www.africa-confidential.com 14 2001 Vol 42 No 18 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL 3 Puppet or prince? ’s emergence as Moi versus the economy MMD’s flagbearer is the least bad Galloping inflation, sinking export prices and corruption are bigger option for President Chiluba. problems for the President than the opposition Having abandoned his tilt at a third term, Chiluba finds a malleable President has run out of promises. The Board of the International Monetary Fund candidate and a way to hold on to refuses to unblock further loans – in particular, a hoped for quick credit of US$125 million. This is executive power. Oppositionists suspended until Moi’s ruling Kenya African National Union steers an effective anti-corruption bill are buoyed by the prospect of more through parliament, and sells off the state telecommunications company and Kenya Commercial Bank. infighting in the ruling MMD. Opposition parliamentarians threw out an anti-corruption bill last month and a revised bill can hardly be passed before early next year. Any IMF help will come too late to rescue the economy before the elections 4 that are scheduled for December 2002. The economy now hangs on tea. Coffee and tourism, once big foreign-exchange earners, lose millions By a whisker of dollars to official rake-offs. State-owned companies are mired in bureaucracy and corruption. After a tight presidential race, Business is pessimistic, domestic debt is swelling, public services are among the world’s worst and Albert René will find it tough to win officials are among the most corrupt. KANU has chosen political patronage and corruption scams over the parliamentary polls. With no effective economic reform, in a desperate bid to buy next year’s election, as it did those of 1992 and 1997. good economic news in the offing, Hard-pressed local manufacturers, devastated by cheaper imports from Asia and , are his best chance would be to go for laying off staff in their thousands and fleeing to better opportunities in neighbouring and early elections, counting on his presidential squeak to help him to . The key expatriate and Kenyan Asian investors shift their money out as fast as they can, fearful win a bandwagon victory. of currency depreciation, rising debt and ever greedier officials demanding pay-offs. Business and worker morale is at rock bottom. Prices and rents in ’s prime residential areas have fallen by 30 per cent since 1999. CÔTE D’IVOIRE 6 In denial No reforms, no cash Kenya’s record was sharply criticised at the IMF Board of Directors last month. The Fund’s new line is ‘There is no political crisis’, to be much more selective in negotiation and lending, laying down broader but simpler conditions for President Gbagbo assures diplomats and politicians but few loans and abandoning countries whose governments refuse reform. Emphasising that message in his Ivorians agree. Violent rivalries farewell address to colleagues, the outgoing Deputy Managing Director, Stanley Fischer, was strongly between government supporters backed by British and ’ officials. Without IMF cash, Kenya’s economy, which shrank by and the opposition are unresolved, 0.3 per cent in 2000, may go into free fall. There was a shortfall of $1.2 billion, mostly for capital projects, as are those between the army in the budget presented to Parliament in June by the Finance Minister, Chrysanthus Okemo. It was and the gendarmerie. hoped to cover it by new credits, starting this month, from the IMF. The World Bank, European Union, UK and USA will not pay up if the Fund refuses. TANZANIA 7 Even if the KANU government tried seriously to meet the Fund’s conditions, time has run out. It could be next March before a new bill began its slow progress through parliament, where opposition support Bulyanhulu would be needed. More months would then pass until the Fund and other donors could unblock the credits. Environmental activists are calling By then, political life will be dominated by the elections and the race to find Moi’s successor. for an investigation into claims that Moi learned political arrogance by outmanoeuvring the Fund and Bank so many times before. Their more than 50 people were killed faith in him collapsed with the resignation of Civil Service head Richard Leakey and his team of Kenyan when Tanzanian police cleared the technocrats seconded from the international institutions (AC Vol 42 No 7). Kenya’s would-be reformers area surrounding the Bulyanhulu gold mine in 1996. say that Harold Wackman, the Bank’s Resident Representative in Kenya, is weary and frustrated by state obstruction and graft. Too late, Moi and and his ministers realised how badly they needed the Economic Crimes Bill, which would empower the proposed Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority. POINTERS 8 On 14 August, for the first time in his 23-year reign, Moi attended a parliamentary debate, compelled to leave behind for once his trademark ivory baton lest it be confiscated as an offensive weapon. Moi had Congo-Kinshasa, personally canvassed the opposition benches, following failure by Vice-President George Saitoti. Africa/Vatican, Togo Legislation affecting constitutional powers must be supported by two-thirds of the total 222 sitting & Guinea members of parliament; KANU’s coalition with Raila Amolo Odinga’s National Development Party couldn’t muster the required 146 votes. Clean-up or cover-up; Milingogate; The opposition’s unusual solidarity was stiffened by the six ‘rebel’ KANU MPs: , the Chile factor; and constitutional Conté. Kipkalya Kones, Jimmy Agwenyi, Zebedo Opore, Anthony Kimeto and Kipruto Kirwa. After his defeat, Moi abused the bill’s opponents as ‘enemies of the small man and of Kenya’s development’ and 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18

promised to form a special police anti-corruption unit – which was the position before the IMF and the main Western donors insisted on an Mixed marriage independent anti-corruption authority. Some lawyers and politicians resented the law, as proposed by IMF The wedding of the Kenya African National Union and the National Democratic Party was consummated in a carnival lawyers unfamiliar with Kenyan practice; others feared it would shore atmosphere at the Moi International Sports Complex outside up Moi’s hold on power. The Association of Manufacturers urged Nairobi on 17 August. Some 6,000 delegates (4,500 KANU, parliament to pass it, not because it would change much but because it 1,500 NDP) agreed to fight the next election as one party, leaving alone would make economic recovery possible. Civic activists and details about party structures and names to a joint task force. religious groups rejected the bill largely because it offered an amnesty of the NDP claimed that Kenya’s new union for economic crimes before 1997 – exonerating those who raised would ‘strike a death blow to ethnic chauvinism’ (meaning unlawful funds for KANU’s election win in 1997. The usually Kikuyu politics; he leads the Luo). The parties have prepared a fractious opposition parties boosted their morale by uniting to defeat joint proposal for