www.africa-confidential.com 5 April 2002 Vol 43 No 7 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL SIERRA LEONE 2 SIERRA LEONE Whose best friend? The war in which more than 50,000 Heading for the door people died was mainly about Problems with the election timetable and organisation undermine resources or people’s lack of them. the huge peacekeeping mission Now the government is being President seems sure to win Sierra Leone’s presidential election on 14 May. pushed to police the rogue gem trade that fired the fighting. He has support from Sierra Leoneans relieved that peace has come at last and from an international community (led by Britain) which sees him as the candidate most likely to follow its agenda. They hope that a second Kabbah presidency will at least reduce corruption and bring in new blood. His KENYA 3running mate, Attorney General Solomon Berewa, dismisses as ‘wild rumours’ talk that 70-year- old Kabbah has offered to step down after two years. Chairman Moi Donors had hoped a new Kabbah government would have a stronger mandate than the present one, President Moi and Trade Minister which was elected in 1996 in a poll that could not be held everywhere and whose term of office Biwott have used KANU’s merger officially ended a year ago. The main opposition is missing, though. Leaders of the Revolutionary with Raila Odinga’s NDP to United Front met on 1 April and threatened not to participate in the presidential and parliamentary reshuffle the party. As Chairman of the merged party, Moi will retain elections. Foday Sankoh, whom they want as their presidential candidate, is on trial for murder, sick great power and influence – even and in any event ineligible because he is not a registered elector. RUF Secretary General Pallo if he retires after the elections. Bangura, close to Sankoh, has been insisting, along with the RUF rank and file, on Sankoh’s right to stand. So by the deadline on 2 April, the RUF had not registered any candidate for the presidential 4 poll; the deadline was immediately extended as almost everyone hopes the RUF will reconsider. If the RUF stays out of the elections, it risks undermining the peace – declared just two months ago – Grabbing at growth between government and rebels. Frustrated by the manoeuvring, some senior RUF figures have defected and their spokesperson, Ghana is in political crisis after Jibril Massaquoi, has joined Kabbah’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). When the news clashes in Yendi resulted in the murder of the Dagomba King. This became public, an angry mob of RUF supporters beat him up. focuses attention on the weaknesses of President Kufuor’s Violent electoral legacy government: security lapses and a sluggish economy. The RUF was against holding elections in 1996 and its opposition led to widespread violence and intimidation. Corruption haunts the ballot-boxes. In late February, Clare Short, Britain’s International Development Minister, flew to Sierra Leone and flew straight back after delivering a ZIMBABWE 6 speech warning that further British support depended on an end to corruption. She spoke, perhaps fancifully, of ‘a strong mutual commitment to the building of a competent, transparent and uncorrupt Stalemate modern state’. Shrinking credibility and shortages Her speech, to an invited audience of government and opposition politicians and local non- of food are forcing President governmental organisations, coincided with the start of the election campaign, after which many Mugabe’s hand. Under pressure people will expect to be rewarded for standing by Kabbah and the SLPP. The anti-corruption from South Africa and Nigeria, he is negotiating with the opposition campaign gives the President advantages over his rivals and the process is overseen by Berewa, who MDC as more details emerge about won the nomination as vice-presidential candidate over the incumbent, Joe Demby. fraud in the March elections. The Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Walter Nicol, isn’t universally admired. Nicol is a former Inspector General of Police who was sacked in 1994 by Captain ’s military government for alleged ‘subversive political activities’. Now there ERITREA 6 are allegations in that Nicol has more legal problems and that Western officials have been Politics before pressing the Kabbah government for his removal. Yet in an interview with Africa Confidential, Attorney General Berewa elegantly dismissed the reports: ‘I’ve not heard that there’s anything like economics a corruption indictment against him or that he’s in any way corrupt.’ President Issayas is consolidating The international community relies on consultants from the International Foundation for Electoral his base and blocking Systems to keep the NEC on the straight and narrow. IFES has a solid reputation but tries to stay investigations into the war with diplomatic about the NEC; it has also been quick to defend the obvious faults in the recent elector Ethiopia, ahead of the elections. registration. Members of the Anti-Corruption Commission told Short of their frustrations, saying they had often compiled evidence of corruption by ministers and officials, only to find that nothing POINTERS 8 happened when they reported cases to government department; they suspected pressure was being applied. Nevertheless, Britain probably wouldn’t dare to cut off aid to a government that was Angola, CAR & rescued by British troops – and Prime Minister Tony Blair likes to claim Sierra Leone as a foreign Madagascar 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7 Whose best friend? The slaughter in Sierra Leone was mainly about resources and financial difficulties in Angola and is now controlled by Lyndhurst most people’s lack of them. For decades, the Freetown elite and of South Africa, whose chairman, Antonio Teixeira, took over as its foreign friends kept the spoils of the diamond business; for company President in May 2001. In January 2000, Teixeira denied most of the past decade, the Revolutionary United Front controlled accusations by Peter Hain, then a junior minister in Britain’s the diamond fields of the east, matching its Freetown predecessors Foreign and Commonwealth Office, of sanctions-breaking by in corruption and brutality. In February, the RUF was driven from flying diesel to Angola’s União Nacional para a Independência the diamond fields and the chaos has widened as RUF-sponsored Total de Angola rebels. miners are joined by others working for politicians, generals and A British company, Mano River Resources, resumed exploration traditional rulers. in February on its three licences close to the Koidu pipes. Mano Friendly governments want President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah hopes to repeat its success in Liberia, where it has found kimberlites to get the business under control, to stop other rebel groups (and using new techniques in a similarly underexplored area (and enjoys perhaps terrorists) exploiting the trade to raise and transfer funds. close ties to President Charles Taylor). In January, Britain’s Department for International Development The British consultants’ report projects a rise in Sierra Leone’s published a study on reform and development of