. The Mo Ibrahim Index of African governance noted a continued drop, with a cumulative fall of nearly 13% since 2006. The rule of law and human rights were the areas of greatest concern, but capacity to manage critical sectors was significantly eroded as many of the highly competent technocrats were either removed from office or left public life. In addition, the state continued to lose control in some parts of the country. As a result, banditry increased in southern Madagascar, with organised, predatory dahalo rustling cattle and even killing with impunity. This constituted a heightened threat as bandits forged ties with disaffected military units with the potential to traffic precious stones, rosewood and other high-value goods. The year brought other challenges for Rajoelina. Much like his predecessor, he was accused of conflating public and business life. A very public kerfuffle broke out in January over rumoured negotiations between the government and a subsidiary of Daewoo Logistics. A planned contract between the Ravalomanana government and the Korean Daeweoo for the lease of significant arable lands was one of the reasons for that government’s downfall. Even a hint that new negotiations were in place could have brought down the Rajoelina government just as rapidly, but he dispelled rumours while spending on hospitals and other populist projects. The ousted president, Marc Ravalomanana, tried once again to return from self- imposed exile in South Africa. On 21 January, he boarded a commercial flight from Johan- nesburg to Antananarivo. Citing security concerns, the Malagasy government closed all airports apart from the regional airport of Morondava. Ravalomanana and the international community quickly stated that this was a violation of the SADC Roadmap to peace. The Rajoelina government argued what it saw as a technicality: the Roadmap assured Ravalomanana’s return but did not grant him an amnesty for crimes committed. While perhaps a challengeable claim, security concerns were real. Leaving Morondava open as a possible place for the plane to land kept the letter if not the spirit of the agreement in Madagascar • 467 place. Rajoelina demonstrated once again that neither the former president nor the international community were his top concern. There were ramifications over the question of the “amnesty”, including the 26 January scrapping of a planned EU diplomatic mission, but Rajoelina was able to placate his personal network and ensure that people close to him were appointed to such positions as attorney general to the Supreme Court and secretary- general of the Ministry for Transport. Critical to such power plays was that they took place entirely between Rajoelina and Ravalomanana. The international community had imposed a peace process mediated by the four living heads of state, past and present – Andry Rajoelina, Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy. While the thinking was that, combined, they represented much of Malagasy political space, in actuality Ratsiraka and Zafy had minimal influence and emergent political and civic voices were left at the margins. The Roadmap largely allowed the two main protagonists further consolidation of their power, even if it worsened tensions between the president and the prime minister. The driving political question in Madagascar continued to be elections. Rajoelina, Ravalomanana and the international community all claimed that they wanted to move to elections but did not agree on the timetable, the work that needed to be done, or whether presidential or legislative elections should come first. On 26 January, SADC made clear that there was enough blame to be shared: Rajoelina continued to speak about arrest warrants while Ravalomanana was at fault for pushing the issue. The SADC position was that the Roadmap had already produced a consensus prime minister and was rapidly leading to the appointment of a Council of Ministers and Transitional Parliament. Francophone- Anglophone tensions appeared to surface, with France pushing for a shorter election win- dow and attracting accusations that it was undermining the SADC process by working with Rajoelina and directly supporting Army Chief of Staff General Andre Ndriarijaona. France had been accused once before by many in the international community of supporting Ndriarijaona – when he was one of the leaders of the 2009 putsch. From a domestic perspective, the more important lines of tension were not between President Rajoelina and Ravalomanana but rather between Rajoelina and Prime Minister Beriziky. They disagreed on nearly every point. Beriziky, considered a prodigy of former president Zafy Albert, pushed for the amnesty and return for Ravalomanana. He disagreed with the president over the role of OMNIS (the state agency responsible for petrol and mineral resource management), the appointment of the managing director of the Central Bank, the encouragement of opposition rallies, and even the basic powers allocated to each executive in the November 2011 constitution. Rajoelina won most of these struggles. A particularly challenging power play emerged between Minister of Mines Rajo Daniella Randriafeno and the president’s three closest confidants, Ratovomalala,. Ravatomanga and Rajaonarimampianina (see above). Daniella successfully sought protection from Beriziky in March, further exacerbating the executive divide. This took place in the context of winning greater control over rents from emergent mining resources. Beriziky had 468 • Southern Africa previously struggled with some of his EU counterparts but the AU, World Bank, and US American leaders now began treating him as a policy manager, meeting with him in relative openness after years of formal prohibitions of direct meetings with government officials. For its part, civil society remained divided. In contrast to most countries where civil society organisations struggle to bridge the gap between divergent communities and the political leadership, in Madagascar the larger gap is often felt within civil society between its leaders and its constituent organisations. While not universally the case, Malagasy civil society leadership could largely be characterised as made up of embedded political actors. This has set up a challenge as civil society leadership was divided over the Roadmap. Perhaps more critically, the private sector was more likely to interact and even engage in Malagasy politics than civil society. Civicus (the World Alliance for Citizen Participation) ranked civil society in Madagascar 22nd out of 33 countries in its index, with an overall score of 49.9. Yet even this modest showing was to be taken in perspective. The churches were far and away the part of civil society with the most important social role to play, but their over-politicisation left them on the sidelines post-2009. In contrast, the sector of civil society with organisation and funding was non-governmental organisations, which proliferated, creating active agendas as watchdog organisations, environmental stewards and other critical interlocutors. Yet while nearly half of the population was involved in some civic organisation, few were involved in non-government organisations and even when they were the organisations they aligned with tended to have service rather than representational aims. In contrast to Kenya, Zambia and other countries where political leaders have risen from civil society, in Madagascar there was little opportunity for this to happen. Towards the end of the year, the potential contestants for the 2013 presidential elections started to emerge. All were from the political class, the business class, or both. Dep- uty Prime Minister Hajo Herivelona Andrianainarivelo, Foreign Minister Pierrot Jocelyn Rajaonarivelo (barred from returning to Madagascar by Ravalomanana in 2006), Edgard Marie Nöe Razafindravahy (the acting mayor of the capital with deep roots in both the private sector and the so-called “big families”), estranged prime ministers from earlier Rajo- elina years Monja Zafitsimivalo Roindefo and Camille Albert Vital, 2006 presidential candidates Jean Lahiniriko and Roland Iarovana Ratsiraka (nephew of former president Didier Ratsiraka) and others made their political ambitions known. At 76 years of age, Didier Ratsiraka, who had returned from self-imposed exile in France in November 2011, appeared to be contemplating another run for the presidency after serving as the strong-arm leader of the Second Republic (1975–1993) and as a “reformed” democrat (1997–2002). Rajoelina and Ravalomanana were widely accused of having created a longstanding conflict between two ‘houses’ rather than productive social movements. A fervent domestic campaign took hold for neither Ravalomanana nor Rajoelina to be elected and numerous outspoken leaders close to both men urged them not to run. SADC issued a formal recom- Madagascar • 469 mendation on 8 December that neither should stand for election, arguing that their joint abstention would bring stability. At year’s end an agreement between the two leaders that neither would run in the June 2013 elections appeared imminent, though there was little trust that either man would live up to such an agreement even if signed.

Foreign Affairs

Madagascar retained its close ties to the former colonial power, France. China, hitherto a very small player in Madagascar, took a new position as the second largest trading partner. Other indicators, including net aid flows and total capital transfers, followed a similar pattern, summing up foreign competition for influence and positioning in Madagascar. It should be of no great surprise, therefore, that the efforts of the largely Anglophone SADC were slow to be received and weak in implementation by President Rajoelina’s government. France remained content to remain a primary partner. South Africa and the USA were relegated to the margins. Rajoelina extracted power from his narrowing domestic base, France and China. The Elysée continued to support meetings with Rajoelina, including an 18 December meeting with French Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurent Fabius and OIF Secretary General Abdou Fiouf. For their part, donors began a process of re-engagement. The biggest donor, the World Bank, began direct conversations with Prime Minister Beriziky and key members of the cabinet, resulting in an Interim Strategy Note (ISN) officially released on 21 February. This opened the way to new spending from what was, until 2009, a nearly $ 1 bn portfolio. World Bank lending was $ 6 m but was projected, under the ISN, to rise to $ 167 m in 2013. Perhaps even more telling than the sums involved was the nature of the investments. While donors concerned with ‘fragile states’ scenarios aimed at retooling lending towards local funding outside of existing government systems, World Bank lending worked through existing government mechanisms and a main focus in the Interim Strategy was in areas of governance. A similar re-engagement by the EU could also be seen. For its part, the USA challenged the World Bank leading re-engagement, clarifying that it was waiting for a new government. Later in the year, US Chargé d’Affaires Eric Wong made it clear that the US would not support the electoral process as long as Rajoelina was in power. For most of the period of political conflict, the international community sought to maintain a common position and message at least in open discussions. Early in the year, international views began to fragment and by the end of the year it became clear that the divides in the international community were hardening, with none showing concern that such rifts might become more permanent in a post-election environment. For the first time since the crisis began, donor spending began to increase again with clear signs that full re-engagement was imminent pending elections. The US had rescinded preferential trade status in 2010 and showed no signs of restoring it, but the EU maintained active negotiations for a free trade agreement. These discussions and 470 • Southern Africa nearly all donor engagement were predicated on a successful move towards legitimacy with new elections.

Socioeconomic Developments

Madagascar was one of the world’s poorest countries with a UNDP HDI ranking of 151st out of 186. UNICEF continued to report rises in poverty throughout the year. Using the Atlas method, poverty levels had increased 9% since 2005, reaching 77% of households, with substantial differences in poverty levels and opportunities between regions and between rural and urban areas. The country’s annual per capita income and other indicators lagged significantly behind comparable countries. Incomes were also highly disparate, with the national statistical office reporting that 54% of the population lived in the bottom 20% income bracket. Literacy, at 64%, was relatively high but only 30% of children completed primary school, two-thirds of teachers had not received any formal training, and the political crisis had devastating impacts on both education and health-care delivery. Rajoelina was widely criticised by international donors for the cessation of growth in Malagasy GDP. Whereas real GDP growth, according to the World Bank, was 7.1% in 2008, it was –3.7% in 2009, reflecting the political crisis. It rose to 1.0% in 2011, and 1.9% in 2012, and was expected to rise to 2.9%. While this was painfully slow, it far exceeded the expectations of nearly every advanced industrial economy in the world both current and projected. Real GDP was now at its highest since the political crisis began in 2009 and inflation was kept in check, at 6.5% for the year. The country ranked low (142 out of 185) in the World Bank ‘Doing Business’ survey, but this was comparable to the sub-Saharan Africa average (140) and above Mozambique and Comoros. Political instability kept all but the most stout-hearted international investors away, but the dynamic growth in resilient sectors such as extractive industries and telecoms led to increases in capital transfers. Madagascar maintained this position of relative fiscal stability through unpopular but successful austerity measures. Mining accounted for over 6% GDP, compared with 1% a decade before. This fell short of the expected 15% due to slow starts with extraction, but the country could still see it reaching 18% of GDP by 2018. The divisions in the sector indicated risks that proceeds would serve to strengthen particular political networks at the expense of the population and lead to increased opportunities for rent-seeking and corruption. The new Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine project run by Canadian Sherritt International exported for the first time in December and would export 60,000 tonnes of nickel (at an estimated $ 10 per pound) and 5,600 tonnes of cobalt annually. Relations between Sherritt and the government remained highly strained. In September, London-based Madagascar Oil produced its first oil from the multi-billion barrel Tsimiroro heavy oil field, but Rajoelina did not attend the inauguration. The largest mining operation was ilmenite production, with a majority Madagascar • 471 share owned by global conglomerate Rio Tinto, a political hot potato for revisions to the mining code and decisions about derivation. Nevertheless, it was Chinese operations that appeared to hold sway with the government. A Chinese ilmenite company rapidly gained exploration rights just north of Rio Tinto’s within months. Chinese mining companies benefited from Madagascar’s soft regulatory environment, including gaining new exploration permits. In turn, Rajoelina benefited by keeping a percentage of the high permit fees in the president’s budget for personal projects that benefited key power constituents and populist causes.

Richard R. Marcus

Malawi

Poor socio-economic and political governance characterised the beginning of the year, with continued shortages of fuel and foreign currency. This resulted in the dollar competing with the kwacha (K) as a medium for purchase amidst continued executive arrogance and defiant presidential behaviour. The death in office of President Bingu wa Mutharika on 5 April was one of the most devastating episodes of the year. After a failed coup attempt by the late president’s close allies, who wanted to make Peter Mutharika, Bingu’s brother, his successor, Mrs Joyce Banda acceded to the presidency and was sworn in as the first female president on 7 April. This gave Malawi a new lease of life as donors that had suspended their aid indicated that they would renew support. Some diplomatic skirmishes in international relations, particularly in African policies, indicated a new course under President Banda. There was continued labour unrest and strikes over pay took place in various public and private sector organisations.

Domestic Politics

Political turmoil and party wrangling continued. At the beginning of the year, a leadership crisis was rocking the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF), with the two party camps dragging each other to court. Meanwhile, President Bingu of the Democratic People’s Party 474 • Southern Africa

(DPP) asked former head of state Bakili Muluzi and the president of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), John Tembo, to assist government with development ideas. On 11 March, Bingu’s wealth was challenged because he had built a luxurious house at his Ndata farm since becoming president. He claimed that he had assets of K 150 m before becoming president, but this conflicted with evidence given by people who claimed that he had only owned a minibus. At a public rally in Blantyre in March, Mutharika asked his loyalists to deal with his critics in the same way as Kamuzu Banda’s supporters had defended their leader. This was widely considered as incitement to violence to silence his adversaries. At a conference organised by the Public Affairs Committee on 14–15 March, participants recommended, among other things, that Mutharika should resign within 60 days or call a referendum within 90 days to seek a fresh mandate. They argued that he had failed to address problems that were resulting in difficult living conditions in the country. The president reiterated and publicly declared that he would neither resign nor call for a referendum until his mandate ended in 2014. As a way of initiating dialogue on the economic and political problems facing the country, a Presidential Contact and Dialogue Group was formed to look at the 20 demands that civil society organisations (CSOs) had made after the disturbances in July 2011, when 20 people had died in riots against poor economic and political governance. By March, only one issue had been addressed and the CSOs ended their engagement in consultations, citing lack of sincerity on the part of the government and the slow pace of the process. Later in the year, in October, the CSOs appealed to the UN through UNDP Administrator Helen Clark, who was visiting the country, to press the Banda government to implement their 20 demands on governance and human rights issues. On 1 April, the Nkhoma Synod issued a pastoral letter in which it criticised Bingu’s administration for various abuses. Titled ‘Exercising our Faith Through Prayer in Our Time, in Our Nation’, the pastoral letter was read out in all 150 Nkhoma Synod congrega- tions across the Central Region. The letter condemned, among other things, poor leadership, political violence, trade monopolies and the relocation of the Lilongwe University of Science and Technology to Mutharika’s Ndata farm. The death of Bingu from a heart attack on 5 April resulted in confusion, as the ruling government kept his death secret for a whole day. Bingu’s decease was officially announced on 7 April, although international media had reported it on the day it occurred. Bingu’s death was followed by an attempted coup by some members of the judiciary and the cabinet, who had met secretly and had planned to keep the death secret until they had achieved their purpose. It was alleged that they wanted to manage the swearing in of Peter Mutharika as president following the death of his brother to ensure that the then vice president Joyce Banda did not take over the presidency. They were reportedly divided over this, and some wanted to bring in three judges to preside at a constitutional court to re- examine and interpret Section 85 of the constitution and determine whether a member of a party other than the ruling party could become president in the event of the incumbent’s Malawi • 475 incapacity or death. There were also allegations that Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo had wanted to swear in Peter Mutharika and so there were public calls for his resignation. The Malawi Law Society called for an investigation into the allegation in order to clear his name. Bingu was laid to rest on 23 April at his Ndata farm in the presence of seven African presidents and delegates from Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Benin, Angola, Tanzania, Mozambique and Namibia, as well as China. On 27 April, the new president Joyce Banda appointed a 32-member cabinet from across the political parties with DPP members dominating the list. The inclusion of politicians from the DPP-led government was criticised, since they had contributed to the economic plight the country was experiencing. Banda stated that she had taken this action for the sake of unity and forgiveness, which was critical for the country’s progress. On 6 June, the president established a commission of enquiry into the death of the former president and the alleged attempted coup. In July, the interim president of the DPP, Peter Mutharika, declared himself a candidate for the 2014 presidential elections, although pointing out that he was not automatically the party’s candidate, as that decision would be made by a party convention. On 3 August, the Malawi Electoral Support Network said all concerned players should proceed to prepare and support activities leading to the 2014 elections, even though no law was in place to allow for tripartite elections and parliament had failed to prioritise the tripartite bill in June. The decision to hold tripartite elections in 2014 had been made by the Bingu government in view of the fact that no local government elections had been held since 2000, apparently due to lack of available funding. At the end of October, the UDF, decided to detach itself from the government side and the party and asked the speaker of the National Assembly to relocate its MPs to the opposition benches. Since Joyce Banda had come to power, UDF MPs had been sitting on the government side in the House since Banda’s new People’s Party had no representatives in parliament and she had co-opted representatives from other parties into her government. This UDF move to the government side had caused confusion in their constituencies, because they had been elected as an opposition party but had suddenly found themselves in government, and they now decided to rejoin the opposition. This was followed by the resignation of Atupele Muluzi a leader of the UDF, from his position as minister of economic planning and development in Joyce Banda’s cabinet. On 9 October, by-elections were held in Mzimba Central constituency, and were won by an independent candidate against the biggest opposition party, the DPP. This was seen as a measure of how unpopular the DPP was becoming. From July, Joyce Banda came under pressure to declare her assets in accordance with Section 88 of the constitution, especially when she started allocating money to individuals and ogranisations., Attorney General Ralph Kasambara continuously defended her, since she already declared her assets in 2009 when she was sworn in as vice president, but law experts argued that her accession to the presidency required a new declaration. On 476 • Southern Africa

28 September, the UN resident coordinator’s office stressed that austerity should be practised by everyone. To indicate its support for the austerity measures, the presidency announced on 28 September a voluntary salary cut of 30%, to take immediate effect. On 30 September, opposition parliamentarians and experts asked Banda to initiate more cuts in expenditure in addition to the symbolic 30% presidential pay reduction. The president’s long motor vehicle convoy was also mentioned as a target for reduction in order to cut costs. Security issues were also a cause for concern. During January, street vendors attacked women wearing trousers and miniskirts in major cities. Concerned women organised a peaceful protest in Blantyre. On 23 September, it was reported that the Communications Regulatory Authority had been prevented from installing a K 2.1 bn secret service system to monitor and analyse all telecommunications traffic. The High Court of Malawi argued that the project was unreasonable, unnecessary in an open and democratic society, and not in line with international human rights standards. Similarly, it was reported on 17 October that the government, through the Reserve Bank of Malawi, had stopped monitoring payments that the country’s NGOs received from their donors. On 18 October, a commission of enquiry report on the murder of the polytechnic student Robert Chasowa named DPP Regional Governor for the South Noel Masangwi and the party’s Director of Youth Lewis Ngalande as suspects. The report also implicated two police officers.

Foreign Affairs

The country’s domestic affairs impacted negatively on international economic relations. Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma arrived in Malawi on 20 January to hold discussions with President Bingu wa Mutharika, senior political party leaders and CSO leaders on political, economic and social developments and to explore the range of support the Commonwealth could mobilise. In February, the government was facing a $ 121 m budget shortfall following the suspension of the IMF loan programme as a result of disagreements over Mutharika’s handling of the economy. In early March, US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman expressed regret regarding comments Bingu had made implying that donors were undermining his authority and funding CSOs with the purpose of toppling his administration. She further urged Bingu to respect his citizens’ right to freedom of expression. Also in March, the USA suspended a $ 350 m grant that had been intended to revive Malawi’s energy sector out of concern over the country’s economic and political direction. In the same month Mutharika refused to receive a World Bank delegation, arguing that it was too junior to meet him, but, on the other hand, Irish Minister of State and Trade Joe Costello announced that his government had finalised preparations for providing K 1.355 bn direct support to Malawi. On 9 July, Minister of Finance Ken Lipenga signed a K 40.7 bn grant agreement with the EU and, on 23 July, the IMF approved a $ 157 m loan arrangement under the ECF. On 25 September, it was reported that only the World Bank and the AfDB had released budget support in the Malawi • 477 first quarter of the 2012/13 fiscal year, and there were also indications from the UK that it would review its aid. On 27 September, Ireland gave Malawi €350,000 (about K 135 m) to finance the Anti Corruption Bureau (to implement the National Anti Corruption Strat- egy) and the farm input subsidy programme. In early October, the US government signed an agreement with the Malawi government under which it would provide $ 105 m through USAID. In September, the new British High Commissioner Michael Nevin replaced Fergus Cochraine-Dyet, who had been expelled by then-president Bingu in 2011 after a leaked diplomatic cable to London revealed that he had criticised Bingu’s dictatorial tendencies. The new envoy asked Malawi to wean itself off donor dependence, arguing that budget support alone was not a solution to the country’s economic problems and that it should stick to the economic recovery plan, even though it was going to take time to bear fruit. This reliance on aid was also an issue of concern to British Minister for Africa Henry Bellingham, who visited the country in July. Bellingham said his country would help Malawi move on from the current aid dependency to trade and that Britain wanted to double trade between Malawi and the UK in three years from the current almost £ 60 m (K 26.9 bn) to £120 m (K 54 bn) per annum. On 27 September, President Banda made a statement at the 67th session of the UN General Assembly, calling on the UN and the international community to support African leaders in fulfilling their countries’ potential by supporting free trade, tackling climate change and creating seats on the UNSC for Afri- can nations. On 17 October, Banda signed an agreement with the EU for K 35 bn (€ 98 m) in funding for the Agriculture Sector Wide Approach and Social Transfer Program. Malawi was to have hosted the AU Summit in July but Banda declared that Malawi did not have the money to shoulder the costs, and it was moved to Adis Ababa (Ethiopia). The disputed Lake Malawi border with Tanzania resurfaced. (The Lake had been ceded to Malawi in the 1960s.) Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete argued that the Anglo- German Treaty of 1890 that granted Malawi sole ownership of Lake Malawi was flawed and demanded that this should be corrected by applying international law, which required states to share equally in adjoining water resources. In mid-August, Banda declared that Malawi would not go to war with Tanzania despite their disagreements over the boundary along Lake Malawi. In mid-October, the government consulted the Mozambican government on further oil exploration on Lake Malawi to avoid further diplomatic wrangles. In August, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Malawi and Banda visited President Zuma in South Africa.