Ethiopian-style ultra-federalism, based on KANU; they think they will win more votes if economic conditions get ethnic homelands or majimbo. The hardliners of KANU’s ‘B’ faction (Nicholas Biwott, even worse for lack of foreign credits. Local lawyers argued that the Joseph Kamotho and George Saitoti) fear that NDP stalwarts bill was unconstitutional because it challenged the Attorney General’s will edge them and their protégés out; Raila wants Saitoti’s job as right to prosecute all crimes. (The Chairman of the Constitutional number two in the new party. The hardliners have the support of Review Committee, Yash Ghai, has since proposed the establishment KANU’s Luo old-guard (Ndolo Ayah and Dalmas Otieno) who of a Ministry of Justice and a fully independent Attorney General.) will be wiped out once the NDP moves into KANU. Biwott is playing cautious, for fear of being blamed if the pact Ethics code for civil servants unravels. But the combative Maasai minister, William Ole Further, the IMF wants parliament to approve a Code of Ethics for Ntimana, who had hitherto kept his distance from KANU-B, has thrown his weight and (he said) ‘that of all Maasai’ behind Saitoti Public Servants, and insists that the government should speed up the in the race to succeed Moi. KANU apparatchiks complain that sale of Kenya Telekom, Kenya Commercial Bank and Kenya the NDP is getting too many favours and the merger has renewed Reinsurance Corporation. Earlier this year, the government agreed to the rivalry between KANU-A and KANU-C (Musalia Mudavadi, sell 49 per cent of Telekom to the highest bidder. The highest bid ($305 Katana Ngala, Bonaya Adhi Godana). mn.) came from the Mount Kenya consortium, whose members were Mudavadi, the Information Minister, is Luhya/Maragoli, who South Africa’s Eskom, ’s Econet and Kenya’s Industrial are neighbours of the Luo, and has been cultivated by Raila as a Credit and Development Corporation, headed by Nairobi businessman running mate. Maasai leaders who oppose Saitoti’s candidacy, Chris Kirubi. KANU’s ethnic die-hards perceived this as a Kikuyu such as Julius Sunkuli (Minister of State) and John Ole Muyaa outfit, so politically undesirable. (a Kajiado councillor) now back KANU-C. At Kasarani, Moi spoke of the need to ‘use bait so that you can In March, the government said Mount Kenya must offer at least catch a fattened fish.’ There is not much bait left in the Treasury. $350 mn. and the consortium refused to raise its bid. ’s The President’s men believe the merger with the NDP can help Orascom, which had offered only $160 mn., was invited back into the them hang onto their wealth in a prosecution-free retirement. Yet bidding by Moi’s aide Joshua Kulei. The government’s advisors, one or more of KANU’s rival factions may seek other allies if it Salomon Smith Barney, could not persuade Orascom to raise its offer. thinks its interests are threatened by the NDP. More recently, the Transport and Communications Minister, Musalia ● Mudavadi (favoured in KANU as Moi’s successor) said the government Budget allocations to non-performing state companies, through would reopen talks with Mount Kenya. Econet’s Strive Masiyiwa bogus contracts. ● insists that any new negotiations must be in the boardroom, not in the Plots of land sold cheaply to party favourites and promptly resold, corridor – meaning, in code, that Mount Kenya refuses to contribute to with the profits split between officials and the campaign fund. ● KANU’s election campaign. The rival bidders, Orascom and Telekom Civil service pension funds: questions are being asked about Malaysia, have so far declined to say as much. Kenya Telekom’s pension contracts issued by the Revenue Benefits Authority. ● assets and licences will anyway fetch a far lower price now that the Charges remitted to Kenya Power and Light without processing by world market for such things has collapsed. an accountable authority. Privatising the Kenya Commercial Bank, with its book of unrepayable credits to favoured politicians, could be still more politically charged. Business lacks confidence in Moi Almost 70 per cent of loans from Kenyan banks are not being serviced. One leading Kenyan businessman blames ‘lack of confidence’ in Local bankers fear that a rush of withdrawals could bring the whole Moi’s reforms for his decision to switch his base to Uganda. Kenya’s financial system tumbling down. high operating costs – for electricity, water and spare parts, plus high Beyond this, the IMF wants an independent energy board to establish taxation, poor infrastructure and growing crime – explain the relocation tariffs and procedures for importing fuel, and a concerted attack on of some 60 manufacturing companies in the last three years. These deforestation – the sale of forest land is a big source of patronage for include Procter and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, KANU. Neither the IMF nor the Bank is satisfied with the government’s Coca-Cola’s northern Africa division, and Pfizer. Competition from efforts to control state spending and make it more accountable. imports after the lowering of tariffs has made things worse. After the defeat of the Economic Crimes Bill and the loss of the In mid-August, Moi signed into law the ‘Donde Bill’, which pegs hoped for IMF credits, KANU’s fatcats will give up the pretence of the interest rate on savings and bank loans to the discount rate on 90- economic reform and, probably, reopen the patronage taps at Kenya day Treasury Bills (TBs). This contravenes the IMF’s financial Telekom and Kenya Power and Light. They won’t dip into their own liberalisation policies and Kenyan banks are challenging the bill in ample pockets to fund the election but can rely on four tested ways to court. Domestic debt – state and private – is out of control. Finance raise quick funds to woo voters, each of which exacerbates the broader Minister Okemo has started rolling over 12 per cent TBs into longer- problems of the economy: term bonds with 15 per cent rates. These high-yield bonds are 2 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18 attracting savings out of the banks, starving the economy of short-term in central Zambia, but he’s popular in crucial areas elsewhere – , credit. At the end of August, the Nairobi Stock Exchange hit an eight-year low. Central and Copperbelt provinces, and parts of Southern Province, Tea production is rising again this year after last year’s drought. where he grew up. Coffee used to be the economy’s mainstay but world coffee prices are Mwanawasa’s biggest problems are within his own party. His at a 30-year low and production has fallen by half in the past five years. election could prompt yet another round of anti-Chiluba defections, Coffee farmers get only a quarter of the auction price, with the rest further weakening the MMD. Since June, when there was a mass going to the state, the Coffee Board, cooperatives, officials and sacking of ministers who failed to support Chiluba’s third-term ambitions, politically appointed middle-men. A bill to reform the Coffee Board there has been no formal cabinet meeting. Almost all decisions