the business, diamond output from about 250,000 carats forecast for 2002, to prepared by AMCO Robertson Mineral Services. It lists options 750,000-1,000,000 carats in four to five years. That would increase of varying cost and complexity, from appointing an expatriate income from around US$50 million in 2002 to $180 mn. by 2006 commissioner to oversee the industry to establishing a new and require investment of $140-$200 mn., almost entirely from Diamond Authority or to strengthening the Ministry of Mineral abroad. (Artisanal mining would produce diamonds worth some Resources and the Gold and Diamond Office. The report $40-80 mn. and require investment of $5-$15 mn.) That would recommends that the 1996 Mines and Minerals Act should be raise direct government revenue from less than $1 mn. to more than complemented by a Diamond Act covering corruption, security, $7 mn. in four to five years, if all goes well. The industry could trading and exporting, plus social aspects. Many of the artisan employ 10,000 to 15,000 workers, indirectly employing as many as miners who sieve through mud for alluvial diamonds work in 140,000 people. appalling conditions for the Lebanese traders who dominate the There are also hopeful signs of a resumption of production early business. Britain will lend the President’s Office an official for next year at the Sierra Rutile (titanium) mine, now wholly owned a year, to give advice and to take the blame for unpopular by mining magnate Jean-Raymond Boulle, who in May 2001 decisions. acquired the 50 per cent stake owned by Australia’s Consolidated Most of the easily exploited resources have been worked out Rutile. Earnings from rutile exports could quickly outstrip those but the report identifies significant reserves, such as the from gemstones. Bauxite production is also set to resume soon. underground kimberlite deposits at Tongo and Kono. Branch Oil is the next prospect. Kabbah plans to offer offshore acreage Energy, which holds 60 per cent of a property with two known in a licensing round to be launched in late April or early May. The kimberlite pipes in Koidu near Kono, has reopened its Freetown acreage will be promoted by a United States’, Houston-based, office and started repairing its facilities (AC Vol 39 No 10). geological services company, TGS-NOPEC, and the endeavour Branch was driven out in 1998 after RUF rebels grabbed its could turn the election campaign spotlight towards oil and away concessions, and its operations are now overseen from from the distasteful diamond industry. As the economy recovers Johannesburg by its new South African managing director, from the civil war, farming, bauxite and rutile should revive. Theo Botoulas. Branch’s parent company, DiamondWorks, met Diamonds are more lucrative and far easier to smuggle.

policy success. nominees challenged his nomination in the courts. Other presidential Corruption was an original cause of the civil war. The RUF hopefuls include 86-year-old John Karefa Smart of the United exploited the widespread feeling that Freetown’s politicians, National People’s Party, who lost to Kabbah in the 1996 runoff, and officials and Lebanese merchants suck the wealth out of the rich 1997 coup leader Johnny Paul Koroma, whose Peace and hinterland and give nothing back. After ten years of war, the Liberation Party (PLP) looks like a civilian version of his Armed Freetown fat cats still charge percentages for favourable treatment Forces Ruling Council. In campaign speeches, Koroma has hinted by bureaucracy, award contracts for kickbacks and over-invoice of problems within the army, where he remains popular, with many government. of his former colleagues who are now senior officers. Another candidate, Zainab Bangura, left her job as coordinator Opposition in disarray of the influential Campaign for Good Governance to set up the Opposition parties and some civil-society groups had called for an Movement for Progress. Bangura says she does not really hope to interim government, to stabilise peace before elections. They have be president but wants to reinvigorate parliament and the opposition. now decided to cooperate with the process but the opposition is in Her party has no traditional support and is no match for Kabbah and disarray. The northern parties’ efforts to form a Grand Alliance the SLPP but it and the inexperienced Young People’s Party are the have been undermined by the appointment to government posts of only signs of real change in the country’s patronage-based politics. key leaders such as Trade Minister Osman Kamara, head of the Elector registration met massive logistical and organisational People’s Democratic Party. difficulties, and electors are unfamiliar with the process. A One candidate who registered by the 2 April deadline was Ernest respectable 2.2 million people registered but critics claim the NEC Koroma of the All People’s Congress, the party of former President chose voting centres and distributed forms so as to favour the south Joseph Momoh. He is relatively young, and undamaged by the (which usually votes for the ruling party) over the west (which is APC’s 34 corrupt years in power before the 1992 coup; rival APC volatile). The Campaign for Good Governance said the process 2 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7 had failed to register hundreds of thousands of potential voters. Opinion varies as to how much the under-registration can be KENYA blamed on bureaucratic incompetence (the government view) and how much on deliberate exclusion of anti-Kabbah areas (the opposition view). Large numbers of former RUF fighters have handed in their Chairman Moi weapons with little prospect of finding jobs. They are vulnerable New KANU moves the country back to the to influence by politicians such as the PLP’s Koroma or Deputy one-party state Defence Minister Sam ‘Hinga’ Norman, leader of the Kamajor militias. RUF units treated civilians brutally but took good care of The dynamic duo, President Daniel arap Moi and his Trade Minister, their own members, sharing out loot like an extended criminal Nicholas Kipyator Biwott, dominate Kenyan politics more completely family; recently demobilised fighters have lost even that structure. than they have for a decade (AC Vol 43 Nos 1 & 2). They seized the moment of the merger of Moi’s Kenya African National Union and Army too big, police force too small Raila Amolo Odinga’s National Development Party on 18 March to The army is about 14,000 strong, twice as big as donors feel it need reshuffle the KANU deck to their huge advantage. The merged party is be. The police force of 5,000 is about half the necessary size. Some called New KANU (think Britain’s New Labour, but with a virile red donors think British-trained Sierra Leonean troops could be sent cockerel instead of New Labour’s red rose). off as peacekeepers to Congo-Kinshasa, which would earn some Moi remains Chairman of the new party, with greatly extended money for the government. The police are supposed, crucially, to powers. When he vacates the presidency and if – which is almost certain ensure security for the elections but there is only one police officer – KANU wins the next parliamentary elections, he will in practice keep for each polling