Socioeconomic Developments

In January, President Bingu was asked by economists and the IMF to devalue the kwacha but he refused. Malawi continued to face a severe foreign currency shortage due to low tobacco earnings and a freeze on donor aid. This caused fuel shortages, which added to Malawians’ miseries. In April, Energy Minister Goodall Gondwe admitted that regular fuel 478 • Southern Africa supplies would not be available at the pumps till the foreign currency situation improved. Towards mid-March, the Bingu wa Mutharika administration was clinging to a strong kwacha as the US $ competed with the local currency as the medium of exchange. Due to the scarcity of dollars on the official market, a black market was being established, upsetting businesses and others. The buying and selling of goods in a currency other than the Malawi kwacha silently crept in. Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways announced that they were only accepting payment for services in US dollars. This was against the law, which bars trading in any currency other than the Malawi kwacha, but the authorities kept silent. The Bankers’ Association of Malawi announced that, from 10 April, commercial banks would stop cashing cheques payable to individuals who did not have a bank account, meaning that everyone would be required to hold an account with a bank so that cheques could be deposited. Consumers condemned the banks’ move as inconsiderate. By May, the kwacha had been devalued by almost 49%, following international assessments, including by the IMF, that Malawi needed to devalue the kwacha and liberalise its exchange rate if economic problems were to be addressed. This resulted in some international financial support (see above), but also in general economic hardship, which sparked a spate of strikes in companies and institutions, which persisted until the end of the year. Towards year’s end, government introduced nine expenditure control measures, among them the suspension of all government-funded foreign travel and procurement of capital assets until the end of the financial year. In September, the Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority and fuel importers blamed technical malfunctions at the gantry where fuel was loaded in Beira (Mozambique) as the major cause of the fuel shortages that had hit the country hard since April. In December, the government was said to be in breach of its duty for failing to provide fuel or explain what it was doing to end the crisis. In December, the Reserve Bank of Malawi raised the rate of interest central banks charged on loans and advances to a commercial bank from 21% to 25%. In response, commercial banks adjusted their base lending rates from an average of 32% to about 36%. On 14 December, Banda launched the National Export Strategy, which sought to double Malawi’s exports in the next five years. In January, the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation ADMARC raised the price of maize by 50% from K 40 to K 60 per kg. The price increase was an attempt to protect poor Malawians from being exploited by unscrupulous vendors. Early in the year, Illovo Sugar Malawi was importing sugar from Zambia to ease the sugar shortage problem that came about as a result of the illegal exportation of sugar meant for domestic use. By 19 April, however, Illovo Sugar Malawi had stopped these imports, following the government’s ban on unregulated sugar exports, coupled with intensified production within Malawi. It was further reported that the company was ranked 141st of Africa’s best 250 firms, the only Malawian company on the list. On 2 October, it was reported that government would revise the country’s economic growth projection for 2012 downwards, following poor tobacco revenues and the prob- Malawi • 479 lems being experienced in the manufacturing sector. Economic growth was projected to be slower than 4.3% due to a significant contraction in agriculture, forestry, fishing and manufacturing, which experienced negative growth. However, the administration expected the economy to recover in 2013, when it was projected that growth would reach 5.5%. During the year, a research study by the National Democratic Institute for Interna- tional Affairs and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace painted a bleak picture of the future for Malawi because agriculture, health, education, security and good governance were collapsing. Despite earlier being touted as a success and a springboard for economic independence by its proponents, including Finance Minister Ken Lipenga, it was reported on 9 May that the minister himself had said that the zero-deficitbudget was creating numerous woes for the nation and would be abandoned in the next budget. He further admitted that the allegations that the ministry was borrowing from commercial banks were true as it was under pressure to collect funds in order to implement the zero deficit budget. During the year, audit queries pointing to massive financial maladministration in the Ministry of Health made some donor partners reduce their aid to the ministry, while others, such as the Global Fund threatened that they would not disburse grants of $ 25 m (about K 10 bn) to combat malaria and TB in Round 7, whose deadline was December. The mid- year budget review indicated that the health budget had fallen by K 5.6 bn, a drop of 21%, due to donors’ reluctance to contribute to the Health Sector Wide Approach Programme. About K 10 bn of the health budget was expected to come from donors but this had fallen to K 2 bn. In April, a cholera outbreak hit Blantyre; 207 people were diagnosed with the disease and there were 11 fatalities. Malawi was spending close to K 300 m a year treating women suffering complications resulting from unsafe abortions. In September, the initial results of an Afrobarometer survey indicated that the majority of Malawians strongly felt that economic conditions in Malawi were bad, particularly the endemic shortage of cash. On 28 September, the DPP-led government outlined an economic recovery plan whose results were expected to start to emerge after 18 months. The opposition criticised the plan, arguing that the government had failed to articulate clearly how it would end Malawians’ suffering. Banda was also criticised for travelling to New York with a 33-member delegation of civil servants, politicians and chiefs for the UN General Assembly. This was considered a drain on taxpayers’ money as the costs were a whopping K 308 m. The president’s general love of travel, even locally, with a huge entourage, at taxpayers’ expense, was strongly questioned. In December, a forensic audit report on the Malawi police revealed an alleged K 400 m scam, prompting the government to extend the audit to the Malawi Defence Force.

Tiyesere Mercy Chikapa-Jamali & Lewis B. Dzimbiri

Mauritius

Politically, Mauritius experienced a threshold year of stable ‘Alliance for the Future’ coalition government under Navinchandra Ramgoolam of the ruling Mauritius Labour Party in coalition with the small Mauritius Social Democratic Party of Xavier-Luc Duval and other minor parties: the Mauritius Militant Socialist Movement, the Rodrigues Move- ment and the Social-Democrat Movement. Political preparations started for the general elections to be held in 2015. Mauritius continued to be the best-governed country in the African region, according to the 2012 Ibrahim Index on African Governance.

Domestic Policy

Two major moves were noticeable. On the one hand, the Ramgoolam administration enjoyed general popular support in the first half of the year. According toAfrobarometer , 72.2% of the sample were generally content with the government; in selected sectors of domestic governance, a majority of those interviewed declared dissatisfaction with, for example, anti-corruption initiatives (64%), security and crime (69%) and employment creation (55%). On the other hand, the political rupture between Ramgoolam and Pravind Jugnauth (previously minister of finance), who had been dismissed from the government following 482 • Southern Africa accusations of fraud in the Medpoint affair in 2011, was strongly felt in domestic politics. Sir Anerood Jugnauth (militant nickname ‘SAJ’) stepped down as non-executive president on 31 March. He publicly criticised the governance and performance of cabinet ministers and of Prime Minister Ramgoolam. In particular, he rejected the “new speech programme” (a set of administrative decrees to control the audio-visual medias) to be initiated by the government on 16 April. The real motivation behind this move was difficult to identify. Apparently, his son Pravind as president of the Mauritius Socialist Movement (MSM) party lacked charisma and was able to gain a parliamentary seat only in a by-election with the help of Labour, and fraud accusations made against him in relation to the Medpoint scandal were a constant threat to his party leadership. So, at the age of 82 years, Anerood Jugnauth re-set the political clocks of Mauritius and re-started his life as a key opposition figure. He abandoned his ‘reserve’ as a personality above all controversies in daily militant party politics and took up the role of a ‘virulent’ protagonist of opposition. In critical remarks about the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation, which he alleged was completely monopolised by Ramgoolam, he launched a political discussion on a ‘remake 2000’, i.e. a new alliance between the Mauritius Militant Movement (MMM) and MSM aimed at beating Labour in the next parliamentary election, to be held in 2015, and forming a new government of the ‘Jugnauth-Bérenger-type’ as in 2000. As a consequence, the traditional opposition 1 May rally saw the joint appearance of all four front-bench members of MMM, among them Raymond Bérenger, the leadership of MSM with Pravind Jugnauth and, as the last speaker, Anerood Jugnauth, the new ‘recycled’ opposition leader. The idea of a ‘remake 2000’ alliance between the MMM and MSM was more than a theatrical political plot and matured during the year. In a press conference at the end of August, Anerood Jugnauth and Bérenger strongly criticised Ramgoolam on foreign issues (Chagos), economic policy (youth unemployment) and socio-cultural respect (drug trafficking and lack of judicial pursuit). This continued up to 16 November, when Jugnauth and Bérenger declared in an electoral meeting that the municipal election in December could be regarded as a test case for the next general elections. In a country where domestic policy – the overnight making and breaking of alliances – was considered a popular sport, highly polarised and expressed through the dominance of five families (Jugnauth, Ramgoolam, Duval, Boolel and Ohsan) for more than 50 years, it was necessary to repeat statements regularly. On 15 August, Anerood Jugnauth reaffirmed in a public meeting that there would be no friendly realignment between Labour and the MSM and that he was determined to beat Ramgoolam. Since the split between the MSM and Labour in 2011 over a fraudulent health clinic acquisition, incidental political events seemed to multiply the conflicts between the political parties and protagonists. The issue of six containers of Malagasy rosewood, under protection in Madagascar and illegally exported to China, but seized by the Mauri- tius customs services, provoked remarks by the president of the Mauritius Labour Party, Patrick Assirvaden, that implicated top MSM politicians in the illicit shipment. MSM Mauritius • 483

Secretary-General Nando Bodha sued Labour Party President Patrick Assirvaden for R (rupees) 10 m for defamation. After the resignation of Anerood Jugnauth, Rajkeswur Kailash Purryag was unanimously elected by parliament as the new president of the republic on 20 July, although the opposition boycotted the election. The new president was sworn in on 21 July. Kailash Purryag had previously been deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs (1997– 2000) and speaker of the parliament (2005–12). The municipal elections on 9 December were considered by the MMM and MSM from the perspective of the ‘remake 2000’ as a first test case. In the end, the results produced no clear winner. Of the 12 cities, nine returned a Labour majority and three went to the opposition. According to some analysts, the MMM/MSM coalition benefited from its ability to mobilise its voters, while Labour voters seemed to stay away from the polls. The ‘best loser system’, a Mauritian electoral device that allocates seats in parliament to ethnic and religious minorities, was again under revision. According to the findings of the UN Committee on Civil and Political Rights, it contravened the principle of equal votes, a vision supported by the political grouping ‘Rezistans ek Alternativ’. In bilateral discussions between MMM and Labour, both parties agreed there was a case for the reform of the electoral system. Since there was a call for greater proportion- ality in the electoral system (which had since Independence followed a simple majority system), the MMM and Labour agreed to go for electoral reform, enlarging parliament by allocating 20 seats by proportional representation, while 62 seats would continue to be taken by the winner of the majority vote. There was, however, some resistance to the new formulation as the suppression of the best loser system was considered to go against the interest of Muslim voters. Bérenger proposed a solution of giving the first four seats in the best loser system to ‘communities’. But whether the political parties were really prepared to change the electoral law might be questionable, given the uncertainties of the electoral outcome of a ‘remake 2000’.

Foreign Policy

Offshore financial services, although a central factor in Mauritius’ economy, continued to be of concern to Indian public prosecutors. In January 2012, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation asked for a second commission of investigation with the Mau- ritius authorities in order to examine the details of a financial transaction related to the Indo-Malaysian consortium Aircel-Maxis in relation to a mobile telecommunications matter in India. Since India was one of pivotal actors in the offshore finance sector, every decision of the Indian fiscal authorities was of vital importance. The decision of the Indian government to postpone a decision on the General Anti-Avoidance Rule, a device of the Indian tax authorities to control the negative impact of the Double Tax Avoidance Convention between India and Mauritius into 2013, was seen as a token of an implicit 484 • Southern Africa agreement between the two countries. Also on the financial services front, a Mauritius- based lobby organisation for the offshore sector, Global Institutional Investors Forum (created in 2010), started a publicity campaign in May to correct the image of Mauritius as a tax paradise for virtual firms, and a haven for money laundering and letterbox companies. Rumours that the Mauritian island of Agalega would be offered to India to ease or seal the double tax treaty between India and Mauritius, as maintained in an article in the ‘Times of India’, caused an angry reaction by Ramgoolam in early July, and he attacked the Indian journalist for spreading errors and lies, even though the article had only quoted Mauritius Foreign Minister Arvind Boolel. In July, the former minister for foreign affairs and former editor of the national newspaper ‘L’Express de Maurice’ Jean-Claude de l’Estrac was nominated secretary-general of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), a regional organisation comprising Madagascar, Reunion, the Comoros, Seychelles and Mauritius. He was received by the transitory president of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, to offer the good services of the IOC. Given the marginal importance of the IOC in the settlement of the domestic conflict in Madagascar, which had been led by SADC and the AU, his influence was limited. Again, the Chagos Islands issue was on the foreign policy agenda. In February, a British all-party parliamentary commission suggested that the Chagos Islands be put on the UNESCO World Heritage list in order to prevent the eventual return of refugees. In March, the High Court in London gave a ruling conceding that the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG) would have the right to oppose the creation of a Marine Protection Area in the territory of the Chagos Islands. On 8 May, Ramgoolam stated in a response in a parliamentary question time that the government would oppose the British proposal for Chagossian future development. CRG President Oliver Bancoult had an opportunity to put the case for the Chagos refugees’ right to self-determination on 22 and 23 May before the Pan-African Parliament in its plenary session in South Africa. Bancoult also reported to the international community that an Internet petition had gathered 25,000 signatures and would be presented to the White House. In a public statement on 6 April, Mauritian Ambassador to the UN Milan Meetarbhan invited Great Britain and the USA to accept Mauritian sovereignty over Chagos from 2016, and to accept the right of the Chagos people to return to their islands at the beginning of the upcoming negotiations in 2014. In a memorandum of understanding between British Prime Minister David Cameron and Ramgoolam, both sides agreed on 3 June that pirates who were apprehended in Mauritian waters by British naval forces should be transferred to Mauritius for trial and judgement by special piracy courts.

Socioeconomic Developments

Continued prudent macro-economic policies resulted in good fiscal and inflation outcomes. According to the IMF, annual economic growth stood at 3.4% and inflation at Mauritius • 485

4.5%. The economy seemed stable and resistant to external shocks, taking into account a limited 3.8% total debt service rate on goods and services. Net foreign reserves increased by 16.9%, thus providing the economy with a sound 4.4 months of foreign reserves for imports (in comparison with the conventionally agreed standard benchmark of three months). Despite strong export growth, a rebound in world commodity prices led to a widening of the current account deficit, although international reserves increased. Exports increased some 16% (in dollar terms), with strong growth across all major tradable industries. On balance, the 17% increase in imports and a reduction in net transfers widened the current account deficit to some 10% of GDP. Hence, economic stress factors persisted, as 65% of exports and services depended on the European markets. Therefore, the authorities invested in new markets and income opportunities, such as tourism from Russia, China, South Asia and the Arab world. The banking sector was robust, and the system proved resilient. Banks remained liquid and well-capitalised, with 14.1% of Regulatory Tier I capital to risk weighted assets. It was not surprising that – in contrast to a general international downgrading of the financial creditworthiness of states and economies – the credit rating agency Moody’s upgraded Mauritius’ ranking from Baa2 to Baa1 in June. In its justification, it noted that Mauritius had successfully improved its economic structure from a low technology export economy to a superior service economy with the capacity to neutralise the negative impact of weaknesses of the euro-zone. The government had diversified the economy and reformed the tax structure in order to make conditions more business friendly. As a result Mauritius was the first African country to make the top ten in the Heritage Foundation-Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom. In October, a monetary-financial controversy arose between Finance Minister Xavier- Luc Duval and President of the Central Bank Rundheersing Bheenick. Duval had ordered a devaluation of the rupee, but IMF staff estimates had shown that, at the end of 2011, the real exchange rate was broadly in line with fundamentals, despite a need to reduce the current account deficit over time. On 20 April, after months of campaigning by trade unions and civil society, Minister for Labour Shakeel Mohamed presented a reform of the Employment Rights Act, approved by the cabinet, which should prevent companies from laying off employees without justification. He introduced an Employment Promotion and Protection Tribunal, which would judge the legitimacy of closures of companies and firms, which had hitherto been able to wind up their activities simply by sending a letter to the Ministry of Labour. With respect to social indicators, the Afrobarometer opinion poll indicated popular satisfaction in selected sectors. In the field of health, 85.9% of those interviewed were satisfied with the actions of the Ramgoolam government; approval rates in education were at 87.9%, in infrastructure and roads at 84.2%, in professional education for women at 85.5 %, and in combating and treating AIDS at 82.1%. 486 • Southern Africa

In October, in an extreme expression of social discontent and protest the Rodriguez Civil Service Trade Unions burned a copy of the Pay Research Bureau report, which was intended to contribute to a fairer distribution of revenues in the public services on this semi-autonomous island. They declared the content of the report to be disappointing, backward-oriented, colonialist and designed to block the process of autonomy ten years after steps towards decentralisation had begun in Mauritius. The protest was declared justifiable by former minister for foreign affairs Anil Gayan (MMM) in the 2000 Alliance, because the Mauritius civil service had seen an ever-widening gap between the salaries of ordinary public servants and the benefits and side-payments of the very few who sat on boards and commissions. The prime minister’s office blocked a plan to create a Russo-Mauritiancharter airline, Island’s Air System, linked to the internationally known arms dealer Victor Bout. The Mauritius government suspected him of intending to create this airline as a cover for his arms and weapons trade. On 27 December, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and the Mauritian authorities exchanged letters of understanding in order to formalise Mauritius’ commitment to the IMF’s new Africa Training Institute, serving sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritius committed to provide substantial support through contributions to a dedicated multi-donor trust fund at the IMF, and in-kind contributions, including the provision of suitable facilities in Mauritius. The Australian Agency for International Development and the Chinese authorities also pledged financial support for the Institute, which would start operations in 2013 and offer courses and seminars for officials from central banks, ministries of finance and other government departments from across sub-Saharan Africa. Training would cover macro-economic policy-making and financial programming, public finance, exchange rate and monetary policies, economic integration and financial sector issues, including banking supervision.

Klaus-Peter Treydte Mozambique

Mozambique is only just adapting to its unexpected future as one of the top ten coal producers and top 20 gas producers in the world by the end of the decade. The government started learning to handle giant multinational mining and petroleum companies. Money would not flow soon, so Mozambique remained aid dependent, but the government made decisions that donors and the World Bank had previously blocked. There was increased jockeying for position as 2014 national elections approached with no clear presidential candidate.