end up is struggling through parliament. on Chiluba’s desk. Zambia’s constitution is weighted towards the Tourism will not recover until Europe’s economies look more executive and against the legislature and anyway, the President’s party secure. Agriculture, contributing over half of all economic activity, is has a huge majority in parliament. weighed down by higher production costs and growing corruption in Mwanawasa won the nomination from the MMD’s 37-member monopoly outfits such as the Kenya Seed Corporation, responsible for National Executive Committee (NEC). A list of 20 possible candidates marketing and the supply of inputs. Maize production is expected to was prepared, then thinned down to six – national Vice-President fall short of demand by 30 to 50 per cent; imported maize is far Enock Kavindele, Mines Minister Chitalu Sampa, Presidential Affairs cheaper, coming in duty-free within the Common Market for East and Minister Eric Silwamba, Minister without Portfolio , Southern Africa (Comesa). Large-scale Kalenjin maize farmers in the former Finance Minister and Mwanawasa. A North Rift are lobbying Moi to ban maize imports, which would secret ballot of the NEC sent Mwanawasa, Silwamba and Kavindele provoke retaliation from Comesa partners. When Kenya tried to bar through to a second round, at which Mwanawasa, with Chiluba’s wheat imports from Egypt, a Comesa member, Cairo said it would backing, won 25 votes against Kavindele’s 11 and Silwamba’s one. boycott Kenyan tea. Moi has been addressing rallies in opposition strongholds, Sata high and dry particularly Kikuyu ones, insisting that he wants to leave a legacy of Sata at once complained that the vote had been rigged. Others say the national unity and prosperity. His government’s failures at political entire procedure for choosing the party’s flagbearer had never been and economic reform mean that he’s likely to leave neither. agreed at the conference. However that may be, the result has left Sata, the MMD National Secretary, opposed to Chiluba who, we hear, wants to replace him with the party Spokesperson, veteran political jobber ZAMBIA Vernon Mwaanga. For the past five years, Sata has played rough politics, helping to push critics out of the party and campaigning for Chiluba’s third term. He is now challenging Mwanawasa’s nomination Puppet or prince? and considering whether to form a breakaway party. Managing the fractious MMD already consumes much of Chiluba’s The ruling MMD’s new flagbearer seems too time, with diminishing results. A majority in the NEC is on his side but close to Chiluba and too far from the voters as many as half the party’s 131 members of parliament (of 150 in total) Levy Mwanawasa’s emergence last month as the ruling Movement are believed to support the opposition Front for Democracy and for Multi-party Democracy’s candidate for president is the least bad Development. If Sata leaves the party, he could take yet more MPs with option for incumbent , who has no intention of him but few of them would risk defecting, and fighting by-elections, in leaving gracefully. Having finally abandoned his run at a third term the present political turmoil. Chiluba is determined to expel them from as national president, he wants to hold on to the party presidency as a the party first, bringing in fresh candidates, backed by the MMD lever on power. However, Chiluba’s unpopularity could both machine and government patronage. undermine Mwanawasa, his favoured candidate, and split the party Mwanawasa owes his election to Chiluba’s faction and must assert again. Presidential and parliamentary elections could be held as early his independence. The NEC has appointed him its National Trustee but, as next month and no later than the first week of March 2002. after five years in the wilderness, he has no political base and needs to Whatever kudos Chiluba grabbed from the summit in convince politicians outside Chiluba’s circle that he has the grit to Lusaka in July quickly evaporated (AC 42 No 15), and attacks on his reform the party and clean up government, as he advocated six years government’s record are growing. ago. Opposition parties think he wants reform but lacks the toughness Of the possible MMD candidates, Mwanawasa, 53, can best distance to carry it out – and that he has never recovered from the serious injuries himself from his party’s record but is thought to be willing to look after sustained in a road accident when he was Vice-President (1991-94). Chiluba’s interests once he is gone. Even his opponents concede that Questions about his health, however unfounded, persist. ‘He is a he has some credibility. He resigned the vice-presidency in 1994, cabbage despite being an honourable man,’ says one leading criticising the MMD’s tolerance of corruption and drug trafficking. oppositionist. Edith Z. Nawakwi, a former MMD Labour Minister He accused Chiluba of having personalised the party but was trounced who is now a leading FDD activist, said Mwanawasa used to be the when he sought to be its president in 1995. Now, he presents himself dissidents’ role model and a man of integrity and asks what has changed as the man who left the government on principle and can clean up the in the MMD to persuade Mwanawasa to lead it. MMD in cooperation with Chiluba – who, say the sceptics, wants to The corruption issue will be critical in the election campaign and the play puppet-master after he gives up the presidency. The leading private newspapers relentlessly (but not always reliably) catalogue question for some is why Mwanawasa accepted to play the role of official abuses. Nawakwi and , another former MMD ‘Makishi mask’ while the real Makishi dancer is Chiluba. luminary, together with fellow oppositionists Fisho Mwale and Njekwa Mwanawasa returned to his law practice in the mid-1990s and Anamela, accuse Chiluba’s faction of promoting corruption. In an resurfaced this June when his name was floated as a presidential attempt to stem the media onslaught, the government has closed down contender (AC Vol 42 No 10). He is Lenje, from a small ethnic group the leading private station, Radio Phoenix. Fred Mmembe, Editor of 3 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18

