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South Africa Piety and Politics MANDELA SOUTH AFRICA IS FREE. STILL ISN'T. *- J He's come home. So have the TV anchors. The real story is just beginning. There's still apartheid. There's still censorship. There's still no equality. That's why the world still needs "South Africa Now—the non-profit weekly public television news magazine that battles the censors to report the news that isn't coming out of South Africa. "The little show that could—that's how one newspaper described "South Africa Now." TIME magazine says we are "filling a void" in coverage. But we can't do it without funding. We need your help to keep the news flowing and the story in our living rooms. Tax deductible donations can be sent to The Africa Fund—361 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013. Order your "Free at Last-The Mandela Special from South Africa Now at $14.95 1-800-922-3827 AMERICA'S jANUARY-FEBRUARY 1991 VOLUME 36. NUMBER 1 LEADING MAGAZINE ON AFRICA A Publication of the RT African-American Institute Update The Editor: Daphne Topouzis African-American Institute r: Cote d'lvoire Chairman A New Broom? 13 Maurice Tempelsman By Gerald Bourke President France/Africa Vivian Lowery Derryck The Gallic Paradox 17 By Kaye Wiiiteman Publisher Frank E Ferrari Senegal The Secessionist South 21 Editor-in-Chief By Peter da Costa Margaret A. Novicki Out of Africa? Page 17 Benin Managing Editor The Velvet Revolution 24 Alana Lee By Vivian Lowery Derryck Production Editor Iiberia Joseph Margolis The Power Vacuum 27 Assistant Editor By Mark Huband Daphne Topouzis Sudan Editorial Assistant The Crisis of Survival 31 Russell Geekie By John Prendergast Contributing Editors Economies Michael Maren The Ripple Kffect 34 Andrew Meldrum By Andrew Meldrum Art Director War and Famine Mozambique Kenneth Jay Ross Page 31 Back to the Stone Age 37 By Ruth Amah Ayisi Advertising Office 212 949-5666, ext. 728 Economies Knticing Investment 40 Interns James D. Beaton By Colleen h)we Morna Gongalo L. Fonseca Agriculture Jessica M. Forsyth Carolyn B. Gray Relying on Rice 44 Lee Kruvant By Daphne Topouzis Ellen Riefenberger Daniel Levinson Wilk South Africa Piety and Politics 47 Africa Report (ISSN 0001-9836), a By Charles Villa-Vicencio non-profit magazine oi African affairs, is published bimonthly and is sched- The Man You Can't Ignore 50 uled to appear at the beginning of Man of Many Faces each date period at 833 United By Peter Tygesen Nations Plaza, New York. N.Y. 10017. Page 50 Editorial correspondence and adver- Libel or Liability 54 tising inquiries should be addressed to Africa Report, at the above By Philippa Garson address. Subscription rales: Individ- uals. USA $24, Canada $30, air rate Lesotho overseas $48. Institutions. USA $31, Canada $37, air rate overseas $55, Trie King Is Couped 57 Second-class postage paid at New By Colleen Lowe Morna York, N.Y and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: If this maga- zine is undeliverable, please send Zimbabwe address changes to Africa Report at Alienated from Africa 61 833 UN Plaza, NY. NY 10017. Tele- phone: (212) 949-5666. Copyright © By Andrew Meldrum 1991 by The African-American Insti- tute. Inc Culture Waaw!.. AVOW! 64 Photo Credit: The cover photographs were By Daphne Topouzis taken by Camerapix, Betty Press, Africa in New York Annual Index 68 and Ernest Harsch. Page 64 Tunis CEUTA Bamako ^J I Niamey BURKINA FASO ' GUINEA •) • juuagadougou Conakry )—^L< f~—TV BENIN Antananarivo / } MAURITIUS Port Louis REUNION LESOTHO Maseru Copyright © 1984 by the African-American Institute. Inc N THE NEWS Habre Falls After Three-Week Rebel Offensive The eight-year-old government of with Chad, supplying it with large between the rebels and the remnants of Hissene Habre" collapsed in early quantities of Redeye and Stinger mis- the Habre government, right after the December without even putting up a siles, as well as having an 1,800-strong former entered Ndjamena. In early fight against the rebel forces of the contingent in the country, did not inter- December. France announced that it Patriotic Salvation Movement (PSM) vene to support Habre's forces, thereby would maintain its contingent in Chad led by Gen. Idris Deby, who immedi- sealing his fate. The French argument to ensure that the new government does ately proceeded to dissolve Parliament, was that the conflict was an internal not fall victim to foreign aggression. suspend the constitution, promise a dispute and personal vendetta between multi-party democracy, and declare U.S. and Habre Accuse Libya himself president. Deby also appointed The U.S., which, according to an himself chairman of a 33-member state Agence France-Presse report had council in an interim administration pledged full support for Habre. claimed that included three of Habre's