Domestic Politics

The constitution barred President Armando Guebuza from standing for a third term in the 2014 elections. The Frelimo party remained more powerful than any individual and informally rejected soundings by the Guebuza camp to change the constitution as part of initiatives to retain power for Guebuza. President of the party and president of the country were separate posts, so it was agreed that Guebuza could retain the powerful post of party president. Frelimo rules gave substantial power to the Political Commission, even over the choice of government. ‘O Pais’ (28 August) quoted party Secretary-General Filipe Paunde as saying that the party directed the government and the Political Commission 488 • Southern Africa instructed the president. Thus Guebuza would remain in a powerful position, but if the national presidential candidate was not a close ally of Guebuza, there could be substantial tension and conflict. So his next move was to promote a weak candidate as next president and he pushed Prime Minister Aires Ali. A new party central committee was elected at the 10th Frelimo Congress in Pemba on 23–28 September, and the central committee in turn elected the Political Commission, which ran the party. The central committee would also select the Frelimo candidate for the 2014 presidential election. Aires Ali failed to be elected to the Political Commission, and it was unlikely that the Central Committee would choose someone as presidential candidate who had failed to be elected to the Political Commission. Two weeks later, Guebuza dismissed Ali from the post of prime minister. Alberto Vaquina, a medical doctor and governor of Tete and a member of the Political Commission was appointed in his place. Former prime minister and former finance minister Luisa Diogo, who had become the anyone-but-Ali candidate, failed to be re-elected to the Political Commission. So, at the end of the year, there was no obvious presidential candidate. But the Congress underlined that Frelimo remained a democratic and unpredictable party; Guebuza was perhaps powerful, but he did not have absolute control. The Congress also showed that Frelimo was no longer the party of the workers and peasants, but the party of the bureaucracy: 1,607 of the 1,955 congress delegates stated their occupations and 924 (57%) worked for the state or party (108 teachers, 26 nurses, 468 other civil servants, and 322 Frelimo staff ). Only 126 delegates (8%) were farmers, seven (0.4%) were industrial workers and 289 (18%) were technicians, while 129 (8%) described themselves as business people or proprietors. The main opposition party, Renamo, became increasingly marginal. On 8 March, there was a shootout between Renamo and the police; one policeman was killed and 23 Renamo people were arrested. In October, party leader Dhlakama and some of his supporters moved to rural Gorongosa district in central Mozambique, threatening to destroy the country if the government did not meet his demands. On 23 October, he demanded that Guebuza come to Gorongosa to see him to negotiate a transitional government. Three rounds of inconclusive talks were held in Maputo in December between a government delegation headed by Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco, who was a member of the Fre- limo Political Commission, and a Renamo delegation headed by the party’s new Secretary General Manuel Bissopo. On 18 April, a by-election in Inhambane caused by the death of the mayor was won by Frelimo’s Benedito Guimino with 78% of the votes, on a respect- able 39% turnout. The Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) received 22% and Renamo boycotted the election. New election laws were agreed by parliament in December. Municipal elections would be held in November 2013 and national elections, for president, national parliament, and provincial parliaments, in October 2014. There would be a new registration in 2013 and an update in 2014. The new elections commission would have eight members in proportion Mozambique • 489 to parliamentary representation (five Frelimo, two Renamo, one MDM), one judge, one prosecutor, and three members of civil society organisations. The law was agreed very late, in part because of the agreement between donors and government to end the donor strike (see Foreign Affairs). After confusion and incompetence during the 2009 elections, both the Constitutional Council (the highest court) and civil society organisations called for a unified electoral code rather than a set of different and contradictory laws. This would be drawn up outside parliament to avoid traditional party battles and Renamo intransigence. But the one concession that the government made to donors was to accept the somewhat unusual donor demand that civil society organisations and the Constitutional Council be ignored, and the old package of laws simply be amended. Parliament approved a strong Public Probity Law on 11 May. The approval con- founded sceptics, who were convinced that parliamentary leaders would not vote to cut their own incomes. The law created a category of office holders including the president, ministers, members of parliament, presidents of provincial and municipal assemblies, vereadores (municipal ministers), and district administrators, all subject to special restrictions: They were barred from receiving any other income from the state or from state companies; office holders and their close relatives could not enter into any type of contract with the state or state companies. The law was controversial because many parliamentary leaders also had well paid posts as directors of state companies, which they would be forced to give up, although they had not done so by the end of 2012. The new law defined a public servant as anyone in a public entity. The definition was very broad, covering office holders as well as members of provincial and municipal assemblies, normal civil servants at both national and municipal level, the military and police, and even employees of private contractors carrying out public functions. The law barred public servants from using their power or influence to provide any special help to themselves, their family, friends or anyone else – whether or not they were being paid for the help – and imposed restrictions on earning outside income. All public servants were now required to file annual asset and income declarations, and there would be a public register listing declarations made, although the declarations themselves would be secret and there were heavy penalties for publishing information from them, so they could not be checked by the public. The core political problem was on-going poverty. Mozambique was a country with a high growth rate but it failed to convert growth into poverty reduction. A report issued on 11 May by the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan, noted that Mozambique was one of the more unequal countries, with the top 10% of the population having an income 19 times that of the poorest 10%. The report cited Mozambique as the fifth fastest growing country in Africa, but pointed out that household survey evidence showed no decrease in national poverty and a marked increase in poverty in the central regions. It noted that Mozambique was a net importer of staple foods and that above 70% of working youth lived on less than $ 1.25 a day. Catholic bishops issued a statement after their 6–13 November conference that the poor were increasingly poor. The gains from natural 490 • Southern Africa resources were not contributing to the improvement of conditions for ordinary people. According to the World Bank 2013 World Development Report, published on 1 October, agricultural productivity and rural living standards had not improved. Productivity was low because of extremely rudimentary technologies. People did not migrate because there were no jobs to move to. The report also warned that social discontent appeared to be on the rise. In June, IMF Deputy Director for Africa Roger Nord referred in London to Mozambique as a country where the poor had benefited less from growth, and warned that this could raise social tension. An article in ‘World Development’ diagnosed households in rural Mozambique as “collectively trapped in generalised underdevelopment” with relative stagnation. Some speakers at the Frelimo 10th Congress on 23–28 September were also critical. Zacarias Kupela, former head of the Frelimo youth movement, pointed to the widening gap between rich and poor and warned that “future generations will reap the whirlwinds and cyclones”. Graça Machel criticised self-serving party members who satisfied their egotistic, corrupt, ambitious and opportunist interest. Former president Luiz Lula of Brazil gave a talk on 19 November in Maputo, in which he warned against leaders who sought a third term. In another speech to local businesspeople he said, “No Mozam- bican can feel proud to open their car door and see a hungry person looking for something to eat in the rubbish.” President Guebuza attacked his critics on 6 December in an extem- poraneous speech to the congress of the Mozambique Workers Organisation (‘Organiza- ção dos Trabalhadores de Moçambique’). According to the government daily ‘Noticias’ (23 November), Guebuza criticised “professional agitators acting in bad faith, and in the name of friendship with the poor [who are] alleging that only some people are benefitting from natural resources and from wealth”. Some foreigners “come here and say the gap between the rich and poor is increasing”. Speaking in Xai-Xai on 10 November, he said, “Only the lazy believe we cannot end poverty.” Minimum wages were raised to $ 83 per month for agricultural workers and $ 90–$ 130 per month in most other sectors. For ordinary people, the cost of living, unemployment and inflation were the three most serious problems, according to a secret government survey. The survey, carried out for government by a private agency in 2010 but never published, was leaked and posted on the website of the Public Integrity Centre. It listed corruption as only the seventh most serious issue, although, 74% of families considered corruption to be serious or very serious. More than half (52%) of the families interviewed admitted to paying bribes in order to obtain basic public services. Only 10% had used the court system, but half of those admitted paying bribes. Payment of bribes was most frequent in education (23%) and health (22%). The media scored very high marks for integrity.

Foreign Affairs

Mozambique was once one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world. The discovery of huge resources and the potential income in mineral and hydrocarbon revenues in Mozambique • 491 a few years time was already changing both government and donor attitudes. Donors and the international financial institutions, the World Bank and IMF, had previously dominated policy formation in a quite brazen way. Donors remained anxious to continue to spend in Mozambique, but they began switching money away from general budget support to support for specific projects and ministries, where they could exercise more leverage. Meanwhile, the government announced the reversal of two donor-imposed policies. In December, ignoring earlier interventions by donors, the government bought the remaining shares in Banco Nacional de Investimento to make it into a development bank and the agricultural marketing board was re-established. Two government-owned grain mills opened. A particular confrontation was with the United States Millennium Chal- lenge Corporation (MCC), which had signed a five-year $ 507 m agreement in 2007. The MCC made extension of the contract conditional on a form of land privatisation, but the government refused and the contract was not renewed. US President Barack Obama announced in Washington on 18 May that Mozambique had been chosen as one of six countries to benefit from a G8 programme to use the private sector to end hunger. The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition project used aid money to subsidise giant agribusinesses to take over large tracts of land. A similar programme called ProSavana was also launched, which involved Japanese aid to support Brazilian agribusinesses to take large tracts for soya production. Neither moved forward, however, because of the difficulty of accumulating large tracts of land. Under Mozam- bican law, occupiers had rights to the land and could not be moved for farming without agreement (although they could be moved for mines). The National Peasants Union (‘União Nacional de Camponeses’) issued a statement on 11 October in which it strongly condemned ProSavana as a top-down project being run in secret, which would make peasants landless and impoverish rural communities. The death of Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika in April and his replacement by Joyce Banda allowed the neighbours to repair relations. Banda visited Mozambique on 13–15 May. Mozambican President Armando Guebuza took over as chair of SADC in early August, and one of his first tasks was to meet Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in Kigali (Rwanda) on 28 August to deliver a message from the SADC heads of state summit in Maputo on 17–18 August, which accused Rwanda of interfering in the DRC by supporting the M23 rebels. The response came on 12 October, when Rwandan opposition figure and former director of the Rwandan Development Bank, Theogene Turatsinze. was murdered in Maputo. Speaking on behalf of SADC in October at the EU headquarters in Brussels (Belgium), Gubueza demanded that the deadline for signing the controversial EPAs should be extended from the end of 2014 for two years until 2016, to allow more time for negotiations. Guebuza also became head of the CPLP at a meeting in Maputo on 20 July. The CPLP continued to recognise Raimundo Pereira as president of Guinea Bissau, despite his overthrow by the military, and Guebuza again demanded Pereira’s return. Former Mozambique president Joaquin Chissano had been SADC mediator on 492 • Southern Africa

Madagascar since 2009 when Andry Rajoelina took over with military backing, but had failed to resolve the issue. An unsuccessful meeting with Rajoelina took place in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in December, when Chissano and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete unsuccessfully urged Rajoelina not to stand in the next presidential elections.

Socioeconomic Developments

Huge discoveries of coal and gas reserves resulted in a resource frenzy. More than $ 2.7 bn was already invested in exploration activities. The existence of gas along the coast of southern Inhambane province had been known since the 1960s. A pipeline had been built and the South African petrochemical company Sasol had been importing gas since 2004. But explorations off shore in the north of the country, on the border with Tanzania, discovered a huge gas reserve (although no oil), estimated at 100 trillion ft3, worth an estimated $ 350 bn, from which Mozambique could hope to earn at least $ 1 bn per year from royalties alone, plus company profits and taxes. The government owned between 10% and 25% of all gas projects through Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos, the state oil and gas company. Gas would be liquefied and exported. Anadarko of the USA and ENI of Italy agreed to build a joint gas liquefaction plant that would be the second largest in the world (after Qatar), at an estimated cost of an incredible $ 50 bn. The reserves were the third largest in Africa, after Algeria and Nigeria, and exploration continued. Huge coal reserves were discovered in Tete and Niassa provinces. By 2015, Mozam- bique could produce 100 m tonnes per year (m t/y) of coal, half of it high-quality cok- ing coal, from which the country could earn at least $ 300 m per year in royalties. Two companies began producing and two more expected to start in 2013, but the coal mines were 600 km to 800 km from the sea and the current rail capacity was just 6 m t/y, in part because of the World Bank fiasco with the Sena railway line. In a damning evaluation, the World Bank admitted responsibility for the failure to complete upgrading of the line from the Tete coal mines to the port of Beira, which should have been finished in 2009. The $ 110 m World Bank loan was conditional on Mozambique Railways (‘Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique’; CFM) retrenching 13,600 experienced staff, and on the structure of the central railways being a concession in which the concessionaire had 51% of the shares and CFM 49%, which left CFM without influence. The failure of the project was blamed on this Bank-imposed structure. The Bank gave the contract to an Indian Rites and Ircon consortium, which allegedly lacked experience and competence. Repeated and valid complaints by CFM and the government were ignored. Finally, the report admitted that Mozambique not only had to repay the loan for the unsatisfactory project, but also had to find money to complete the work and to pay an extra $ 20 m to the contractor, which was considered unjustified because of ineffective Bank monitoring. The Brazilian company Vale began building an entirely new railway line from its mines in Tete across Malawi and back into Mozambique to the port of Nacala. Rio Tinto Mozambique • 493 proposed a new railway line to a new offshore floating terminal north of Quelimane. A third railway line was also suggested, entirely within Mozambique, from Tete to Nacala, but there would not be adequate export capacity until 2015–17. Meanwhile, the companies were proposing thermal power stations in Tete to burn low quality coal not worth exporting and produce 6,400 MW in three power stations. However, South Africa, the most likely buyer of energy, showed no interest. The low-grade coal was therefore likely to pile up for the next few years. Mozambique took over the final 15% of the Cahora Bassa dam under a complex deal agreed on 9 April. Mozambique paid $ 42 m for 7.5% and would trade shares in the proposed central-south power line for the other 7.5%. Membership in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was approved on 26 October, after having been rejected once. This meant that all payments by mining companies were now public, although contracts and the way payments were calculated remained secret. Royalties were set at 6% of the sale price for gas and 3% for coal, but the government was to accept company declarations of the sale price. The minerals ministry trained 4,000 people, but their training was largely dependent on the mining and hydrocarbon companies, so there were growing civil society complaints that they would not become independent of the industry. The tax authorities began informal negotiations to fill loopholes. When Cove Energy, which owned 8.5% of one of the gas blocks, was sold to PTT of Thailand for $ 1.9 bn, it was agreed that $ 175 m would be paid to the government. At the end of the year, parliament passed a new tax law, which set a 32% capital gains tax on sales or transfers of mineral or hydrocarbon assets in Mozambique. On 11 December, the government announced for the first time that 2.8% of mineral revenues would be spent in local communities, and that the first $ 1 m would go to communities affected by coal mining in Moatize, Tete, and by heavy sands mining in Moma, Nampula province. Meanwhile the coal mining companies continued to have problems with local communities. On 10 January, more than 500 families blocked the road and railway line in Tete to protest about their resettlement by the Brazilian company Vale from an area that was to become an opencast mine. Riot police were called and 14 people were arrested. But then- governor Alberto Vaquina later admitted that the community’s claims were valid – new houses had been badly built and the community had not been given the promised water and agricultural support. Two weeks later, Vale was given the annual Public Eye award for the worst corporate conduct by activists at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzer- land). Minerals Minister Esperança Bias took the remarkable decision to have a ministry coordinating council meeting in the resettlement village of Cateme in August, with ministry staff staying with families in the resettlement houses. It became clear that the problems that had caused the demonstration in January had not been solved. The government bought 5% of Vale interests for $ 21 m under the original contract, which promised 10% to Mozambican investors. 494 • Southern Africa

The IMF declared in a statement on 21 December that Mozambique’s economic performance was remarkable and that the prudent execution of the budget had contributed to a judicious policy mix that fostered economic stability, despite global uncertainty. Infla- tion was just 2%, well under the target of 5.6%. The IMF reported that GDP had increased as estimated by 7.5%. FDI was 17% of GDP, compared with 5% in 2009. During the year, the Mozambican metical (MZN) remained stable at MZN 3.5 to the South African rand; this was important to prevent riots, since many key goods in Maputo were imported from South Africa. By contrast, the metical fell 9.7% in relation to the US dollar to MZN 29.6 to $ 1. Reflecting the low inflation, the base interest rate (paid by commercial banks to bor- row from the central bank) was cut from 15% to 10.5% by late 2012. Despite the sharp fall in both inflation and central bank interest rates, private banks continued to charge more than 20% interest – double the central bank rate. Mohanad Rafik, chair of the government’s Economic Recovery Support Fund (FARE), accused microfinance institutions of usury. He said FARE lent at 8%–12% interest to microfinance institutions but they lent on to rural producers at 30%–60% interest. Banks were still regionally concentrated. There were 470 branches of commercial banks, of which 218 were in Maputo city and province. Of the 128 districts in Mozambique, only 58 had banks and there were banks in only three of the 15 districts in Niassa, and four of the 16 districts in the neighbouring province of Cabo Delgado. The picture was even worse with regard to micro-credit. Of the 182 micro- credit operators in the country, 130 were in Maputo city and province. Other economic activities included two major projects by China in Maputo, a $ 1 bn bridge to Katembe (the part of Maputo on the other side of the bay, currently reached by ferry) and toll road to South Africa, and a $ 315 m ring road around Maputo based on a largely colonial plan. The EU signed a new fisheries agreement, allowing 75 boats to catch 460,000 tonnes per year, mostly of tuna. Biofuel production remained stalled, except for ethanol from sugar, so the government suspended plans to require 10% ethanol in petrol and 3% biofuel in diesel. Data released for 2011 showed how overstretched the education system was, and its low quality. There were nearly 6 m children in school and 109,000 teachers. Of 248,000 people employed in the public sector, 44% were teachers. But in primary school, there were 63 pupils for each teacher. Pass rates were low. Of pupils who entered the fifth (final) year of primary school, only 63% passed – 22% failed and 14% dropped out. Pass rates in secondary school were 64% for tenth grade and 52% for twelfth grade. The Ministry of Education admitted that no well-trained teachers from the Pedagogic University had been hired during the past three years because graduates were too expensive, and that it was cheaper to pay poorly trained teachers for extra sessions. Other statistics showed that Mozambique had one of the higher traffic accident death rates in the world; in the first half of 2012, 730 people were killed on the road. Mozam- bique had 33 mobile telephones for every 100 people. Kidnappings for ransom continued Mozambique • 495 in the Asian business community. Businessman Momed Ayoob was gunned down on the street on 20 April. In 2010, he had been arrested in Swaziland carrying $ 2.7 m in cash, and had been accused in the Mozambican press of being involved in drug dealing.

Joseph Hanlon

Namibia

The former liberation movement, the South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo), remained in firm political control. Hage Geingob was elected as the party’s candidate for the presidential elections scheduled for 2014. In a subsequent cabinet reshuffle and elections to the party’s politbureau, ‘team Hage’ was consolidated. The continued political stability contrasted with modest economic performance and high levels of poverty and unemployment. Foreign policy relations continued to show preferences for friendly links with not so democratic regimes.

Domestic Politics

The 5th Swapo Congress, held from 29 November to 2 December, was preceded by infighting over the composition of the 600 delegates, who were to elect the party’s leadership. President Pohamba had declared that he remained party president. His unopposed confirmation in office for another five years was a formality. Since his second term as head of state was to end in March 2015, the election of the vice-president implied nomination as the party’s presidential candidate for the elections in late 2014. Vice-president Hage Geingob (Minister for Trade and Industry) competed for the post with Secretary Gen- eral and Minister for Justice Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, and Secretary for Information and 498 • Southern Africa

Publicity and Minister of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Devel- opment, Jerry Ekandjo. Iivula-Ithana was the first woman to be nominated for the post, Geingob the first non-Ovambo-speaker and Ekandjo the first not to have been in exile (and the first to have been a political prisoner on Robben Island). Suspicions that Pohamba was making efforts to impose Geingob, his preferred candidate, on the delegates from the 13 regions led to an intense debate as to whether the process was democratic. The eventual result was clearer than expected: in the first round, Geingob received 312 votes, ahead of Ekandjo (220) and Iivula-Ithana (64). Minister for Safety and Security (and Iivula-Ithana’s former deputy) Nangolo Mbumba was elected to be the party’s secretary general. Laura McLeod-Katjirua (governor of the Omaheke region) became his deputy and the only woman to take one of the top four party positions. They had both campaigned for Geingob, who had been the country’s first prime minister at independence and was widely considered to be the most suitable statesman. After being demoted by former president Nujoma in 2002, he joined the World Bank’s Global Coalition for Africa as executive director in Washington (2003/4), but returned as a Swapo backbench MP in March 2005. Elections to the party’s 60-member Central Committee reproduced old patterns. Women continued to constitute a minority, with 16 members, despite the party’s declared policy of gender equality. A cabinet reshuffle announced on 4 December re-appointed Geingob as prime minister. Further changes signalled that Pohamba had used his power to anchor the Geingob alliance. ‘Team Hage’ was further strengthened by the results of elections to the Politburo on 11 December, when it snatched several of the 17 seats (four were automatically allocated to the party’s top officials). By the end of the year, inner-party changes had set the course for a new chapter in Namibian politics. The Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) lost influence. Its candidates for the party’s top positions (including Ekandjo) almost all failed. With a reference to the expulsion of the ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, Pohamba indicated on 3 March that his generation had steered the liberation struggle and would not accept that over-zealous young Turks did not recognise their merits. Open exchanges by SPYL members on Face- book were criticised as inappropriate forms of critical debate. The Swapo-affiliatedtrade unions in the National Union of Namibian Workers suffered similar setbacks and were assessed by the end of the year as being at their weakest since independence. On Cassinga Day (4 May), which commemorates a massacre by the South African army in a refugee camp in Southern Angola, Pohamba categorically rejected the demand by soldiers fighting on the South African side that they be regarded aswar veterans. This disqualified them from a generous compensation scheme introduced for Swapo members. High-ranking political office holders and government officials also received a one-off payment and a monthly pension. The rejection of any war veteran status for former combatants on the side of the South African army provoked a debate over the meaning of reconciliation. Namibia • 499

Eleven out of 24 permanent secretaries were reshuffled as of 1 June, though they merely swopped portfolios. These posts had become political appointments, though the law defined those holding them as top-level civil servants to be appointed purely on professional merit. On 7 February, the prosecution in the Caprivi high treason trial closed its case after its 379th witness testified. The trial had been opened in October 2003, most of the accused having been imprisoned after a failed secession attempt in August 1999. The trial record amounted to almost 35,000 pages. On 28 February, the local EU delegation expressed their hope for a quick end to the legal proceedings. Namibian police banned a demonstration in the Caprivi planned for 12 April to call for the release of the prisoners and a referendum on the status of the Caprivi. On 30 April, the death toll among the imprisoned suspects rose to 19, with 112 men still on trial. More people had already died in custody than were killed during the failed secession attempt. On 10 August, one accused was discharged after the prosecution conceded that there was no evidence on which he could be convicted. The marathon trial had not ended by year’s end. Opposition parties remained ineffective and frustrated over the delay in their court case brought to challenge the results of the November 2009 parliamentary elections. On 21 April, several hundred supporters of eight parties and NGOs marched to the Supreme Court. In another protest, the MPs of the official opposition and other parties left parliament on 25 April amidst booing from Swapo MPs when Pohamba delivered his State of the Nation Address. On 25 October, the five judges of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the opposition parties against a High Court judgment, which had dismissed their election challenges in February 2011. The election results were thereby confirmed, although the court recognised administrative failures of the Electoral Commission and ruled in favour of the opposition parties’ complaint about the conduct of the election. Swapo’s first policy conference ended on 13 September and declared theland issue to be a priority. In an interview with Al Jazeera television on 20 October, Pohamba claimed that the ‘willing-buyer, willing-seller’ policy had not produced the desired results in land redistribution. He suggested a constitutional change in the rules for the acquisition of land in order to prevent a revolution. According to the commercial farmers’ Namibia Agricultural Union, the land reform was on track to meet the targets set for 2020. Of 9,172 registered commercial farms, members of previously disadvantaged groups owned 2,598 and, according to the registered title deeds, 25% of all commercial farmland was in their possession. Meanwhile, illegal fencing off of land in communal areas continued. It was confirmed at the 14th annual symposium of the Bank of Namibia on 27 September that the privatisation of collective communal land – dubbed ‘modern land grabbing’ – implicated holders of political offices at the highest level. 500 • Southern Africa

Foreign Affairs

In the 4 December cabinet reshuffle, Foreign Minister Utoni Nujoma (who was transferred to his previous portfolio as minister of justice) was replaced by Minister for Environment and Tourism Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. She had been the deputy foreign minister at independence and was a member of ‘team Hage’. South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma visited on 29 February to 1 March. Consulta- tions included the situation in Zimbabwe. Namibia’s government remained a strong ally of Mugabe, and Zuma reportedly sought to influence the government’s role in support of a compromise solution. President Pohamba spoke at a high-level UN debate on the rule of law on 24 September and the opening of the General Assembly the next day. He carried out his first official state visit to South Africa on 5–7 November. Throughout the year he was vocal in calling for the UNSC to be reformed to give Africa a permanent seat. Friendly ties with other African countries were underlined by several state visits. Pohamba visited Maputo on 29 March, where fishing quotas were allocated to companies of both countries with respect to each other’s waters. State visits were paid by President Ian Khama of Botswana on 25–27 June and by King Mswati III of Swaziland, accompanied by one of his 12 wives, on 24–28 July. The latter visit included a hunting safari with former president Sam Nujoma and some sightseeing excursions. With much less fanfare, Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe paid a state visit on 9–11 October. Namibia’s friendship with Cuba was recognised in a donation of wild animals to the latter’s national zoo. A first freight plane left for Havana in mid-November. While the government remained tight-lipped over the operation, the cost of the gift was estimated at around $ 30 m. Bilateral relations with Germany remained strained over the colonial legacy. The 100th anniversary celebrations of the equestrian monument erected in memory of German soldiers killed fighting the local population took place at end of January in the presence of apologetic colonial delegates from Germany. The minister of information, speaking for the government, criticised this as insensitive provocation. It coincided with the official visit of Walter Lindner, Director General of African Affairs in the German Foreign Office, on 1–3 February for high-level meetings. He confirmed the reactivation of a special initiative, which earmarked € 20 m for projects to the benefit of historically affected communities. Since independence, Germany had allocated some € 700 m in bilateral aid. Lindner visited Namibia again on 14–15 May, without matters being resolved. The Ger- man ambassador to Namibia, Egon Kochanke, replaced Lindner in Berlin from August. Relations with the EU improved through an addendum to the 10th European Develop- ment Fund country strategy signed on 12 March. It added € 26.6 m (N$ 260 m) to top up the granted €131.5 m in recognition of the well administered funds to achieve three of the MDGs concerning water and sanitation, maternal and child mortality. At a EU-Namibia Political Dialogue held on 7 March with a special focus on the EPA the EU’s local head Namibia • 501 of delegation stressed the role of the union and its member states as by far biggest donors. Namibia’s foreign minister at the same occasion warned against restrictions planned for the export of beef, dessert grapes and fish to the EU market if the EPA was not signed. Europe receives 30% of Namibia’s exports and is its largest market outside the region. At the 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of ACP countries in Malabo, Equato- rial Guinea, in mid-December, newly appointed Prime Minister Hage Geingob and his successor at the trade ministry, Calle Schlettwein, reiterated their determination not to sign an EPA that limited development to trade without adding value to raw materials before export. The deputy minister for trade and industry declared at a business forum with a Chinese delegation on 6 March that China was an alternative market. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi visited Namibia on 5–6 January. He signed another technical cooperation agreement for N$ 26 m (20 m yuan). Jiechi described Namibia as an “all-weather friend”, but advised the adoption of an omni-directional policy – or relations with the East, the West, and any other regional configuration – while reiterating that China was there to stay. On 26 March, Theo Ben Gurirab, former foreign minister and prime minister, now speaker of the national assembly, addressed a delegation of Chinese MPs headed by the vice chairperson of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, Hua Jiamin. He strongly criticised Western military and economic hegemony and warned that “military intervention and regime change have replaced dialogue and peaceful co-existence”. Dur- ing a three-day visit, Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Hui Lianghui signed another five cooperation agreements on 2 April. On 15 March, the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was launched at Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi. The world’s largest trans-frontier conservation area is situated within the Kavango and Zambezi River basins and spans over 444,000 km2.

