Sierra Leone Arthur Abraham • Nordic Media and Africa Anne Hege Simonsen • Interview with Juhani Koponen Contents No

Number 3 October 2003 news from the Nordic Africa Institute

FROM THE CONTENTS

• Migration in West Africa Francis Akindès • Sierra Leone Arthur Abraham • Nordic Media and Africa Anne Hege Simonsen • Interview with Juhani Koponen Contents no. 3/2003

To Our Readers 1 Lennart Wohlgemuth Commentaries 3 Migrations, Public Policies for ‘Foreigners’ and Citizenship in West Africa Francis Akindès 7 Sierra Leone: Post-Conflict Transition or Business as Usual? Arthur Abraham 11 South Africa: Reintegration into Civilian Life of Ex-Combatants Guy Lamb 14 The Challenge of Nordic Media: Bringing Africa Home Anne Hege Simonsen Media 17 Nordic Media and Africa 18 Hunger and Politics: What international media did not report Sarah Chiumbu Interview 21 Interview with Juhani Koponen Research 24 Guest Researchers African institution 27 Panos West Africa Publishing 28 Recent Publications Conference reports 31 Conferences and Meetings 40 Publications Received

Editor-in-Chief: Lennart Wohlgemuth News from the Nordic Africa Institute is published by the Nordic Africa Co-Editor: Susanne Linderos Institute. It covers news about the Institute and also about Africa itself. News appears three times a year, in January, May and October, and is free Co-Editor of this issue: Anne Hege Simonsen of charge. It is also available on-line, at the Institute’s website: Editorial Secretary: Karin Andersson Schiebe www.nai.uu.se. Statements of fact or opinion appearing in News are solely Language checking: Elaine Almén those of the authors and do not imply endorsement by the publisher. To Our Readers

During 2002, Norwegian development coop- cations for the region. Based on these papers eration celebrated its 50th anniversary—half a the Institute organised jointly with CODESRIA a century after the start of the Kerala project in conference in Dakar in May this year that India. This anniversary became a state celebra- turned out to be a great success. Some of the tion, with gala performances and seminars. contributions are published in this and the next One of the major events—that was slightly issue of News as commentaries. delayed—was the launching of a three-volume We are happy to present as our first com- history of Norwegian aid in early June 2003 mentary an analysis of the Migrations, public (Norsk Utveklingshjelps Historie, Oslo: Fagbok- policies for ‘foreigners’ and citizenship in West forlaget). For someone who, like me, has worked Africa by Professor Francis Akindès from the for the past forty years with aid practice, aid University of Boaké in Côte d’Ivoire. This methodology and aid research, this work is a historical background gives us a basis on which rare treasure. we can better understand the present problem- What makes it so unique is that the authors, atic developments in the region. It also allows all historians, put aid in its historical context, i.e. us to understand how deeply involved the neigh- the developments in the world at large. Aid is bouring countries are in the present crisis. therefore not only discussed per se, but also as a The second commentary on Sierra Leone part of Norwegian foreign as well as domestic by professor Arthur Abraham—a well-known policies. In addition, the 50 year time frame historian at present at the Virginia State Uni- makes it possible to compare over time. Theo- versity, USA—stems from the same region and is retical discussions are enriched by accounts from a result of the Institute’s analytical engagement discussions in Norway (within the political fora, in the post-conflict transition of Sierra Leone. the civil society and in the press), all exemplified It again documents how difficult it is to act in by shorter and longer presentations from the the period following a severe crisis. If this real world of aid. What makes this publication period is handled wrongly the risks are great so important is that it contextualizes aid as one that new trouble will arise in the near future. important but still small part of the relationship The third commentary by Guy Lamb, sen- between North and South and points at the fact ior researcher with the Centre for Conflict that nothing is really new—most ideas have Resolution at the University of Cape Town, been tried out at least once in the past. It is my brings up a related problem from a different sincere hope that this study will help us improve part of Africa. One of the recipes recommended the difficult relations between the actors in the by conflict resolution experts for tackling the aid relationship. transition period from crisis to peace is the In the past six months the Institute has been orderly demobilisation of soldiers and fighters deeply engaged with the events in West Africa from the different parties in conflict. This com- in general and in the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire in mentary exemplifies such a programme in South particular. The latter is likely to have serious Africa and points to the problems in imple- repercussions on the rest of West Africa, not menting this idea in practice. What seems so only because of the importance of the size of the right and easy in theory becomes very compli- immigrant population in the country, but also cated and awkward in practice, and in particular because of the position of the country in the requires resources in the form of money and region. The Institute thus commissioned a personnel that are seldom available in the tran- number of scholars from the region to write sition period. ‘think-pieces’ or empirically based analytical As an important step in the Institute’s ef- papers on the Côte d’Ivoire crisis and its impli- forts to develop a pro-active media policy, a

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 1 media conference was hosted in Uppsala in Finally we are proud to present the work May 2003. The major aim was to discuss how and experience of Professor Juhani Koponen. Nordic journalists covering Africa and the In- He has recently been appointed as professor of stitute can together further the coverage of development studies at the Institute for Devel- Africa in the Nordic countries. In this issue two opment Studies at the University of Helsinki contributions are the result of this conference. for which we congratulate him with all our The first is a commentary by the Norwegian heart. He is an old friend of the Institute, has journalist Anne Hege Simonsen as the coordi- been a research fellow here and published a nator of the workshop focusing on questions number of times with us. With his experience such as: Why is Africa important? Why should from Africa in general and Tanzania in particu- it be covered in the Nordic media? Who cares, lar he will continue to be an important sup- and why? The second is an article by the jour- porter of research in and on Africa in the Nordic nalist and keynote speaker Sarah Chiumbu, countries. ■ Director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa in Zimbabwe. Lennart Wohlgemuth

Norsk utviklingshjelps historie (‘The history of norwegian development aid’), vol. 1–3. Olso: Fagbokforlaget, 2003.

