www.africa-confidential.com 18 May 2001 Vol 42 No 10 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL 2 FRANCE/AFRICA The old-timers More than 40 people died when The new foreign legion paramilitary police tackled Paris’ African veterans are winning support for new plans to demonstrators in the Kabyle intervene in the continent’s wars region, further weakening President Bouteflika’s claims of Africa needs peacekeepers more than ever just now. France has abandoned its post-colonial policies national reconciliation. As in West Africa, and has launched a new kind of military-backed diplomacy. The result is Recamp, personal support for Boutef drops, the Renforcement des Capacités Africaines de Maintien de la Paix, which has just completed its first he is growing more reliant on the political leaders of the 1980s. big meeting in non-French-speaking southern Africa. Last week (8-10 May) in Dar es Salaam 130 military officers and diplomats from 15 African countries, and 20 non-African partners, met for a seminar to prepare Tanzanite 2000-2002, the Recamp exercise due in next February (AC WESTERN SAHARA/ Vol 42 No 9). MOROCCO 4 France’s diplomatic fortunes in Africa are reviving. After the 1994 genocide, the fall of in 1997, the coup d’etat in Côte d’Ivoire in 1999, French diplomats are regaining Unending endgame influence in Central and West Africa. Last month’s report on the pillage of Congo- Postponing rather than hoping to Kinshasa’s minerals and calls for sanctions against Rwanda and (AC Vol 42 No 9) echoed resolve the status of Western President Jacques Chirac’s views on the rebel war and its beneficiaries. Paris has also been strongly Sahara – independent state or backing President ’s new government in Kinshasa; we hear the Elyseé also favours under Moroccan control – UN Secretary General has (and is winning support for) the replacement of Congo mediator, Quett Masire, with a Francophone, again extended the UN mission perhaps Gabon’s . there for another two months. Underpinning this revival are some new ideas on regional strategy. Rich countries can help keep Unless there is a viable way out, the peace, under Paris’ plan, by providing training, transport and equipment for troops coordinated the stalemate will almost inevitably by Africa’s regional organisations The , Britain and many Anglophone African states push the two sides back to war. were at first sceptical about Recamp. But it is winning new support.

NAMIBIA 5 Tackling crises in West Africa Recamp’s first exercises were in West Africa, first in the River valley (1997-98), then in After Sam, maybe Gabon (1999-2000). The prospect is widening. The Dar es Salaam seminar prepared the ground for President Sam Nujoma is the next February’s Recamp exercise, to be hosted by Tanzania, for troops from Southern Africa, founder of Africa’s third-term and Madagascar. In December, West African governments will meet in Bamako, , with movement and shows signs of wanting a fourth non-constitutional France, Britain and other Western states to develop a political and planning framework. Mali’s term in power. Yet there are plenty General Cheikh Oumar Diarra, the newly appointed deputy Secretary General of the Economic of strong candidates lining up for Community of West African States (Ecowas), may eventually head a small crisis-response unit in the succession, such as Prime its headquarters in Abuja, . Minister Hage Geingob and Trade American officials no longer see Recamp as a rival to their African Crisis Response Initiative Minister Hidipo Hamutenya. (ACRI), and seem happy to see France and other Europeans take the lead. Ambassador Peter Chaveas, political adviser to the US Commander in Chief in Europe, explained: ‘ACRI is a series USA/AFRICA 6 of bilateral programmes that train individual units and soldiers. Recamp is an initiative that brings them together in multilateral form.’ In the lobbies The Tanzanite 2002 seminar boosted France’s profile within the Southern African Development Business is looking up for the Community region, where English and Portuguese are the usual working languages. President Washington lobby firms that want opened the seminar; others present were , Secretary General to work for African governments. of the Organisation of African Unity, Dmitry Titov, Africa Director in the United Nations’s peace- New contracts worth millions of keeping department, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the Algerian diplomat commissioned by UN Secretary dollars, plus many more in negotiation, followed George W. General Kofi Annan to write last year’s critical report on peace-keeping reform. Bush’s installation in the White France has some 8,000 troops in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean (see Map), trained in House. desert and tropical warfare, and equipped with armour, artillery, aircraft and warships. The French government says it will provide transport, money, logistics and technical support for multinational African forces, and has stocked equipment for them in Dakar, Libreville and, soon, in Djibouti. POINTERS 8 Since the mid-1990s, Recamp has been training African peace-keepers at an officers’ school at , Zambia, Zambakro in Côte d’Ivoire. The ground was broken by France’s sponsorship of the Mission Internationale de Surveillance des E.Guinea & Somalia Accords de Bangui, which started as a regional peacekeeping (drawing troops from Gabon, Senegal, 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10

97), and followed up by Lionel Jospin’s socialists, Recamp is tied TUNISIA to French ideas about a European defence identity – often seen in

MOROCCO Washington and London as a device for weakening US leadership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. French diplomacy

ALGERIA hopes to calm that fear, and has appointed Guy Azaïs, formerly Ambassador to Benin and Colombia, to mobilise African and Western Sahara foreign contributors.

MAURITANIA CAPE VERDE SENEGAL Former colonial powers contribute NIGER 1150 TROOPS CHAD DJIBOUTI Paris would accept British leadership in (for example) a crisis in 1 HERCULES C160 MALI 950 TROOPS ERITREA 2675 TROOPS 1 FENNEC 5 MIRAGES 8-10 MIRAGES English-speaking southern Africa. The British have been involved GAMBIA 2 HERCULES C160 BURKINA 1 HERCULES C160 GUINEA- FASO 1 HERCULES C130 in previous Recamp exercises and Kelche says: ‘We decided to BISSAU GUINEA NIGERIA associate our British friends closely with the design of this GHANA BENIN SIERRA LEONE CÔTE CENTRAL ETHIOPIA [Tanzanite] exercise from the outset’; Britain will contribute an AFRICAN REP. D’IVOIRE 550 TROOPS CAMEROON SOMALIA American C130 transport plane, equipment and 30 training 1 FENNEC personnel. Portugal, without the forces for its own African EQUATORIAL GUINEA UGANDA SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE CONGO KENYA FAZSOI* initiatives, will train Angolan and Mozambican units. Portuguese GULF OF GUINEA GABON (based in Mayotte, RWANDA Réunion and at sea) ministers believe Recamp will lose its French flavour by gradual (Corymbe Mission) 679 TROOPS 1 WARSHIP 2 HERCULES C160 1700 TROOPS absorption into Europe’s common foreign and security policy 1 FENNEC DEM. REP. 2 FENNEC OF CONGO TANZANIA SEYCHELLES (PESC) – although France wants to keep Recamp out of the hands of Europe’s Monsieur PESC, Javier Solana of Spain, a former secretary general of Nato. ANGOLA MALAWI Mayotte (Fr.) ZAMBIA French officials say they are ready to transfer control of their equipment to regional bodies such as the Ecowas and SADC.