Socioeconomic Developments

With beginning of the year, Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating outlook from “positive” to “stable”, as a result of the greater-than-expected impact of the government’s increased spending plan on Namibia’s public debt, set to double to 33% of GDP by 2013/14. In early April, it was disclosed that the latest corruption perception report by the Anti- Corruption Commission (ACC) showed that more than half of all Namibians interviewed in all 13 regions of the country considered the level of corruption as very high. The ACC also confirmed on 4 April that it had investigated bribery allegations in connection with the big Neckartal dam tender. The bidding process for the project, valued at more than N$ 2 bn, was put on hold due to assumed malpractices. A survey by the local Institute for Public Policy Research warned in June of a high level of government corruption at local and regional levels, which was not being adequately dealt with by law enforcement 502 • Southern Africa initiatives and the ACC. A report released on 17 December by Global Financial Integrity on illicit financial flows from developing countries between 2001 and 2010 estimated there to be an average annual transfer of around $ 420 m (about N$ 3.6 bn) in ‘dirty money’. On 28 February, Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila presented the annual budget for 2012/13. It emphasised fiscal discipline, despite another increase of N$ 2.5 bn (8%). The estimate of revenues of N$ 35.4 bn (34.6% of GDP) – an increase of 32% – was based on an anticipated previously unpredicted surge in revenue from the SACU pool from N$ 7.1 bn to N$ 13.9 bn. Total estimated expenditure increased from N$ 37.7 bn for 2011/12 to N$ 40.2 bn (39.2% of GDP), with a budget deficit of 4.6% of GDP. The total debt was calculated at N$ 28.3 bn or 27.7% of GDP. The operational budget accounted for 77% of expenditure and the development budget for 17%, with 6% spent on statutory payments (i.e. servicing debt). The highest allocations were again for education (N$ 9.4 bn or 23.4%), followed by health and social services with close to N$ 4 bn (9.9%). Observers criticised the modest increase of state pensions by N$ 50 to N$ 550. Taxes on alcohol and tobacco were raised by between 5% and 20%. Opposition parties bemoaned the continued bail out of parastatals, such as the national airline and the national radio and television broadcaster, which produced notorious deficits. Another matter of concern was the budgetary increase for the security apparatus (military, police, intelligence). The budget also revealed estimated increases for subsistence and travel allowances for civil servants from 2010/11 to 2014/15 by 54% to N$ 1.7 bn. The IMF country report released in mid-February urged the government to create sound fiscal buffers and to reign in its spending as a protective measure against global economic shocks. It expressed concern about the plunging of international reserves, standing at $ 1.4 bn at the end of 2011compared with $ 1.9 bn at the end of 2009. The 2012 Article IV Consultation Mission visited Windhoek from 29 October to 9 November. It adjusted its prognosis to 4% economic growth for the year and recommended policies to counteract the negative impact of inequality by targeted investment in health and education. Figures released by the Bank of Namibia on 13 December for the third quarter of the year indicated poor performances in all economic sectors except mining, construction, transport and communications. The targeted annual economic growth rate of 4.6% became unrealistic. A best-case scenario suggested anything between 3% and 3.5%. The fishing industry continued to struggle. Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Bernhard Esau complained at the end of February about the “bail out” attitude by fishing companies, who assumed that the government needed to secure employment by compensating for the limited allowed catches and increased costs and setting higher fishing quotas. He maintained that this attitude defeated the purpose of proper fish management and put sustainable development at risk. Tourism suffered from the global financial crisis with an 11.2% decline in European visitors in 2011 compared with 2010. Over 75% of the more than a million foreign arrivals came from other African countries (a third of all for- Namibia • 503 eign visitors were from Angola). Agriculture showed mixed results. The export of seed- less dessert grapes mainly to the UK and the Far and Middle East markets was expected to decline from a record of 4.7 m cartons (of 4.5 kg each) in 2011 to 3.5 m as a result of a cold winter. In contrast, cereal production increased by 42% from 117,000 tonnes in 2011 to 166,000 tonnes. Uncertainty caused by the volatility of the exchange rate, the Euro crisis and a slow-down in demand from India and China, as well as a general liquidity shortage on financial markets, affected thediamond industry. Total sales by local cutting and polishing companies stood at about N$ 1.5 bn (from N$ 1.6 bn in 2011). Namdeb Holdings produced about 1.6 m carats, of which some 40% were processed locally. Mining operations remained the economic backbone, despite the French multinational Areva’s decision to postpone the launch of the Trekkopje uranium mine due to a decline in world market prices. Trekkopje was expected to become the largest uranium mine in Southern Africa. Operations by a joint venture with Chinese partners started construction of the N$ 12 bn uranium mine at Husab near Swakopmund towards the end of the year. Husab is the third largest known uranium deposit in the world, with a production potential of 15 m pounds of uranium oxide per year. Once operational, the country would rank as the world’s second largest producer. Chinese investments were also announced for the Omitiomire copper mine deposit 120 km north-east of Windhoek. Plans to develop the Gecko industrial park with a phosphate mine, a harbour, sulfuric and phosphoric acid, soda ash and bicarbonate plants, a coal-fired power station, a desalination plant and further heavy industry, in the Dorob National Park near Swakopmund, stirred vehement local protest. Plans to invest N$ 13 bn in a chemo-industrial complex in a highly sensitive environment provoked concerns about potential damage, and fear of negative impacts on tourism and fishing. The public energy utility NamPower announced on 30 March a critical supply period for electricity due to power supply problems from South Africa’s Eskom and the end of a power purchase agreement with the Zimbabwean power utility Zesa in 2013. A supply deficit of 80 MW was anticipated for the forthcoming winter period, expected to grow to 150 MW by the end of 2013 and to 300 MW by 2015. It was announced in August that a coal-fired power station at an investment cost of between N$ 4–7 bn would be fast- tracked, while the potential exploration of the Kudu gas power project off the coast at an estimated cost of N$ 9 bn was shelved. In July, discoveries of large water reserves in the northern part of Namibia made headlines. According to a geo-hydrological survey of the Etosha-Cuvelai basin, an estimated 5 bn m3 of groundwater existed at a depth of some 280–350 m. It was projected to be able to supply fresh water to the region (which is home to some 40% of the country’s population) for an estimated 400 years. Preliminary demographic results of the 2011 National Housing and Population Census released on 11 April by the National Planning Commission indicated an annual average population growth since 2001 of 1.5% from 1.8 m to 2.1 m people. This was considered 504 • Southern Africa manageable in relation to an annual average economic growth of 4.7% during the same period. Fifty-one per cent of Namibians were female, and 58% lived in rural areas. The reliability of the data was another matter: the most densely populated area, which includes the capital, Windhoek, was the Khomas region, with 340,900 people, but estimates provided earlier by the city’s municipal council had suggested that the number of residents in the capital alone exceeded 400,000. On World Malaria Day (25 April), the health minister reported that malaria cases and related deaths had fallen between 2001 (624,384 reported cases with 1,681 deaths) and 2011 (15,905 cases with 10 deaths reported) by 97% and 98% respectively. Data on HIV/ AIDS also indicated a decline. According to an update released by the Ministry of Health on 13 December, the infection rate had fallen from 18.8% in 2010 to 18.2%. The most positive trend was among the 15–24 age group, where it had fallen from 14.2% in 2006 to 8.9%. The global report released by UNAIDS in November indicated that the number of new local infections had fallen by more than 50% since 2001. Some 107,000 people received antiretroviral therapy. However, the Global Fund, as main funder of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programmes, announced as a result of an audit report released on 2 October that about N$ 14.85 m of released funds should be recovered due to unaccounted or unapproved spending. The Fund had granted in total $ 200 m (N$ 1.8 bn) by 2011, of which N$ 1.3 bn had been disbursed. Unemployment, announced to be 51.2% in 2011 and contested since then, was scru- tinised by a team from the World Bank at the request of the Namibian authorities. Their findings, presented on 20 February, did not deviate significantly from the official survey results, with a broad unemployment rate estimated at 45.5%–48.8% and 30.5%–34.1% on a stricter definition of unemployment. In contrast, an independent local report presented in early June stressed that the figures remained too high. Surprisingly, the finance minister declared at the SPYL congress during the first weekend of September that the Targeted Intervention Programme for Employment and Economic Growth, announced in 2011 with much fanfare, would serve to stimulate business first and job creation only as a secondary consideration. The Labour Amendment Act of 2012 was gazetted on 12 April. Its regulations limited the controversial labour hire regulations. In his May Day speech, Pohamba urged the Ministry of Labour to implement the law effectively in order to protect casual workers, estimated by the employers’ federation to number 16,000. Labour hire companies complained that job losses were inevitable. It was reported in August that an estimated 80% of those in temporary employment through labour hire companies no longer had work or income. In early February, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Social Wel- fare disclosed figures from 2008, according to which almost half the population were living in poverty. Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics maintained that 27.4% of the country’s population were classified as poor, with monthly income below N$ 265, Namibia • 505 while 22.6% were considered as severely poor, with monthly income below N$ 184. Data released by the Namibia Statistics Agency in November suggested a decline in the overall gap between rich and poor between 1993 and 2010, while deep pockets of absolute poverty remained, with the rural population, women and the elderly as the most vulnerable. Kavango was the poorest region, while Erongo was best off. The Caprivi and Khomas regions recorded an increase in poverty. The Gini-coefficient (measuring income discrepancies) remained among the highest in the world at about 0.6. A FAO report on the state of food insecurity in the world, released on 9 October, disclosed that almost 34% of all Namibians were chronically hungry – significantly more than the global average of 12.5% and higher than the average in Africa (22.9%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (26.8%). Undernourishment had increased since the turn of the century (then at 24.9%). In contrast, Health Minister Richard Kamwi confirmed in parliament on 23 October that almost half of the MPs were either overweight or obese. During November, teachers and other civil servants went on strike for salary increases. A rise of 8% was finally conceded after tough negotiations and prolonged absences from work. Public service salary increases amounted to some N$ 320 m and left a financial gap in the annual budget. The Public Office Bearers’ Remuneration and Benefits Commis- sion made its report public on 18 December. It urged the president to increase salaries for the highest-ranking public/political office holders by an average of over 30% and in some cases up to 80%, which caused public uproar. The National Agenda for Children 2012–2016 was launched in mid-June. Prime Minis- ter Nahas Angula revealed that almost a third of children under five were stunted or small for their age because of malnutrition. On 7 August, the Ministry of Health and Social Services disclosed that 10% of newborns were fed plain water during the first two months, only one third of the population had access to improved sanitation facilities and almost a quarter of deaths of children under five were related to diarrhoea-type diseases. With an estimated 1.3 m people without proper toilet facilities, Namibia had one of the lowest levels of sanitation coverage in the sub-region. On 13 August, Pohamba constituted the first-ever presidential commission of enquiry to investigate the state of public health services resulting response to the increase in the number of deaths of babies, mothers and other patients in hospitals. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, assessed the living conditions of minority groups during a one-week visit in September. He diagnosed a lack of coherent government policies that assigned positive values to the identities and practices of indigenous people. In early October, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Magdalena Sepúlveda, visited for an eight-day fact-finding mission. Her preliminary report concluded that progress in poverty reduction had been slow.

Henning Melber

South Africa

This was a significant year for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and marked 100 years since its founding. The ‘centenary flame’ was lit at the stroke of midnight on 31 December and became the symbol of a series of anniversary events that were hosted across the country throughout the year. The regular anniversary celebrations on 8 January became centenary celebrations, and the commemoration events culminated in the flame making its final journey to the Party’s Elective Conference at Mangaung (Free State) in December. While the ANC was buoyed by its historic relevance as one of the oldest political movements on the continent, the domestic situation remained fragile as a result of uncertainty in the economy, poor service delivery, and a state that appeared to be increasingly unresponsive and unaccountable to its electorate. In the area of foreign policy, South Africa continued to assert itself as the African voice in global affairs while at the same time seeking to strengthen its position in the AU.

Domestic Affairs

President Jacob Zuma delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address to the joint houses of parliament on 9 February on “The Knowledge Economy and Development”. The speech was designed to appease both business and labour by putting its primary emphasis 508 • Southern Africa on the rollout of an intensive infrastructure programme intended to drive job creation and skills development. Aligned to the infrastructure project was the announcement of several strategic government investment plans that the president identified as strengthening the country’s industrialisation path. They included a R 300 bn investment in capital projects by Transnet, of which R 200 bn were allocated to railway infrastructural projects and the rest to the improvement of ports. Plans included the expansion of the rail network in Mpu- malanga and Limpopo provinces to take transportation of coal off the roads and onto rail. Spending of R 300 m was announced for the building of two new universities in Mpuma- langa and Northern Cape. The establishment of a R 1 bn fund to promote access to home loans was announced for April, which provided for a subsidy of R 83,000 per applicant to help low-income earners to qualify for home loans. The phased development of an export channel for 16 m tonnes of manganese a year through the Port of Ngqura in Nelson Man- dela Bay was also promised. Nevertheless, the speech did little to inspire confidence as a roadmap for renewing the industrial development path of the country. Lindiwe Mazibuko, the parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition party, criticised the address as being designed to put a positive gloss on government performance with the intention of appeasing the governing party’s alliance ahead of the Mangaung Elective conference in December. She said the president “appeared to be out of touch with reality”. Other opposition parties echoed these senti- ments, although the ‘Mail and Guardian’ weekly newspaper reported that opposition parties were not entirely acerbic in their criticism. While opposition parties were quick to point out that the government had failed to deliver on its promises made in the 2011 State of the Nation address, the government adopted the National Development Plan (NDP) as the central feature of the state’s 2030 vision. However, the NDP remained a contentious roadmap and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), opposed what they interpreted as a market-aligned and neo-liberal vision. Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan delivered the annual budget speech on 22 Feb- ruary. It was a cautious budget, given that the growth forecasts were below 3%. At the same time, Gordhan warned public servants against excessive and wasteful public sector expenditure. Emphasising that it was taxpayers’ money that drove the state budget, he was emphatic that reckless spending would not be tolerated. Nevertheless, corruption and lack of transparency in the public sector procurement process continued to remain a blight on the country’s landscape and led to a number of investigations initiated by the Office of the Public Protector. While Public Protector Thuli Madonsela remained committed to carrying out the duties mandated to her by the Chapter Nine Institutions of the Constitution, the ruling party and its ally, the South African Com- munist Party (SACP), accused her of being biased against the ANC and embarrassing the government. This followed a report related to a R 1 bn fraud in which the Public Protector found Police Commissioner Bheki Cele and Public Works Minister Gwen-Mahlangu- Nkabinde guilty of misconduct. In October, accusations against the Public Protector South Africa • 509 took a serious turn when allegations against her were sent to parliament in an anonymous letter. This time, the ANC-dominated National Assembly called for the case against the Public Protector to be investigated. On 12 June, following a special meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC, the president announced his third cabinet reshuffle since taking office in 2009. It was necessitated by the creation of three vacancies by the death on 5 May of Roy Padayachie, the resignation of Enoch Godongwana (deputy minister of economic development) and Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu’s move from the Ministry of Public Works to the Ministry of Women, Children and Disabilities. The reshuffle also saw Lindiwe Sisulu move from the powerful defence portfolio to public service and administration, where she replaced Roy Padayachie. Nosiwe Mapisa-Nqakula moved from correctional services to the Ministry of Defence, while Ben Martins, a former ANC MP and deputy minister for public enterprises, become minister for transport. Some saw the cabinet shuffle as a way for Zuma to strengthen his hand in the lead-up to the Elective Conference in December, since it enabled him to move key supporters within the ANC to vacant cabinet positions without necessarily firing anyone. The shock resignation of Enoch Godongwana took place against the backdrop of an inquiry into the disappearance of millions of rands from the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union pension fund. Godongwana’s connection to the multi-rand scandal was that his wife, Thandiwe Godongwana, was a director of the Canyon Springs company, which borrowed R 93 m from Trilinear Capital, which, in turn, managed the union’s pension fund. Three companies (Pan African Benefits Services, Iboma Call Centre and Iboma Properties) in which Godongwana had business interests had been recipients of R 27 m in loans from Canyon Springs. Even though Gondongwana maintained that he had resigned from the three companies upon joining the Zuma cabinet, he and his wife had already appeared before an inquiry in 2011 and were scheduled to do so again on 27 Janu- ary, only eight days after the deputy minister announced his resignation. Moreover there was also pressure on Zuma to respond to other cases of misappropriation of public funds, including the billion rand leasing scam in the Police Department in which Police Commissioner Bheki Cele was implicated. In addition, the public backlash led by COSATU over the Gauteng road toll saga caused embarrassment for the Presidency. The original plans to introduce new road tolls in Gauteng, especially on the highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg, had to be shelved because of protests by the public and even from within the ranks of the tripartite government alliance. As a consequence of the way Minister of Transport S’bu Ndebele handled the implementation of the tolls, and his failure, according to the ANC, to update the government on developments. Ndebele was shifted to the Ministry of Correctional Services and Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin, who had been tasked with selling the tolls project to the public, became deputy minister of public works. Some commentators saw this as related to Cronin’s being compromised in his duties since his party, the SACP, was outspokenly critical of the tolls. 510 • Southern Africa