the Post, wrote memorably on 17 August: ‘It is very difficult to avoid election within three months. The ECZ had reckoned it should register calling President Chiluba a thief because he is a thief’. The accusers about 4.6 million electors, in a population of about 10.3 million. Just face charges of criminal defamation, with a maximum sentence of 2.5 million have signed up so far – partly from apathy, partly from poor three years in gaol. In their support, more than 3,000 people have organisation. The MMD thinks a low poll will favour it and isn’t signed a petition entitled ‘President Chiluba is a thief.’ The police complaining, while the opposition is too busy trying to shape a have ordered the signatories to surrender themselves for arrest. None coalition to worry about registering electors. has done so. The backdrop to the prosecution will be a flood of allegations and SEYCHELLES counter-allegations about cobalt sales to Bahamas-registered Mineral Resources Group, the destination of US$4 million meant for official maize imports and the privatisation of the copper mines. The seven main opposition parties are in little better shape than the By a whisker MMD. Their morale has been boosted by marches and protests but President René’s narrow victory showed that they need a united front. They quarrel over leadership, tactics and change is in the air regional power bases and most of all, lack cash. Some economists claim the MMD can afford to ‘subsidise’ each voter with Kwacha Three thousand more votes for the priest and it would have been 30,000 (US$8.25) and the party is said to be preparing to distribute curtains for ‘the Boss’. Yet after 24 years of paternalistic socialism, Chitenge cloth, a rural vote-winner. plus lucrative capitalism for some, President -Albert René, at 65, can relax for a while. Almost half of the country’s 50,000 Opposition parties join forces voters did not want him back in State House – 23,015 of them, to The main opposition parties have agreed, in principle, to field a single be precise – giving the opposition 45 per cent of the vote in the presidential candidate, and talk of a government of national unity if presidential poll on 31 August-2 September. Many, including they win. The plan includes: the former ruling United National René’s leading rival, the Anglican minister Wavel Ramkalawan, Independence Party (UNIP), United Party for National Development believe he cheated and plan to challenge the result in the (UPND), Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), National Constitutional Court. Ramkalawan, who received his higher Citizens’ Coalition (NCC), Zambia Alliance for Progress (ZAP), education in and Britain, founded the Parti Seselwa in Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Agenda for Zambia (AZ). Three 1991, as soon as full multi-partyism was thrust on René, and stood leading would-be flagbearers are: Anderson Mazoka (UPND); ex- against René as leader of the United Opposition coalition in 1998. Legal Affairs Minister Vincent Malambo (FDD); and Dean Now, he heads the Seychelles National Party. Mung’omba of the moribund ZAP. According to the SNP, the alleged cheating involved dirty pre- Mazoka, a former chief executive of Anglo American in Zambia, is election tricks by René’s Seychelles People’s Progressive Front, popular at home and abroad, relatively well funded and unsullied by including deployment of the full resources of the monolithic previous political forays. He campaigns for good governance and Seychelles Marketing Board and the public transport monopoly. accountability, as did the MMD in its successful campaign a decade Ramkalawan’s supporters also claim that, during the ballot, SPPF ago. But his support is mainly from Southern and Lusaka provinces. activists set up ‘intimidation points’ outside polling stations and Malambo is a leading force in the FDD, the fastest growing also that many of the decisive 3,000 votes were cast by bewildered opposition party. Nevertheless, firstly, the other opposition parties elderly and disabled electors dragged from their beds or by youths regard the FDD as a refuge for MMD has-beens and opportunists; below the legal voting age of 18. Asked about all that after his secondly, the FDD’s support depends on several MMD MPs who are victory, René said blithely: ‘In any contest you get good losers and slow to declare their hand; thirdly, two other FDD heavyweights and bad losers’. The President’s friends pointed out that Ramkalawan former MMD ministers have an eye on the presidency – Boniface was bound to complain that elderly people were helped to vote, Kawimbe and General Christon Tembo, who is tipped by many as a because they are key beneficiaries of René’s welfare state. sure-fire winner with an honourable record. FDD members will have The SNP’s co-founder, Philippe Boullé, a lawyer, stood as an to vote for whichever they want. independent and won only 434 votes, less than one per cent. Many The least probable opposition unity candidate would be the mercurial Seychellois call him ‘a dreamer’ and after the result he sat on the Dean Mung’omba. He is energetic, outspoken and popular with the fence, refusing to endorse or reject it. Boullé complained of an media but hasn’t shown that he knows how to run a single party, let uneven playing field and called for a commission of enquiry; alone a complex alliance of seven. regarding the two-party politics system as divisive, he wants a Other opposition parties argue that a government of national unity government of national unity. would be alien to Zambia. They include the new of an ex-Education Minister, Gen. , and the Zambia Celebrations all round Republican Party of ex-Defence Minister Ben Mwila. Nobody knows Both winners and losers partied hard the day after the results: the who the MMD’s Michael Sata would line up with if he set up his own SPPF because it had won, the SNP because it had increased its new party; the FDD, Miyanda and Mwila all have gripes with him. Yet share to 45 per cent from 20 per cent in 1998. Reds (René) and he would be welcome if he encouraged more MMD MPs to defect. Greens (Ramkalawan) drove noisily around town celebrating. The Also ill prepared is the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ). Its police were less jovial, attacking some opposition activists and Chairman, Bobby Bwalya, recently said that the electoral register letting off a lot of tear gas after the poll. One man went to hospital would not be ready by October, when some of Chiluba’s friends after being hit by a rubber bullet, while bruised and battered SNP wanted to run the election, before the opposition unites. The probable supporters queued up to record statements at party headquarters. A date is now November or December. The constitution says that the scared young man said a truck-load of Task Force cops had chased government must dissolve parliament by 6 December and declare an him into his own house and set about him for 20 minutes. 