ZIMBABWE MADAGASCAR Ecowas and its peace-keeping force, Ecomog, has acted vigorously MOZAMBIQUE but with mixed results in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea- BOTSWANA Réunion (Fr.) NAMIBIA Bissau, while SADC has been bitterly divided over Congo-Kinshasa. President , Chairman of the relevant SADC SWAZILAND committee, failed to get it to support deployment of Zimbabwean, French military Angola and Namibian troops on the side of the late Laurent- co-operation mission SOUTH LESOTHO AFRICA Désiré Kabila. Tanzania’s Foreign Minister , French forces present (with numbers of troops whose government is officially neutral on Congo, said: ‘It was and aircraft) * Forces armées de la zone sud de l’Ocean Indien difficult, because the region was divided’. At its Windhoek summit in March, SADC decided to rotate the chairmanship of the Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Togo) in the Central African security organ, ending Mugabe’s hold on the post. Republic in 1997. For the first time a Western country bankrolled Elsewhere, Africa’s sub-regional bodies are weaker. Gabon’s a peacekeeping operation by African troops from several countries, President Omar Bongo is trying to pull the Communauté which became a recognised UN operation, Mission des nations Economique des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale into shape. There is Unies en République Centrafricaine. The force helped to prevent little agreement on policy within Inter-Governmental Authority on outright civil war between army rebels and the presidential guard, Development, in north-east Africa. But the OAU’s Salim Ahmed and was judged a qualified success. And military cooperation can Salim claims that ‘We have moved from a situation where we were have less formal uses. Because senior Senegalese and Mauritanian completely unorganised to a situation where we have the officers developed contacts during the Recamp exercise in Senegal, institutions.’ Military interventions, if necessary, would be last year’s border tensions between the countries were easier to organised by the sub-regional bodies, while the OAU adds defuse. Training and equipment supplied under Recamp support a preventive diplomacy. ‘Since some of the more powerful countries Senegalese and two Moroccan battalions of the UN force in are more and more reluctant to engage themselves in peace- Congo-Kinshasa. keeping, I think it would be irresponsible for us to fold our hands French soldiers learned lessons from the criticism levelled at and wait,’ says Salim Salim. their Opération Turquoise intervention, after the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. In CAR in 1996-97, French officers were careful to share command with their African colleagues. Paris insists that henceforth ALGERIA it will act unilaterally only to rescue foreign civilians (as in Congo- Brazzaville in 1997), or to resist external aggression against countries with which it has defence pacts. ‘We are not the janitors, The old-timers the gendarmes of Africa,’ says Gen. Jean-Pierre Kelche, Chief of Staff of the French armed forces. Officials in Côte d’Ivoire, during Brutality against Kabyle protesters and its recent crisis, claimed that Burkina Faso was about to invade, and retired generals cause problems for Boutef called for intervention under their defence pact with France. A Whatever President may have achieved French landing-craft stood offshore for rescue operations, but during two years in office, it is not peace. Violence continues, French troops kept clear. involving the Groupe Islamique Armée (GIA) and the Groupe Started by the centre-right government of Alain Juppé (1995- Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (Salafist Preaching and

2 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10

Combat Group) (GSPC) (AC Vol 41 No.4). Newer, and therefore who retires or is dismissed. Another old-timer, Larbi Belkheir, a more worrying, were the riots – reflecting underlying tensions – in key power broker of Chadli Bendjedid’s later years, runs the the Berber-speaking Kabyle region last month. presidency for Bouteflika (AC Vol 41 No 22). The trouble began with demonstrations for the twenty-first anniversary of the Kabyle Spring of 1980, when Berber-speakers Bad news for Benflis took on the authorities in pursuit of ‘cultural rights’. This time the The return of the old-timers is bad news for Prime Minister Ali authorities again cracked down. On 18 April a student was shot Benflis, whose government – notably the minister responsible for while in the custody of the paramilitary police, and mass rioting public sector reform, Habib Temmar, and Energy and Mines Minister began. More than 40 people were dead, and hundreds more Chakib Khelil – hopes to reform Algeria’s economy by attracting wounded, by 4 May, when the troubled Tizi Ouzou and Bejaïa foreign investment. Khelil had the strength to see off Abdelhak Wilayat (provinces) were declared relatively peaceable. The Bouhafs, a former aide to the President who in February lost his job political consequence was that Saïd Saadi’s Rassemblement pour (officially because of ill health) as Chairman of the state energy la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD) gave up its two ministries, company Sonatrach. Bouhafs had disagreed with the ambitious Transport and Public Works. Khelil, who now acts both as minister and as interim chairman of After his election in April 1999 Bouteflika persuaded the RCD Sonatrach, hoping to force through the sort of company reforms he – the smaller of the two main Kabyle-based opposition groups – to worked for in Latin America as a World Bank official. join his government, as a sign of national reconciliation. Their In March, the government created a new joint stock company, resignation damaged him. The bigger Kabyle party, Hocine Aït Algérie Télécoms, to operate fixed-line telephone services and the Ahmed’s Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), had showed it could existing global system for mobiles (GSM) licence. The Posts and get thousands of protesters onto the streets of Algiers and the Telecommunications Minister, Mohammed Maghlaoui, says that Kabyle towns, as a reminder that Bouteflika’s opponents have not the government hopes to encourage foreign companies to operate gone away. They attacked the RCD’s headquarters in Tizi Ouzou, GSM systems - starting, unluckily, as investment in telecoms enters the main Berber city. Most of the rioters were not politically a world-wide slump. In the present financial climate Algeria is motivated, but angry young people. It was youth riots that, in likely to tempt in only niche investors (except in oil and gas). Turf October 1988, triggered the crisis that swept President Chadli wars have also delayed Maghlaoui’s telecoms liberalisation, along Benjedid away, and