The reshuffle also saw the appointment of Manwashi Phiyega as police commissioner in place of Bheki Cele. The cabinet reshuffle and the NEC meeting also opened up debate around the controversy over Julius Malema. A significant move was the appointment of Mduduzi Manana, an MP and member of the executive committee of the ANC Youth League ANCYL), who, when he was deputy minister of higher education, had been an outspoken opponent of Malema. On 2 April, the ANC’s National Disciplinary Committee, chaired by Derek Hanekom, had announced the suspension of Malema’s membership of the ANC with immediate effect in accordance with Rule 25.12(c) of the ANC Constitution. The suspension followed Malema’s verbal attack on the president, in which he had accused Zuma of being a dictator and of suppressing the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). Malema’s suspension was seen in political circles as a strategic move by President Zuma to neutralise any populism that would undermine the Elective Conference in December and threaten Zuma’s chance of re-election. Political analyst Professor Susan Booysen observed that the timing of this suspension suggested that there was “a strategy to take him out”, while other analysts, such as Eusebius McKaiser, saw it as a strategic move by Zuma to freeze out party members such as Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Sports Minister Fikile Mbabula. Mbalula and ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa, who were suspected of being staunch allies of Malema, could have gained from the latter’s populist support. Following his suspension, Malema’s woes continued to escalate with his financial interests coming under the spotlight. Both the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the ‘Hawks’) and the South African Receiver of Revenue (SARS) initiated investigations into Malema’s finances. In September the Hawks believed that the fraud and corruption investigation would result in charges levelled against Malema while SARS were confident of their tax evasion case against him. In December, Malema, suspended secretary-general of the ANCYL Sindiso Magaqa and suspended ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu wrote a letter to the 53rd ANC National Elective Conference asking that their membership of the ANC be reinstated and that they be restored to their positions in the ANCYL. The letter received a lukewarm response by the party’s top leadership. From 26–29 June, the ANC hosted its 4th National Policy Conference at Gallagher Estate, Midrand. It focused on organisational renewal within the context of the second transition. During his opening address, President Zuma noted that the time had come “to do something more drastic to accelerate change, towards economic transformation and freedom”. The message was clear that the next decade of South Africa’s post-apartheid period should be characterised by a “radical shift towards economic and social transformation” and that a militant programme of action was needed to address the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment. The 13 policy discussion documents debated at the conference all had the aforementioned challenges as their underlying focus, with a view to producing a roadmap for the country after 2014, aligned to what many interpreted South Africa • 511 as Zuma’s second presidential term as leader of both the party and the state. Comment- ing in the ‘Daily Maverick’, Ranjeni Munsamy argued that the Policy Conference was an “illusion of change, to ensure more of the same”. She went on to say that, while Zuma may have struck the right note around the need for the second transition to deal with the country’s socio-economic difficulties, in effect he failed to provide convincing specific details of how the drastic and radical change would be defined and implemented. The problem seemed to be partly that the president blamed the country’s apartheid past, without reflecting on his own party’s performance during its 18 years in power. It was clear from the Policy Conference that the role of an active state would be critical in implementing the policy recommendations. For analysts, critics and commentators, the significant question was whether the country needed to continue being a developing state or to pursue the course of a capable state. A key issue to emerge from the Policy Confer- ence was the burning question of the possible nationalisation of mines. The debate was deferred to the Elective Conference in December. In fact, the Policy Conference in many ways prefaced the Elective Conference by producing the recommendations that were to become the adopted Manguang Resolutions. On 10 August, a wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana, close to Rustenburg in Gauteng Province, was initiated by rock drillers demanding a pay rise, and the strike escalated into tensions between members of the National Union of Mineworkers and members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union. As the strike intensified and led to violent conflicts, police were called in to defuse the tension but the situation deteriorated and, on 16 August, police opened fire on striking workers, resulting in the death of 34 protesters and injuries to many others. The incident rocked the country and captured the attention of the international community. Accusations emerged that the police were acting on the orders of Lonmin executives to resolve the crisis expediently. Cyril Ramaphosa, a trade unionist turned business tycoon, was criticised for complicity in what became known as the Marikana massacre, given his position on the Lonmin’s board. Marikana exemplified the need, set out in President Zuma’s opening address at the Policy Conference, for a dramatic response to the growing levels of discontent and rising anger regarding poverty and inequality. But Marikana was not just a mining issue. It sent shockwaves across the country not only because of its parallels with the Sharpville Massacre but also as an example of what was becoming the increasing class struggle arising from the way the political transition had been negotiated without an accompanying economic transition. Marikana also saw opponents of Zuma using the incident to criticise his administration and an opportunity to present their response to the crisis. Julius Malema, for example, was quick to pounce and argued that the government had failed to intervene in the mines “because our leaders are involved and benefitting with white people”. The president appointed the Farlam Commission of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances in which the mineworkers had met their deaths. 512 • Southern Africa

On 27 August, a farm workers’ strike erupted in the De Doorns area, in the Western Cape. The strike, organised by mostly female workers was prompted by poor living conditions, pitiable wages and extensive abuse on the farms. It was suggested that the Marikana mine workers’ strike had spread by contagion. The farm workers’ strike had serious political undertones. The Western Cape was controlled by the opposition DA and the provincial branch of the ANC used the opportunity to accuse the DA of poor governance. COSATU’s leader in the Western Cape, Tony Ehrenreich, was quick to point out in an official statement that the cat was out of the bag in the Western Cape, since “workers now know that the DA supports the farmers’ oppression”. He maintained that workers rejected the DA, which as a result had lost the election in the West Coast and would continue to lose political support. The farm workers strike was called off in December, but the politicisation of protest could not be ignored, given that the 2014 election was not far off. In September the 11th COSATU Congress took place. The ‘Mail and Guardian’ noted that the Congress could be viewed as a mini-Mangaung since one of the critical issues to be discussed was whether or not to support Jacob Zuma for re-election as ANC president. At the same time, the trade union federation was grappling with its own internal struggles between various camps, each fielding candidates for the positions of party president and general secretary, held by Sdumo Dlamini and Zwelinzima Vavi, respectively. Despite the deep divisions within the federation, the congress voted unanimously for Dlamini and Vavi to retain their positions, but this was not to suggest that Vavi’s outspoken criticisms of the Zuma administration went unnoticed, especially when he warned that the ANC would lose power if it was not careful. Zuma was endorsed as candidate to stand for a second term, despite the impact of Marikana. Political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi interpreted the re-election of COSATU’s top leadership and the support for Zuma’s second term as intertwined since COSATU had to demonstrate a united front that represented continuity. While COSATU had to deal with its internal struggles, the ANC’s other tripartite alliance partner, the SACP, was more coherent in its support for Zuma’s second term ambitions. At the 13th SACP Congress, Blade Nzimande was re-elected as party leader. It was clear from the congress that the SACP wanted to see a more state driven economy in line with its socialist thinking, as well as greater representation of its interests in government through the appointment of its top leaders to key ministries. Nevertheless, as Sipho Hlongwane remarked in the ‘Daily Maverick’, the SACP needed to get Zuma re-elected. They could not take the chance that he might be replaced by a leader who would be openly distrustful of the SACP party programme. “In the greater scheme of things,” he commented, “almost nothing else matters as much as that.” From 16 to 20 December, the ANC held its 53rd Elective Conference in Mangaung (Bloemfontein), in the Free State, where both the ANC and the National Party were originally founded. On the eve of the conference, the South African police were said to have foiled a bomb plot by suspected right-wing extremists targeting the ANC leadership. In the months leading up to the conference, there was widespread speculation that ANC South Africa • 513

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe might be contemplating running against Zuma; policies were marred by infighting threatening the ANC at the branch and provincial levels and factional politics threatening to derail the party. The top six party leadership positions became the focus for how Mangaung would play out between the Zuma faction and the Motlanthe group. While this was not a hotly contested debate, the road to the conference reflected that the party had become more diffuse since the 52nd Elective Conference in Polokwane in 2007. Speculation also emerged that Tokyo Sexwale, Fikile Mbabula, Paul Matshatile and Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale, all senior figures in the ANC and government were in opposition to Zuma and attempting to gather support to oppose the Zuma faction. Eric Naki, editor of the ‘New Age’ newspaper summed it up: “Mangaung will be about the survival of the fittest.” Almost at the eleventh hour Motlanthe declared his intention to run for the party presidency. His running mates were Mathews Phosa (running for deputy president), Thandi Modise (national chairperson), Paul Mashatile (national treasurer) and Fikile Mbabula (secretary-general). But Mangaung was not without its surprises. The first was the announcement by Motlanthe that he would not stand for the deputy president position, and the second was the nomination of Cyril Ramaphosa for that position in the Zuma camp. As predicted the Motlanthe challenge was staved off and Zuma won by a large margin. The top six leadership positions were filled as follows: Jacob Zuma (president), Cyril Ramaphosa (deputy president), Gwede Mantashe (secretary-general), Baleke Mbete (national chairperson), Jesse Duartes (deputy secretary-general), and Zweli Mkhize (national treasurer). Commenting on the outcome of the conference, political analyst Ste- ven Friedman noted that Mangaung’s real import was “that the nationalists took on their opponents and lost badly”, since they secured only a quarter of the votes and no longer had a candidate for president.

Foreign Affairs

South Africa continued with the second (and final) year of its non permanent seat on the UNSC. It took up its one-month presidency in January and actively pursued closer alignment between the UNSC and the AU Peace and Security Council. One outcome of South Africa’s two years on the UNSC was Resolution 2033, which laid out a framework for further cooperation between the regional body and the UNSC. The country’s former ambassador to the UN, Basu Sangqu, reflected on the two-year tenure, which ended December, by saying that Pretoria had contributed “to shaping what needs to be done” in promoting the concept of “African solutions to African problems”. In January, South Africa began to become engaged in the contest for the position of Chair of the African Union Commission (AUC). The nomination of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the Southern African candidate provoked criticisms because there had 514 • Southern Africa been a gentlemen’s agreement amongst the big five African countries that they would not field candidates so that the institution would not be dominated by bigger states. Not surprisingly, Dlamini-Zuma’s nomination therefore met with mixed reactions. For one thing, it was interpreted as an attempt by Pretoria to gain greater prominence and leverage within the AUC; at another level, it was viewed as a way to counter France’s influence amongst its former colonies. The outcome of the election at the AU Summit towards the end of January in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) was a stalemate between the incumbent, Jean Ping and Dlamini-Zuma and it was decided that there would be a rerun at the next AU Summit in June/July. South Africa then embarked on an aggressive campaign to garner support for Dlamini-Zuma as the Southern African candidate. With the backing of SADC, led by Angola as chair of the Secretariat, the region pursued an offensive strategy that deployed delegations to lobby for Dlamini-Zuma. The second run-off took place in July. No winner emerged in the first two rounds, but in the third, Dlamini-Zuma secured a convincing win to become the first female Chairperson of the AUC. But the victory was bitter-sweet. A report in the ‘Southern Times’ newspaper highlighted that her election reflected Pretoria’s ambitions to carve out a bigger role for itself in the continent. Other commentators were quick to point out that the odds at the July Summit had been stacked in Dlamini-Zuma’s favour; Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan had not attended and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles was ill. Ultimately, the implications of Dlamini-Zuma’s election were viewed with cautious optimism. In March, South Africa participated in the 4th BRICS Heads of State Summit in New Delhi (India). This was Pretoria’s second attendance at the Summit since it was officially invited by China in December 2010 on the grounds that South African participation would be significant in advancing the African agenda and pushing for greater support for the continent’s infrastructure needs and industrialisation initiatives. In June, South Africa attended the G20 Summit hosted by Mexico. Being the only African member of the group, South Africa sought to use the Mexico gathering as a way to effect progress towards reform of the international economic structure and increasing the influence and representation of the developing world, especially African countries, in global economic and financial governance architecture. On the sidelines of the G20 meeting, Pretoria together with its BRIC partners announced that it would be contributing $ 2 bn of its reserves to the IMF firefall fund. This was meagre in comparison with the contributions of the other BRIC countries: China contributed the lion’s share with $ 43 bn, followed by Russia, Brazil and India, committing $ 10 bn each. The contribution provoked a political backlash at home. At the centre of the criticisms was the fact that South Africa was providing funds to the IMF, which would in turn be used to assist Europe with its currency crisis. President Zuma defended the decision by arguing that a collapse in Europe would touch everyone, and that “just like the depression and the 2008 financial crisis, there was no country that was not affected”. The president went on to say that South Africa had lost a million jobs, and so Europe, as its biggest trad- South Africa • 515 ing partner, could not be allowed to collapse. He emphasised that the money was invested in an institution to empower it. But this did little to counteract the criticisms, especially by COSATU. Its spokesperson Patrick Craven said in an interview on the Moneyweb website that South Africa was one of the most depressed economies in the world with massive levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality and should therefore be a beneficiary rather than a contributor to the fund. COSATU urged the government to reverse the decision and use the $ 2 bn to “alleviate the plight of the poorest in South Africa” and to invest in the restructuring of the economy. Economist Chris Hart perhaps best captured the essence of why the issue raised tensions. As he explained, the government was technically only pledging a portion of its foreign exchange reserves, which still belonged to South Africa. “But, in practice,” as he cautioned, “the IMF will use it to aid the Europeans and this will be a permanent loan.” The mixed reactions made it clear that the South African citizenry were not sufficiently knowledgeable about the details of the contribution. At the same time, COSATU’s objections highlighted the way it tried to shape and influence not only domestic politics but also Pretoria’s behaviour at the international level. In August, the 32nd Session of the SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government took place in Mozambique. As SADC Facilitator on Zimbabwe, President Zuma presented his report, which noted the progress in the implementation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) while urging stakeholders to work together, particularly with regard to the constitution-making process, which was about to be concluded. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the SADC Summit was the fatal blow that the heads of state dealt to the SADC Tribunal. The decision to shut down the Tribunal was viewed as a backward step for the rule of law and human rights remedies in the region. Nicole Fritz, the executive director of the Southern African Litigation Centre, a think tank based in Johannesburg, condemned it as flying “in the face of the recommendations of both the SADC instituted review of the Tribunal and SADC’s own Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General”. She said that it was completely at odds with the best practice of other regional institutions and undermined the protection of human rights and hopes for future economic growth and development. The fact that SADC leaders themselves had taken this decision laid them open to accusations of contempt for the rule of law. But it was South Africa’s silence that caused a stir. The former judge president of the Tribunal, Ariranga Pillay, told a forum in Pretoria that the South African leadership could have played a more constructive role by using its power as SADC’s largest state and its “moral authority” to prevent the Tribunal from being emasculated. The debacle surrounding the SADC Tribu- nal mirrored South Africa’s own domestic challenges regarding the independence of the judiciary and attempts to reconcile tradition with the characteristics of a modern state. In September, President Zuma attended the High Level Meeting of the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It was ironic that the meeting also focused on promoting the rule of law, considering the decision of the SADC Sum- mit a month earlier to disband the SADC Tribunal. During the session, Zuma delivered 516 • Southern Africa an address on the rule of law at the national and international levels, emphasising that it was an integral concept of the work of the UNSC and highlighting that the rule of law needed to be applied uniformly and without prejudice. He maintained that South Africa’s overall goal was to gain fair and equitable representation for Africa and emphasised that the current configuration of the UNSC was unfair, since it did not reflect the contempo- rary geo-political realities, especially with respect to Africa. He said that adherence to the international rule of law would therefore continue “to elude us as long as the organ with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security is unrepresentative and undemocratic”. He also questioned whether UNSC decisions themselves were fair and concluded: “We have seen both inspiring improvements and spectacular disappointments in the promotion of the rule of law through the Council’s work.” Also in September, Zuma led a delegation to the 5th EU-South Africa Summit in Brussels (Belgium). The EU’s position as Pretoria’s main trading partner meant that the Summit held special significance in terms of the focus of the discussions around implementation of the South Africa-EU strategic partnership, and key issues such as the global economic situation, climate change, trade, development cooperation and peace and security issues in Africa and the Middle East. The Summit produced a communiqué that emphasised, amongst other things, continued support in the areas of peace and security, strengthened collaboration in the G20 towards the recovery of the global economy, finalisation of the EU-SADC EPA, consolidation of the partnership to stimulate growth and employment under the Trade Development Cooperation Agreement and enhancement of a people’s partnership. One of the significant outcomes from the Summit was the launch of the EU-South Africa Business Council. Throughout 2012, there were constant discussions around the launch of the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA) to replace the African Renais- sance Fund. SADPA would become Pretoria’s official national development agency to promote South Africa as a development partner with its primary focus in Africa and to strengthen South-South cooperation. For SADPA to become the country’s official development agency, the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund Act had to be repealed and replaced by the SADPA Fund. SADPA was to have been launched in April 2012, but by year’s end there was no word of when it would become operational. In October, the ANC hosted its 3rd International Solidarity Conference. It drew on the mandate of the Party’s 52nd National Elective Conference in Polokwane, Limpopo Province, in 2007, which had resolved, among other things, that the ANC embarked on a programme to strengthen the progressive movement in Africa and formalise “relations with the global progressive movement in particular Latin America and East Asia”. It had tasked the National Elective Conference with providing material resources and a location for a first meeting of progressive parties/movements in Africa, “with a view to holding an international meeting of all progressive parties/movements in the world before the next conference of the ANC”. The outcome of the conference was to be expected: the ANC South Africa • 517 reaffirmed that its commitment to international solidarity was aligned to the Freedom Charter and that the party was maintaining its continual struggle against imperialism and for an independent Africa, free from its linkages to former colonial powers. In September, Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti appealed to South Africa for financial assistance for Zimbabwe in the form of a R 1 bn loan, in light of the country’s dire financial straits. Most observers saw the appeal as controversial, given Zimbabwe’s poor political governance and human rights record. Some commentators pointed out that the loan could increase Pretoria’s influence in pushing for greater democratic reforms and constitute a test of South Africa’s ability to use its leverage as an aid giver for enforcing good governance. However, other analysts felt that, given South Africa’s engagement in the GPA, agreeing to the loan could actually undermine Zuma’s credibility as the SADC envoy and negotiator for an amicable solution to the Zimbabwean issue.

Socioeconomic Developments

In the final months of the year, South Africa’s unemployment rate was above 25%. The economy suffered as a result of labour unrest and the social protests. There were 11,000 social protests across the country sparked by poor service delivery caused by gross negligence and an unresponsive local government. Other factors that affected the economy included the recession in Europe, which was the country’s largest trading partner. The Marikana crisis also threatened investor confidence, which was restored somewhat at the National Elective Conference in December, where the ANC tried to quell investor fears about the nationalisation of mines. Inflation stayed within the South African Reserve Bank’s 3%–6% target range. The Reserve Bank cut the repo rate by 50 basis points. The government’s national debt increased by 39% of GDP and the public sector wage bill rose. During the year, GDP rose by 2.5%, partly due to a last quarter recovery in manufacturing, financial and business services and agriculture. The impact of the industrial action on the mining sector, especially around production days, lost saw output fall by 3.1%. As strike action spread to other segments of the mining industry, including gold, iron ore and coal, output levels were compromised and export volumes tumbled, leading to poor export earnings. Manufacturing was also under strain, but growth in value added activities in the manufacturing sector accelerated to 5% in the fourth quarter (1.2% in the previous quarter), taking average sectoral growth to 2.4% over the year. On the FDI front, there was a substantial turnaround resulting in an estimated 10.3% growth in net inflows during the year. South Africa outperformed the rest of the African continent, for which estimates indicated a 4.8% increase in FDI. At the same time, South Africa remained a significant investor in continental markets. Rating agencies lost some confidence in the country’s economic strength and reliability. In September, Moody’s Credit Rating Agency downgraded the country’s rating by one level to Baa1, causing a knock to investor confidence. Moody’s cited as reasons for the 518 • Southern Africa downgrade lack of policy coherence and the inability of the Zuma government to address the political and economic challenges. In October, the international rating agency Stan- dard and Poor’s (S&P) lowered the country’s long-term foreign currency sovereign credit rating from BBB+ to BBB and the long-term local currency rating from A– to A. Again the reasons cited were labour unrest and increasing social tensions, which “were likely to feed into the political debate in the run-up to the 2014 elections” and “may increase uncertainties related to the ANC’s future policy framework”. In addition, S&P also saw the country’s escalating social tensions leading to increased spending pressures that would reduce the government’s fiscal flexibility. The credit ratings cuts were not seen as a threat by the South African government but did cause concern amongst the country’s financial sector, where the general consensus was that the Zuma presidency needed to articulate a coherent policy response. The 2012 International Corruption Perception Index compiled by TI showed that South Africa ranked 69th out of 176 countries surveyed, with a score of 43 out of 100, a fall of five places compared with the 2011 index. Public sectorcorruption was cited as the main cause of the misuse of public funds. South Africa ranked ninth among African countries, but only fifth among Southern African states. The perception of corruption did not come as a surprise to many in the country. Corruption Watch, an NGO based in Johannesburg, noted that, while strong policies and legislation were in place to deal effectively with corrupt practices, the difficulty lay in enforcement and punitive action. For instance, the former police commissioner, Jackie Selebi, who had been convicted on corruption charges in 2010 and was to serve a 15-year prison-sentence, was granted medical parole in July. The fact that senior government figures could buck the system sent mixed signals about the need for a zero-tolerance approach to corruption. In August, TNS Research Company conducted a survey on perceptions of corruption amongst ordinary South Africans. The results revealed that nearly 80% of South Africans believed there was corruption at senior levels of government, while 70% felt it was just as bad in the private sector. The survey also found that 36% of people felt that the government was not reducing corruption levels, while 50% believed that it was. Race also appeared to be a significant factor when it came to perceptions of government interventions on corruption: 57% of blacks said government was working on reducing levels of corruption, compared with 42% of whites, 34% of Indians/Asians and 32% of coloureds. The TNS survey was conducted before the Nkandlagate scandal erupted. In Septem- ber, a national newspaper, ‘City Press’, revealed that R 200 m of government money was being used to upgrade President Zuma’s private residence, Nkandla on the north coast of KwaZulu Natal under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Works. As soon as the story broke, questions were raised as to whether the Nkandla upgrade should have been undertaken as a government project when, as opposition parties pointed out, the president had an official residence in Durban. In response to the criticisms, the minister of public works initiated an inquiry and the offices of the public protector and auditor-general opened probes South Africa • 519 into the controversial spending on the Nkandla project. As the controversy deepened, it also emerged that Nkandla came under the National Key Point legislation, which allowed the government to invoke the right not to disclose further information about expenditure related to the upgrade on the grounds that disclosure could compromise its security. Nkandlagate exposed the rising levels of inequality in the country. By the end of the year, almost 15.5 m of the population were dependent on some kind of social benefit, most often child support grants, disability benefit or old-age pension. In an indication of the severity of the crisis, a UNICEF report stated that 1.4 m children lived in homes that relied for drinking water on streams that were often dirty, 1.5 m had no flushing lavatories and 1.7 m lived in shacks, with no proper bedding, or cooking or washing facilities. Four in 10 lived in households where no one was employed and, in areas of dire poverty, the figure rose to seven in 10. A total of 330,000 children – and 5 m adults – were infected with HIV. Child support grants, introduced in 1997, reached 10.3 m children but another 1 m who were eligible did not receive them. The Limpopo textbook scandal underlined the lack of proper government services. From the beginning of the year, secondary schools in Limpopo Province had failed to receive textbooks from the Education Department. The media reported on the situation, but the government and Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga downplayed the crisis. By June, the situation was acute; the NGO ‘Section 27’ applied for a court order compelling the Department to honour its obligations and a task force was set up to investigate the crisis. Although Section 27 won its case and a court order was issued compelling the Department to carry out its duties, the textbooks remained in the warehouse and some were reported dumped in a river. The textbook scandal exposed the problems related to outsourcing government services. Edu-solutions, the company contracted to distribute the textbooks, was subsequently replaced by another company, which was allegedly favoured by the Education Department. This issue not only uncovered the endemic nature of corruption in the country but also highlighted the political linkages and patronage networks associated with the government’s procurement processes. In March, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced the rollout of 10 pilot sites under the National Health Insurance (NHI) programme. The 10 pilot districts were identified across rural and urban centres on the basis of socio-economic indicators and would be used to assess what interventions were needed to implement the NHI, improve the performance of the public health system and increase access to quality health services for the majority of ordinary South Africans. In addition, the pilot sites served as test cases to determine the norms and standards that would be required to implement the NHI at district level. The NHI would focus on reducing disease among women and children and strengthening the overall performance of the country’s health system. The launch of the pilot programme was the first phase of a 14-year rollout of the NHI plan. Over the next five years, more districts would be added to the pilot sites. 520 • Southern Africa

South Africa faced the difficulty posed by rising levels of inequality which tended to be masked by national statistics that camouflaged the real socio-economic problems. South Africa’s middle-income status means that the country will no longer qualify for donor assistance, despite poverty being a serious hindrance to development.