4 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18 Of tuna and tourists When supermarkets run out of imported toilet paper and shoppers fight for Since this advice was published, the government has introduced stricter the last disposable nappies, there’s a problem – in Seychelles, if not in most laws aimed at bringing more dollars into the banking system and keeping African countries. And when your head of state, seeking re-election, admits them there. Businesses without the right connections now find it very hard times are tough and will get worse before they get better, the problem is and slow to obtain hard currency for imports into an economy that makes clearly huge. The loo rolls were back in the shops in time for the poll but very little for itself. The dire shortage of spare parts and timber has damped shelf-space elsewhere was bare, amid a chronic foreign exchange shortage down the building boom. Investment no longer buys immunity; the and painful legislation aimed at remedying it. promised industrial boom, always lagging after that in Mauritius, has not Had the Seychelles National Party’s Wavel Ramkalawan won the happened. The economy still rests on tuna and tourists. election, two-and-a-half decades of regulation would have been thrown out. The new rules say that tourists must pay for pretty much everything in The state monopoly on basic foodstuffs and tight forex controls would have United States dollars, most of which must be exchanged at the official rate been abolished, the rupee devalued, the International Monetary Fund and of just over five to one greenback. That prices a small bottle of beer at about World Bank wooed. According to the SNP, the economy would have found four dollars, which upsets even the richer visitors which the purportedly its equilibrium, with the foreign currency crisis eased, the cost of living socialist government favours. The new emphasis is on travellers willing to down, investor confidence restored and recession transformed into prosperity. cough up between $700 and $2,500 for a night in a hotel bedroom. The voters decided it was not to be. Officials showing signs of following Officials say the new measures are paying off. Foreign-exchange inflows financial recipes proposed by the IMF or the government’s British consultants, into the banking system have risen by 40-50 per cent, having been around Maxwell Stamp, were given short shrift. Central Bank Governor Norman $15.7 million last year. For some years, coverage of imports has stood at Weber lost his job when he tried to devalue the rupee. The Seychelles around only two weeks’ worth. Black-market rupees now fetch only twice Marketing Board’s Managing Director, Mukesh Valabhjei, hated the idea the official rate. In 1999, the hard-currency inflow was R1.616 mn., in 2000 because it would cut the state monopoly’s profits. it was R1.934 mn. (but more goes out, mainly on imports). Last year, gross According to Maxwell Stamp, whose opinions are shared by the Seychelles domestic product was officially R3.45 mn., up from R3.379 mn. in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the foreign currency crisis, spurred by previous year. overspending, affects every aspect of the economy. Investors are further There are plans for land reclamation and desalination (four projects, to deterred by other pillars of President France-Albert René’s programme, cost $29 mn., repayable in dollars to private banks, including a Malaysian such as controls on the retail prices of imported goods; the predominance of one), sterner treatment of black marketeers and the development of a 12- state monopolies, especially the SMB; and the absence of any sign of vessel domestic fishing fleet. All this, according to President René, will privatisation. The consultants also counselled the introduction of an quickly replace the foreign-exchange crisis with his promise of ‘a glorious independent central bank and the freeing of interest rates. economic future’.

Ramkalawan did not turn up for René’s inauguration on 4 on a range of staple foods (which it marks up steeply) and runs September. However, James Mancham – ousted by René in his several supermarkets, supposedly to cushion import-dependent 1977 coup but later housed and endowed with an ex-head of state’s citizens against market fluctuations. Government jobs require salary – did put in an appearance, saying he had forgiven but not security clearance and the opposition claims that that keeps its forgotten and that things would have been much better had he and supporters out. The private sector is stifled by foreign exchange his Democratic Party remained in power. regulations and the need to be friends with the right people. Seychellois judges would by law enjoy lifetime security of tenure, Things can only get worse so there are none. The contracts of imported judges are subject to Even René admits that things are pretty bad (by Seychelles renewal which, the government’s detractors perceive as a threat to standards) right now and will get worse before they get better (see their independence. Oppositionists also question the chances of Box). ‘The last three years have been very difficult for all of us,’ Ramkalawan’s election lawsuit making headway. René said at his inauguration: ‘The people need to brace themselves Some voters are split over ideology and policy. René’s backers for some tough moments before they cross the threshold to a see him as a provider and agree with his rejection of ‘liberalism’ as brighter future’. The people’s expectations are high, they depend ill suited to the Seychelles. That the election was called two years on imports of most goods and foreign currency is desperately short. before his mandate was up indicates that René dismisses the Rising prices, draconian foreign exchange regulations – and empty opposition as irrelevant. He paints its liberal economic policies as shelves – are, for René, ‘the birth pangs of economic success’ ‘quick fixes’; his opponents disagree and want pro-market reforms. which is achievable by stamping even harder on the black market, Borrowing from the SNP’s platform, René has promised to clean building more hotels where rooms can cost over US$2,000 a night up the civil service and streamline its often sluggish bureaucracy. and massive development projects. He has also called for a cross-party Committee of National Unity The archipelago of over 100 islands, scattered across a swathe of and Reconciliation. Seeing is believing, responded Ramkalawan. the Indian Ocean, has many First World trappings – except that it René must now do his parliamentary sums. At present, his SPPF has no slums or beggars. Nor are there any starving, homeless, has all but four of the 33 seats in the National Assembly. Eight masses. Mobile telephones are everywhere, most roads are properly members are elected by proportional representation, 25 by paved, health care and education to secondary level are free. If you geographical district; in nine of those constituencies, more people play by Papa’s rules, Papa takes care of you. If you don’t, you can have just voted against René than for him. The next parliamentary print your views unhindered in the opposition newspaper, although election is due in 2003 and the President may call it early if he you might get sued now and again, like Regar columnist ‘Leo the wishes. He gambled with the presidential poll and won by a Turtle’, who ‘only moves when he sticks his neck out’. whisker. With the world facing recession, René will be hard- It is not an entirely free country, though. Notwithstanding the pressed to engineer an economic upturn by 2003. His best option beginnings of René’s apparent conversion to ‘economic may be to go for elections early, hoping that his slender presidential liberalisation’ in 1993, the Marketing Board still has a monopoly victory may secure him a bandwagon win in parliament. 5 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18