station. The police chief, Keith Biddle, is a British full control of both government and parliament. The constitution gives staff member of Short’s Department for International Development, supreme power to the president and Biwott, by far the most ruthless and due to hand over to a Sierra Leonean soon. He complains of politically acute minister in cabinet, is clearly Moi’s choice for that difficulties finding recruits with adequate education and of the office. (This may prove harder to sell to donors than to the stunned ranks high natural death rate amongst officers and recruits. of KANU notables, persistently outmanoeuvred by Moi and his The World Bank plans to convene a donors’ meeting, possibly in favourite.) Biwott’s and Moi’s mutual admiration is buttressed by self- July, to put together aid pledges. The government is working on the interest; banking insiders say they each know more about the other’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper demanded by the International business dealings (and those of their families) than anyone else. Locked Monetary Fund. In March, Sierra Leone qualified for debt relief together financially, neither can afford to lose his political grip. under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, which will save the government some US$35 million per year. Saitoti loses out Britain is keen to share the aid burden and the European Union’s Their problem is how to shore up KANU’s ethnic base. Moi’s method Special Representative, Sweden’s Permanent Under-Secretary was to bring in the Luo (as in 1983, following the purge of his then Hans Dahlgren, visits Sierra Leone and reports back to Brussels confidant, Charles Mugane Njonjo). That is why Moi made sure the on what is required. Post-election priorities will include attracting Luo leader, Raila Odinga, became New KANU’s Secretary General, international mining companies back to the rutile and bauxite taking charge of policies and programmes. Moi and Biwott gamble industries, and cleaning up the diamond business (see Box). (without too much risk, say party veterans) that they will outplay Morocco, seeking to increase its business involvement in West Odinga and his allies, who will get jobs with impressive titles but no real Africa, is trying to help with political cooperation, too. On 27 power. The biggest loser is Vice-President George Saitoti, out of the February, King Mohammed VI’s discreet diplomats brought running to be Moi’s successor. He used to be a close ally of Biwott’s together Presidents Kabbah, Liberia’s Charles Taylor and but lost out in the party reshuffle and will not be nominated as KANU’s ’s Lansana Conté (AC Vol 43 No 5) for talks which ended presidential candidate next December. fairly cordially. Sanctions on Liberia, imposed last May to halt the Saitoti’s loyal ally, John Joseph (‘J.J.’) Kamotho, lost his position diamonds-for-weapons trade that helped finance the RUF, are up as party Secretary to Raila. The four new vice-chairmen – Wycliffe for renewal and a ’ team is there, reviewing Musalia Mudavadi (Luhya), Uhuru Kenyatta (Kikuyu), Katana compliance. Taylor wants to be seen to be cooperating with the Ngala (Giriama/Coastal) and Kalonzo Musyoka (Kamba) – have no international community and with Freetown. Kabbah has also specific functions other than those Moi assigns them. They are there courted Taylor’s old friends in Libya; his right-hand man, former mainly to strengthen the party’s ethnic base. Privately, Moi has assured Foreign Minister Sama Banya, has visited Tripoli and Kabbah each of them, we hear, that he is the current favourite; in return for himself met Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi in November. nomination as the presidential candidate, they are supposed to bring out Liberia could once again play a decisive (and destructive) role in the ethnic vote. Moi is close to all four vice-chairmen and their families, Sierra Leone. The leaders of the Kamajor militias have been and has been a kind of surrogate father to Kenyatta, Ngala and Mudavadi sidelined, as a result of internal SLPP politics. However, they are (whose father promoted the young Moi in the 1950s). Musyoka owes too powerful to stay quiet for long. Sam Norman and other his elevation to lobbying by Moi’s confidant Mulu Mutisya, Chairman Kamajors support the new dissident movement Liberians United of KANU’s Machakos branch. for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) in their war against With all four vice-chairmen in his debt, Moi has assumed Taylor and the remnants of the RUF in Liberia, led by Sam unprecedented powers as Chairman of the new party: Bockarie (AC Vol 43 No 4). If Kamajors and Liberian dissidents ● He will assign powers and duties to all party officials including the ganged up with the opposition parties against the Kabbah four vice-chairmen; government, those thousands of unemployed youths might go back ● He will call and chair all KANU parliamentary group meetings. to the only job they know. These should include the cabinet and, given a probable parliamentary 3 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7

majority, will decide on the party’s and the country’s legislative make a brief speech conceding defeat. Kamotho, who had pledged to agenda; fight Odinga at the meeting, followed suit with his own concession. ● He will appoint members of KANU’s disciplinary committees, which can evict errant or dissident members of parliament and thus Pots and kettles deprive them of their seats; The sole candidate for deputy treasurer was Water Minister Kimng’eno ● Moi also has power to appoint branch officials and adjudicate arap Ng’eny, who faces several corruption charges – and whose branch-level disputes. selection clearly favours his (and Moi’s) Kalenjin group. When his The KANU-NDP trade-off has been clear since last year. For power name was announced, there was an uproar of ‘No!’, ‘Thief!’, in the next government, meaning the office of prime minister, the NDP ‘Corruption!’ Moi asked the delegates to allow Ng’eny’s election and will marshal the Luo vote to ensure that Moi retires with honour, and then petition the party’s returning officer, a post that does not exist. that he and his cronies will not be politically or legally pursued by a Next, KANU must face the Kikuyu, a large, enterprising and successor regime. The negotiations continued even as KANU was determined group. After Kasarani, Ruto crisscrossed their territory, meeting in Kasarani Stadium. There, 6,000 hand-picked delegates inviting them to come to KANU ‘for development’. The Kikuyu from the branches of both parties approved by acclamation the new remain solidly against Moi personally and his party, resenting especially line-up of officials. the token appointment of Uhuru Kenyatta, who lost the 1997 election Speaking to a large Kalenjin rally last July, Odinga was reported as on a KANU ticket by a landslide to a novice. The Kikuyu stand alone saying: ‘We Luo will protect Moi and the Kalenjin when Moi retires in opposition to the corrupt and ineffective government. Privately, because we are both Nilotes’. (The Luo and Kalenjin ancestors are many new KANU officials are happy with that. If the Kikuyu join, supposed to have migrated