2 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries Migrations, Public Policies for ‘Foreigners’ and Citizenship in West Africa

By: Francis Akindès social and cultural dynamics at work in the ex- Sociologist and Professor colonies. This region is also characterized by an at Université de Bouaké, extraordinary cultural, religious and linguistic Côte d’Ivoire diversity. The adoption of French and English as official languages adds to this linguistic diversity.

History of West African migrations The sociological configuration on the ground is the product of several centuries of exchanges The recent crisis in Côte d’Ivoire illustrates both the which are now well documented. In the course importance of population movements in West Af- of the pre-colonial period, between 1250 and rica, and the vulnerability of migrants and their 1850, important trading networks had already descendants, most of whom are denied citizen- been set up from the three main areas of produc- ship rights. In this article, Francis Akindès calls for tion: the Sahel for salt, gum arabic, gold, copper, more inclusive citizenship policies and for greater perfume and dyes; the Sudan for indigo, shea butter (karité), cloth and iron; Guinea for sea regional integration. On pp. 34–36, there is a con- salt, gold, ivory and cola nuts. The trade in these ference report which also gives a short background various goods encouraged the development of to the Côte d’Ivoire crisis. entrepôt towns on the edge of the forest and the savannah. The flow of trade went even further The area covered by the Economic Commu- than this to reach the Mediterranean basin. The nity of West African States (ECOWAS), as a dynamics of these trading networks also con- political region, is shared by fifteen states which tributed to a mixing of cultures and nationali- could be divided into three groups: the Sahel ties. Between 1850 and 1960, colonization region (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger); the reconfigured the directions of the flows around extreme west (Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, strategic cash crops such as groundnut, palm oil, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra cocoa, hevea and coffee. From that point on, two Leone); and finally the Gulf of Guinea (Benin, urban basins emerged: the Cape Verde/Lake Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo). In Tchad axis and the coastal towns which opened 2000, the population within this Community (at doors to the outside world. However, these new that time including Mauritania) was estimated axes did not lead to the disappearance of the pre- to be 224 million, or 28 percent of the population colonial trading routes which adapted in parallel of Africa. This population increased at the rate circuits to the new order. Thus, in French West of 2.7 percent per annum between 1995 and 2000, Africa, to fulfill the training requirements of an faster therefore than Africa as a whole (2.4 intellectual elite for the colonies, colonization percent) and the developing countries in general promoted emigration towards Dakar where the where the rate of growth was only 1.6 percent. leading educational institutions were located. This region has been subject to the influence of The same was true for the organized, even three colonial systems: British, French and Por- forced, migration from Upper Volta towards the tuguese. Four decades after independence, the Côte d'Ivoire between 1932 and 1950, to supply first two systems still strongly influence the labour for the exploitation of the Lower Côte

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 3 commentaries d'Ivoire. The frontiers inherited from coloniza- successive waves of expulsion of immigrants to tion have remained artificial because they have their country of origin (the expulsion of Ghana- never prevented economic and cultural ex- ians from Nigeria in 1983 and 1989, the expul- changes between the various communities scat- sion of Ghanaians, Burkinabes and Malian fish- tered over several countries. A considerable ermen from the Côte d'Ivoire) and more harm- number of informal transfrontier exchanges or- ful phenomena such as the fatal accusations ganized around manufactured goods and basic implicating immigrant communities of being products defied the barriers put up between ‘soul sellers’ or ‘penis shrinkers’are good demon- peoples and conveyed the desire of the popula- strations that immigration is beginning to pose tion to maximize the comparative advantages of problems in these countries beset by the integra- the national entities which were at last intercon- tion into a republic of their constituent nation- nected from the coast. alities which are still poorly incorporated. In Before as well as after colonization, the 1979 a draft agreement on free circulation of motives for migration were mainly economic. goods and persons was signed by the member After independence (1960–1970) economic mi- States, but it did not produce the expected gration still exists, but the main reasons for effects. (As if to give substance to this ‘political population movements are political instability will’ an official ECOWAS passport was even and agro-climatic difficulties in the Sahel. The launched in May 2000 by the Conference of States in the area attempt, with varying degrees Presidents.) These texts which, within the Com- of success, to transcend the political compart- munity, grant settlement facilities to the citizens mentalization by setting up institutions for re- of the member States are unknown to the gional integration such as the Central Bank of populations who are supposed to be the benefi- West African States, the West African Eco- ciaries and are deliberately not applied by the nomic and Monetary Union, the Economic authorities. Moreover the agreement is subject Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), to a certain scepticism among politicians and the Conseil de l’Entente, the sub-regional Fish- intellectuals who rarely refer to them. As a ing Commission, the Inter-State Committee result, the agreement has in no way changed the against Drought in the Sahel, etc. These institu- situation. The limited efficiency of these com- tions are intended as mechanisms for the collec- munity legal arrangements is also explained by tive management of the political and economic the lack of systematic thinking about what a constraints of the area, but also for the regula- public policy for ‘foreigners’ really ought to be tion of its potential. within the member States of the Community.