left the now banned Front Islamique du Salut with threats of strikes from the usually acquiescent Union Générale (FIS) poised to enter government. des Travailleurs Algériens (UGTA). The usual Islamist violence continues. Senior officers and dozens The Kabyle crisis of soldiers have been killed in ambushes, mainly organised by Many Algerians think that officials should account for their brutal Hassan Hattab’s GSPC. Special forces are said to have mounted a handling of the Kabyle crisis; those blamed include Gendarmerie new offensive against the GIA and GSPC; one report says that more Commander Mohamed Bastila and Interior Minister Nourredine than 300 insurgents were killed in January-March. If true, that ‘Yazid’ Zerhouni, a close ally of Bouteflika’s. But North Africans would be a severe blow for the Islamist underground, thought to have resent criticism from outside. Invective was hurled by Bouteflika, only 3,000 combatants, and possibly only half that number. his officials and his neighbouring rulers at France’s Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine – usually keen on Paris-Algiers Boutef’s ratings down rapprochement – when he rebuked Algiers for its treatment of the Anti-Bouteflika chants are too common for comfort in Algerian Kabyle protesters. On 6 May, Libya’s Foreign Minister football stadiums. A poll conducted in early April for an independent Mohammed Abderrahmane Shalgam summoned France’s daily, El Watan, showed the President’s personal rating down to 42 Ambassador to Tripoli Josette Dalane to express concern that per cent, from 65 per cent one year before. Only 22 per cent backed reviving the Berber issue could threaten the stability of the Maghreb his reform programme. Thirty-nine per cent of those asked ‘Why is states. Algeria’s Chief-of-staff, Lieutenant General Mohammed President Bouteflika unable to move the country forward?’ said his Lamari, visited Tripoli on 8 May with a message from Bouteflika hands were tied. His peace effort was supported by less than a third to Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi. Moroccan Prime Minister of the respondents. This sour mood does not help Bouteflika towards Abderrahmane El-Youssoufi, on a visit to Paris, cautiously his objectives – to make the economy work better, and to beat off his affirmed that his country did not interfere in Algeria’s internal opponents within the establishment. He will probably respond by problems. His country has its own Berber region, and needs better tightening controls on the press and others who ‘defame’ the President. relations with Algeria while the Western Sahara festers. (See Pro-Bouteflika Algerians argue that he is still the best President Algeria feature.) they will get, and are proud that within a few weeks he has conferred As the stones – verbal and granite – flew, foreigners paid little with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, with his old friend ’s attention to the election of a new speaker to the Algerian parliament’s Fidel Castro, and with Louis Freeh, Director of the United States’ second chamber, the Council of the Nation. He is Mohamed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The President’s belated Cherif Messaadia, who by coincidence was a successful, and response to the Kabyle crisis was to underline the nation’s Amazighité detested, apparatchik of the ruling Front de Libération Nationale (Berberness) alongside its Arab-Islamic attributes, and to at the time of the Kabyle Spring. The political veterans of the ‘70s acknowledge that the authorities reacted badly. This may indicate a and ‘80s (Bouteflika was Foreign Minister from 1965-78) are new responsiveness to popular concerns. coming back. Messaadia had official backing, from the Senior military commanders are also under pressure. A recent parliamentary groups of the ruling Rassemblement Nationale book – ‘The Dirty War’, by Habib Souaidia, a former army officer Démocratique (RND) and the FLN, and from the third of the – alleges that some very senior officials were over the past decade councillors directly appointed by President Bouteflika. The post is involved in massacres and ‘disappearances’ of civilians, blamed on largely ceremonial, but the holder is heir-presumptive to a president the GIA. That is hardly a surprise for non-Algerians, but could 3 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10

disturb some comfortable lifestyles. One leading power-broker, be settlers installed by Morocco itself. In January 2000 Rabat refused retired Major Gen. Khaled Nezzar, cut short a late-April visit to to let the vote take place with an electoral roll that it does not like. Last Paris to promote his memoirs, when a case was filed against him on summer the UN special envoy James Baker III (a heavyweight, behalf of seven alleged victims of torture. Further cases may formerly United States Secretary of State) convened a flurry of follow in France, and wherever powerful Algerians keep homes meetings on alternative solutions (AC Vol 41 No 6) but found time for and assets. Leaders from Bouteflika down still blame the Islamists rounds of golf with Rabat’s much-feared and now sacked Interior for all Algeria’s woes. Minister, Driss Basri. Baker, fed-up, has handed most of the chores A long overdue military reshuffle faces the army and the ruling over to the less influential William Eagleton, who is now discouraged establishment. One of those facing retirement is the head of too. military security, Gen. Mohammed ‘Tawfik’ Medienne; the Chief- Officials from Morocco and Polisario met in London last June, and of-staff, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Lamari, is due to retire but wants to parted in bitterness. Annan said: ‘Neither party appeared willing to stay on. We hear that the President, backed by Belkheir and his offer any concrete proposals to bridge the differences between them’. military advisor Maj. Gen Mohamed Touati, wants to promote They did no better in Geneva in July. ‘Blame the United Nations for younger officers, many of them from the west, rather than from not being strong enough to enforce its own resolutions,’ said the their rivals’ eastern heartlands. Polisario. Morocco’s Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Minister, Others, notably the assassinated President Mohamed Boudiaf, Mohamed Benaissa, told the Jordanian daily Addoustour on 24 have tried and failed to rein in the soldiers. Retired officers still March that Morocco was ‘still attached to the United Nations settlement flex their considerable muscles in Algerian politics. The vacancies plan’, but ‘regretted that 130,000 citizens are denied the right to take in the top ranks pit Bouteflika against the officer corps, and some part in the referendum’. Morocco reasserted its sovereignty, again members of the civilian elite want – and are unlikely to get – an rejected a referendum, but offered the Western Sahara some autonomy inquiry into senior officers’ business dealings. – the ‘third way’ that some, including Annan, have hoped might be the France, too, is implicated in Algeria’s history of military crimes. way out. The sécurité militaire stands accused of torturing suspected Islamists in recent years, just as French officers tortured suspected FLN No third way for Abdelaziz militants in the 1950s. Another new book, ‘Services Spéciaux: Polisario officials pointed out that ‘It took the United Nations merely Algérie 1955-1957’ by retired Gen. Paul Aussaresses, confirms six months to organise a referendum in East Timor.’ They insist that the old belief that governments in Paris (in which future President the cease-fire is over. On the 25th anniversary of Polisario’s declaration François Mitterrand served as a minister) approved widespread of independence, president-in-waiting Mohammed Abdelaziz torture and murder. watched a parade of ageing, Algerian-financed military hardware in A poll by the Paris daily Libération suggested that 56 per cent of the desert outside Tindouf, and predictably rejected the third way. the French want officers who ordered the torture to be tried. Western Saharan spokesmen accuse the UN and Western powers of President Jacques Chirac, who served as a young lieutenant in the bowing to Morocco’s vested interests. The outside world was Algerian war, stripped the 83-year-old Aussaresses of his Légion represented at the independence parades by Palestine, Cuba and d’Honneur. But Amnesty International pointed out that the French Mauritania, plus some Spanish trade unionists. Government welcomed the arrest of Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet Algeria, Polisario’s host and sponsor, sent Mohamed Cherif Abbas, in Britain – a precedent to comfort families whose members Minister for the Moudjahidine (war veterans), rather than the man the disappeared in Algeria’s successive conflicts. Polisario wanted, army chief of staff General Mohammed Lamari. In January Lamari had come out on Polisario’s side but Algeria’s leadership remains ambivalent on the extent of its commitment. WESTERN SAHARA/MOROCCO Algeria backed the Polisario with money, arms and troops between 1975-91 and remains its strongest ally, while also seeking an accommodation with Morocco under its new King Mohamed VI. He Unending endgame wants to keep the Western Sahara as strongly as his father Hassan II did, with the difference that Mohamed has sacked his father’s strong- Imagination and innovation are needed if a man, Driss Basri, who believed he could swing a referendum the way new war is to be prevented he wanted, while the new King’s men, less sure, would rather not try. Postponing rather than hoping to solve the Western Sahara problem, If it came to a fight, Jane’s Intelligence Review reckons that the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has extended yet again Polisario has 15,000 troops and up to 15,000 reservists, against the life of the UN Mission to the Western Sahara (Minurso), the UN Morocco’s better equipped 100,000. In the desert terrain Polisario team that (for around US$4.3 million a month) supervises the territory’s could sustain guerrilla attacks, but only if Algeria helps. endless crises. Winding-up was due on 30 April, and Annan has given On 12 March, Prime Minister Abderrahmane El Youssoufi it two more months. The Polisario Front, ruling its miserable camps relaunched the third way. He was quoted as saying, in the territory’s across the Algerian border, tries to attract attention and rally its capital, El-Ayoun that ‘Morocco is ready to talk to its citizens held in supporters with talk of renewed war. But the odds are ever more Tindouf camps’ (he meant Polisario’s subjects), about ‘decentralised clearly on a solution acceptable to, if not liked by, Morocco. institutions aimed at the self-management of their daily affairs’. The UN-sponsored referendum that was supposed to determine a Morocco’s idea is to set up autonomous regions along the lines of solution looks a dead duck. UN experts trawled for a decade through Spain’s Catalonia or (a worse precedent) the Basque country. the records to establish who should be entitled to vote, and selected This is very much like the late King Hassan’s plan, cooked up by 86,381 out of 147,000 applicants as having antecedents in the territory Basri, for gradually granting large administrative and financial powers when Spain walked away in 1975 – and Morocco moved in. Morocco to 16 regions including the Western Sahara. The model was said to be appealed on behalf of 130,000 rejected applicants, some of whom may not Spain’s regions but Germany’s Länder. A veteran European 4 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10 diplomat told Reuters that there are two Moroccan lines - one for top officials and central committee. There is no provision for a fourth domestic consumption, rejecting talks with Polisario, the other seeking term in Namibia’s constitution; but amendments, requiring a two- political negotiations about regional autonomy. He thought the thirds majority in both houses of parliament, could sanction a fourth second option was likely to be implemented soon. term, just as they sanctioned a third term in 1999. Rabat is seeking friends and rearming. Britain allowed the privatised Nujoma’s stolid support for his neighbour, President Robert Royal Ordnance company to refurbish some 105 mm. Moroccan Mugabe, suggests to some a creeping Zimbabweanisation of howitzers, and a parliamentary committee said the deal was illegal; but Namibian politics. The government has resettled few landless arms exporters elsewhere will be lobbying for more sales. Morocco Namibians on arable land. Some SWAPO militants call for selective is said to have ordered 48 T-72 tanks from Belarus, and other occupations of white-owned livestock ranches, arousing hopes among equipment from France, seen as solidly on Morocco’s side; Rabat has the poor subsistence farmers in the four northern regions that are sent one of its cleverest operators, Hassan Abouyoub, as Ambassador SWAPO’s heartland. to Paris. In 2000 stopped recognising Polisario, and in late February King Mohammed made a state visit there. Morocco is still No challenger has appeared -- yet spending heavily to persuade members state of the Organisation of The President is 72 and in robust health, dominating the party he African Unity to drop their recognition of the Polisario’s République helped found 40 years ago. His defenders says a leadership struggle Arabe Sahrouie Democratique. could stir ethnic rivalries, so a fourth term would help unite party and But the key is held by the United States, whose only reliable Arab country. SWAPO is more democratic than it used to be – Nujoma’s ally