from southern Sudan). Before the KANU there will be less patronage to go around, when public money and party ‘elections’, Odinga told a Luo rally near Kisumu that the Luo public land are scarce. would be the heart that would run the new government and ‘without Violent resistance is unlikely: many Kikuyu leaders expect KANU the heart, the head has no power’. Opposition optimists hope the to split before the elections. (These are due before year’s end but on merger will founder when Odinga’s people start to resent the Moi- 28 March, the head of the Review Commission, Yash Pal Ghai, said Biwott dominance but Moi’s position is buttressed by Biwott in his that because the new Constitution would not be ready, polling could post as KANU Organising Secretary, with functions akin to those of be delayed until early next year). Saitoti and Kamotho are being lured party whip. into the Democratic Party; Saitoti, still nominally the leader of government business, has refused to sit on the appropriate parliamentary Biwott’s line-up bench since he lost his post as party vice-chairman. The opposition’s Apart from the Luo, most of the new party faces are Biwott-loyalists. best hope would be if Mwai Kibaki’s DP merged with Simeon The new configuration of national party officials, selected by Moi and Nyachae’s Forum for Democracy-People, the only other opposition Biwott, was agreed upon just 24 hours before the Kasarani meeting party with a substantial following. Yet Nyachae refuses, even though and delegates found that alternative candidates would get no chance, his support is confined to Kisii and Kipsigis. If they would learn from with voting by acclamation, not secret ballot. Biwott had spent most 1992 and 1997, Nyachae and Kibaki could trounce KANU. But have of the previous weekend moving from hotel to hotel, calling on they learned? regional delegations with an entourage of Kalenjin functionaries from Moi’s State House. Like a true kingmaker, Biwott persuaded Cyrus Jirongo (Luhya), who aimed for the presidency, to make way for GHANA Mudavadi and keep the Luhya united. He prevailed on Joseph Nyagah (Embu/Mbeere) and Harun Mwau (Kamba) to step aside for Kalonzo Musyoka, as best placed to deliver the Kamba vote in Eastern Grabbing at growth Province. Political troubles mean the government has Most potential challengers for lesser posts were persuaded to step to do better with the economy down, for a financial consideration or a government post. Biwott- loyalists in the new party format include his two deputy organising Suddenly Ghana is in political crisis. For the last decade, the country’s secretaries, Minister of State Julius Sunkuli (Maasai) and Agriculture development of a constitutional democracy and political stability Minister Bonaya Adhi Godana (Gabra). The new National Director amid the turbulence of West Africa was a source of national pride. of Elections, William Ruto (Nandi), is also close to Biwott and a long- Even if the economy was weak, government-dominated and aid- time opponent of Saitoti’s. It remains to be seen whether Odinga, who dependent, the political system was making headway. Now, a series has won the battle against Kamotho, will work with or challenge of clashes in the north have changed the picture. Biwott’s line-up. Last week, a militant group murdered the King of the Dagombas, To make sure delegates stuck with the official (and only) list of Ya-na Yakubu Andani, and 25 of his supporters in the town of Yendi. candidates, the ‘master of ceremonies’, Deputy Speaker of Parliament For several days, the Abudus and the Andanis – both sub groups of the and NDP financier, Joab Omino, read out the name of the sole Dagomba – clashed on the streets; the King’s Andani supporters nominee for party chairman (Moi) and asked those in favour to say blamed the Abudu for his murder. Days later, the government ‘Aye’. A thunderous ‘Aye’ filled the hall. Then he asked those announced a state of emergency in the north and Interior Minister opposed to stand up. The resulting dead silence set the tone for the rest Malik Yakubu and Northern Region Minister Imoro Andani resigned. of the meeting, with two exceptions. Saitoti, having been assured that The crisis may be one of northern Ghana’s periodic and tragic he would be among the four nominees for the vice-chair, appeared eruptions, with no immediate consequences for the rest of the country. visibly angry on national television when humiliated by finding his Yet it sends two powerful signals to President John Agyekum name missing. ‘What is going on?’ he asked Moi. He should remain Kufuor’s government: it must re-think its security system, which may the ‘silent professor’, suggested Moi. Saitoti begged for a chance to be more liberal but is also sloppier than that of Kufuor’s martial 4 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7 predecessor, Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings. Questions are Water, electricity and petroleum prices, barely mentioned during also being asked about the performance of the National Security the budget, will go up in a few months. The Finance Minister aims to Advisor, General (retired) Joshua Hamidu, after the Yendi clashes. raise water and electricity tariffs to the market rate (the IMF calls it Secondly, the government’s high standing in the public’s regard is ‘full cost recovery’) and promised to try to target subsidies at the fading after its first year in power; its biggest problem is the lacklustre poorest people. The government has agreed with the Fund to introduce economy. The government is following the monetarist rulebook but a new oil debt service surcharge from the end of March; it will boost people see little practical benefit. ‘Winning debt relief is important but inflation as the government tries to curb it to 13 per cent. Commercial doesn’t amount to a plan for growth,’ one Ghanaian banker complained. drivers already pay a 250 per cent increase in weekly flat taxes. The Supporters of Finance Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo acclaimed his transport unions reject plans for mass transit buses and shuttle rail budget on 21 February as bringing hope to the hopeless. His critics, services for workers in the industrial centres of and Tema, led by the opposition National Democratic Congress finance spokesman saying they would put many tro-tro (local bus) owners out of business. Moses Asaga, said it suffered from ‘kwashiorkor’, meaning chronic Trades unions also criticise the government’s failure to agree a malnutrition. Most Ghanaians are poorer than they were 30 years ago, minimum wage before the budget. Indirect taxes, they protest, fall though for two decades, the World Bank and International Monetary disproportionately on the poor. Fund claimed them as the stars of structural adjustment, backed by The Treasury intends to remove ‘ghost names’ from the government some US$5 billion in cheap loans. Economic growth has become a key payroll and to cut spending on administration. It hopes to raise $50 imperative for the government; its political success will depend on it. mn. from the privatisation of Ghana Commercial Bank, National Investment Bank and the state Cocoa Purchasing Company. Several Economic theology other