Inefficient legal arrangements Towards a public policy for foreigners? As a region, the Economic Community of West A public policy for foreigners is the sum total of African States (ECOWAS) is a political construc- the institutional and constitutional arrange- tion given legitimacy both by the history of its ments which integrate the mechanisms for the peoples and by the various historical interactions control of migration at the borders, identifica- since the pre-colonial period. Even if today’s tion and the administrative management of difficulties in administering the social diversity immigration files and transcends them. What is within the national political entities originate in also very important is that it must include legal the borders created during the colonial period, and political schemes for the incorporation and the latter in no way interfered with the interac- reassurance of minorities of immigrant origin. tions and migrations of the population. After Within a State, a public policy for foreigners independence, migration even tended to in- must be understood as the set of formal and crease. The causes for this are now well known, informal mechanisms acting on the mobility of and so are the consequences. But, since inde- sociological borders and the psychological rap- pendence, the pogroms targeting immigrants in prochement of ‘them’ and ‘us’; it must also work several States (for example Mauritanians in Sen- towards more and better integration of the egal and Senegalese in Mauritania due to the fringes of the immigrant populations who desire conflict in 1989 regarding the river Senegal), the this. In this respect, the setting up of Ministers

4 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries for Integration and a preferential price for resi- the rule of law can afford not to formulate a dence permits in a good number of the Commu- public policy for foreigners. The old democra- nity States should not lead to illusions, any more cies in Europe and North America have under- than the existence of naturalization procedures stood this. Even more than the legal arrange- which are only known to the happy few. The use ments for the protection of minority rights, the made of these arrangements does not give the dissemination of information on the conditions impression of corresponding to societies which and procedures for naturalization, the possibili- may have become aware of their complexity, in ties for integration in the economic fabric, and particular in matters of immigration, and of the the political procedures for the recognition of moral need to create the conditions for social minorities of immigrant origin should also be justice, equality and an integrating civic citizen- effected in a deliberate, pedagogical manner. ship. What takes the place of a policy for for- This may require the re-writing of school text- eigners in most of the Community States is books. merely implicit. The African tradition of hospi- The complex sociological realities in each tality which is used in an attempt to justify the society determine the appropriate policies to be absence of an explicit public policy for foreigners adopted for this recognition. In the emerging is now subject to considerable pressure when democracies in Africa, the on-going process of foreign communities become scapegoats, par- decentralization constitutes a favourable politi- ticularly in periods of prolonged economic cri- cal opportunity for experimenting with policies sis. The topicality of the treatment of immi- for recognition on a scale which can be control- grants in West Africa over the past twenty years led. For example, foreigners voting in local clearly demonstrates that attempts are made elections enables a trial run, on a reduced scale, everywhere to ward off social malaise using the of a public policy for foreigners which is more pretext of the ‘invading foreigner’. The argu- acceptable because it is gradual. Local authori- ment for an African predisposition to welcome ties can act as social laboratories where the foreigners no longer stands up to analysis, the inclusion of immigrants in decision-making at a possibilities for the professional integration of local level can be tested in real life. The foreigners in the national economic fabric or the spatialisation of citizenship would then be a transfer of plots of land are no longer sufficient transition between the status of foreigner and to justify and guarantee integration, and still less entry into the full rights of civic citizenship for to reassure the foreigner. ‘A policy of recogni- individuals who feel a need for a more all- tion’ also has to be formulated to ensure dignity encompassing integration. Encouraging the in- for all, and prevent the existence of ‘first-’ and volvement of immigrants in the associations ‘second-class’ citizens which the destructive ide- which local authorities finance would also be ology of ivoirité (‘Ivorianness’) tends to produce another means of transforming the shared space in the Côte d'Ivoire. of proximity into a political tool for integration. The policy of recognition, theorized by the But a policy of recognition will only be efficient American philosopher, Charles Taylor, is based if it is backed up by an equally specific cultural on the liberal principle of human rights, while policy, supported by the public and private me- remaining close to what is still meaningful in dia, to deal with the principal source of intoler- Africa: the fact that individuals are rooted in ance: the co-existence of communities who do religious, ethnic and linguistic communities. To not know one another! Getting to know one be meaningful, the integration of immigrants another enables the rejection or the destructive has to involve the recognition of this fear of one another to be mitigated; what seems multiculturality which successive waves of im- strange can be minimized and the spontaneous migration have contributed to enriching. Well hostility regarding the unknown attenuated; in managed, these additional differences as well as other words the ‘aversion to the different’ or the the knowledge and know-how they include, natural antipathy towards those who are not like constitute valuable human capital for the host us can be dealt with. societies. Unless foreigners are to be citizens Policies for community management of mi- without rights, no modern State which respects grations in the ECOWAS sphere will have limited

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 5 commentaries effect as long as the member States have not each policy for recognition which is explicitly debated understood, and admitted, the need for a public and defined and a cultural policy for mutual policy for foreigners. The latter should not be knowledge among the respective communities. restricted uniquely to immigration control and The task is urgent. ■ identity procedures. Its originality and relevance The text has been translated will depend primarily on the articulation of a from French by Kristin Couper.