Sanusha Naidu Swaziland

The Swazi political economy was dominated by a continuing economic crisis, during which the government often scrambled to pay its monthly public-sector wage bill. While social benefits to the poor, tertiary students and those living with AIDS were reduced or suspended, for the first time in many years the annual budgetary allocation to the royal household was not increased but fixed at the 2011 level. There was no significant decrease in the lavish lifestyle of King Mswati III and his extensive family, however. Despite considerable discontent at the state of the economy, the pro-democracy movement was unable to mount an effective challenge to the government in the face of repression by the security forces, which continued to operate with impunity.

Domestic Politics

On several occasions, demonstrators took to the streets – or attempted to do so – in protest at government cutbacks and in support of wage increases. In April, civil servants including nurses and teachers, launched strike action demanding a 4.5% salary incre- ment. Teachers, led by the Swaziland National Union of Teachers, continued their action throughout the second term of the year (April to September) by reporting to work but not actually undertaking any teaching or classroom activities. In August, the Ministry 522 • Southern Africa of Education dismissed 110 teachers. King Mswati ordered that the fired teachers be reinstated and instructed the government and the union to resume negotiations. The negotiations ended in a stalemate, however, and in September, the King instructed the teachers to end their strike, which they did. In September, a civil-society coordinating network, the Swaziland Democracy Campaign, launched a global week of action, focusing each day on a specific sector or issue – hunger, poverty, human rights and education – and including both local actions and protests by groups outside the country, mostly in South Africa and Denmark, where the local democracy movement has strong civil-society and state support. Attempted marches and street protests in Swaziland were broken up by police, including with a baton charge on student marchers on day two. The week culminated with a People’s Summit in Man- zini, where approximately 1,000 delegates adopted a People’s Charter. Modelled on South Africa’s Freedom Charter adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) in 1955, the Swazi version called for a new system of government involving the scrapping of the traditional tinkhundla electoral system, which is controlled by unelected chiefs, the unbanning of political parties and free and fair democratic elections. The government continued efforts to curb the influence of the trade union movement. In March, the country’s two largest labour federations, the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions and Swaziland Federation of Labour, amalgamated to form the Trade Union Con- gress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). The move was backed by major elements in the South African trade union sector. Present at the launch was South Africa’s largest labour grouping, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), as well as the South African Trade Union Coordinating Council and the African chapter of the International Trade Union Congress. TUCOSWA’s first initiative was to attempt to organise a four-day mass protest in Mbabane, beginning on 1 April, but police and the army were deployed to prevent the demonstration and, by midday on the first day, union leaders called off the action. A month after the launch of TUCOSWA, Swazi Attorney General Majahenkhaba Dlamini withdrew state recognition by deregistering the new grouping. Lawyers pointed out that the move was unlawful as Swazi law stipulated that only the Industrial Court had the power so to act and then only after due legal process. Soon after TUCOSWA called for a boycott of the 2013 national elections unless the prohibition on political parties was lifted, there was a government crackdown that went as far as to decree that TUCOSWA’s logo could not be displayed in public. Two trade unionists were arrested and beaten by police at a May Day rally for holding a banner with markings of the labour organisation and a schoolteacher was detained by police because he was carrying a bag with a trade union federation inscription on it. TUCOSWA took the matter of its deregistration to court and continued to function throughout the year. The 1996 Swazi Constitution provided for a strict separation of executive (the monarchy and cabinet) and legislative authority but, in reality, this has always been more theoretical than real. This was illustrated in November, when 42 members of the lower Swaziland • 523 house of parliament passed a motion of no confidence in the cabinet, prompted by their unhappiness with a cabinet decision to suspend the operating licence of the mobile tele- phony and data-components service of the Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation’s (SPTC), leaving tens of thousands of Swazis with non-functioning mobile telephones and related gadgets. In such circumstances, the 1996 Constitution stipulated that the government should step down within three days, failing which the King should dissolve the cabinet. However, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini, no doubt speaking on the King’s authority, declared the motion null and void and announced that the government would not step down. Faced with this recalcitrance, 32 of the 42 members of the House of Assembly convened in a hurried session and voted to reverse their vote of no confidence. The major beneficiary of this fiasco was the South African cell phone service provider MTN. Granted a monopoly licence in 1998 to operate a local cell phone service, the local affiliate was structured so that the state-owned landline operator SPTC had a 51% share, while 19% was held by an entity known as the Swaziland Empowerment Group, whose members included Sibusiso Dlamini and other well-connected political figures. King Mswati was also believed to have been given a 10% share. Despite high operating costs – in excess of those charged in South Africa – MTN acquired 457,000 subscribers within ten years and became the majority telecommunications operator. It developed into a considerable cash cow for the company as well as a significant source of revenue for leading figures in the political elite. Faced with a shrinking revenue base, the SPTC decided in 2010 to develop a competing mobile service operation with lower charges. In setting up the operation, SPTC claimed it had given up its shareholding in MTN by transferring its 41% share to the Ministry of Finance and 10% to the King. This new service grew rapidly, with many thousands of MTN subscribers shifting to the new company. MTN disputed this transaction and claimed that SPTC was operating a rival service in violation of its arrangement with MTN. The matter went to court and in March, the International Court of Arbitration ruled in MTN’s favour. The government then suspended the SPTC operation, leaving its customers with phones and dongles that no longer worked and sparking an outcry against MTN Swaziland, which was accused of defending its monopoly and the profits of the Swazi elite at the expense of ordinary Swazis. In September, 25-year-old Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini, the King’s eldest daughter, was appointed to the board of directors of MTN Swaziland, following an established practice of royal family appointments to local corporate boards. On 9 September, South Africa’s ‘Sunday Tribune’ quoted an unnamed Mbabane investment consultant who noted that “all big companies have to accommodate royal family members to their boards”. In November, MTN announced a profit increase of 238% over 2010, from R (South African rand) 18 m to R 61 m in 2011. It was also the top performer on the small Swazi stock exchange. On 17 September, the four-year long stop-start trial of South African national and member of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Amos Mbedzi, ended with his 524 • Southern Africa conviction and imprisonment. Mbedzi was convicted of murder, sedition, unlawful possession of explosives and illegal entry into Swaziland. He was sentenced to 85 years’ imprisonment. With the terms running concurrently and the sentence backdated to 2008, Mbedzi will serve 21 years. In South Africa, a campaign highlighting Mbedzi’s case was launched with support from 16 organisations including all three members of South Africa’s tripartite alliance – the ANC, the SACP and COSATU. Mbedzi plans to appeal his conviction The Swazi government continued to impose restrictions on media freedom. In advance of national elections scheduled for 2013, radio censorship rules were revised and tightened to include a requirement that the monopoly national radio service could only cover events authorised by the relevant authorities. Public service announcements were also barred unless they were in line with government policy or had been authorised by an appropriate public official. The harassment and abuse of women and children continued. Statistics from January 2011 to October 2012 showed that, of the 3,519 recorded cases of assault and physical abuse, 85% of the victims were women. Of 928 rape cases reported between January 2011 and October 2012, 170 involved children between the ages of one and 11 years. A proposed amendment to The Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill of 2000, introduced to protect women from stalking, failed when a majority of parliamentarians argued that it was part of Swazi social cultural norms. On a positive note, the promulgation of the Children’s Protection and Welfare Act of 2012 made marriage with girls under the age of 16 illegal. In May, the sixth wife of the King, Angela ‘LaGija’ Dlamini, left the royal compound and went into hiding, claiming she had suffered years of emotional and physical abuse. She became the third of the King’s wives to so abandon her matrimonial role. In November, the ordination of Ellinah Wamukonya as both the first female head of the Anglican Church in Swaziland and Africa’s first woman Anglican bishop was boycotted by the King, his family and members of the cabinet. No reasons were given, but it can be assumed that the elevation of a woman to such a senior position was regarded by the monarch as ‘unSwazi’.

Foreign Policy

Only a handful of countries are represented at ambassadorial level, the most important being the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose President Ying-Jeou Ma visited Swazi- land on 15–17 April. His visit yielded several economic benefits, including a grant of R 1.5 m towards the refurbishment of a bio-technology park and desktop computers worth R 2.4 m for various government ministries. Taiwanese manufacturers have invested heavily in Swaziland and there were 25 Taiwanese-owned factories producing textile products. Swazi textile workers made up one of the largest groups of employees in the manufactur- Swaziland • 525 ing sector. King Mswati visited Taiwan at the end of October. Another country with which Swaziland has close ties is Equatorial Guinea, one of the few African states with arguably a worse human rights record than Swaziland. Swaziland signed an agreement with Equatorial Guinea to provide one year of training for cadet officers at the police college. The agreement is to run for five years. Within civil society, there are close ties between Denmark’s ruling Social Demo- cratic Party and the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA), led by the former head of the Swazi Federation of Labour, Jan Sithole. The Danish party made a donation of an undisclosed amount to SWADEPA, which Sithole stated would assist them with capacity building, exchange visits, information exchange and setting up structures within the organisation.

Socioeconomic Developments

The Swazi economy remains heavily dependent on South Africa, from which it receives more than 90% of its imports and to which it sends 60% of its exports. The Swazi currency, the emalengeni (E) continues to be pegged to the South African rand. While King Mswati is one of the world’s richest monarchs, most Swazis live in poverty, approximately 70% being dependent on subsistence agriculture. The manufacturing sector has been in decline since the early 1990s and the end of the era of South African sanctions. Overgrazing, soil depletion, and consecutive droughts and floods have resulted in a decline in food production. Of the 1 m inhabitants, 70% are living on less than $ 2 per day and 30% are malnour- ished. The kingdom has the world’s highest rates of HIV infection and one of the lowest average levels of life expectancy. The main root cause of poverty continues to be the inequitable and undemocratic political order, which favours a small royalist aristocracy with deep roots in the economy but no accountability to the government, which is exempt from taxation and yet is supported by the public purse, including the financial maintenance of 14 palaces for King Mswati’s 14 wives and over 20 children. The King has personal control of an investment corporation, ‘Tibiyo takeNgwane’ (Wealth of the Nation), which, according to South Africa’s ‘Mail and Guardian’ (23–29 September), controls one-third of all the country’s private assets and in 2010 reported a profit of R 150 m, upon which it paid no taxes to the government. It also has lucrative overseas holdings. The Swazi government is reliant on the annual disbursement of funds from the SACU common customs pool. The drastic cuts in the disbursement in the years between 2009 and 2011 as a result of the global economic downturn had caused a fiscal crisis and several efforts to acquire external support failed. The government slashed or eliminated social benefits, reduced by 60% the amount of tertiary-level student grants and raised the national sales tax. This last measure raised R 4.8 bn, which along with a rise in 2012 in 526 • Southern Africa the annual SACU payment from R 2.4 bn to R 7.1 bn, stabilised the economic situation. It did not, however, lead to the restoration of most state benefits, such as food parcels for the needy and HIV sufferers. In the budget, the royal household received E 210 m for its own use as in the previous financial year – enough for the King to take a sizeable delegation to the London Olympics in August and for three of his wives to take a multi-million rand shopping trip and vaca- tion to Las Vegas, where they reportedly stayed in ten luxury villas at an estimated cost of about R 1.2 m. These trips were undertaken on the King’s new private jet, worth $ 17 m, which he received as a gift on his 44th birthday in April from Salgoacar, an Indian-based mining company. Soon thereafter, it was revealed that the company had been licensed to mine iron ore within a protected national park. The King was to retain 50% of that concession, from which it is estimated that he could earn up to $ 100 m.

John Daniel & Marisha Ramdeen Zambia

This was the first full year in office for 75-year old President Michael Sata (nicknamed ‘King Cobra’ for his notorious ad hoc rhetorical outbursts). Domestic politics remained a contested matter, with realignments within the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) and intra-party conflicts. Floor crossing continued and by-elections strengthened the PF at the expense of the weakened Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), whose fate was temporarily in doubt as a result of (failed) efforts to revoke its party status. Although Sata governed as a strong president, he did not have an absolute majority in parliament: his PF held 46% of parliamentary seats while the two main opposition parties the MMD and the United Party for National Development (UPND) held 51%. Foreign policy changed significantly with regard to Southern Africa, but there was less change than expected in policy towards Chinese investors and with regard to the chronic stage of corruption. Socioeconomic developments continued to focus on, and were determined by, the extractive industry as the country’s economic backbone. First initiatives were taken to benefit more from the wealth generated by the mining companies.

Domestic Politics

Sport was a contributing factor to initial positive excitement at home. The national football team – called the ‘Chipolopolo Boys’ – won the 28th Africa Cup of Nations for the 528 • Southern Africa first time in the country’s history in a penalty shoot-out after a goalless draw against Côte d’Ivoire. The tournament was hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon from 21 January to 12 February. A wave of patriotic enthusiasm swept the country, especially since the victory was dedicated to the legendary football team of 1993, whose members died in a plane crash close to Libreville (Gabon), where the final took place. This good start into the year, however, did not last long enough for people to forget the social ills and political squabbles that continued to characterise society. Zambians remained deeply polarised and divided over domestic politics, although disputes remained civil. In particular, President Sata’s unpredictability and less than statesmanlike behaviour on several occasions seemed to be registered by disappointed voters, who at times felt embarrassed by the president’s undiplomatic appearances both at home and abroad, as well as by his reluctance to fight corruption as rigorously as he had promised during the election campaign. During the year, Sata used his presidential powers on several occasions to co-opt influential political figures from other parties, or marginalise his own former allies, by re- aligning cabinet positions. As a result, an originally relatively lean government expanded by means of frequent mergers and re-structuring of ministries and portfolios. In early February, Chishimba Kambwili, a former foreign minister who had been appointed minister of labour, youth and sports in January, was stripped of the labour portfolio, which was transferred to the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and Tourism. Kambwili had allegedly behaved rudely towards companies and especially some Chinese investors. Sata called on government officials to refrain from taking arbitrary positions likely to affect investor confidence. On 28 February, Sata carried out a cabinet reshuffle. The Ministry of Local Govern- ment became the Ministry of Local Government and Housing, under Nkandu Luo, and the Ministry of Education became the Ministry of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education, headed by John Phiri. Christopher Yaluma was transferred to the new Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development. Wilber Simusa was appointed as minister in-charge of lands, natural resources and environmental protection. Ngosa Sim- byakula was transferred from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Home Affairs as deputy minister with special responsibility for spearheading the creation of district attorneys’ chambers countrywide. Simbyakula replaced Obvious Mwaliteta, who was transferred to Southern Province as provincial minister, taking over from Miles Sampa, who was brought to the Ministry of Finance as deputy minister. Sata also reassigned Finance Deputy Minister Alfreda Kansembe to the Ministry of Justice in the same capacity. Several more political adjustments took place later in the year. On 30 August, Jus- tice Minister Sebastian Zulu was sacked and PF Secretary-General Wynter Kabimba was appointed as his successor. Sata seemed frustrated over the lack of prosecution of former minister of transport and communications Dora Siliya, a senior member of the MMD, and annoyed that no progress was visible in the investigation of the three High Court and Supreme Court judges he had dismissed in early May – purportedly over vague allegations Zambia • 529 of wrongdoing, but most likely because they had prosecuted allies of the president. In late May, the Lusaka High Court had suspended the tribunal set up by Sata to investigate them and criticised the president for violating the Judicial (Code of Conduct) Act. The appointment of Kabimba, known as a politically polarising figure, nurtured suspicions that he might emerge as a potential successor to Sata as the PF candidate in the presidential elections in 2016. Foreign Affairs and Tourism Minister Given Lubinda, who had once challenged Sata’s leadership in the PF, was by the end of the year identified as being among those to be phased out, when reports suggested that his time was up. Internal power struggles also erupted towards the end of the year between Kabimba and Defence Minister Geoffrey Mwamba. The rift allegedly deepened over rivalries to secure public tenders. Opposition parties had a rough year. Sata pursued a highly successful strategy of ‘annexation’ through floor crossing and other forms of co-option. Several well-orchestrated by-elections succeeded in replacing office holders belonging to the main opposition party, the MMD, with PF mandate holders, as well as increasing the number of PF seats in parliament. The MMD was also threatened by an attempt by Sata to de-register the party. In mid-March, the registrar of societies declared that he planned to nullify 53 parliamentary seats (one-third of the total) held by the MMD and to dissolve the party for owing the government $ 75,000 in outstanding fees. In June, a High Court judge ruled that such a step was disproportionate and dismissed the initiative as illegal. Corruption and embezzlement charges were in fact levelled at several prominent former MMD party and government officials, including former president Rupiah Banda, but the state authorities investigated and prosecuted highly selectively and spared several prominent Sata allies and supporters who deserved similar treatment. The anti-corruption position on which the PF had campaigned prominently for its election to government therefore became increasingly discredited. The party’s image was also dented by dubious transactions and financial scandals that emerged during the year; government and party officials were implicated without suffering any consequences. As the Economist Intel- ligence Unit observed in its June country report: “The PF’s high-profile anti-corruption campaign is unlikely to amount to much more than an effort to undermine its political rivals.” If that were not enough, the MMD also suffered from internal power struggles after the retirement of Rupiah Banda and his replacement as party leader in May by Nevers Mumba, a former vice president and ambassador to Canada. At the end of November he and the party’s secretary-general Richard Kachingwe became embroiled in a fight for control of the party. When Kachingwe announced Mumba’s expulsion from the party, the controversy culminated in open physical exchanges at the party secretariat, where Mumba supporters chased Kachingwe out of the office. Sata took advantage of these brawls and – allegedly after consulting Kachingwe – used a meeting that took place on 10 December between Mumba and other MMD officials and traditional leaders in the Copperbelt to put 530 • Southern Africa the opposition politicians temporarily behind bars. Sata had earlier ordered police to block any meetings organised by opposition political parties using the Public Order Act, an initiative strongly condemned by civil society representatives as undemocratic interference. On 13 August, Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the second-largest opposition party, the UPND, had already been arrested and charged with fabricating information “with intent to cause fear and public alarm”. His first appearance in court was attended by a group of opposition leaders in solidarity with the accused and in protest against what was considered an affront to democracy. A simmering conflict over the status of Barotseland erupted with a statement, issued on 27 March as a final declaration by Barotseland representatives of a ‘national assembly’ for Barotseland. Disappointed by Sata’s U-turn since his election in failing to honour his promises to recognise the desire for more autonomy on the part of the Silozi-speaking people in the Barotse kingdom in Zambia’s Western Province, the Barotse Royal Estab- lishment and the Barotse National Council reiterated their desire for autonomy in May. Their declaration stressed that the Lozi would seek this independent status by purely legal means, on the basis of the original 1964 agreement, which had conceded semi-autonomy to Barotseland. More than 80% of the Western Province’s population lived below the poverty line (compared with a national average of 64%) and dismal neglect of the area was a constant feature of government policy. This fuelled secessionist tendencies, particularly among the younger generation. In April, Vice President Guy Scott responded to the unrest by suggesting that the original 1964 agreement regarding semi-autonomy for Barotseland should be considered in the constitutional reform process. On 21 September, the president opened the second session of the 11th National Assem- bly and stressed “democracy, good governance and the rule of law” as essentials for national development. During the year, the Freedom House ‘Freedom of the Press’ report upgraded its assessment of the country’s media freedom from ‘not free’ to ‘partly free’ as a result of the liberalisation of the state-run media under the new government. According to the review, this enhanced professionalism and independence, and reduced self-censorship and the partisan character of media outlets. The long pending constitutional reform process continued, but without final results. The first draft of the new constitution was released in mid-April. Prepared by a technical committee appointed by Sata, it drew on the submissions of four previous constitutional review initiatives. Key proposals included a change in presidential elections from a first- past-the-post system to one in which the winning candidate would have to receive over 50% of the votes, failing which a second round of voting would follow. Notably, the last four presidential elections had all been won with less than 50% of the votes. Furthermore, the president and vice-president would be elected on the same ticket; the vice-president had hitherto been appointed by the elected president. In the event of the president’s death, under the new constitutional principles (if adopted) the vice-president would take over for Zambia • 531 the rest of the president’s term in office. This meant that, if the new constitution came into effect under the current constellation and a similar scenario were enacted to that in neighbouring Malawi, Zambia would be the first democratic country in Sub-Saharan Africa to have a white head of state – Guy Scott. Other reforms suggested that cabinet ministers would be appointed from outside parliament to entrench the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive. Some powers would be devolved to provincial admin- istrations. Members of parliament would be elected by proportional representation, with multi-member constituencies, instead of the first-past-the-post system currently in place. This would also end the need for by-elections as members would be replaced by the next in line on the party lists. The draft also suggested an increase in the number of MPs from 158 to 200. Educational requirements for MPs would be raised from literacy and fluency in the official language, English, to a Grade 12 school certificate. The release of the final draft document was announced for August, but was later postponed until mid-2013. The feet dragging seemed to continue. Critical assessments of Sata’s policy accused him of not living up to his election campaign promises and instead following practices similar to those he had criticised when in opposition. They included the appointment of family members to high political offices, rewarding political supporters with high-ranking appointments and closing his eyes to suspicions of corruption within his political inner circle. He was also accused of trying to oppress the political opposition, showing lack of respect for the independence of the judiciary and ethnic favouritism towards members of his own Bemba community. Opposition parties claimed that his tendency to use intimidation suggested an attempt to return to a one-party system. In fact, opposition politicians were arrested as often as before and no measurable degree of liberalisation of political freedoms to organise was visible.