state-owned enterprises are due to be sold, with shares offered Osafo-Maafo’s strategy is based on more market economics, tighter for the first time through the Ghana Stock Exchange. Huge debts will fiscal controls and rapid privatisation – the usual Bank-Fund mantra reduce bids for many of these companies: Ghana Water Company (AC Vol 43 No 5). Again, Ghana is the test-bed for orthodox economic owes a total of $367 mn.; Ghana Telecom $60 mn.; Tema Oil reform yet this was the first budget for a decade not overshadowed by Refinery’s debts of $350 mn. forced the government to accept the new debt servicing. The IMF’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative oil surcharge. (HIPC) will reduce the overseas debt by $650 million over the next three years and some $3.7 bn. (57 per cent of outstanding external Nkrumah’s airline under threat debt) over the next 20 years. Decision-point was reached in the final TOR’s chaotic finances are only one of the energy sector’s problems. week of February and completion is expected by mid-year. Low rainfall has interrupted power from the Akosombo hydro-electric The budget aims for only a slight increase in the fiscal deficit (at 6.9 dam, arousing protests by disgruntled residents of the worst-hit per cent of gross domestic product) by limiting government spending suburbs of Accra and Tamale, the northern regional capital, who to available cash, tightening money supply and restructuring clashed with riot police. Manufacturing in the capital has been hit by government debt. The opposition NDC complains that it lacks focus electrical fires and power cuts. The biggest electricity consumer, and aims for growth of a modest 4.5 per cent. The World Bank’s Volta Aluminium Company (Valco), has been ordered to reduce Resident Representative, Peter Harrold, who is leaving in June, consumption by 50 per cent, in the hope of making an extra 150 promised that HIPC debt relief would allow the government to boost megawatts available to other users. The crisis has clouded negotiations spending on education, health and agriculture. However, last year’s for a new agreement between Valco and the Volta River Authority. monetary squeeze, to ensure that Ghana qualified for debt relief, Ghana Airways is not slated for privatisation but its debts of $150 pushed down growth and commerce. mn. dwarf the country’s expected HIPC savings of $100 mn. this year. The World Bank praised the economic management team – Osafo- A forensic audit is likely to recommend drastic measures; a new board Maafo, Economic Planning and Regional Integration Minister Paa of directors, chaired by Sam Jonah, Chief Executive of Ashanti Kwesi Nduom and Senior Minister Joseph Henry Mensah (a post Goldfields Company (AC Vol 42 No 25), may have to choose between created for J.H.) – for reducing interest rates and inflation, stabilising selling off or liquidating the airline. Since it was proudly established the cedi and being friendlier to local companies. Barclays Bank has by founding President Kwame Nkrumah after Independence in 1957, cut its interest rate this year from 34 per cent to 29.5 per cent; the prime there will certainly be a huge fuss. Ghana Airways had great ambitions rate for inter-bank lending has been set at an initial 24.5 per cent. and once-lucrative routes to , New York, Baltimore, Harare, Inflation was over 40 per cent in 2000, just over 21 per cent in 2001 Johannesburg and Beirut. Its fortunes faded under the former and is projected at 13 per cent by the end of the year. To encourage management headed by Emmanuel L. Quartey, who is alleged to saving, the government has introduced index-linked bonds. After an have ordered his affairs so that he and his deputy paid no tax. external audit at the end of March, the Bank of Ghana will become Unsentimental economists are advising the government to put the legally independent of political control. ailing airline up for sale as soon as possible and use the $150 mn. for Nevertheless, workers have been agitating since November for the social spending or job-creation. reinstatement of end-of-service benefits. They would like to do as The ’s economic team is looking after its core well as the NDC’s ex-ministers did last January, when they were voted constituencies. With international cocoa prices up by 30 per cent since out of office and awarded themselves lump sums and the right to buy November, the government has announced a 41 per cent increase in the official cars at knock-down prices. The biggest beneficiary was ex- price paid to farmers, to curb smuggling into neighbouring Côte President Rawlings, whose government had abolished such benefits in d’Ivoire, plus more funds for disease and pest control. Cocoa prices 1991. He was paid a total of 114 mn. cedis ($15,200), plus the use of will rise further this year, as Ivorian production drops by 200,000 21 cars (he has returned half a dozen) and several houses, while the tonnes because of disease, poor maintenance and political confusion. minimum daily wage was below its current C5,500 (73 cents) a day. Road contractors expect a bonanza from German and Japanese The former Attorney General and Justice Minister, Obed Yao funding for three main routes, linking Accra to the second city, Asamoah, got C56 mn. ($7,500). Kumasi, and to Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. Associated regional and 5 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7

feeder roads should help farmers, as well as people using schools, Supervisory Commission and Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede’s hospitals and health centres. Previous road programmes have been office; in 15 constituencies where MDC support was strong, some 185,000 derailed by corruption, so the NPP (slogan, ‘Zero Tolerance for votes were missing, according to the ESC’s own figures; and in 42 Corruption’) will be under tight scrutiny – from, amongst others, constituencies where ZANU was strong, an extra 105,000 votes appeared. watchful journalists – and says it will bring in new procedures to This is in addition to the violence and intimidation that saw MDC polling assess contractors and ensure competitive bidding. agents chased away from about 2,000 of the 4,500 polling stations. Osafo-Maafo’s budget statement said nothing about help for the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is determined to challenge the unemployed. The first unemployment census in December 2001 election through the courts though his more radical colleagues in civil found more than a million job-seekers but none of the promised job- society want to campaign on the streets as well. A demonstration by creation schemes have started. The election promise to replace the supporters of the National Constitutional Assembly is planned for 6 April much criticised ‘cash-and-carry’ health service with a health insurance to press its demands for constitutional reform and by extension, the scheme is in limbo; there are fears that a new scheme might be holding of new elections. Yet the MDC and its civil society allies haven’t administered by the scandal-ridden Social Security and National so far rocked the government by direct action such as stayaways or Insurance Trust (SSNIT) which, during