Selected topical literature and internet sources

Habermas, Jürgen, Droit et démocratie. Entre faits et Taylor, Charles, Multiculturalism and ‘the Politics of normes. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. Recognition’. Princeton: Princeton University Rawls, John, Théorie de la justice. Paris: Editions du Press, 1992. Seuil, 1987. Waltzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice, A defenses of Schnapper, Dominique, La communauté des citoyens. Pluralism and Equality. New York : Basic Books, Sur l’idée moderne de nation. Paris: Gallimard, 1983. 1994. Waltzer, Michael, Traité sur la tolérance. Paris: Schnapper, Dominique, La démocratie providen- Gallimard, 1998. tielle. Essai sur l’égalité contemporaine. Paris: Gallimard, 2002. ECOWAS internet site: www.ecowas.int.

AEGIS European Conference on African Studies

London, June 30 to July 2, 2005 1st call for panels closes 1 November 2003

AEGIS is a research network of European African Studies centres which aims to create synergies between experts and institutions. The primary emphasis is on social sciences and humanities. The main goal for AEGIS is to improve understanding about contemporary African societies. Fourteen centres from ten European countries and one from Swizerland constitute the core of the AEGIS network. For further details see www.aegis-eu.org.

The members of AEGIS propose to organise a large-scale European Conference on African Studies in 2005. The conference will be hosted by the Centre of African Studies and Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London. Scholars and graduate students interested in Africa are encouraged by the Steering Committee to submit proposals for panels on subjects across the gamut of the humanities and social sciences applied to Africa. Panels are expected to consist of four to five papers, with a chair and a discussant. Larger panels may be accommodated over more than one session. At this stage the Steering Committee invites potential panel organisers to provide a title and some of the names of participants to be considered for inclusion in the programme. Proposals need not be in final form at this stage, since there will be a further call for papers. Panels may be organised in any EU language, however, plenary contributions will be in English or French. Panel proposals should be submitted to the Centre of African Studies (e-mail: [email protected]), Centre of African Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

6 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries Sierra Leone: Post-Conflict Transition or Business as Usual?

By: Arthur time, I was convinced that the RUF was a Abraham terrorist outfit pure and simple and became Professor of His- inveterately opposed to it. The All People’s tory, Virginia Congress (APC) government of President State Univer- Momoh did not take it seriously, believing that sity, USA and we instigated the rebellion to overthrow his formerly Profes- government. The Kailahun District Descend- sor of African ants Association with myself as Secretary or- Studies, Fourah ganised a protest march to State House to Bay College, educate the President. He told us to go and University of help organise resistance using slings and stones Sierra Leone against the RUF’s AK47s! I was all in favour of the return of free The ten-year civil war in Sierra Leone was officially elections in 1996, but quickly became disen- declared over in January 2002. Among the most chanted with President Kabbah’s policies. I intractable problems are still those of poverty and was sceptical of the Abidjan and Lome Ac- cords and remained critical (like most people) youth marginalisation, corruption and democrati- of the government’s attempts to reward the RUF sation in a highly fragmented social and institu- as the price of peace. Again, my point was that tional context. Having a Truth and Reconciliation nothing short of total control of the country Commission as well as a Special Court operating at would satisfy the RUF and its international the same time also presents its own challenges. criminal cronies. I have remained opposed to There is tension between the need for account- the pillars of what I described as the RUF’s ability for the horrendous human rights violations “backdoor triangular conduit”—Charles committed during the war, and the imperatives of Taylor of Liberia, Blaise Compaore of Burkina reconciliation. Faso, and Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, the last, notwithstanding his reinvention of him- self as self-appointed proponent of African As a Sierra Leonean historian, I have always Union! been abreast of developments in that country. The RUF is no more, polling only 1.7 per- Up to 1997, I witnessed first hand and was cent of the presidential votes last year (al- sometimes even involved in those develop- though its leader Sankoh boasted earlier that ments. Although I have followed develop- the RUF would sweep the polls). But it has left ments from a distance since then (thanks to the a profound and evil legacy of ruination that is coup of the Armed Forces Revolutionary going to be difficult to correct. The social Council and the Revolutionary United Front— dislocation it caused leaves behind between AFRC/RUF—in 1997, which exiled many of us), 100,000 and 200,000 dead (anybody’s guess), I have done so with rapt attention. several thousand amputees, psychological When the RUF rebel movement first struck trauma of naked terror, two-thirds to three- at the territorial integrity of the country, it was quarters of the entire population at one time or in my home area of Kailahun District. In no the other, internally displaced or refugees,