All three opposition leaders might be at risk if they visited Abidjan. CÔTE D’IVOIRE Gbagbo says he has asked unspecified foreign countries to provide security and it is rumoured that, if Alassane Ouattara and Bédié came home, they would not be allowed to leave. The security forces prevented five political figures close to the RDR, including Gens. In denial Palenfo and Abdoulaye Coulibaly, from leaving the country in The politics and economics aren’t as bad as August-September. The Generals are still in Abidjan but the other they look, says President Gbagbo three have been allowed out – Louis-André Dacoury Tabley, of Gbagbo’s Front Populaire Ivoirien, who advocates an alliance with ‘There is no political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire,’ President Laurent the RDR; Bamba Morifere, leader of the Parti pour le Progrès et le Gbagbo assured diplomats and politicians on 7 September. He was Socialisme (PPS); and Radio Nostalgie’s Director, Hamed Bakayoko. inaugurating the National Reconciliation Forum, which is meant to The government accuses Coulibaly of falsifying a signature on his patch up the ethnic rivalries that exploded into street battles a year ago exit papers for a trip to Switzerland and of political involvement – he (AC Vol 42 Nos 13 & 14). After his election last November, Gbagbo was carrying a letter containing the telephone number of the RDR was expected to survive for days rather than months; his denial is representative in Italy. He has already spent four months in gaol under understandable. Although he has established his personal authority, Gbagbo, on charges (of which he was cleared) of having plotted to politics are still on a knife edge. assassinate Gueï. He says his exit papers still await the signature of the Insecurity is growing in the western and northern border regions; Defence Minister, Lida Kouassi, adding: ‘They can’t prevent me from armed robbery is out of control in Abidjan and other cities; violent leaving – I’m a soldier’. The government suspects the RDR of secret rivalries between Gbagbo’s supporters and the opposition are plots; in August, the village home of the party spokesperson, Aly unresolved. As the prices of coffee and cocoa collapse, the economy Coulibaly, was searched for weapons. heads downwards and arrears on foreign payments mount. Gbagbo The government’s support is eroded by the deepening economic has weathered two rounds of street fighting in Abidjan and beyond, crisis. In 2000, the economy shrank by 2.5 per cent and is expected to and several putative putsches. Old rivalries between the army and shrink by another 1.5 per cent in 2001. The World Bank points out that gendarmerie weaken their effectiveness; morale is falling in both industrial production was down by 12.7 per cent in the first quarter of because of grievances about pay and the promotion of an elite 2001, as compared with the same period the previous year. Experts presidential security force. had been putting their faith in industrial recovery. Gbagbo’s predecessors were complacent, too. Henri Konan This month, the World Health Organisation declared a ‘potentially Bédié, who came to power after the death of Independence leader disastrous’ outbreak of yellow fever in Abidjan, with cases confirmed Félix Houphouët-Boigny in 1993, refused to negotiate with soldiers in five of the city’s ten communes. By 5 September, there had been who mutinied for pay in December 1999. The soldiers put in their own only four yellow fever deaths but the WHO reported that: ‘All President, General Robert Gueï. After his faked presidential election indications are that the real situation could be considerably more in October 2000, gendarmes and opposition militants took to the serious than the number of cases officially suggests’; it called for streets but Gueï’s officials kept on announcing their fabricated results US$2.9 million to buy and deliver vaccine. Yellow fever certificates on state television. A day later, the General was deposed and Gbagbo, are a common currency when crossing the border into Ghana. In July, recognised as winner of the elections, took office. He has done little Health Minister N’Dori Raymond Abouo announced a cholera since to cool political tempers. epidemic, which could have commercial implications. In the south- west, there is a reported increase in yellow fever and buruli ulcers, High profile and abroad caused by a mycobacterial infection which slowly wastes away the Many northerners believe they are locked out of politics and power victim’s limbs, often leading to amputation. The country was already and expect nothing from a Reconciliation Forum. All high-profile facing an AIDS epidemic, with about 1 million of the 16 million political prisoners have been released, including Gen. Lassana Palenfo inhabitants infected with HIV. in July. Ex-President Konan Bédié is safely abroad, in France. So is Côte d’Ivoire is Africa’s largest coffee producer and the crop is the most significant opposition figure, Alassane Dramane Ouattara central to the economy. In the south-western cocoa- and coffee- of the Rassemblement des Républicains, also in . Yet the RDR growing areas, prices are disastrously low. Farmers get only 75 CFA is allowed to work openly and at a mass meeting in Abidjan in mid- francs (around 10 US cents) a kilogramme for coffee, compared to August, it said it would take part in the reconciliation forum only after some FF CFA 400-430 a year ago. Because malaria sufferers can now fresh elections at which ADO could stand, revision of the constitution rarely afford to buy ‘whites’ medicine’, they turn to traditional cures to ‘protect Côte d’Ivoire from new dangers’ and the freeing of 40 party – and the death rate has rocketed. Most farmers grow their own staple militants who are still in gaol. foods but meat and fish have become luxuries. The Reconciliation Forum was meant to start its ‘active phase’ in Most cocoa and coffee farmers blame their ill-fortune on market July, with a meeting of the main political leaders. Twice postponed, liberalisation. Under pressure from the World Bank and International this is now scheduled for 9 October. Preparatory talks began on 7 Monetary Fund, the government deregulated the coffee trade in 1998 September, with the setting up of an executive body, the Directoire, and cocoa (some 40 per cent of world supply) the following year. of public figures with no direct involvement in party politics. Prices fell steeply (mainly because the world is over-supplied) and As well as Ouattara, ex-Presidents Gueï and Bédié may miss the farmers’ leaders soon demanded that the old ‘stabilisation’ system be Forum meetings. Holed up in the western village of Gouessesso, near brought back, run by the private sector rather than the state. They argue Man, Gueï says he ‘agrees with the principles’ of the Forum but that the this system helped to boost prices, since it involved selling neglected to say whether he would attend. Bédié says his party, the most of the crop on the forward market. Since liberalisation, traders once monolithic Parti Démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), will have been releasing cocoa and coffee onto the market as soon as they join the Forum but it is not clear whether he will be present. are harvested, so pushing prices down during the peak harvest periods.