the NDC government’s eight- marches. Their greatest achievement has been to chip away at Mugabe’s year rule, cost the state, in various currencies, $21 mn., DM2.78 mn. legitimacy. That, along with the deepening economic gloom, has at least and C191.96 bn. by fraud and corruption. The private insurance sector pushed a reluctant ZANU into some sort of negotiations with the MDC. wants this lucrative business. Moreover, the government can no Banking sources say export revenues slumped to US$40 million a longer take popular support for granted: its economic strategies will month by the end of last year and that reserves cover about a week of have to make sense to Ghanaian voters as much as they do to the IMF. imports. Planned maize imports of 200,000 tonnes will cost another $38 mn. in the short term and that may be just 10 per cent of requirements this ZIMBABWE year. The troubled state company Noczim imports over 800,000 barrels of refined fuel a month, about 25 per cent from Libya’s Tamoil and the same from Kuwait’s Independent Petroleum Group. About 100,000 barrels a month come from South Africa’s Sasol and Engen and from John Stalemate Bredenkamp’s Petraf company. Most suppliers insist on cash payments Shrinking credibility and economic chaos raised, within increasing difficulty, against projected tobacco exports. push Mugabe towards the negotiating table Tamoil, however, is trading supplies for equity in Noczim properties. It has been negotiating to buy 75 per cent of Noczim’s Oil Blending In a brutal game of political chess with his opponents, President Enterprises operated by France’s Total Outre-Mer. The Libyan Arab Robert Mugabe now seems to be stalemated. Chronic shortages of Bank has increased its equity stake in the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, food and fuel are forcing Mugabe and his ruling clique in the whose Managing Director is Gideon Gono, a close associate of Mugabe’s. Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front to examine all CBZ’s technical partners, South Africa’s ABSA Bank and the World options. Mugabe would have weathered Western opprobrium but Bank’s International Finance Corporation, blocked LAB’s attempts to increasing concern in the region about the economic contagion (and buy the Harare government’s stake in CBZ, so it has started buying shares migration) from Zimbabwe’s crisis piles more pressure on Harare at a premium on the open market. LAB has been prepared to underwrite (AC Vol 43 No 6). critical procurement deals for Harare’s cash-strapped government. Western states are ratcheting up pressure on the political and However there are limits, even to Libyan largesse. The more Harare cuts commercial elites with targeted sanctions but standing clear for South deals with LAB or Tamoil that frustrate mainstream and regional suppliers, Africa and Nigeria to take the lead on efforts to broker a power-sharing the more its economic policy will be a succession of crisis measures eating government. Yet as talks were scheduled to begin on 3 April, ZANU- away at Zimbabwe’s productive base. PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change had failed to agree on the fundamentals for negotiations. The MDC insists it will discuss power-sharing only in the context of a transitional government ERITREA which would organise fresh elections under international supervision. A veteran of power-sharing deals, ZANU rejects re-running the elections but some of its strategists want to inveigle some MDC Politics before economics activists into government in the hope of splitting the party. The South After consolidating his power, President African and Nigerian position is somewhere between the two: that a Issayas will turn to the anaemic economy government of national unity would take the sting out of the political crisis and pave the way for Mugabe’s gradual exit from power. After The six-week delay, until 13 April, in the United Nations’ verdict on long discussions with Zimbabwe’s parliamentary Speaker Emmerson the border dispute with Ethiopia may have further damaged the Mnangagwa, South African President Thabo Mbeki has assured economy but by keeping the country on a war-footing, it has given close associates that Mugabe is indeed ready to go but ‘with dignity’. President Issayas Aferworki’s regime more time to fend off his Mugabe’s position weakened after Mbeki and Nigerian President critics, block any investigation of the conduct of the war and consolidate Olusegun Obasanjo backed the suspension of Zimbabwe from the his group’s hold on power. The culmination of this process should be Commonwealth on 19 March. His legitimacy is again under attack as the elections in August or September, intended to consecrate Issayas’s more details emerge about the fraud in the 9-11 March presidential group in power for another five years. Having displaced the remains election. The reports are corroborated by diplomats, the Southern African of the Independence struggle leadership in a repeat of a pattern of parliamentarians, the Commonwealth Observer Mission and local groups purges used in the 1970-80s, the regime would like to draw a line such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network: more than 400,000 under the war issue and concentrate on the economy. The much touted votes cannot be accounted for in the figures provided by the Electoral ‘economic miracle’ is a casualty of the war, fought from May 1998 to

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June 2000. In addition to perhaps 50,000 dead, there are are 60,000 the election commission, suspended in 1998, under Ramedan displaced civilians in camps. Tens of thousands more lodge with Mohammed Nur. The Assembly also set up a media commission, to relatives. Farms along the border are unsafe, strewn with mines and be run by new Information Minister Naizghi Kiflu, formerly the unexploded ordnance. Nobody knows when the army of conscripts EPLF’s internal security chief and the man who closed the independent will be disbanded; a pilot demobilisation project, due last November, press. The government claims G15 members told their Ethiopian was postponed. The government claims 6-8 per cent economic growth counterparts through US and Italian facilitators that they would oust last year but in fact the country remains severely depressed, new Issayas in exchange for peace. One suspected go-between was investment is rare and the government survives on remittances from European Union Representative Antonio Bandini, an Italian. He was the diaspora, which may dry up if the political infighting continues. expelled in early October, accused of interfering in Eritrea’s internal Most leaders of 1991’s Independence are in exile or prison for affairs. The EU protested and Rome, Eritrea’s second-largest bilateral challenging Issayas’s rule. All private newspapers have been closed donor, suspended aid. for reporting criticism of him. Dozens more critics within his People’s Four days later, as the USA issued a mild criticism of the crackdown, Front for Democracy and Justice have been gaoled, including journalists Ali al Amin and Kiflon Gebremikael, Eritreans employed at the US from his Information Ministry. Embassy, were arrested on charges