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 7 commentaries

abused youth, etc. On the physical side, the RUF A classic case is the current externally- made it a deliberate policy to destroy infra- driven obsession with ‘democracy’. The idea of structure wherever they could. A recent survey democracy is good, and I would very much like showed that in many chiefdoms, every official to see it flourish all over the world. However, building was razed! has it occurred to anyone yet that we are being Now, all of this may be very far removed asked to put the cart before the horse? In the from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- West, democracy was a consequence of eco- pire, but there are lessons to be learnt that nomic and industrial development, but in the should be relevant to Sierra Leone. Because Third World, it is shoved down the throats of the barbarians who destroyed the empire had countries to make it the cause of development. no experience in governance, they resorted to a This is a theoretical and practical contradic- method of rule that eliminated all forms of tion, which explains why democracy usually large-scale organization, social, political and fails or is vitiated. The real issue should be how economic. Feudalism began and the Dark Ages to adapt the best values of democracy, indi- set in. The basic unit of survival became the vidual freedom and enterprise, to local circum- Manor, the small agricultural village and its stances. This should be among the hottest outlying land. Because long-distance trade had debates in any discussion of reconstruction. vanished, the Manor had to supply all its needs. But how is Sierra Leone faring in reconstruct- This complete breakdown was what afforded ing the country in the post-conflict era? Western Europe the opportunity to build anew, revive its history and culture in the Renais- Corruption sance, and become poised for economic and I have been back to Sierra Leone three times financial aggrandizement on a scale never since 1997, and from what I have seen and read, known before. This aggressive spirit ushered in things leave much to be desired. It appears that the modern period which saw the European there is little or no ideological or intellectual desire for money-making above all else so discourse at the level of the central govern- undaunted, that the domination of the rest of ment, which seems to have no idea of the the world was just a matter of time. And so, like woods because of the trees. Thus, it has lost the it or not, the present global system of interna- image of “the big picture”. The government is tional capitalism was fashioned by the Europe- very thin-skinned to criticism and not unex- ans for their own gain, and inequality will pectedly, it is at loggerheads with the press. It forever remain part of the system. appears the government is suffering from too I am not implying by any stretch of the much politics and not giving enough attention imagination that Sierra Leone should become to handling basic issues. Even President Europe and set about to dominate the world. Kabbah who told the world in 1996 that he But the devastation wrought by the RUF should would not seek a second term, had a change of be seen as an opportunity for Sierra Leone and heart and ran in 2002. I have no quarrel with her leaders to refashion the country by creating that, but he badly manipulated the ruling Si- new institutions or altering, modifying, re- erra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), got rid of all shaping or modernising old institutions in a strong rivals, real or potential, in a master- rational manner, so as to break away from the stroke of legerdemain. past cycle of corruption, inefficiency and pov- The greatest concern to most citizens and erty. We should not be afraid to question old or foreign benefactors is the issue of corruption, existing notions or institutions, whether at the yet the President appears unable to handle it. local or central level, and we should meet this The British government has been hard on this. head-on by assessing their value to present An Anti-Corruption Commission was set up society. We must be able to do away with not long ago, but it complains of lack of sup- ‘sacred cows’ and critically examine foreign port and the refusal or inability (either is equally concepts, however popular they are, and see bad) of the government to prosecute cases how we can adopt, adapt, derive from or even referred to it. The Commission in fact is ham- reject them. pered in its work in various ways. People with

8 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries strong connections to the President who the nomic lives, the people depend on Monrovia Commission asked the Law Office to pros- rather than Freetown. And who can blame ecute have yet to be prosecuted. It is common them? The government has not been able to knowledge that a number of officials who were extend its authority over the whole country. known to seek the interests of the country were From late 2002 to early 2003, the govern- dismissed by the President after last year’s ment conducted Paramount Chief elections in elections, apparently because they had stepped nearly half the chiefdoms of Sierra Leone, and on the toes of ‘powerful people’ with connec- is talking about organising local government tions to the President. elections. Here is an opportunity lost. The In Freetown last Christmas, I heard people elections were conducted (and in the case of say two things about the SLPP. The first was local government will be conducted, I am sure) that the party was divided into two factions, according to the same old rules. No attempt supporters and loyalists, and that the President was made to study and rationalise the institu- only dealt with the latter. I cannot vouch for tion of chieftaincy to make it more responsive that. The second thing that people said was to development needs. Chiefs will continue to that the corruption of the APC was better than look up to the government as the ultimate that of the SLPP because APC corruption filtered source of their authority, and will also continue down to people while the SLPP spirited theirs to be used by government officials (District away. Thus I was mildly amused when I read at Officers and Provincial Secretaries) to exploit the end of May 2003, that President Kabbah the people they should be leading to develop- convened a meeting of senior officials from the ment. It appears Sierra Leone will lose the Finance Ministry, Customs and Excise De- opportunity afforded by the devastating RUF partment, Income Tax, Central Tender Board, war, to reconstruct its society in a more rational the Ports Authority and Anti-Corruption manner. Commission and criticised them for inefficiency and “intolerable” levels of corruption. The arrest of Hinga Norman Does the President tolerate “tolerable” levels of Recently a Special Court was set up with corruption? Is this all he can do, to criticise? international support to try those suspected of Take a look at Freetown, the capital city, the greatest responsibility for war crimes in which became the subject of a lament from Sierra Leone. The Court has indicted a few former Fourah Bay College lecturer, Lulu people including Foday Sankoh, RUF leader, Wright, in a recent article posted on the web: Johnny Paul Koroma, AFRC leader, and Chief “Come to Sierra Leone and learn to do without Hinga Norman, Kabbah’s Internal Affairs electricity… telephone… water… public trans- Minister, who led the Civil Defence Forces to port… internal postal system that works!” A resist the RUF and its collaborators from seizing good part of this problem is to be attributed to complete control of the country. Norman was corruption. The streets of Freetown are over- arrested and hand-cuffed from his Ministerial crowded beyond belief and strewn with litter office, and dragged to a “lock-up” with hardly all over. There are now even pavement dwell- any ventilation, while his home and office were ers. Apparently, this is the consequence of the ransacked. This resulted in a furore, and in the repatriation of refugees, most of whom, opinions of many people, it is by far the most brought to Freetown, either refused to go back serious inculpation of President Kabbah since to their homes, or went there to receive their the end of the war. The reaction of Peter resettlement kits, and promptly returned to Penfold, former UK High Commissioner to Freetown. However understandable the situa- Sierra Leone, in a letter to the UK Prime tion is, the government needs to do something. Minister, represents what most educated peo- I read something in the papers last Christ- ple feel. Penfold wrote: mas which made me feel very hopeless. In the “Although Sam Norman was regarded as the Sulima area of Pujehun district, the medium of leader of the Kamajors, the southern-based exchange is the Liberian dollar, not the Sierra civil militia, this was only one component of Leone ‘Leone’. This shows that for their eco- the CDF [the Civil Defence Forces], which was