is Morocco, and which values that alliance all the more when there bid to choose the party’s top 40 candidates for the National Assembly is trouble in Palestine. Washington is anxious to strengthen the new was rebuffed just before the 1999 elections. Yet no challenger has King’s authority. James Baker III is respected by President George appeared. Two thirds of Namibians are Ovambo, from the north; W. Bush’s team. More important is the appointment of an old Bush/ Nujoma, from their Nganjera sub-group, has tried to balance competing Baker ally, Margaret Tutwiler, as US Ambassador to Rabat. She ethnic interests. Thanks to him the Kwanyama, the biggest Ovambo knows the Saharan dossier well, and might be able to extract a more sub-group, are well represented in the state structure, particularly in generous autonomy offer from Morocco. the Namibia Defence Force (NDF) and the security services. Algeria’s army likes to keep the issue alive, as it provides a pressure The building of a huge presidential complex on a hilltop near point against the old enemy, Morocco; but President Abdelaziz Windhoek is taken as a sign of Nujoma’s fourth-term ambition. Bouteflika knows he can’t afford a renewed war on his border. Officials call it a ‘priority project’, although the main work will not Mauritania’s President Ould Taya has been distancing himself from start until 2003, and completion is unlikely much before the following Polisario. As for the Front itself, is under growing pressure. Morocco year’s elections. The complex, to replace the colonial State House in offer generous inducements to its senior officials to break ranks, but central Windhoek, is estimated to cost Namib$200 million (US$29 the movement is extremely unforgiving of those its regards as disloyal. mn.); it would include the head of state’s residence and office in a Yet the Polisario has never resorted to the kind of terror tactics used presidential village, luxury suites fit for up to six visiting heads of by Angola’s UNITA or Afghanistan’s Mujahideen fighters (both of state, a banquet hall and a conference centre. Namibian architects won which enjoyed millions of dollars of Western support). The stasis suits the design contract, but Nujoma has insisted on bringing in a North Morocco: the longer it continues, the more pressure on the Polisario, Korean company too. He liked the Koreans’ presidential suites, and Rabat believes. Yet mounting pressure without a viable way out will they will probably provide secure communications and services. almost inevitably push the two sides back to war. The succession debate is stuck until Nujoma makes his intentions clear. Loyalty to the leadership, cultivated in SWAPO’s origins as a liberation movement, is the prime virtue. Damnation falls on sceptics NAMIBIA such as Ben Ulenga, former leader of the Mineworkers Union of Namibia and High Commissioner to Britain, who left SWAPO and formed his own Congress of Democrats in 1998. Contenders are After Sam, maybe therefore unlikely to show their hands until shortly before next year’s congress, which gives an advantage to would-be candidates who The founder of the third-term movement may maintain a following in the party membership, mobilise associated just try for a fourth groups such as the National Union of Namibian Workers, and cultivate It is three years until Namibians must elect their next president, but the Ovambo traditional chiefs. There is little ideological debate in already there is confusion about President Sam Nujoma’s retirement. SWAPO, which promises poverty reduction and black empowerment He pioneered Africa’s ‘third-term movement’ (applicants: Presidents within an investor-friendly mixed economy. What counts is personality, of Zambia and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi) and and northern support. shows signs of wanting a fourth, on the back of his South West African Nujoma’s successor will almost certainly be one of three – possibly People’s Organisation’s big parliamentary majority. Until his five – cabinet ministers who were in exile from the 1960s to the 1980s. supporters know what he wants, studied ambiguity is the fashion. Prime Minister Hage Geingob may open the bidding, against the SWAPO will elect its new president at a congress in August 2002, ethnic trend; he is from the minority Damara group in west-central says its Secretary General, Hifikepunye Pohamba. Whoever is Namibia. Constitutionally he is head of the government, and is fed- chosen would be the party’s candidate in the election due by the end up playing second fiddle to Nujoma, who insists on chairing cabinet of 2004. Pohamba, a Nujoma confidante who was awarded the meetings. But at the last party congress the younger members and sensitive lands and resettlement portfolio this year, has rubbished the modernisers could not muster the votes for him to replace the veteran idea that a successor was being groomed. Instead he expects a debate SWAPO Vice-President, Hendrik Witbooi (expected to retire at the early next year, after which the congress would ‘discuss’ the President next congress). Geingob’s civil service reforms, opposed by the of the party, as well as electing a new vice-president, secretary general, unions, increased the pay and perks of top civil servants, while 5 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10

opposing rises for lower-paid officials. That did his popularity no towards Africa, but of Vice-President Al Gore’s and Republican good. presidential hopeful George W. Bush’s as well’. The main rivals are the Trade and Industry Minister, Hidipo Shortly after the contract was signed last August Clinton visited Hamutenya, and the Agriculture Minister, Helmut Angula, both of Nigeria. Last week President made a state visit them Kwanyama Ovambos, consummate politicians and former exiles. to Washington, and spent an hour and three-quarters with President Hamutenya strongly advocates black empowerment, and heads both Bush over lunch. ‘Nigeria is a friend of America and the President is the most powerful cabal in the cabinet and SWAPO’s national a friend of mine,’ Bush told reporters on 11 May. Goodworks claims executive. He promotes links with Malaysia, and has pushed the some credit for that. export processing zones (EPZ) which brought investment and jobs to Goodworks also promised to counter ‘negative information with Walvis Bay and Oshikango in the north. Oshikango’s black positive responses’, and to restore direct Nigeria-US flights. The firm entrepreneurs are busily trading with Angola and Congo-Kinshasa, seems to be new to the foreign lobbying business, since this is its first activities which will be boosted when the railway is extended from statutory report to the US Department of Justice. Its Chief Executive Tsumeb to the Angola border, one of Nujoma’s pet projects. is Carlton A. Masters, and