ACM Influential African of the Year: the President Of
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ACM Influential African of the Year: The President of Burundi offered practical examples that other African despots follow Featured Analysis: 2016: A year of conflict dominated by despots and jihadist insurgencies Informed Insights: Making African security and defence policy coherent and sustainable Country-specific analyses across all 5 African regions A child salutes a MONUSCO soldier with the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC. An In On Africa (IOA) Publication DECEMBER 2016 EDITION ISSN 2311-6943 TABLE OF LETTER FROM FOUNDING EDITOR CONTENTS This year’s final report of Africa Conflict Monitor (ACM) offers its annual retrospective of the major trends of the year that AFRICA WIDE is now concluding. Drawing from ACM’s monthly coverage, this analysis presents a broader perspective which the year’s 4 ACM Influential African of the Year: end allows. Explaining what it all means from a detailed, local The President of Burundi offered point of view has always been the mandate of ACM, and the practical examples that other African capping of 2016 with a thorough, historical assessment calls into focus the year’s significant developments, separating these despots follow from transitory crises. 13 Featured Analysis: 2016: A year For the second year, this report looks at individuals who have made a significant impact on the course of conflict or conflict resolution on the continent and of conflict dominated by despots and identified one individual as ACM’s Influential African of the Year. Our criteria are jihadist insurgencies forthright: someone (or perhaps some organisation) is selected on the basis of his or her impact on conflict or conflict resolution over the course of the year. This is 29 Monitoring Economies: not a popularity contest. The selection is not based on whether an individual did Liberia’s cyberattack a devastating good things or bad. In 1994, South Africa’s first democratically-elected president Nelson Mandela would have been selected for influencing Africa’s movement from indictment of Africa’s cyber insecurity tyranny to democracy. In 2002, the designation would have gone to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, whose use of the military to thwart his people’s will 36 Informed Insights: Making African for a new government inspired other despots and established a trend of corrupt security and defence policy coherent elections. In 2011, the Influential African of the Year would have been the and sustainable – ACM Interview with street protestors whose spontaneous uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt overthrew tyrannical governments during the Arab Spring. Professor Henry Wissink The title of being the ACM’s Influential African of the Year is not an award, but is a designation that recognises the impact one REGIONAL ANALYSIS individual most had on conflict developments during the year. The choice by ACM for 2016 is Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza. As our featured article explains, Nkurunziza has 41 North Africa: Fishmonger’s death been a negative influence on the cause of peace in Africa. His sparks threat to king’s regime machinations have caused a refugee crisis, raised worries about another Central African genocide, devolved his country into a police 48 state, and provided a playbook to other autocrats on how to manipulate their East Africa: Magufuli’s two-handed national constitutions to stay in power longer. Nkurunziza personifies Africa’s governance approach in Tanzania: Reform new breed of dictator, holding on to power with military backing, yes, but also by gestures and autocratic tendencies perverting the tools of democracy – constitutions, courts, election commissions present two faces to the world – by turning these into his adjutants. By engendering more conflict in countries’ whose leaders follow his example, Nkurunziza is the ideal choice for ACM, a report that focuses on conflict in Africa. 55 West Africa: The Sahel’s gateway to Sub-Saharan Africa for jihadist terrorists Any year is in itself neither good nor evil, and is no more than a temporal marker designating a single orbit of the planet around the sun. How this time period is 62 Central Africa: Constitutional filled by human activity determines whether a year seems a ‘good’ one or a ‘bad’ coup d’état extends the Kabila regime’s one. Yet, no year is wholly good or evil. Accordingly, 2016 has provided bright spots where the causes of peace have established beachheads in seemingly hold on the DRC inhospitable parts of the continent. The year also affirmed positive trends, like the expanding footprints of human rights and social welfare NGOs to counter 70 Southern Africa: Journalists put despots’ designs and terror groups’ predations, the growth of social media that can their lives on the line to bring facilitate a government protest and balance state propaganda, and the continuing Southern Africa’s news to the world dedication of various UN missions in Africa despite the dangerous situations they encounter. True, a despot is 2016’s ACM Influential African of the Year. BACK PAGES However, do not expect this gentleman to be around in 2026; not as the democratisation of the continent, the expansion of 77 populist media to hold governments accountable and a more ACM Country in Focus: The Gambia rational exploitation of African resources to lift living standards continent-wide all continue. 