of translating ‘sensitive’ government With the opposition silenced, elections should cement the loyalists’ documents and newspaper reports for their employers. Privately, control of the one-party state. Last June, a bitter row began within the PFDJ leaders claim the two were trying, through the Embassy, to ruling PFDJ, successor to Issayas’s Eritrean People’s Liberation arrange political asylum for G15 members. Washington is maintaining Front. Of 15 former EPLF leaders (Group of 15) who openly criticised its aid – mostly emergency food – but is not involving Eritrea in the Issayas, eleven are now in gaol. Scores of other dissenters have been ‘war on terrorism’, despite the offer of bases in the Dahlak Islands and rounded up (AC Vol 42 No 19). The G15 included six veterans of the the ports of Massawa and Assab. EPLF Politbureau in the 1970s and 1980s – party founders Haile Gen. Tommy Franks, whose Central Command covers US forces ‘Drue’ Woldetensae, Mahmoud Ahmed Sherifo and Mesfin Hagos, from Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa, stopped off in Eritrea in mid- plus liberation warriors Petros Solomon, Ogba Abraha and Major March but announced nothing new. The Pentagon has long fancied General Berhane Ghebreghzabiher. Others were prominent female closer relations but the State Department dislikes the regime. In leader Astier Feshatsion, Saleh Idris Kakya, Hamid Himid, January, Denmark’s new conservative government said it would stop Estifanos Seyoum, Germano Nati and Beraki Ghebreselassie (AC all aid to Eritrea (among others) because of ‘bad governance’; Denmark Vol 42 No 4). Police chief Brigadier Gen. Musa Raba and the ex-head had provided 40 per cent of the Agriculture Ministry’s budget, plus of the Relief and Refugee Commission, Worku Tesfamicael, withdrew training and technical support. their signatures when told their jobs were at risk, say colleagues. One popular G15 member, Mesfin Hagos, was in the USA when his The EPLF was rent by revolutionary quarrels, with factional disputes, eleven comrades were arrested and is campaigning there for the EPLF- executions and other terror, when it started work in the early 1970s. Democratic Party (which does not exist in Eritrea). In March, along The purges were interrupted in 1976 by the execution of the chief with two other exiled EPLF veterans, former ambassadors Hebret purger, Solomon Woldemariam, for ‘right-wing deviationism’. In Berhe and Adhanom Gebremariam, Mesfin called on Eritrean the mid-1980s Issayas, under fire from senior colleagues for his expatriates to withhold the annual 2 per cent tax on their assets: this dictatorial leadership, encouraged middle-rank members to attack his worries the government more than political protest. critics for drinking, womanising and self-enrichment. In 1987, he PFDJ leaders make their case against the G15 at closed seminars, took over as party General Secretary from Ramedan Mohammed where presenters read prepared texts for three hours to audiences Nur and has since got rid of most old-stagers. Only Foreign Minister allowed only a short break. Former heroes are described as caving in Ali Said Abdella and party Secretary Alamin Mohammed Said still to despair and personal interest, promoting ‘defeatism’ during the war have real power, and Alamin has been weakened by the G15 row. with Ethiopia and offering up their leader to buy peace. These sessions prepare opinion for treason charges but the President’s office is unsure The inner circle what to do after any trial. January’s Assembly session considered Key members of Issayas’s inner circle are his Secretary, Yemane convicting the dissidents of treason, then pardoning them. This would Gebremeskal, and the PFDJ Central Office department heads, Yemane discredit the culprits and their claim to represent a democratic alternative Gebreab (Political Affairs), Hagos Gebhrehiwet (Economics), but avoid the outcry that would greet their execution. Abdella Jaber (Organisation) and Zemeheret Yohannes (Information). They were promoted at the fourth party congress in Visit our website at: www.africa-confidential.com 1994, when Issayas argued, in an unhappy turn of phrase, for ‘new Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at blood’. The current crisis broke out in January 2000, when members 73 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. Tel: +44 20-7831 3511. Fax: +44 20-7831 6778. of the party’s Central Council demanded implementation of the Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. Constitution, ratified in 1997 but held up by Issayas. Eight months Administration: Clare Tauben. later, when the Council met again, Eritrea had been defeated and international peacekeepers were watching a 15-kilometre-wide Annual subscriptions including postage, cheques payable to Africa Confidential in advance: Temporary Security Zone entirely inside Eritrea, pending arbitration. Institutions: Africa £312 – UK/Europe £347 – USA $874 – ROW £452 Like other leaders, Issayas exploited September’s Islamist attacks Corporates: Africa 404 – UK/Europe £425 – USA $985 – ROW £531 in the United States. On 18 September, the G15 members were Students (with proof): Africa/UK/Europe/ROW £87 or USA $125 arrested, nine leading journalists gaoled and the private press shut All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. down. The G15 prisoners, some of them ill, are held incommunicado Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 at the Asmara Institute of Management in Embatkala, east of the city. 1FH England. Tel: 44 (0)1865 244083 and Fax: 44 (0)1865 381381 No dissident members were allowed to attend January’s National Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts, UK. Assembly session, which condemned the G15. It also re-established ISSN 0044-6483 7 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7

job if the peace holds. Former FAA Chief of Staff el Ghazal from inside CAR. Paris strongly denied Pointers Gen. João de Matos is due back in Luanda from claims that it had helped facilitate this arrangement, a sojourn in London and is likely to play kingmaker, politically and with satellite imagery, partly in backing a candidate outside the presidential circle. connection with the handover to French ANGOLA UNITA is more fluid still. Gato has the military intelligence of ‘Carlos the Jackal’ (AC Vol 35 authority to hold it together but lacks political No 17). Yet last month, a senior French official skills. After the death of interim leader António told Africa Confidential, ‘In this Censad operation, Pax Luanda Sebastião Dembo from Uige, the leadership is the only good thing is the presence of the Sudanese almost exclusively Ovimbundu. Northerners and army’. This, he said, was because it would Government and rebels were set to sign a non-Ovimbundu such as Gen. Apolo Yakuvela ‘reassure those in power in Ndjamena’ by comprehensive ceasefire on 4 April some ten will grow more important. But really critical will counterbalancing the Libyan presence in Bangui. years after a similar deal which saw the two sides be the reaction of former foreign affairs spokesman Paris prefers Chad’s Col. Idriss Déby to CAR’s merge their armies, fight an election and... then Abel Chivukuvuku and