6 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18

police under Maj. Gen. Kiwelu’s command, together with TANZANIA Kahama employees, ignored the injunction and continued to evict the miners and their families and to demolish their settlements. At this point, the accounts diverge sharply. The smallscale miners claim the police used force to clear the area Bulyanhulu and then Kahama used graders to level the mining area and Allegations about the brutal eviction of sealed off the mine shafts by filling the pits with sand to prevent miners are being tested again the miners returning to retrieve equipment and gold ore. Witnesses allege the police were told that some miners were Environmental activists are demanding an international still working in the pits but continued to pour in sand. Hamis investigation into allegations that over 50 people were killed Mayunga Mrisho said two fellow miners died after being when Tanzanian police cleared the area surrounding the trapped in a pit although he had managed to claw his way out, Bulyanhulu gold mine in 1996. Pending the results, the activists only to find a bulldozer had levelled the entire area. In their want the World Bank group and the Canadian government to dossier on the evictions, the Director of LEAT, Tundu Lissu, suspend loan guarantees to the Kahama Mining Corporation, a has compiled a list of 32 named people, most of whom are said joint venture between Canada’s Barrick Gold Corporation and to have been buried in the mine pits. the President Benjamin Mkapa’s Tanzanian government, which The police robustly dismiss these claims. A probe led by mines the Bulyanhulu concession. Assistant Police Commissioners Mahmoud Shomvi and Robert The activists – led by Tanzania’s Legal Environmental Action Manumba from Dar es Salaam concluded there had been no Team (LEAT) and the Council of Canadians – say they have killings by police during the evictions. Two years later, Amnesty compelling new evidence about the events at Bulyanhulu from sent a team to investigate the allegations further and called for affidavits and from a videotape filmed at the site during an a new transparent and impartial investigation into the evictions. investigation by police just weeks after the alleged killings. The Foreign Minister, Lieutenant Colonel , LEAT has been investigating the Bulyanhulu case for two rejected Amnesty’s request in a 25-page reply. years, collecting testimony from relatives of the deceased and Barrick Gold supports Tanzania’s official position. Its Vice- accounts from eye-witnesses. The video, smuggled out of President for Corporate Communications, Vince Berg, Tanzania last month, shows broken up houses, the unearthing dismisses the allegations of the killings as ‘false’ and ‘utterly of two corpses and witnesses telling investigators where their baseless’. He says LEAT’s video doesn’t provide any new colleagues were buried alive. evidence. At the time of the evictions in 1996, Kahama was a joint venture between Canada’s Sutton Resources (which owned Calculated risk 85 per cent) and the Tanzanian government. In 1999 Barrick About 50 kilometres south of Lake Victoria, Bulyanhulu mine bought Sutton Resources and now owns 100 per cent of Kahama. is one of the world’s biggest gold mines. The US$280 million However, Bulyanhulu remains a live issue. LEAT and other project was commissioned by President Mkapa on 18 July this environmental groups want to push it onto the agenda of the 29- year. For the next 20 years or so, the mine is expected to 30 September World Bank meeting and radical United States produce some 400,000 ounces of gold a year, almost half the Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has also taken up the country’s total output, making Tanzania the third African gold cause. At a meeting on 23 August with officials from the World producer after South Africa and Ghana. Bank’s MIGA, LEAT and representatives from Oxfam and Bulyanhulu mine also boasts the largest single political risk Friends of the Earth handed over a copy of the video and new insurance underwriting in sub-Saharan Africa by the World witness statements. MIGA’s Director of Policy and Evaluations, Bank; its Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) Gerald West, said his organisation would be pursuing its own last year provided a guarantee for the mine to the tune of $172 due diligence on the Bulyanhulu project again. ‘We will not mn. ($56.3 mn. to Barrick and $115.7 m. to Société Générale as rush to judgment’. Some MIGA officials are due to visit agent for a syndicate of banks). Through its Export Development Bulyanhulu shortly to make their own assessment. ‘We are Corporation, the Ottawa government issued political risk taking these serious allegations seriously’. insurance to Barrick for $173 mn. Bulyanhulu was one of the richest deposits worked by artisanal Visit our website at: www.africa-confidential.com miners. Production began in 1975 and boomed after 1993 when Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at the artisanal diggers were given permission by the then 73 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. President, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, to prospect in return for selling Tel: +44 20-7831 3511. Fax: +44 20-7831 6778. Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. all gold to the government. However, the miners never received Administration: Clare Tauben. their promised permits. Controversy has been simmering since 1996 when small Annual subscriptions including postage, cheques payable to Africa scale miners opposed the granting of a mining concession to Confidential in advance: Institutions: Africa £289 – UK/Europe £310 – USA $780 – ROW £404 Kahama. The miners claimed title to the land under customary Corporates: Africa £354 – UK/Europe £373 – USA $864 – ROW £466 law. After evictions started on 31 July 1996, the miners Students (with proof): Africa/UK/Europe/ROW £83 or USA $129 obtained a High Court injunction on 4 August 1996 to restrain All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner, Major General American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 Tumainieli Kiwelu, from clearing the area until the land rights 1FH England. Tel: 44 (0)1865 244083 and Fax: 44 (0)1865 381381 issue at Bulyanhulu had been resolved by the court. Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts, UK. According to Amnesty International and the miners’ union, ISSN 0044-6483

7 14 September 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 18