its Vice-Presidents include: Ugo Okafor Angula, a former Fisheries Minister who served briefly at Finance (Nigeria), Magdalene Womack,Sylvia Hury-Ashley, Sika Awoonor in the mid-1990s, has been quietly building a political base. If (Ghana) and Calvin Vimale. Hamutenya is seen as too dominant, Angula would be the natural A tougher task is faced by Steeplechase International in its two-year alternative – or the two could agree to run jointly for president and contract with Anis Haggar, a scion of a major Sudanese business vice-president. family. Milton Bearden, Chairman of Steeplechase, was a Central The Finance Minister, Nangolo Mbumba (Ndonga Ovambo) has Intelligence Agency officer in Sudan and Pakistan, while Washington won praise for trying to entrench fiscal stability, introducing a three- supported the mujahideen’s fight against the Soviet Union in year medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) in this year’s Afghanistan. Milt Bearden knows about Islamists, even perhaps budget to curb the inexorable rise in government spending and Osama bin Laden, a mujahideen fighter and former resident in domestic public debt. He lacks the weight to confront the bigger Khartoum’s Riyadh suburb. Bearden now writes novels and comment names, but could emerge as a compromise candidate. columns for the newspapers about Islam and terror, and was critical of The Foreign Affairs Minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, is seen by many the Clinton administration’s policy in these areas. Bearden is also Namibians and foreigners as a worthy successor to Nujoma, with the promoting ‘People to People’, an anti-AIDS project for the Horn, with authority to maintain party unity – but like Geingob he is Damara, an office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. which probably rules him out. According to the contract lodged with the Department of Justice, Steeplechase is to be paid a ‘one-time mobilisation fee’ of $150,000 USA/AFRICA and $50,000 a month (payable quarterly in advance) initially for two years. For this Steeplechase is to use its best endeavours ‘to provide information and advice that will improve understanding and enhance the relations between the various Governments, Parties and peoples In the lobbies involved in the Sudan conflict.’ Advice and influence oil the path for African US-Sudan relations reached a new low after the US was voted off the governments with US problems United Nations Human Rights Commission, and Sudan was voted back onto it (along with others not known as defenders of liberty). On Business is looking up for the Washington lobby firms that want to 3 May, Bush said Sudan was an ‘a disaster area for human rights’. work for African governments. New contracts worth several million Sudan is still under UN sanctions for its role in the attempted dollars, plus many more in negotiation, followed George W. Bush’s assassination of Egypt’s President , in June 1995 installation in the White House. Lobbyists do best when government (AC Vol 36 No 14). intentions are unclear; there is little clarity about Bush’s Africa policy, General Omer el-Beshir’s National Islamic Front regime now has except that it will be more pro-business and less active in Africa than oil-wells, and the Foreign Ministry in Khartoum spoke of ‘encouraging Bill Clinton’s (AC Vol 41 No 25). signals’ from the US two weeks before the UN Human Rights The biggest contracts come from oil-producing governments such Commission row. Khartoum had hoped that President Bush’s choice as Angola, Nigeria, and Equatorial Guinea, whose exports to the US of Walter Kansteiner III as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (as are growing fast. Also keen to buy influence are governments out of yet not confirmed by Congress) would help: Kansteiner was on a 52- favour with Washington, such as Liberia, Burkina Faso, Côte member taskforce which recommended that Washington should d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe, all of which have hired new lobbyists in the ‘engage’ with the El-Beshir regime, subject to certain ‘humanitarian past year. A special category is that of the oil exporting countries agreements’ (AC Vol 42 No 7). which have problems with Washington - Sudan, the target of both US Sudan has moved Ambassador Al-Khidr Harun from Japan to and United Nations sanctions, and Gabon, whose President, Omar Washington. He will reopen the Sudan Embassy there at ‘chargé Bongo, was damaged by a US Senate investigation into how more d’affaires’ level; it was closed in 1998, after the US bombed the El- than US$180 million was paid into his private US accounts. Shifa factory, claiming it helped produce chemical weapons. Khartoum The biggest recent lobby contract is the $1.5 mn. deal between the rejects the chemical weapons charge and wants a ‘settlement’ on El- Nigerian government and Goodworks International, whose Chairman Shifa; it doesn’t like the US Ambassador to Sudan being based in is also President of the US National Council of Churches – Andrew Kenya; it wants UN and US sanctions lifted (they were discussed Young, ex-President Jimmy Carter’s Ambassador to the UN and between Mubarak and US officials last month) - and it wants US then Mayor of Atlanta. Goodworks’ challenge, according to the investment in its oil. contract, is ‘to reverse Nigeria’s negative image’. It promised to make A spokesman for Steeplechase didn’t believe the UN Human Rights Nigeria the focus ‘not only of President Clinton’s foreign policy Commission row would make his company’s job more difficult: the 6 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10 Queuing for influence ANGOLA ETHIOPIA 1. American Worldwide Inc. Director is John Moore. Registration: 5 1. C/R International. Directors:Robert Cabelly and Stephen F. Riley. February, 2001. Contract fee: $955,000. Contract running from registration: 1 May, 2000. Contract fee: $300,000. 2. Patton Boggs Ltd. Registration: 1 February 2001. Contract fee: 2. Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand (Directors include former $250,000 retainer. Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole). Registration date: 5 3. Daniel Edelman. Registration: 1 February 2001. Contract fee: March, 2001. Contract fee: $225,000. $400,000/year. GABON 4. C/R International. Directors: Robert Cabelly and Stephen F. Riley. 1. Barron Birrell. Directror: Jeffrey Birell. Resgistration: 1999. Contract Registration: 24 April 2001 (latest contract runs from 1 December, 2000 fee: $170,000 (June-December 1999). and 30 November, 2001). Contract fee: $620,000 ($929,950 for 2000 2. Shandwick Public Affairs. Registration: 31 December, 2000. contract). 