education secretary Jaka President Ange-Felix Patassé. return to the battlefield after Jonas Savimbi Jamba in Luanda and former military negotiator refused to accept the result. His death in February Brigadier Isaías Samakuva in Paris. MADAGASCAR ‘changes everything’ runs the mantra in Luanda MPLA strategists will be torn between taking (AC Vol 43 No 5). Certainly the ruling Movimento advantage of a much weakened UNITA and Popular de Libertação de Angola and rebel União ensuring it develops a credible enough leadership City under siege Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola to control its (former) troops. For now the greatest moved faster than expected in their secret threat to this fragile peace would be UNITA’s Tension is rising as the standoff between the negotiations in Luena. further break-up into disparate semi-criminal country’s parallel presidents continues, veering Much of the credit is due to the chief negotiators, factions rebelling against the newly conciliatory between good-natured though fervent protest General Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda (of the mood of the leadership. (especially by Marc Ravalomanana’s supporters) MPLA’s Forças Armadas Angolanas) and Gen. and violent attacks on the opposition (particularly Abreu Muengo Ucuatchitembo ‘Kamorteiro’ CENTRAL AFRICAN REP. by President Didier Ratsiraka’s supporters). Four (for UNITA’s Forças Armadas de Libertaçao de people died in such an attack at Fianarantsoa, Angola). Formerly in UNITA and now highly capital of one of the six provinces, on 26 March regarded by the government, Nunda would be Enemy’s enemy and a soldier was reported dead on 3 April after reluctant to negotiate a deal unless he were sure it Ravalomanana’s supporters tried to instal their would stick. FAA Chief of Staff Gen. Armando French troops may have withdrawn from Central man as Fianarantsoa Governor. Both men have da Cruz Neto was ‘out of the country’ during the African Republic but their barracks are now being painted themselves into corners and even the bargaining; the UNITA Secretary General, Gen. taken over by Libyan and Sudanese troops. Even Organisation of African Unity envoy, Senegalese Paulo Lukambo ‘Gato’, insisted in Luanda that more bizarrely, some Paris officials have given ex-minister Abdoulaye Bathily, has said the OAU there would be a ‘definitive’ peace. their blessing to such adventures. mediation has failed and warned of ethnic conflict. UNITA’s commitment is key. After over 25 This month, some 1,500 Sudanese soldiers are After the first round of the presidential poll on years of fighting, the MPLA has emerged much due to join 50 or so colleagues already settled in 16 December, official results said that no candidate the stronger. UNITA has lost its leader, its backing M’poko base under the command of General had won outright but feeling was widespread, from the United States and South Africa, and its Ismael Ali Akufra at Bangui airport since including among many monitors, that victory hoard of diamond wealth. Fighting on looked February. This camp, familiar to generations of should have gone to Antananarivo Mayor unattractive but UNITA was in no position to win French Foreign Légionnaires was until last year Ravalomanana. This is one reason the outgoing concessions in its demands for decentralisation occupied by military observers from the United President has imposed an economic blockade on and more control over oil and diamond revenues. Nations’ office, the Bureau des Nations Unies en the capital and, on 2 April, cut it off by blowing up More probably, individual UNITA leaders may Centrafrique (Bonuca), intended to oversee CAR’s bridges. The Red Admiral’s best bet is to force the have been induced to sign by offers of cash through faltering domestic peace process. Libya is paying Mayor to a second round of voting. Ravalomanana, the government’s ‘reintegration fund’ and perhaps for the Sudanese contingent to reinforce the 200 a photogenic millionaire who makes his employees a deal on party financing. The MPLA earns about Libyans who, last June, arrived to support CAR’s attend prayer-meetings, has little confidence in 150 times a day more from oil and gem sales than 500-member Presidential Guard, under Gen. the Admiral’s election procedures. UNITA does from gem trading and other business. Ferdinand Bombayeke. The Libyan payment is On 28 March, the main aid donors denounced Foreign Minister João Miranda, in London on due to be delivered by Mohamed el Madani el the blockade, which had made food prices 25-27 March, said preparations for fresh elections Azhari, Libyan Secretary General of the quadruple overnight. Bankers have imposed a would take about two years: UNITA’s FALA Community of Sahel-Saharan States (Censad, heavy penalty. Ravalomanana has appointed have to be disarmed and quartered, after which formerly Comessa). ministers and senior officials to his alternative some will join the FAA as a merged force. Part of Censad is official sponsor of this peaceful government, led by lawyer Jacques Sylla; their the negotiations focused on FALA’s troop strength: invasion, which was decided at a summit of the predecessors have left their posts. European and some put it as high as 50,000, others reckon it’s 16-state body last December in Khartoum. Colonel American bankers, worried about who signs the closer to 15,000. There are several thousand camp Moammar el Gadaffi’s ‘Mr. Africa’, Ali Treiki, cheques, have therefore frozen the assets of the followers and ‘logistics people’ who will also says the Libyan and Sudanese soldiers have ‘come Central Bank and of state corporations. Business want demobilisation benefits. Clearly FALA troop to protect democracy in CAR, replacing France, is stifled, tempers are rising and violence is strength has shrunk significantly since the 1991 in the framework of the Censad’. Critics note that spreading. Rumours are rife in Antananarivo that and 1994 peace accords. Beside the military neither Libya nor Sudan enjoys democracy. Libya Ratsiraka’s backers are using chemical weapons process, the government will be extending its is seen as wanting more influence in Chad. CAR after 25 people died and 50 more fell gravely ill, administration across the more than 60 per cent of and Chad shelter each other’s dissidents. on the eve of Good Friday (29 March). Whatever the territory that was beyond its control. Sudan’s National Islamic Front government, caused their sufferings, they had all bought rum Both MPLA and UNITA face leadership battles. though, initially claimed its 1998 mutual defence from a grocer’s shop. That same day, the President José Eduardo dos Santos says he will pact with CAR as the basis for its presence, say anniversary of the anti-colonial uprising of 1947, quit before the next election but his favoured sources in the region. Observers note that in the Ratsiraka had broken a long silence to condemn successor, MPLA Secretary General João early 1990s, the NIF launched attacks on the his rival’s ‘horde of neo-fascists and Nazis’ and Lourenço, will face more competition for the top Sudan People’s Liberation Army in western Bahr declare himself ‘national saviour’.

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