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 9 commentaries

headed by a Committee set up by President Criminal Court [to be tried for] committing Kabbah and chaired by the Vice-President at atrocities and human rights violations.” the time, Dr. Joe Demby. Does this mean that The war has ended in Sierra Leone and appears Dr. Demby or President Kabbah might be to have been forgotten even this early. It does arrested by the Special Court? not appear that any serious lessons have been What message does Sam Hinga Norman’s learnt. Politics is back on centre-stage, and the arrest send to others who are prepared to fight President having got rid of most potential for the cause of peace and democracy? challengers, wants to have a hand-picked suc- Though set up with good intentions, I believe cessor. Pundits believe Norman may be the last that it [the Special Court] is undermining the person to abort the President’s plan, hence his fragile peace, which has been achieved in Sierra uncanny disinterest in Norman’s incarcera- Leone. The role of the US government in all this tion. The government is too busy wandering is particularly incongruous. …at the very time among the trees and has lost sight of the when they are pushing the work of the Special woods. The opportunity to put the country Court, they have signed an agreement with the right seems all but squandered. We are back to Sierra Leone government exempting US citi- business as usual—corruption, inefficiency and zens from being sent to the International poverty. ■

Selected topical literature and internet sources

Abraham, Arthur, “Dancing With the Chameleon: IRIN, “Sierra Leone: NRC Profile of Internal Dis- Sierra Leone and the Elusive Quest for Peace”. placement”. IRINnews Africa, 7 April 2003. In Journal of Contemporary African Studies, vol. Available at www.irinnews.org. 19, no. 2, 2001. Kallon, Kelfalla, Corruption in Sierra Leone. New Anti-Corruption Commission Report 2002. York: Mellen Press, forthcoming. www.sierra-leone.org/accreport2002.html Dowden, Richard, “Sierra Leone Locked in Shack- Daily news on Sierra Leone can be followed from les of Corruption”. In The Guardian (London) 12 postings on the Sierra Leone web: www.sierra- October 2002. leone.org “Hinga Norman’s Arrest: Peter Penfold Reacts”. In Standard Times (Freetown), 7 May 2003. Human Rights Watch, “Sierra Leone: New Gov- ernment Must Address War Legacies”. http:// hrw.org/press/2002/07/sl0711.htm List of abbreviations Human Rights Watch, “The Jury Is Still Out”. 11 2002 Briefing Paper on Sierra Leone, July . AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/sl- APC All People’s Congress bck0711.htm Human Rights Watch website: www.hrw.org. CDF Civil Defence Forces International Crisis Group, Sierra Leone: The State of RUF Revolutionary United Front Security and Governance. Available at www. SLPP Sierra Leone People’s Party crisisweb.org/projects/showreport.cfm? reportid=1113.

10 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries South Africa: Reintegration into Civilian Life of Ex-Combatants

By: Guy Lamb in partnership with the South African Depart- Senior researcher, Centre for Conflict Resolution, ment of Defence undertook an in-depth study University of Cape Town, South Africa to ascertain the quality of life and socio-economic needs of previously demobilised combat- Demobilisation and reintegration of previously ants who were members of MK and APLA. This armed combatants have been particularly chal- article is a summary of the findings from the lenging tasks in the former settler societies of final research report. Southern Africa. The case of South Africa has re- A total of 410 ex-combatants in all nine of South Africa’s provinces were interviewed, 88 cently been explored further within a research percent were men and 12 percent women. 84 project at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, some percent of the respondents claimed that they results of which are summarised below.* had served with MK, while 14 percent indicated that they had been APLA combatants. Two per- In the early to mid-1990s, the parties responsi- cent did not specify the liberation army to which ble for negotiating South Africa’s future were they belonged. faced with the problem of how to deal with a variety of armed forces, namely Umkhonto we Findings Sizwe (MK), the Azanian People’s Liberation Just over half the interviewees are not married, Army (APLA), the former homeland armed forces more than a third are married, while less than and the South African Defence Force (SADF), all five percent are widowed and divorced respec- of which had the potential to destabilise the tively. 77 percent of respondents have at least country. A two-fold strategy was eventually one child. Close to 60 percent of respondents do agreed upon. Firstly, a new representative na- not have a matric certificate (Standard ten or tional armed force would be created, which Grade 12). This is a serious barrier to entry into became known as the South African National the formal job market, which generally dis- Defence Force (SANDF) and which would consist criminates against individuals who have not of soldiers from all the above-mentioned armed finished high school. 26 percent have standard forces. Secondly, thousands of combatants ten, while five percent have standard ten and a would be demobilised and reintegrated into diploma, and two percent have a postgraduate civilian life. degree or diploma. The majority of these demobilised combat- Approximately 80 percent of the ex-com- ants were black Africans from MK and APLA. batants that were interviewed are younger than Many had no choice but to return to impover- 50, with 60 percent being 40 years of age or ished communities where opportunities for em- younger. Hence, most of the respondents are ployment were severely limited. Some of these still economically active. However, 66 percent of individuals were provided with a demobilisation respondents are unemployed, while close to gratuity, while others went home with nothing two-thirds have been looking for employment more than the shirts on their backs. for four years or more. Many survive by depend- It has been almost a decade since this demo- ing on family members to provide them with bilisation and reintegration process was initi- money, food and shelter, or engage in ad hoc ated. However, accurate information on how informal sector activities such as hawking. The ex-combatants from MK and APLA have made the majority of unemployed respondents rely on transition from military to civilian life does not financial and material support from family and exist. Hence, the Centre for Conflict Resolution friends. Many of these ex-combatants are sup-