3. Jacqueline Wilson. Brief: to support action of President Omar Bongo 5. Cohen and Woods Int. Directors: Herman ‘Hank’ Cohen and Jim to fight AIDS pandemic. Registration: August 2000. Contract fee: $60,000. Woods. Registration: 26 March, 2001. Contract fee: $500,000/year. 4. Cassidy and Associates. Registration: 29 December,2000. Contract fee: 6. Samuels Int. Associates, Inc. Directors include Michael A. Samuels. $263,000. Registration: 28 march, 2001. Contract fee: $300,000 (services from LIBERIA November 2000 to February 2001). Jefferson Waterman Int. Brief: to strengthen relations CAMEROON between Liberia and the US. (Client is AmLib United Minerals, Liberia). Groupement des Femmes d’Affaires du Cameroun (includes government Registration: 31 July, 2000. Contract fee: $25,000/month. officials and seeks to improve US-Cameroon relations). US Agent: Steve MOZAMBIQUE Larson-Jackson Law Firm. Contract fee: $20,000 retainer plus expenses. AfricaGlobal Partners. Director: David Miller. Registration: 29 August CONGO-BRAZZAVILLE 2000. Contract fee: $150,000/year. Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. Registraton: November, 2000. Contract fee: NIGERIA $400,000. International Strategic & Consulting group. President: Bernadette Cohen & Woods Int. Directors: Herman ‘Hank’ Cohen and Jim Woods. O.Oddiah. Regstration: May 2000. Brief: procure agricultural and medical Brief : ‘to advise and assist in developing the peace process’. Registration: equipment plus representation. Contract fee: $205,000 advance and quarterly June,2000. Contract fee: $250,000/year. payments of $105,000. COTE D’IVOIRE SWAZILAND Valis Associates. Director: Wayne H. Valis. Brief: ‘to restore good AfricaGlobal Parnters. Director: David Miller. Registration: 16 may 2000. relations between the U.S. government and the Cote d’Ivoire’. Registration: Contract fee: $84,000/year March 2001. Contract fee: $16,700/month, with $35,000 retainer. UGANDA EQUATORIAL GUINEA Foley, Hoag and Eliot. Registration: 13 February, 2001. Brief: to represent AfricaGlobal Partners. Director: David Miller. Registration: 30 January, Uganda’s interest with Congress/Presidency. Contract fee: $10,000/month. 2001. Contract fee: $284,000/year. US was pushed off the Commission because of European tactics not European Union contemplating sanctions against Zimbabwe. But because of Sudan, he said. Neither was it Steeplechase’s job to CWI, currently lobbyists for President Blaise Compaoré’s regime in represent the Khartoum government: ‘This isn’t a public relations Burkina Faso and former lobbyists for President Charles Taylor’s contract’, he insisted. ‘We are trying to get some sanity into a dialogue Liberian regime, are veterans of fighting unpopular causes. . . . our focus is on ending the war.’ A newish Washington-based company to watch is Africa Global, The Clinton administration’s policy didn’t work, the Steeplechase whose clients include Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and spokesman said. Its official policy was to destabilise the Khartoum Swaziland. They have won three major contracts in the past year. government and support the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. This Founded by David Miller, the former head of the Corporate Council just made the SPLA ‘hang tough’ he said. on Africa, its partners include the former US Executive Director of the African Development Bank Mima Nedelkovich, and the former Wanted – oil companies with a conscience Director of the US Agency for International Development, Warren Steeplechase’s client Anis Haggar is one of a group of Sudanese Weinstein. businessmen, including Salah Idriss (a part-owner of the bombed El- Shifa factory) who are working to change US policy on Sudan. ‘We’re Visit our website at: www.africa-confidential.com looking for the voices of reason in this frenzied circus’, a source close Published fortnightly (25 issues per year) by Africa Confidential, at to Haggar said. ‘We accept that no one is going to win this war and we 73 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JQ, England. Tel: +44 20-7831 3511. Fax: +44 20-7831 6778. should talk about peace.’ If American oil companies ‘with a conscience’ Copyright reserved. Edited by Patrick Smith. Deputy: Gillian Lusk. were to work in Sudan, conditions would be much better for the Administration: Clare Tauben. Sudanese than under the state-controlled east-Asian companies such Annual subscriptions including postage, cheques payable to Africa as Malaysia’s Petronas and National Petroleum. Confidential in advance: Another difficult brief is Cohen and Woods International’s (CWI) Institutions: Africa £289 - UK/Europe £310 - USA $780 - ROW £404 contract with President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe. Corporates: Africa £354 - UK/Europe £373 - USA $864 - ROW £466 Aside from the usual strategic advice CWI offer clients, it promises to Students (with proof): Africa/UK/Europe/ROW £83 or USA $129 ‘counter anti-Zimbabwean content in the international media’ and All prices may be paid in equivalent convertible currency. We accept American Express, Diner’s Club, Mastercard and Visa credit cards. help the government ‘properly explain to the US and European Subscription enquiries to: Africa Confidential, PO Box 805, Oxford OX4 audiences the nature and origins of the current political crisis and the 1FH England. Tel: 44 1865 244083 and Fax: 44 1865 381381 need for international understanding and support for the government’s Printed in England by Duncan Print and Packaging Ltd, Herts, UK. position.’ This is a tough proposition with both and the ISSN 0044-6483 7 18 May 2001 Africa Confidential Vol 42 No 10

President, General Christon Tembo, and several that he is unsuited to take over an emerging oil Pointers ministers. Tembo may form a new party. There power. Both brothers were reappointed in a are two possible Chilubaist candidates. Vice- government reshuffle at the end of February. But President Enoch Kavindele challenged ex- Teodorin has not been seen in Malabo, the capital, ETHIOPIA President during his heyday, for weeks. In March, opposition groups based in joined the MMD, left it, rejoined, and served in Madrid clamed he had been arrested at John F. two of Chiluba’s governments; he is from the Kennedy airport in New York on drugs and Lost hope north-west, with Angolan connections. The other, currency charges. Katele Kalumba, reappointed Finance Minister, The US authorities say they have no record of Ethiopia’s security chief, Kinfe Gebre Medhin, is level-headed, but (like Chiluba and Kaunda such an incident, but intelligence sources say was shot four times in the back outside the Armed before him) comes from the north. Teodrin was in New York and that he is now in Forces Officers Club in Addis Ababa on 12 May. To impeach the President, two-thirds of the 158 California. His associates say he was disappointed The murder hits Prime Minister members of parliament (in practice, 104 of them) not to have been promoted in the