Foreign Affairs

On several occasions, Sata perplexed diplomats and the wider public with his highly unconventional impromptu statements. At the annual SADC summit in Maputo (Mozam- bique) on 17–18 August, he took delegates by surprise when he declared that Zambia would welcome refugees if Malawi and Tanzania went to war over a border dispute. In response to an opposition parliamentarian’s enquiry in parliament, Vice-President Guy Scott explained the president’s rhetorical escapades with the English saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Sata’s admiration for and support of Robert Mugabe were also defended by his loyal vice-president, who justified the need for a policy of good neighbourliness with regard to the autocratic Zimbabwean leader. This new approach was in marked contrast to the critical positions taken by earlier Zambian presidents, and also largely characterised the country’s inter-state relations in the sub-region. It went hand in hand with some derogatory statements concerning Botswana, which articulated the most critical positions on the violation of human rights by political leaders in office. 532 • Southern Africa

In contrast, previously strained relations between Sata and the various governments of Malawi, dating back to his deportation as Zambian opposition leader in 2007, eased after an encounter with President Bingu wa Mutharika at a dinner during the ANC centenary celebrations in South Africa in January. Sata donated 5 m litres of fuel as a gesture of friendship, presenting it as a gift on the occasion of the funeral of the late president, who had died in office on 5 April, though it initially remained a matter of speculations whether this was indeed a donation or merely a loan. The close personal ties between Sata and Mugabe were reflected in friendly relations with ZANU-PF in the Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe. Sata paid an official state visit to Zimbabwe on 25–27 April because, as he put it, “we think like you people”, and inaugurated the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo. Mugabe recipro- cated on 2–5 August, when he was the first head of state to visit Zambia under the new government, and opened the 86th Zambia Agricultural and Commercial Show in Lusaka. Mugabe praised Sata for standing up to colonial powers during his then 10–month presidency. After a meeting with former president Kenneth Kaunda on 3 August, Mugabe created headlines when he lashed out at George W. Bush and Tony Blair at a press conference, calling them ‘liars’. When reporters aggressively questioned Mugabe, Kaunda came to his rescue and took Mugabe’s side. The strongly emotional pro-Mugabe tendencies under the new government were documented in spectacular fashion when Sata caused a stir during the SADC extraordinary summit meeting in Luanda (1 June), where he reportedly kept chanting “Pamberi ne Zanu PF” (“Forward with Zanu PF”, a prominent Shona slogan from the anti-colonial struggle), interrupting anyone who dared to criticise Mugabe. In response to this overtly pro-Mugabe stance, Zimbabwean protesters mounted a demonstration outside the Zambian High Commission in London on 6 June, when Sata was in the UK capital for a Commonwealth meeting. Sata’s pro-Mugabe stance corresponded with the Zimbabwean president’s offensive attitudes towards Botswana, whose President Ian Khama was known to be critical of leaders openly in violation of fundamental human rights and in favour of their prosecution. On a state visit to the neighbouring SADC country on 19–21 March, Sata made several unconventional statements that caused public uproar, and was described by a local newspaper as a “loose canon”. After opening a school, he refused lunch and declared he was donating the food to President Khama. The Botswana president was supposed to have conducted a tour of the new school but was not included in the official opening ceremony, which obviously irritated the Zambian visitor. In response, State House, on behalf of Khama, issued a statement that there had been enough food for everybody. At a reception in Gaborone, Sata lashed out at Zambian doctors, nurses, teachers, accountants, engineers and a further estimated 2,000 qualified Zambian professionals working in Botswana and accused them of being “callous” for “hibernating” in the neighbouring country. He called them refugees being exploited by the Botswana government and asked what they were doing in a country that had only five shops. Subsequently, Botswana MPs raised the issue Zambia • 533 on 27 March in parliament in Gabarone and demanded an official apology from the Zam- bian president, whose spokesperson had declared that the statements were jokes. ‘King Cobra’ was not perceived as joking (although that defence was made) when he received former US president George W. Bush and his wife at State House in Lusaka for a courtesy visit on 4 July. At the press conference that followed, he denounced the USA as a colonialist country that had abandoned Africa after stealing all her resources. The Bushes, on a promotion tour for their cervical cancer prevention foundation, were accused of representing “payback time for colonialists”. Sata complained that “the young man” Bush was 15 minutes late for their meeting after a 90-mile drive from opening a clinic refurbished with the foundation’s money. An observer of the incident concluded: “You never know what to expect from Michael Sata.” The incident turned into a domestic affair when former president Rupiah Banda apologised to Bush in a letter the next day. In response, Sata issued a statement and threatened to lift Banda’s immunity. Sata further strained relations with Western diplomatic missions when he criticised foreign embassy staff for holding meetings with the MMD and of thereby meddling in Zambia’s internal affairs. Ironically, his party had pursued similar exchanges with foreign diplomats when in opposition. The Sata government’s ‘Look East’ policy was another markedly distinct foreign policy approach that had domestic implications. The PF’s former aversion to China was visibly downplayed after they resumed office and it turned into a more welcoming policy of partnership. Foreign Affairs and Tourism Minister Given Lubinda, however, dismissed any deliberate move towards a ‘Look East’ policy when, according to an article in the ‘New African’, he stated: “We will not look north, east, west or south. We will look global.” On 2 May, he met Chinese Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu in Beijing and delivered a special message from President Michael Sata to the Chinese government, which described Beijing as an all-weather development partner. This approach was manifested not only in a markedly milder engagement with Chinese investors and policy makers but also in Sata’s parallel working visit to Japan on 10–15 October, which involved meetings at the highest levels to strengthen bilateral relations.

Socioeconomic Developments

The sub-regional infrastructure was boosted by continued Chinese support for the railway line connecting the Zambian town of Kapiri Mposhi north of Lusaka with Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania). Administered by the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), the project had originally been finalised by China in 1976 but struggled to remain operational. After years of underfunding from the African partners, Zambia’s Minister for Transport and Communication Yamfwa Mukanga announced in late March that China had offered more than $ 66 m to revive TAZARA. The 15th Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement signed at that time provided for a $ 23.5 m special grant for the upgrading 534 • Southern Africa of the railway line and related infrastructure and a $ 42.6 m interest-free loan for other operational needs. The bail-out seemed to be a last-minute deal to save the railway line from ultimate collapse with the aim of enhancing future capacity. The mining sector remained the backbone of the economy. Zambia was the biggest copper producer on the continent and, with new foreign investments estimated at $ 6 bn over the year, was expected to become the world’s fifth largest copper producer with annual exports of about 2 m tonnes by 2015. During the year, a documentary by Christoffer Guldbrandsen televised by the BBC (‘Stealing Africa’) disclosed the dubious business practices of the South African mining magnate Ivan Glasenberg (among the top ten richest residents in Switzerland with assets of close to $ 10 bn). His company Glencore practised systematic tax evasion tantamount to looting through the use of transfer pricing, bribery and other fraudulent transactions. According to estimates published during the year by the economist Sarah Freitas of the Washington based ‘Global Financial Integrity’, these malpractices, common among international mining companies, had resulted in losses to the Zambian state estimated at least $ 8.8 bn from 2001 to 2010, while abject poverty continued to characterise the society. According to the latest UNDP Human Develop- ment Report, Zambia ranked 163 in the HDI and was thus among the 25 least developed countries. Zambian laws allowed foreign investors to transfer all their profits abroad, without a limit or other restrictions. Under the previous Banda administration, heavy lobbying by multinational mining companies had resulted in tax reductions and the scrapping of a windfall tax. At a Commonwealth Business Council Economic Forum on 7 June in Lon- don, Sata, a former trade union leader, categorically stated, “We are not getting enough from our mineral resources.” When the fiscal budget for 2013 was presented on 8 October, a 10% tax was introduced on the transfer or sale of mining rights. Interest payments by mining firms to their parent companies became subject to transfer pricing rules to ensure that interest was charged at a fair price. This was intended to prevent mining firms from continuing to understate their local profits in order to avoid tax. The capital expenditure deduction rate was lowered from 100% to 25% and could only be claimed for the year in which the asset was brought into use. Chinese mining operations continued to increase their presence, though not without controversy, and were accompanied by further labour unrest. Chinese-owned assets included the Collum coalmine in Sinazeze, Southern Province, the Luanshya copper mine, and the Chambishi copper smelter. Workers repeatedly complained of poor working conditions and inadequate safety standards. On 4 August, frustrated workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage killed a Chinese supervisor and wounded another at the Collum mine. While this re-emphasised the particular focus on and aggression towards Chinese enterprises, increased labour unrest was more widespread and reflected general dissatisfaction with the appalling working conditions in mines. Zambia • 535

The basic minimum wage was increased by 67% in July, but initial joy was soon over- taken by frustration at the parallel increase in the price of a 25 kg bag of maize. According to official figures, 64% of the population were living on less than $ 1 a day. Given the widespread unemployment, most people did not benefit from the increase in the minimum wage, which was instead considered a burden that would put small enterprises at risk as a result of higher wage bills, which would come on top of parallel increases in transport costs and other expenditure. On 6 April, the government had announced 15% wage increases for civil servants. A secret Statutory Instrument signed by Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda on 1 April was disclosed in late July by a local watchdog institution. It revealed that President Sata’s salary had been doubled and ministers’ salaries had also been significantly increased to varying degrees. On 31 July, United Liberal Party leader Sakwiba Sikota condemned this secret move and urged civil servants to negotiate with government for a 100% salary adjustment for themselves too. After several years of bumper harvests, production of maize, the staple food, fell slightly during the year, mainly as a result of poor rainfall, but, at 2.8 m tonnes, it still covered domestic consumption requirements of 2.5 m tonnes. This did not prevent another price increase in August, which was seen as one of the results of the higher minimum wage, higher transport costs and a weakness in the marketing system. By year’s end, a shortage of maize flour was affecting the Copperbelt region and parts of the Central and Northern Provinces. The agricultural sector, which, as a commercial activity, was almost exclusively based on maize cultivation and processing, contributed some 13% to real GDP and employed around 70% of the population. Government funding of a Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) and the Food Reserve Agency to maintain food security absorbed almost half of the annual budget allocation but remained largely ineffective, or favoured bigger farmers instead of supporting small scale farmers with subsidies. In October, the FISP announced that it was extending input subsidies beyond maize producers to include producers of sorghum, as complementary staple food, as well as cotton and groundnuts as cash crops. On 8 October, the fiscal budget for 2013 was presented without any major surprises. It introduced special initiatives in support of infrastructural development and economic diversification and incentives for domestic consumer spending and revenue from mining. The government projected a 16.3% increase in total expenditure to ZK 32.2 trillion ($ 6.2 bn/26.6% of GDP) for the next year. An increase of 23.9% in domestic revenue to ZK 24.7 trillion (20.4% of GDP) was projected, which would finance 77% of the budget. Grants were to finance a further 4.7%, with domestic and external borrowing to cover the remaining 18.4%. According to Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda, the focus was to support the four key sectors – agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and infrastructure – in order to create at least 200,000 employment opportunities within the coming year and 1 m jobs within the next five years, at least half of them in the agricultural sector. 536 • Southern Africa

How this could be reconciled with the earlier announced increases in the basic minimum wage remained unexplained. Allocations for health (with an increase of 41% to 11.3% of expenditure), education (raised by 16% to 17.5%) and infrastructure (reduced by 5.7% to 13.6%) amounted to 42.4% of the overall budget. The allocation to defence increased by 23.5% to 6.3% of the budget and investment in agriculture, forestry and fishing by 9.9% to 5.8% of the budget. On 27 January, a national health strategic plan for 2011–2015 was launched and social and economic rights were added to the Bill of Rights in the new draft constitution submitted in mid-April. These included the right to healthcare, education, clean water and sufficient food. It remained unclear how the government planned to meet these obligations, which – if adopted – could be enforced by a constitutional court. In September, the government successfully launched Eurobonds, which sold on the international financial markets for $ 750 m compared with an original target of $ 500 m. This oversubscription reflected the general global optimism, with the further stripping of the continent’s natural resources being seen as a good business opportunity, while the government claimed it was a sign of the international business community’s confidence in the PF’s running of the state. According to the Treasury, the money was earmarked for investments in infrastructure such as energy ($ 255 m), roads and railways ($ 430 m), upgrading of hospitals ($ 29 m), finance to SMEs ($ 20 m) and transaction costs. According to statements by President Sata in early 2013, 2012 had ended with an overall positive economic performance. Foreign reserves as of December had risen to $ 3.2 bn compared with $ 2.3 bn the year before, while foreign investment pledges stood at $ 10 bn for the year. GDP growth was estimated at 7.3%, compared with 6.8% in 2011. He also claimed that over 195,000 jobs had been created since his administration assumed office, but admitted that poverty levels and unemployment remained a challenge.

Henning Melber Zimbabwe

The year was characterised by an escalation of disagreements and interparty squabbling over the constitution and elections dates. The love-hate relationship between the coalition partners in the Government of National Unity (GNU) continued. There were some controversies and notable developments in human rights, indigenisation and the security sector reforms. The economy remained stable with the post GNU improvements appearing to be moderating amid occasional scare-mongering about the state of the national finances and persistent disagreements over the direction of economic and monitory policy. No significant changes took place on the international scene, either regionally or beyond.

Domestic Politics

The country moved closer to getting a new constitution. On 22 January, the three drafters handed the revised copy of the draft constitution to the co-chairpersons of the Consti- tutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC). On 9 February, COPAC released a press statement signed by all three party co-chairpersons. It stressed that the draft, described as “work in progress until it is approved by COPAC” was not final and was still under review by the Select Committee assisted by technical experts. On 7 March, COPAC announced that the co-chairpersons and technical experts had completed reviewing the draft and were 538 • Southern Africa ready to hand it to the management committee within the week. Reflecting the acrimony that had characterised the process and was to continue with the draft, the state-controlled, openly pro-Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) daily ‘The Herald’, reported on 7 March that COPAC had “made a raft of changes … after principal drafters inserted information not solicited from the people”. The paper probably reflected ZANU-PF’s mistrust of the technical experts, who the party had persistently argued were biased against the party. Deep divisions between the main political parties on various aspects of the draft constitution persisted throughout the year. A particularly contentious issue was the degree of regionalisation and devolution. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) factions favoured devolution whereas ZANU-PF was strongly opposed to the concept, opting for much less radical decentralisation. Outside the main political parties, there was criticism by civil society organisations. Many of them complained about the retention of the features of a strong executive presidency. In addition to retaining the powers to dissolve parliament, in the draft, the president still remained the head of state and government and commander-in-chief of the defence forces. There was no limit to the number of ministers, and parliament was enlarged to 270 members in a two-tier system. Other contentious issues included dual citizenship and homosexuality, with ZANU-PF predictably being against both, while the Tsvangirai-led party (MDC-T) was in favour of enshrining legal protection for them in the constitution. On 6 June, ZANU-PF walked out of a COPAC meeting when a highly controversial document containing their input and amendments to the draft was rejected. The MDC formations stood by the COPAC draft. Speculation was rife that ZANU-PF was raising all manner of petty objections in order to scuttle the new constitution because the party wanted elections held under the existing constitution, which gave them an advantage. On 22–23 October, COPAC’s Second All Stakehold- ers’ Conference to discuss the proposed new constitution took place in Harare and was attended by 1,300 delegates from the country’s ten provinces. In a rare moment of agreement, representatives of the three GNU parties proclaimed the conference a success, publicly indicating that they were happy with the deliberations. Throughout the year the coalition partners publicly disagreed about dates for the next elections. Whereas the MDC formations maintained that elections did not necessarily have to be held when the life of the current parliament expired in May 2013, ZANU-PF disagreed, insisting that elections should be held in March 2013. The MDC factions had the backing of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, the SADC chief facilitator on Zim- babwe. Together they insisted that, in addition to an agreed constitution, other electoral measures needed to be in place before credible elections could be held. On 12 July, the Supreme Court confirmed a High Court order that President Mugabe should call by- elections in three Matabeleland constituencies by the end of August. In court papers asking for an extension, Mugabe revealed on 27 September that he wanted to hold elections in March 2013, with a referendum on a new constitution taking place in November 2012. Zimbabwe • 539

Not surprisingly, the MDC-T dismissed this as unrealistic. On 11 October, in an interview with the BBC, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, the ZANU-PF negotiator under the Global Political Agreement (GPA) talks, echoed the position of senior military officials that ZANU-PF and the military would not accept an MDC-T election victory, since such a victory would have been imposed by foreign powers. On 20 October, MDC-T Secretary- General and GNU Finance Minister Tendai Biti called for the arrest of Chinamasa and ZANU-PF spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, who had made similar remarks, accusing them of plotting to subvert the will of the people in the forthcoming elections. Gumbo had warned on 18 October that it would be “messy” if Tsvangirai won the elections. This was interpreted as a threat of a bloodbath in the event of an MDC-T electoral victory. Controversy persisted regarding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The police featured prominently in these developments, with complaints continuing throughout the year that they were a partial force serving ZANU-PF. Notably, on 9 October, Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma was arrested for allegedly insulting Mugabe at a rally in March. On 12 March, the trial of 29 MDC-T activists accused of murdering a police officer, Inspector Petros Mutedza, in May 2011, began at the High Court. The MDC-T and other critics of ZANU-PF saw this as political victimisa- tion, maintaining that it showed the partiality of the police and the office of the attorney general. They interpreted it as persecution by prosecution. The 29 activists, who had spent more than a year in jail, were repeatedly denied bail. According to opponents of the regime, this reflected that the judiciary was not impartial. On 17 December, 21 of the accused were finally granted bail, leaving five still incarcerated. Three others had been released earlier in the year. During the year, the police issued numerous bans on MDC meetings in various parts of the country. On 23 April, police arrested 15 activists of the smaller MDC in Tsholotsho South in Matabeleland North province for conducting an ‘illegal’ meeting. On 14 August, police in Bulawayo banned a memorial service for MDC activist Patrick Nabayana. He had disappeared in 2000 and it was believed that he had been murdered. In August, Mash- onaland West police wrote to the MDC-T provincial leadership, advising the party that no meetings would be held without the authority of chiefs, headmen, kraal heads and councillors – most of them widely viewed as ZANU-PF apparatchiks. The MDC-T vowed to defy the directive. During the year, there was an upsurge in the number of people arrested for allegedly insulting President Mugabe. The human rights organisation Zim- babwe Lawyers for Human Rights reportedly represented over 50 individuals who were dragged to court for calling Mugabe all sorts of names. Those arrested included ordinary people, businesspeople and MDC officials. The upsurge in arrests was partly attributed to the overzealousness of police and security agents. Factionalism, intra-party fighting and tensions affected all three major political parties. In July, the ZANU-PF politburo directed that all District Coordination Committees (DCCs) be disbanded. Most of the DCCs were seen as being controlled by the faction 540 • Southern Africa aligned to Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. Their dissolution was therefore interpreted as a blow to the faction. The faction aligned to Vice President Joice Mujuru was seen as the main beneficiary of the controversial directive, and was widely thought to have orchestrated the move. Explaining the decision, Mugabe said the DCCs were “serving a divisive process” and hence “as an organ they must go”. Infighting in the MDC-T was also reported in a number of provinces, including Bulawayo and the Mid- lands. In August, MDC-T Secretary for Local Government Sessil Zvidzai was fingered in the dismissal of the mayor and six other councillors as part of preparations to grab the Gweru Urban seat. Zvidzai justified their dismissal as part of the party’s anti-corruption drive. MDC-T’s Bulawayo province was also rocked by factionalism. On 13 July, MDC-T supporters in Makokoba, Bulawayo, demonstrated against worsening factionalism in the party’s Bulawayo structures, which had reportedly resulted in a number of defections. Splits and clashes rocked the party in Masvingo, Manicaland and Mashonaland East. The smaller faction of the MDC, which itself had split into two factions, continued divided with faction leaders, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and Industry and Com- merce Minister Welshman Ncube, fighting for the coveted role of principal in the GPA. On 12 July, the High Court ruled in favour of Ncube as the legitimate leader of the MDC faction. Mutambara appealed to the Supreme Court. The High Court decision was widely interpreted as putting Mutambara’s position as the country’s deputy prime minister in jeopardy. However, throughout the year, Mugabe and Tsvangirai, the other principals, continued to deal with Mutambara, ignoring Ncube’s pleas to remove him. In August, the SADC summit resolved that Ncube was the recognised MDC principal, even though the party leadership dispute was still pending in the Supreme Court. Politically motivated violence, though not at the pre-GNU levels, was reported in parts of the country. On 31 March, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), a violence-monitoring group, reported an upswing in violence in the previous month. It linked this to Mugabe’s insistence that he would call elections in 2012. ZPP reported 413 cases of rights violations in February alone, which occurred in connection with ZANU-PF’s preparation of the forthcoming elections. Teachers continued to be among the worst affected by violence. On 28 November, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (Zimrights) reported that, for over a year, notorious war veteran leader Jabulani Sibanda had camped in Masvingo Province. He terrorised civil servants, traditional leaders and villagers and conducted rallies and meetings disguised as history lessons. Echoing concerns about selective law enforcement and prosecution, Zimrights blamed the escalation on a culture of impunity in which ZANU-PF members were not brought to justice. Notably, during the year, Mugabe made numerous calls for peace and peaceful elections, which critics and opponents dismissed as insincere. Persistent rumours about Mugabe’s purported illness and failing health continued. Predictably, ZANU-PF and the presidency rejected the rumours. The most sensational claims were contained in the British press on 9 April, where it was reported that a cancer- Zimbabwe • 541 stricken Mugabe was fighting for his life in a Singapore hospital. On 10 April, ZANU-PF dismissed the reports as “a lot of hogwash” and the rumours proved to be untrue. The love life and alleged promiscuity of the widowed MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai were in the news for a good part of the year. Tsvangirai was linked to no less than four women and allegedly had a child with one of them. ZANU-PF and the state-controlled press capitalised on these escapades, constantly raising questions about Tsvangirai’s suitability as a leader and role model. The 13th annual ZANU-PF conference took place on 7–10 December in Gweru, in a $ 6.2 m complex built specially for the conference by a Chinese company. Among the conference’s notable resolutions was the confirmation of Mugabe, formerly elected at the previous congress, as the party’s presidential candidate in the harmonised elections to be held in 2013; the backing of indigenisation and economic empowerment; and spearheading the adoption of currencies of the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) countries and other emerging economies as legal tender in Zimbabwe alongside the US dollar. Save for minor strikes and incessant threats of strikes for higher wages, there was some let-up in industrial unrest. On 19 January, civil servants went on a one-day strike, but it was reportedly not well supported. On 21 January, the MDC-T accused ZANU-PF of encouraging civil servants to strike in order to gain political mileage. This came after civil servants had warned that government operations, including offices, schools and hospitals, would come to a standstill as they embarked on a one-week strike to press for better salaries. On 5 July, civil servants gave government a two-week ultimatum to review salaries or face a strike. On 24 July, it was reported that just 100 civil servants in Harare went on a protest march to denounce the government’s failure to meet their salary demands.