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 11 commentaries ported by their elderly parents or grandparents, More than half of the respondents (53 per- who either work as domestic workers/labourers cent) indicated that they meet with other ex- or are pensioners. Nine percent are directly combatants on a daily basis. This “meeting” dependent on some form of pension or govern- usually entails the sharing of a cigarette or some ment grant. Only 16 percent are involved in food, but there are also weekly and monthly income generating projects, such as wage/salary gatherings in which ex-combatants discuss de- employment or are entrepreneurs, while a very velopments regarding political, social and eco- small minority engage in volunteer work or are nomic issues. Information is shared about pos- students. sible jobs and debates are held on strategies to Close to 40 percent have their own accom- alleviate poverty. modation, but many of these homes are in fact This is an indication that informal support shacks in informal settlements, with some being structures exist among ex-combatants. In fact, in the backyards of their parents’ or relatives’ 68 percent of respondents reported that, if pos- houses. Approximately 40 percent live with their sible, they try and help “comrades in need”. In parents or relatives, and the remainder live in addition, many indicated that they are more rented accommodation. comfortable with requesting help from “com- Just more than a third of the respondents rades” than from their own families. indicated that they suffer from psychological Most (83 percent) respondents belong to problems. However, those who were interviewed community and/or political organisations, 75 never referred to the term ‘Post-Traumatic Stress percent claim to be active in community/politi- Disorder’ (PTSD), but rather used different names cal organisations. Participation in these organi- to refer to the condition, and some of the symp- sations ranges from simply being a dedicated toms they identify are similar to those of PTSD. A member of an organisation to holding leader- number of respondents indicated that they abuse ship positions. Leadership positions range from alcohol regularly. Of this number, many claimed holding the position of a chairperson at a street that they did this in an attempt to forget about committee level to being a chairperson of an ANC past traumatic events. None of the respondents or PAC branch office. Close to 60 percent of experiencing psychological problems have re- respondents reported that they are members of ceived treatment and/or counselling for their religious organisations, with approximately 80 problems. percent indicating that they are actively involved 68 percent indicated that their families were in the activities of these religious bodies. Exam- supportive of them. However, eleven percent of ples include secretaries of church youth groups, the respondents claimed that relations with their preachers, and members of church financial families became negative following their return committees. Some of the female respondents to their original communities after a short pe- reported that they are members of a church riod of time, while four percent reported that women’s league. their families had completely rejected them. In Respondents indicated that they had differ- both cases, combatants consistently cited their ent reasons for belonging to these organisations. inability to generate income as the major con- In some cases ex-combatants become involved tributing factor to this state of affairs. so as to remain busy because they are unable to However, of those ex-combatants who have secure employment. Others claim that they are been rejected by their families, many indicated motivated out of a sense of civic duty. that they have found their community, or at least Many of the respondents are actively in- fellow ex-combatants, to be accommodating. volved in ANC/PAC structures. This is because One ex-combatant remarked that his fellow ex- many ex-combatants literally grew up within MK combatants “are the only family I have”. In either the ANC or PAC in exile, where their basic other cases, ex-combatants are accepted by their needs, and those of their families, were catered families but are regarded as worthless by mem- for. However, this was a ‘double-edged sword’, bers of the community. In extreme cases, some which created, what a staff member at the ex-combatants report that they find both the national office of MKMVA called, a “dependency family and the community to be less accommo- syndrome”, where individuals lose the ability to dating than fellow ex-combatants. fend for themselves, and become entirely de-