reshuffle, amidst personally and politically. Since 1991 Kinfe’s must vote for it. An impeachment process can be reports that the clan has shifted its allegiance title had been General Manager of Security, started by one third of the members, and 80 (more towards General Agustin Ndong Ona, a Immigration and Refugee Affairs. In effect he than enough) have said they want to do so. As the conservative from the old-school and an Obiang was Minister of the Interior, and Meles’ close air fills with rumours of bribery and intimidation, loyalist. They consider it unlikely that Teodorin political ally on the Central Committee of the Chiluba’s new government is as follows: would willingly have abandoned his ambition for Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the core of the Unchanged ministries: Finance – Katele high office to make way for his half-brother, but ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Kalumba; Home affairs – Peter Machungwa; maintain that oil companies well-connected in Democratic Front. Foreign affairs – Keli Walubita; Works and supply Washington would appreciate his enforced absence Few security chiefs can bring thousands onto – Godden Mandandi; Energy – David Saviye; to allow Gabriel to consolidate his position. That the streets for their funeral, many of them worried Presidential affairs – Eric Silwamba (also Legal would avoid the prospect of a chaotic, contested that his passing could bring a much harder affairs). Changed jobs: Vice President – Enock succession that might compromise investments of government line. He was a bridge-builder, and Kavindele (from Health); Mines – Chitalu Sampa hundreds of millions of dollars from which they helped Meles to manage the split in the Front (AC (from Defence); Labour – Newstead Zimba (from have yet to realise significant returns. Vol. 42 No. 9). With roots in Eritrea, Kinfe felt Information); Lands – Abel Chambeshi (from betrayed by the Asmara government when the war Science and technology); Community – Jane broke out in 1998, and personally tried to help Chikwata (deputy, Community); Commerce – SOMALIA families divided by the war. Yusuf Badat (deputy, Works); Sports – Peter He also investigated corruption, and was Chintala (deputy, President’s office). New faces: examining the Ministry of Defence where the man Defence – Joshua Simuyandi; Health – Levison Independence vote charged with his assassination, Major Tsehaye Mumba; Transport – Augustine Mwape; Battling a powerful lobby for postponement, Wolde Selassie, a member of the TPLF, was in Education – Reuben Musakabantu; Agriculture President of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal charge of procurement. Brigadier-General – Misheck Chiinda; Tourism – Michael is determined to hold a long-delayed constitutional Tadesse Berhe, the Ministry’s head of Mabenga; Environment – Chembe Nyangu. referendum on 31 May. He wants voters to back administration, has apparently resigned. There a basic law confirming the independence his are no apparent links between Tsehaye and the government proclaimed in 1991, and allowing for dissidents on the Central Committee, but army EQUATORIAL GUINEA a three-party general election this year. support for Meles has not been unanimous since The government wants aid, so needs 1994, when all officers were told to resign from international recognition. It failed to get United the TPLF and Siye Abraha, one of Meles’ main Brothers Nguema Nations support or international observers for the critics, was dismissed as Minister of Defence. The latest intrigues among Equatorial Guinea’s vote, but hopes that the referendum will prove it is Some officers think Ethiopia should have been ruling family indicate the succession struggle is a viable political entity, within the boundaries of tougher after it defeated Eritrea last year. heating up in Africa’s emerging oil emirate. The Britain’s former protectorate. The Transitional stakes are high: the country’s current oil production National Government (TNG) of Somalia, set up in ZAMBIA of 185,000 barrels a day is rising fast with the Mogadishu last year, rejects the separatist claim, United States’ Exxon Mobil as the main producer but is practically powerless. The neighbouring while TotalFinaElf, Triton, Chevron, CMS Energy self-administered region of Puntland says the vote Disbelief and Ocean Energy are looking at further expansion. is ‘unwise and provocative’. With Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Puntland bases itself on the Harti branch of the President Frederick Chiluba has sworn that he President since he overthrew his uncle in 1979, in Darood clan, including the Dulbahanta and will not after all seek the unconstitutional third poor health, there are high expectations of a Warsengeli, two clans in the north-east Somaliland term that he worked so hard to win. On 8 May he bruising contest between Teodorin Nguema regions of and Sol, which Puntland claims. reaffirmed: ‘I am not going to stand. I want to Obiang and Gabriel Nguema Lima, the Dulbahanta and Warsengeli traditional leaders make it clear, clear and clear ... that there is no President’s two eldest sons and both prominent disagree about the referendum. Last week there third term. If you can’t trust what I have said, I ministers in his government. were clashes when Dulbahanta militias from can’t help further than this’. His critics still would Gabriel has impressed oil companies with his Puntland moved in to stop ballot boxes arriving; not believe him, and riots followed. quiet stewardship of the Ministry of Mines and there were anti-referendum demonstrations in two Chiluba has saved the Organisation of African Energy. But he is aloof, and with a mother from Dulbahanta towns, Las Anod and Burao, where Unity much embarrassment, since he is due to São Tomé e Príncipe, is regarded as an outsider one person died. There have also been protests host its annual summit in July. Fixes are possible by the most insular elements of the Esangui clan among the Gadabursi clan in northern Somaliland, afterwards. Chiluba’s Movement for Multiparty from the Mongomo region that has ruled the some of whose traditional elders think the Democracy, at its convention on 29 April, elected country since Independence from Spain in 1968. constitution will establish the power of the , him unopposed as its president. He now says that Teodorin is better connected with the clan and the main Somaliland clan. President Egal will the purged National Executive will choose the has a more populist . His critics say he is probably get a clear majority, not an overwhelming party’s presidential candidate. reckless and unpredictable. They point to alleged victory, and the UN will carry on supporting the Those purged include the former National Vice- incidents in France in the 1990s as indications TNG in Mogadishu. 8