Foreign Affairs

As in previous years, relations with most African and Asian countries and organisations remained largely friendly. The frosty relations with the traditional Western critics changed little, with ZANU-PF escalating its campaign against ‘illegal’ Western sanctions. Not surprisingly the ‘illegal’ sanctions dominated the foreign relations scene. SADC, as the guarantor of the GPA, continued its mediation efforts, as individual countries mostly supported the GNU or parts of it. Notable in this respect was Zambian President Michael Sata’s strident support for Mugabe and ZANU-PF. On 24 January, in an interview with the UK ‘Telegraph’, Sata labelled Tsvangirai a “western stooge”, indicating that he would not block Mugabe’s push to abandon the unity government. At a SADC extraordinary summit held in Luanda (Angola) on 1 June, Sata kept chanting pro-ZANU- PF slogans, interrupting anyone who criticised Mugabe. Relations between Mugabe and his Botswana counterpart Ian Khama appeared to be thawing. On 23 May, in what was dubbed a ‘secret visit’, second vice president John Nkomo arrived in Gaborone (Botswana) 542 • Southern Africa leading an 11-member delegation and held a brief meeting with Khama. Mugabe also dispatched his defence and state security ministers with special messages to the leaders of Angola and Zambia in what was interpreted as a campaign to seek regional backing for elections in 2012. SADC was again called upon to intervene in the squabbling over elections. On 1 June, at the Extraordinary Summit of SADC Heads of State and Govern- ment in Luanda, the regional body effectively ended Mugabe’s plans to hold polls during the year without any meaningful reforms. In its communiqué, SADC “urged the parties to the GPA to finalise the constitution-making process and subject it to a referendum thereafter”. The summit also urged the parties to the GPA, assisted by President Zuma, to develop an implementation mechanism and to set out time frames for the full implementation of the roadmap to elections. Both the MDC-T and ZANU-PF interpreted this as a vin- dication of their positions. On 18 August, a full SADC summit in Maputo (Mozambique) affirmed these resolutions, again urging “the parties to the GPA to develop a roadmap together with timelines that are guided by requirements of the processes necessary for the adoption of the constitution of conditions for free and fair elections to be held”. Notably, this summit recognised Welshman Ncube, the MDC-N leader, as a GPA principal. On 8 December, the SADC summit in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) again urged the political stakeholders in Zimbabwe to fully implement the GPA, and called on the political stakeholders to finalise the constitutional process – including a referendum – before the holding of elections in 2013. As expected, the parties gave their own political spin to the commu- niqué, declaring victory for their own positions. President Zuma’s facilitation of the GPA continued to generate controversy, with ZANU-PF becoming hostile and MDC-T referring quite a few GPA disputes to Zuma. This saw an increase in the number of visits to Harare by Zuma’s facilitation team. On 28 May, a strong facilitation team, comprising senior figures Lindiwe Zulu, Mac Maharaj and Charles Nqakula, was in Harare for talks with the negotiators of the three GPA parties. On 28 August, the team held a meeting with GPA negotiators in Harare on attempts to revive the stalled constitutional reform process. The visit followed a weekend decision by ZANU-PF’s politburo that their amended draft charter was “final and non-negotiable”, while the MDC formations insisted that the agreed version be taken to the All Stakehold- ers Conference. On 8 October, the team visited Harare for briefings on progress with the finalisation of a new constitution, which had become a condition for the holding of elections. On 27 November, a two-member facilitation team arrived in Harare for two-day talks with the three GPA parties, where they were told of lack of progress. Senior ZANU- PF officials became increasingly critical of Zuma’s facilitation. In a scathing attack in an online newspaper on 19 August, Jonathan Moyo described Zuma as “troubled” and accused him of unilaterally installing Ncube as GPA principal. ZANU-PF apparently supported Julius Malema in his fight against Zuma. These attacks did not, however, seem to change ZANU-PF’s relationship with Zuma, the ANC and the South African government. On several occasions during the year, South Africa called for the lifting of sanctions Zimbabwe • 543 against Zimbabwe. In a statement on 29 August, the MDC formation led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara attacked what it described as “the persistent and pestering attitude of the Zuma facilitation team”. This was probably a response to Zuma’s purported influence in having SADC make decisions that did not support the positions of ZANU-PF and Mutambara’s MDC faction. Relations with the EU remained frosty. On 17 February, the EU announced that ‘restrictive measures’ against Zimbabwe should be renewed until 20 February 2013. On the list were 112 individuals and 11 entities. Ostensibly to facilitate further dialogue between the EU and the government of Zimbabwe, the travel ban imposed on the two members of the ‘re-engagement team’, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Foreign Minister Simba- rashe Mumbengegwi, were lifted. On 22 March, the EU renewed its ‘restrictive measures’ against rough diamonds from Zimbabwe’s Marange area until February 2013. On 23 May, Attorney General Johannes Tomana filed a lawsuit against the EU, seeking the removal of sanctions targeting Mugabe and his close allies, claiming that the measures were illegal and violated their rights. There was no improvement in relations with the USA. In January, the USA imposed sanctions on two state-owned diamond-mining companies, although this was unlikely to affect sales of Zimbabwean stones to destinations such as India and Dubai. Finance Minister Tendai Biti attacked the US government for imposing the ban. In May, the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson vowed that the USA would not lift sanctions imposed on Mugabe and many top officials before there were signs of permanent political reforms. On 14 November, a US diplomat said sanctions on Zimbabwe would remain until the human rights situation improved. Relations with multilateral organisations were mixed. In May, UN High Commis- sioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay visited Zimbabwe, calling on 25 May for the suspension of targeted international sanctions pending the holding of elections. Expressing views that resonated with ZANU-PF’s stance on sanctions, she claimed that the measures were hurting the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people. In June, an IMF team visited Zimbabwe for routine Article IV consultations. The subsequent report reflected the usual worries about, among other things, Zimbabwe’s arrears on external payments. In a statement issued on 30 October, the IMF announced that it had relaxed most restrictions on technical assistance to Zimbabwe. This opened the way for future staff-monitored programmes and full normalisation of relations. The IMF executive board would also resume IMF technical assistance in new areas to support the country’s formulation and implementation of a comprehensive adjustment and structural reform programme to be monitored by its staff. In a major endorsement, on 27 July the World Bank described Zimbabwe’s plans to settle $ 10.7 bn of foreign debt as “reasonable”. Mugabe’s criticism of the UNSC continued unabated. In a speech before the UN General Assembly on 26 September, he said the UNSC had allowed itself to be “abused” by authorising the use of force in Libya. 544 • Southern Africa

Good relations with traditional allies in the east continued, and were particularly close with China and Iran. In October, the Iran-Zimbabwe Joint Commission was inaugurated in Tehran (Iran). Meetings took place between the respective foreign ministers. Iran expressed satisfaction with the level of Tehran-Harare cooperation. In March, there were sensational reports that Zimbabwe’s role as a potential conduit for military equipment destined for Iran was likely to come under the spotlight as international agencies probed claims that bribes were solicited in South Africa for sanctions-busting deals with Iran. The reports came as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was meeting Defence Min- ister Emmerson Mnangagwa in Tehran. At a meeting between Mnangagwa and Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi, Iran pledged to help Zimbabwe to modernise its defence forces. Some critics interpreted this as Iran’s attempts to access Zimbabwe’s uranium and diamonds. In April, Chinese Vice Prime Minister Hui Liangyu visited Zimbabwe. He held talks with Tsvangirai, who stated that Zimbabwe would keep its “all-weather” friendly relationship with China whatever happened in the future. In December, Mugabe visited China and met with Hui Liangyu. The two countries reaffirmed their friendship and pledged continued cooperation. On 27 October, in an interview in ‘The Herald’, the Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe asserted that the two countries enjoyed a profound traditional friendship and that China would stand by Zimbabwe. South Korea, which had an embassy in Harare and had signed a bilateral investment treaty with Zimbabwe, continued to make its presence felt. On 20 February, at an event to hand over shoes, balls and food to a ZANU-PF representative, its diplomatic representative said the donation would go a long way in strengthening relations between the two countries.

Socioeconomic Developments

There were indications that the huge improvement in economic indicators witnessed since the launch of the GNU was beginning to moderate. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) figures showed that the consumer price index marginally increased to 102.9%, with the year-on-year price increase at 2.90%. According to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimates, real GDP growth was 2.1%. The national budget unveiled in November revised the growth forecasts to 4.4%, down from 5.6% in July. The EIU put the nominal GDP at $ 2.3 bn, up from $ 2.0 bn in 2011. Manufacturing grew by only 2.1%. The low growth was explained by a lack of investment and excessive imports. The current account balance, excluding transfers, was –$ 0.6 bn compared with $ 58.6 m in 2011, while total international reserves dropped from $ 461 m to $ 422 m. In the budget statement, the finance minister put the external debt at more than $ 10 bn. The country continued to be in default, with arrears then estimated at $ 6.1 bn. The expected windfall from diamonds did not materialise, as revenue from the minerals did not live Zimbabwe • 545 up to expectations. On 6 November, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation announced that the diamond industry was expected to contribute only a quarter of the $ 600 m that Treasury had projected would come from the sector in 2012. Zimbabwe performed poorly in a number of World Bank league tables. The country was ranked 171st out of 183 economies in ‘Doing Business 2012’, Zimbabwe’s overall score having fallen by three points, reflecting lower scores for five indicators. The most drastic drop occurred in the Getting Credit indicator, where it fell ten places. Zimbabwe’s economic freedom score was 26.3, making its economy the 178th freest in the 2012 Index. Its score had increased by 4.2 points from 2011, reflecting gains in half of the ten economic freedoms. Zimbabwe was ranked last out of 46 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region and was the second least free country ranked in the 2012 Index. According to a Reliefweb appeal published on 23 November, the humanitarian situation continued to improve and was largely stable. However, humanitarian challenges remained. Among them were food insecurity and sporadic outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Not surprisingly, a wide range of highly vulnerable groups, such as the chronically ill, returned migrants, asylum seekers and people in displacement-like situations, continued to require humanitarian aid. Food security remained a concern. According to WFP, cereal production for the 2011– 2012 season was 1,076,772 metric tonnes – a third lower than in the previous season. At the beginning of the year, crop-planting figures suggested that output of maize, cotton and soya would decline. The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) estimated that 1.6 m ‘food-insecure’ people would be unable to meet their basic food requirements in the 2012/13 consumption year until the time of the following harvest in April 2013. WFP identified the threats to food security as including political and economic instability, recurrent droughts, poverty, poor agricultural practices, HIV/AIDS and high unemployment. The agency reported that, together with its partners, it was responding to the crisis by providing Targeted Seasonal Assistance to meet the food needs of highly vulnerable groups during the lean season. Throughout the year, there were reports of outbreaks of typhoid in the cities. On 24 January, the authorities revealed that more than 660 people had been treated for typhoid in Harare. They claimed that the outbreak of the bacterial disease appeared to be waning. In July, at least 111 cases of typhoid were reported in Harare and Chitungwiza. City of Harare officials said the outbreak was due to water shortages in the city and in the satellite towns of Chitungwiza, Norton, Ruwa and Epworth. In December, the Combined Harare Residents Association warned that water from unprotected wells in the suburbs of Dziva- resekwa, Mufakose, Budiriro, Glen View and Highfields contained salmonella-typhea, a bacterium that caused typhoid. Progress was reported in the country’s response to HIV/AIDS. According to the 2010–11 Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS), 15% of Zimbabweans were HIV-positive. This was a slight decrease from 18% in the 2005–6 ZDHS survey. 546 • Southern Africa

HIV prevalence continued to be higher among women than men: 18% of women were HIV-positive compared with 12% of men. A third of women in their thirties and a third of men in their forties were HIV-positive. Over half of widowed women and men were HIV-positive. The number of people living with HIV was between 1.2 m and 1.3 m. HIV prevalence was highest in Matabeleland South, where 21% of adults (aged 15–49) were reported to be HIV-positive. Harare registered the lowest rate at 13%. In addition, the report showed that mosquito net ownership and use had increased three-fold; fertility had increased to 4.1 from 3.8 in 2005–6; 57% of married women were using a modern method of contraception; two-thirds of births occurred in health facilities; and two-thirds of births were assisted by a skilled provider. Despite some marked improvements, the education and health delivery systems continued to experience problems of staffing, equipment and funding. Health and educational personnel continued to constitute a substantial part of the brain drain. Industrial action and threats of industrial action arising out of salary disputes were a constant feature, further compromising these sectors. On 6 January, the government suspended the ‘bonding’ of nurses with immediate effect until it had the capacity to employ them. In August, the government indicated that it had formalised plans to export some 2,000 nurses to other countries. The country had been unable to employ all the nurses it trained, but had continued to bond them, resulting in their being jobless but at the same time unable to be seek employment elsewhere. According to official sources, many countries including Swazi- land, Lesotho, Trinidad and Tobago had indicated that they needed hundreds of nurses to work in their countries under a government-to-government agreement. The indigenisation drive continued to be a controversial and polarising issue. A number of mining companies, among them the mining giant Zimplats, had their indigenisation plans accepted by the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empower- ment. Others had theirs rejected or modified. Zimplats was the first mining company to implement the indigenisation process by launching a shared ownership scheme for the Mhondoro-Ngezi, Chegutu and Zvimba communities. In February, Youth Develop- ment, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere advised the mining company Mimosa that a portion of its indigenisation proposals had been rejected. The government also ordered Impala Platinum to transfer 29.5% of its shares to the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund in order to comply with local empowerment laws. Throughout the year, Kasukuwere issued a stream of threats to foreign- owned banks. The MDC-T continued to publicly disagree with the programme. In what was interpreted as a symptom of the infighting within ZANU-PF, RBZ governor Gideon Gono publicly differed with Kasukuwere on the indigenisation of banks. There was no let-up in the dismal performance of parastatals. The state carrier, Air Zimbabwe, which was virtually grounded for the whole year due to crippling debts, obtained two new aircraft despite its perilous financial position. In December, Air Zim- babwe confirmed that it had received two A320 Airbus planes, which would operate at Zimbabwe • 547 the beginning of 2013 in the company’s attempt to return to its regional and international routes. The steel maker Ziscosteel remained in a poor state. In October, it was reported that the Indian company Essar, which had signed a $ 750 m deal to take over the troubled steel maker, was yet to commence operations due to bickering over the control of minerals to be used as feedstock for the project and demands that the project should be in line with the country’s indigenisation policy. In October, reports indicated that the National Railways of Zimbabwe had failed to pay its 7,000 employees for the previous five months. The company needed $ 400 m to upgrade its infrastructure, as it tried to boost its cargo carriage. On 15 November, Finance Minister Tendai Biti presented the 2013 national budget, which he described as the fifth and last budget of the GNU. Biti proposed a $ 3.8 bn budget. Its most notable feature was that civil servants’ salaries accounted for 73% of the budget. Biti projected a growth rate of 4.4% for 2013. Agricultural growth was revised down from 5.5% to 4.6%. He said the budget was inspired by the need for economic growth and job creation. Biti lamented the fact that imports remained very high for a small economy like Zimbabwe’s. He said growth momentum would be underpinned by expansion in the finance, mining, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and transport sectors. At midnight on 17 August, the official national census kicked off. It was marred by controversy. Soldiers threatened to take over the task by force. The census had been in danger of being cancelled the previous week after thousands of soldiers around the country had stormed centres where enumerators (mostly teachers) had gathered for the final session of their three-month training. They were apparently motivated by the allowances that came with the job. The results released in December showed that the population had increased by an annual inter-censal growth rate of 1.1% since the 2002 census. The population of Zimbabwe on August 18 was 12,973,808. The results were queried by, among others, the Progressive Teacher’s Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) and Bulawayo City Coun- cil, who claimed that the results underestimated population and growth. According to the census figures Bulawayo had a population of 655,675. The city’s mayor argued that the actual population was 1.5 m. The PTUZ supported Bulawayo’s assertions, claiming that the figures had been manipulated by the Central Intelligence Organisation, the military and ZANU-PF in an effort to limit voter registration in areas where ZANU-PF would have little support in the forthcoming election. There was an indication that Zimbabwe’s exodus had marginally slowed down. The estimated net migration rate was 23.8 migrants per 1,000 of the population. There was, however, an increasing flow of Zimbabweans into South Africa and Botswana in search of better economic opportunities.

Amin Y. Kamete

List of Authors

Jon Abbink, Researcher, African Studies Centre, Leiden, Professor of African Studies at the VU University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Kwesi Aning, Director, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research (FAAR), Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Accra, Ghana, [email protected]

Nancy Annan, Researcher, Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research (FAAR), Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Ghana, [email protected]

Alice Bellagamba, Associate Professor, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Department of Human Sciences for Education “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milan-Bicocca, alice. [email protected]

Heinrich Bergstresser, Media Consultant, Freelance Research Associate of the Institute of African Affairs in Hamburg and Freelance Tutor of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internation- ale Zusammenarbeit GIZ, Germany, [email protected]

Maitseo Bolaane, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Botswana, [email protected]

Valerio Bosco, Freelance Consultant, Former Political Affairs Officer at the UN Office to the African Union and Director of Research at the Italian Military Center for Strategic Studies, Rome, Italy, [email protected]

Alicia Campos, Lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, [email protected]

Brett Logan Carter, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, [email protected]

Nic Cheeseman, Director of the African Studies Centre and Hugh Price Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford, UK, [email protected]

Tiyesere Mercy Chikapa-Jamali, Lecturer at the Department of Political and Administra- tive Studies, University of Malawi, [email protected] 550 • List of Authors

John Daniel, Academic Director of the School for International Training’s programme in Social and Political Transformation in Durban, South Africa, [email protected]

Han van Dijk, Researcher, African Studies Centre, Leiden and Professor of Law and Gov- ernance in Africa, chair Law and Governance group, Dept of Social Sciences, Wagenin- gen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Lewis B. Dzimbiri, Professor of Public Administration, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, [email protected]

Vincent Foucher, Associate Researcher, Unité Les Afriques dans le Monde, Centre national de la recherche scientifique & Sciences Po Bordeaux, [email protected]

Mark Furness, Senior Researcher, Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE), Bonn, Germany, [email protected]

Lansana Gberie, Academic and Writer, New York, USA, [email protected]

Eric Komlavi Hahonou, Associate Professor of International Development Studies, Department of Society & Globalisation, Roskilde University, Denmark, [email protected]

Joseph Hanlon, Visiting Senior Fellow, Department of International Development, Lon- don School of Economics, UK; Honorary Research Fellow, School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Development Policy and Practice Centre of the Open University, UK, j.hanlon@open. ac.uk

Kurt Hirschler, Freelance Political Scientist, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Nicole Hirt, Freelance Research Associate, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies and Senior Consultant at HACOS – “Horn of Africa Consultancy Service”, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Rolf Hofmeier, Former Director, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Amin Y. Kamete, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, amini.kamete@ glasgow.ac.uk

Christoph Kohl, Researcher, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Ger- many, [email protected] List of Authors • 551

Dirk Kohnert, Retired Deputy Director, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Insti- tute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Bruno Losch, Research Director, Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Montpellier, France, [email protected]

Richard R. Marcus, Director and Associate Professor, International Studies Program, California State University, Long Beach, USA, [email protected]

Andreas Mehler, Director, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Henning Melber, Senior Adviser/Director emeritus, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, [email protected]

Sanusha Naidu, Senior Researcher, South African Foreign Policy Initiative (SAFPI), OSF-SA, Cape Town, South Africa

Claes Olsson, Political Scientist and Editor at Global Publications Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, [email protected]

Helena Olsson, Political Sciencist and Staff Member at the Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Sweden, [email protected]

Krijn Peters, Associate Professor in Armed Conflict & Post-war Reconstruction, Depart- ment of Political & Cultural Studies, Swansea University, UK, [email protected]

Fanny Pigeaud, Journalist, France, [email protected]

Marisha Ramdeen, Programme Officer at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolu- tion of Disputes (ACCORD) in Durban, South Africa, [email protected]

Anita Schroven, Researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld, anita. [email protected]

Jon Schubert, Doctoral researcher at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edin- burgh, UK, and Senior Analyst Lusophone and Central Africa, Exclusive Analysis, Lon- don, [email protected]

David Sebudubudu, Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Politi- cal and Administrative Studies, University of Botswana, [email protected]

Gerhard Seibert, Researcher at the Center for International Studies (CEI), ISCTE- University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, [email protected] 552 • List of Authors

Claudia Simons, Research Fellow, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany, [email protected]

Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Van Zyl Slabbert Visiting Professor in Political Studies and Sociology for 2013, University of Cape Town, [email protected]

Alexander Stroh, Research Fellow, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany, [email protected]

Susan Thomson, Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Colgate University, Hamilton, USA, [email protected].

Klaus-Peter Treydte, Economist, Former country representative Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation Madagascar and Mauritius, [email protected]

Stef Vandeginste, Lecturer and Post-doctoral fellow, University of Antwerp, Belgium, [email protected]

Martin van Vliet, African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, mvanvliet_imd@ yahoo.com

Klaas van Walraven, Researcher, African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, [email protected]

Volker Weyel, Former Editor-in-chief ‘Vereinte Nationen’ (1977–2004), consultant, Bonn, Germany, [email protected]

Peter Woodward, Emeritus professor, School of Politics and International Relations, Uni- versity of Reading, UK, [email protected]

Douglas Yates, Professor of Political Science at the American Graduate School in Paris, France, [email protected]