79 Quotes of the Year We thank our readers for joining us on the dramatic ride that was 2016. We welcome new readers as we together move into the future using the tools of cool 82 Featured ACM Partner: Coalition for analysis, historical knowledge, common sense and calculated assessment of what the International Criminal Court will likely lie ahead. 84 Coming Up in ACM Ufundze kahle! (“Read well!”) 87 Publication Information James Hall Email: [email protected] Founding Editor, ACM Tweet ACM on any issue: @hallaboutafrica PUBLISHER Jonathan Mundell FOUNDING EDITOR James Hall ASSOCIATE EDITOR Kyle Hiebert CONTRIBUTING ANALYSTS Abel Abate, Catherine Akurut, Isaac Ogbodu, Abdi Jama Ghedi, Israel Kodiaga, Graham Lee, Mohammed Maoulidi, Conway Waddington PRODUCTION COORDINATOR December 2016 Edition December Claire Furphy RESEARCH ASSOCIATES Henry Cranston, William Izzard, Pawel Tverskoi COMMERCE COMMENTARIES Mohammed Maoulidi INVESTOR INSIGHTS Adam Choppin COPY EDITING Dominique Gilbert, Liezl Stretton DESIGN Hayley Dodrill Cover photo courtesy MONUSCO/Wikimedia Commons 2 Africa Conflict Monitor | In On Africa (Pty) Ltd NORTH AFRICA CONFLICT AT A GLANCE LIBYA | The five-month campaign of fearsome urban warfare waged against ISIS fighters in Sirte by pro-government forces, backed by hundreds of US airstrikes, culminated on 5 December with pro-government troops reclaiming “full control” of the terror group’s former bastion in North Africa, now in ruins. However, another destabilising force looms. At the end of November, hard-line Libyan General Khalifa Haftar – a holdout from Libya’s unity government – met with Russia’s foreign minister for the second time in a month. TUNISIA | The nation is back in vogue as the region’s premier investment destination given its achieved democratic reforms and relative stability since suffering several horrific terror attacks in 2015. Thousands of delegates and finance professionals from 70 countries pledged roughly US$ 15.7 billion in investment and aid during a conference in the capital Tunis from 29-30 November, which showcased some 140 public and private sector projects. WEST AFRICA EAST AFRICA CAMEROON | Thousands of people took SOMALIA | Sinister attempts by al-Shabaab the streets in the English-speaking city of Buea on 5 to sink the country’s landmark elections have fallen December, extending a month of tense strikes by lawyers, short. Dozens of soldiers and civilians were slaughtered teachers and students over institutional discrimination in a vicious suicide bombing of Mogadishu’s largest port against the country’s 20% English-speaking minority. on 11 December that gutted surrounding buildings; English and French are both official languages, but senior while six more people were killed in multiple attacks government positions and judicial spots are held almost on checkpoints in the capital four days later. However, exclusively by Francophones, while official documents elections have proceeded sufficiently, if slowly, with and education programmes are predominantly in French. results expected to be announced by the end of December. GUINEA | President Alpha Condé is alarmingly close to a bribery scandal unfolding around mining giant Rio SUDAN | Another round of successive fuel subsidy cuts Tinto’s 2011 acquisition of the rights to Guinea’s US$ 20 by the cash-strapped government has caused the cost billion Simandou iron ore mine. Condé’s top advisor on of food and medicine to spike. The government has, in the deal, a French banker and long-time friend, was paid turn, clamped down on private media and newspapers a US$ 10.5 million sum by Rio Tinto less than a week critical of the cuts, while deploying riot police to low- after the deal was signed; on 2 December France24 level demonstrations at the end of November, tear- published audio recordings of the banker quoting Condé gassing protestors and arresting them on a catch-and- as demanding the deal required a “down payment.” release basis. CENTRAL AFRICA SOUTHERN AFRICA CHAD | A botched attempt to murder a ANGOLA | The trial of 35 members of the policeman outside the US embassy in N’Djamena – shot opposition party, UNITA, on charges of preparing for at by a masked jihadist on a motorbike on 30 November a coup in January 2016, commenced on 2 December. – may portend more terror attacks as extremists migrate The men – who deny all the charges – are said to have down from Libya into Chad, a valuable ally of the West. stockpiled weapons in preparation for a plot to storm Strongman President Idriss Déby staunchly opposes the presidential palace and take President José Eduardo Islamic terror groups, and the country is a leading force dos Santos hostage before capturing a state media within the US-sponsored Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism broadcasting station.