minis- that Deby was backed by Libya. There ters, but set no timetable for free elec- have been several reports confirming tions. According to a state council that Col. Qaddafy indeed supplied member, the interim government could Deby with arms, vehicles, and light stay in power for at least a year. armored cars. As a result of the Libyan Deby has accused Habre of detain- connection, the State Department has ing and torturing thousands of Chadi- not formally recognized the new gov- ans, stealing vast amounts of interna- ernment. tional aid, and leaving the coffers of the Much speculation surrounded the treasury empty. "It was persecution that U.S. secret airlift of several hundred imposed on us the decision to take up Hissene Habre: A French casualty? Libyan dissidents (originally prisoners arms." he said in a radio broadcast. Habre and Deby, and it almost went as captured by Chadian forces during an Promising peace, justice, and freedom far as denying any Libyan involvement. earlier Libyan offensive) to Nigeria in of association, opinion, religious wor- "Arms deliveries are no! enough to early December, an act which Libya ship, and the press to a nation torn by define a case of downright military immediately denounced as piracy. civil strife over the last 20 years, he aggression," said Jean-Pierre Chevene- Libya had occupied northern Chad in added. "I stress that there cannot be ment. France's defense minister. 1986. but was forced to withdraw the democracy without political pluralism There have been reports, however, following year, and a peace treaty was and secularism." hinting that the real reason behind this signed between the two countries. It is Deby was Habre's chief military aloofness is that President Mitterrand is now believed that Qaddafy is taking aide in the 1982 coup d'etat which no longer willing to perpetuate France's advantage of the Persian Gulf crisis to brought the former president to power, role as Africa's policeman. "The time make a comeback and reassert his influ- and defense minister until April 1989 has passed when France could pick and ence in Africa, and this has become evi- when he tied the country, after being choose the governments in these coun- dent in his support of Charles Taylor in charged with plotting to overthrow the tries, change them, or maintain them as the Liberian civil war, of Touareg rebels government. He formed the PSM last it wished," argued Foreign Minister in Niger, and more recently of Deby's March, grouping political organizations Roland Dumas. There are rumors, how- forces in Chad. and guerrilla groups that reportedly ever, that relations between France and Tripoli has argued that the rebel favored a multi-party system, and has Habre had been uneasy of late, while invasion in Chad was "a tribal conflict consistently denied having ties with the French Socialist Party and academic and a civil war between the Azakawas Libya or Sudan. Deby has also urged a circles were openly sympathetic to the tribe represented by Deby and the reconciliation with former president rebel leader. Gorane tribe represented by Habre," but Goukouni Oueddei, whom he helped Elysee did send an additional 150 the former president accused Libya and oust in 1982, and who is now exiled in paratroopers to Chad to bolster its Sudan of "duplicity and determination Libya. forces in late November, but only in to destabilize." There were also rumors order to protect its expatriate communi- that the insurgents were Chadians from French Neutrality a Decisive Factor ty. It was even reported that French sol- Habre's region and that two garrisons in This was the first time that France, diers ensured a smooth handover of southern Chad had defected to the which has a military cooperation pact power by being present in the talks rebels by mid-November. AFRICA REPORT • January-February 1991 The Rebel Offensive Sporadic fighting—the first since last May—broke out in mid-November U.S. Boosts Africa Aid by 40% near the Sudanese border between some Despite predictions that the urgency ever, reports that Mobutu has diverted 2,000 rebels and the National Armed of economic reconstruction in Eastern huge sums of money as a result of his Forces (FANT). The attackers invaded Europe and the crisis in the Persian connections with Washington and from Darfur in Sudan and Ouenad in Gulf would plunge U.S. aid to Africa to amassed a personal fortune of $2.5 bil- Libya, and first captured the region of new depihs. in a surprise and last- lion, along with the massacre of 12 stu- Tine in eastern Chad. The rebels minute move in early November. dents at Lubumbashi University last claimed they wiped out two-thirds of Congress raised African aid by $240 April, have put his reputation at an all- the government's army in Tine".
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