trading house represented by Moussa Amani; to allow the Helmsman to seek another term when Pointers some $6 mn. is alleged to have been diverted into this one expires in 2003. a presidential account. This would breach the 1999 Lomé Accords, which In 2000, Miba handed over its alluvial deposits were to set the framework for political normality. CONGO-KINSHASA at Senga-Senga and its kimberlite mine at Tshibwé, Mild democratisation in the early 1990s gave the to Sengamines (a joint venture between Comiex President two terms. Eyadéma pledged to comply. and Zimbabwe’s Osleg); Sibeka, a Belgian firm Yet as international human rights groups continue to Clean-up or cover-up with a 20 per cent share, was not even consulted. accuse him, Eyadéma has watched with alarm the Equally non-transparent were Gécamines’ experience of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. The latest effort to clean up state companies isn’t contracts, first with Billy Rautenbach’s Kodjo’s talk of constitutional change has given as sweeping as it looks. President Joseph Kabila Ridgepoint, then with Etablissements George rise to opposition protest and the likelihood of the has suspended the boards of 57 of them, appointed Forrest International, whose Director now heads international aid ban continuing: ‘There will be provisional management committees and called the Gécamines board. elections and I respect legality,’ Eyadéma promptly for new business plans. This follows a 7 August announced, saying he’d ‘respect’ his ‘commitments’. audit detailing catastrophic management. His AFRICA/VATICAN If he retires, he risks prosecution. If he stays on, intervention may win favour with the International he risks political and economic instability. France Monetary Fund, with which the government is and other European donors halted aid after the violent trying to negotiate a concessional credit. Milingogate suppression of demonstrations; and Bretton Woods The state companies’ losses are huge. In 2000, backing has been sporadic. The cost is visible: a Zambian Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo has leading mining house Gécamines produced just moribund economy, widespread urban poverty, been at odds with the Vatican since 1982, when he over a tenth of its copper sales of ten years earlier; empty hotels; and a total lack of investor confidence. was removed from his archdiocese of Lusaka and zinc production was under 5 per cent of the 1975 Paris has been reluctant to lead a donor return. given unspecified duties in Rome (AC Vol 41 No total; cobalt went up but fell far short of the 1989 The elections, if free and fair, could have brought 20). There, he built up a huge following as a faith- figure. Yet all members of the interim management back aid. For now, the donors offer encouragement healer. At 71, he broke the rules by getting committees are from the managers who achieved rather than condemnation, pressing for a new election married, on 27 May to Maria Sung, a South those results. Gécamines’ new Chairman (Yumba date, banking on Eyadéma’s insistence that he’ll Korean acupuncturist at a mass wedding Monga), Vice-Chairman (Mukasa Kalembe) and keep his word. conducted by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Finance Director (Kabongo Umba) are all Katangese. This may depend on opposition goodwill. With head of the Unification Church (the ‘Moonies’), A Belgian, Claude Polet Claude, who worked polls postponed and the leader of the Comité d’Action which Catholics and many other Christians for Gécamines’ Belgo-New Zealand Chairman pour le Renouveau, Yawovi Agboyibo, sentenced consider heretical. ‘The sacrifice of celibate life George Forrest, is to deal with technical matters. last month to six months for defamation, the has fulfilled its purpose’, declared Milingo, Questions are being asked about the relative government is hardly preparing the ground for emphasising that he was not leaving the Church strengths of veteran tycoon Forrest and political consensus on letting bygones be bygones. Zimbabwean magnate John Bredenkamp, head and wanted to return to Africa with his wife to of Kabambola Mining Corporation which controls continue his healing ministry. He complained of GUINEA key copper and cobalt concessions from restrictions from Vatican bureaucrats. Gécamines’ Groupe Central. Bredenkamp, who Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of the Congregation is close to Zimbabwe’s parliamentary Speaker for the Doctrine of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) Constitutional Conté Emmerson Mnangagwa, has better access to warned that Milingo would be excommunicated if Kabila than Forrest. Yet Forrest, who has he did not sever relations with the Moonies and Guineans believe President Lansana Conté is also encouraged Belgium’s rapprochement with leave his wife. On 7 August, Milingo met Pope eager to join the ‘third term’ club. Territorial Congo-K, has political and business clout. John Paul II at Castelgandolfo and was then Administration Ministry officials are behind the State companies’ accounts and computer driven to an unknown destination for ‘reflection ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ for a referendum on records were removed by the auditors and not and prayer’. Eventually Milingo said he had made another constitutional term. Others advise him it returned. Senior managers wonder whether the a mistake and wanted to return to the Church. His would be safer for his Parti de l’Unité et du Progrès aim may be to conceal misappropriation from wife, after a hunger-strike, then announced her (PUP) to go for two-thirds of the 114 parliamentary opposition parties and civil activists whom the period had despite everything arrived. The seats and then change the rules. Conté has been government is due to meet at the inter-Congolese Archbishop’s future is uncertain. looking for electoral incentives. His prowess as war dialogue in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 15 October. Behind these absurdities lie serious issues. In leader hasn’t made him more popular. He has Officials are also to talk to the Africa and Latin America, the Catholic Church is countered neighbouring President Charles Taylor panel on the Exploitation of Congo’s Natural increasingly overtaken by rival Christian sects or with brutal military offensives against soldiers and Resources, due in Kinshasa this month before by Islam. In Africa especially, priestly celibacy is civilians alike, as well sponsoring Liberian dissidents making its report at the end of October. perceived as the decisive obstacle to recruiting the fighting in Lofa County (AC Vol 42 No 2). Also missing is April’s audit of the diamond necessary preachers. Milingo is widely regarded, Conté’s biggest problem is election funding. Enter giant Minière de Bakwanga (Miba), whose even in the United States, as a martyr. With the RussAL, Russia’s aluminium conglomerate which Chairman and Chief Executive, Jean-Charles elderly Pontiff gravely ill, the Holy See’s response has just signed a contract with Conakry to supply a Okoto (one of Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s appears to be to take refuge in tradition. US$1 billion alumnium smelter; the price includes nominations) still holds his job. Miba’s production rights to the Dian Dian bauxite deposits. This has in the first half of 2001 was 26 per cent below that TOGO infuriated the United States’ Reynolds Corporation, of the same period in 2000 – down 31.2 per cent on which claimed to have first refusal on Dian Dian. 1999. One explanation could be that, in April One view is that Reynolds was too slow to offer help 1997, Kabila’s Alliance des Forces Démocratiques The Chile factor with the smelter (neither the US government nor the pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL) confiscated With 34 years in power and reason to fear retirement, World Bank encourage such smelter projects). The 450,000 carats of diamonds belonging to Miba; President Gnassingbé Eyadéma shows signs of US Commerce Department also attacked Guinea’s from the proceeds some US$4 million was paid to joining the club of presidents seeking to hang on in ‘culture of corruption’. RussAL is said to be more Comiex, of which Kabila Senior was a director. In power. Premier Agbeyome Kodjo has postponed tolerant of such local difficulties and take a more 1999, 406,260 carats of Miba’s stones were sold long awaited general elections, due on 14 and 28 generous view of political funding, especially ahead in Antwerp for US$9.5 mn. through a Saudi October, opening the way for a constitutional change of difficult elections. But will they make money? 8