12 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries pendent on the party for their survival (tel- In conclusion, many former combatants have ephone interview with a staff member at MKMVA been unsuccessful in effectively reintegrating National Office, 13 November 2002). into civilian society, and consequently further This culture of dependency has resulted in a targeted support for these individuals is re- lack of self-motivation for many of the respond- quired. Attempts to successfully reintegrate ex- ents to actively seek employment and improve combatants into civilian life lie in addressing their standard of living. They tend to wait for both their short- and long-term needs by de- others to assist them rather than taking the signing and implementing insightful and com- initiative themselves. Many ex-combatants feel prehensive reintegration programmes that focus strongly that the government must provide them on assisting ex-combatants to become produc- with employment, housing and financial sup- tive members of society. However, for any report. integration programme to be successful, there Many respondents are dissatisfied with the needs to be strong political will on the part of ANC leadership’s lack of interest in their plight, government, extensive consultation with ex- but they appear to be emasculated as they have combatants and affected communities, and the been unable to lobby the ANC to provide them provision of the necessary funds and technical with poverty relief and employment. Some have expertise. ■ even had to resort to public protests to air their grievances. Some MK ex-combatants (who still *) This article is a summary of a research report on regard themselves as soldiers), however, remain the reintegration into civilian life of former mem- loyal to the ANC and state they are prepared to bers of MK and APLA that was undertaken by the Centre for Conflict Resolution in collaboration take up arms to defend South Africa’s democ- with the Department of Defence. The report was racy and the ANC should it come under attack compiled by Mafole Mokalobe, Lephophotho from “counter-revolutionary forces”. Mashike, Guy Lamb and Prof. Jacklyn Cock.

Selected topical literature

Barrell, H., MK. The ANC’s Armed Struggle. London: Africa’s Demobilised Military Personnel.” In ISS Penguin Books, 1990. Monograph Series, no. 61, 2001. Colletta, N., M. Kostner, M. and I. Wiederhofer, Lodge, T., “Soldiers of the Storm: A Profile of the Case Studies in War-to-Peace Transition. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army”. In J. Cilliers Demobilisation and Reintegration of Ex-combat- and M. Reichardt (eds), About Turn: the Trans- ants in Ethiopia, Namibia and Uganda. Wash- formation of the South African Military and Intel- ington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1996. ligence. Halfway House: IDP, 1995. Creative Associates International, Tool Category C: Mashike, L., Beyond the Armed Struggle: A Sociologi- Military Measures 7. Integration/ Restructuring of cal Profile of ex-MK Soldiers. Braamfontein: Military Forces. http://www.caii-dc.com/ghai/ Group for Environmental Monitoring, 1999. toolbox7.htm. Mokalobe, M., Demobilisation and Reintegration of Gear, S., “Wishing us Away: Challenges Facing Ex- Ex- Combatants in South Africa. Braamfontein: Combatants in the New South Africa”. In Vio- GEM, 1999. lence and Transition Series, vol. 8, 2002. Motumi, T. and P. Mckenzie, “After the War: Kingma, K. (ed.), Demobilization in Sub-Saharan Demobilisation in South Africa”. In J. Cock and Africa: The Developments and Security Impacts. P. McKenzie (eds), From Defence to Develop- Houndmills: MacMillan, 2000. ment. Redirecting Military Resources in South Af- Kingma, K. and N. Pauwels (eds), War Force to Work rica. Cape Town: David Philip, 1998. Force: Global Perspectives on Demobilisation and Shaw, M., “Negotiating Defence for a New South Reintegration. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlags- Africa”. In J. Cilliers (ed.), Dismissed. Demobili- gesellschaft, 2000. sation and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Liebenberg, I. and M. Roefs, “Demobilisation and Africa. Halfway House: Institute for Defence its Aftermath: Economic Reinsertion of South Policy, 1995.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 13 commentaries/media The Challenge of Nordic Media: Bringing Africa Home

By: Anne Hege awakening civil war in Liberia, the comments Simonsen on the reelection of Obasanjo in Nigeria or the Journalist and so- challenges to the fragile democratization proc- cial anthropolo- ess in Burundi? gist, presently Africa—as news—always comes as a sur- working at the prise. When a crisis breaks, the Nordic audi- Department of ence is back to square one, every time. The four Journalism, Oslo million deaths in DR Congo since 1998 were University Col- merely an abstract number until it was decided lege, Norway to send Swedish UN soldiers to the country. Only then did the Congolese population cease to be name- and faceless. No Nordic soldiers have been sent to Côte d’Ivoire, which may Why is Africa important? Why should it be covered explain why there is no debate about the his- in the Nordic media? Who cares, and why? toric drama unfolding in this former example of peace and economic growth in Africa. The lack of locally based correspondents is Let’s put the record straight. Africa is not a an important explanation for the lack of cover- priority to the Nordic media. A Finnish study age. Most Western media are shaving their from 1998 shows that the whole continent gets budgets, and as a paradox to ponder on in our four percent or less coverage in the Nordic globalized times, this is something all interna- media. (Kivikuru and Pietiläinen, Uutisia yli tional coverage suffers from. We do not hear rajojen: Ulkomaanuutisten maisema Suomessa. much about France or Italy either, as foreign Sweden and Iceland are not included in the correspondents are becoming a threatened spe- study.) This is somewhat more than Latin cies within the media. Another element is that America and somewhat less than Asia. A quick our eyes and ears in Africa are, almost without glance at four Nordic newspapers that the exception, based in South Africa, and they do Nordic Africa Institute subscribes to is no more not necessarily have any more reliable sources encouraging. In February 2003 Africa was on DR Congo than the foreign desk in their mainly represented in the so-called fillers. Out home countries. Freelancers and staff journal- of 81 entries, 49 were fillers, snapshots of cur- ists on short term visits most often go to places rent African affairs in some three to five lines after a crisis has emerged and subsequently they (for details, see www.nai.uu.se/media/survey/ more often than not have limited background surveyeng.html). Only nine news stories were knowledge and access to sources outside the top stories on the page they were printed on. international relief community. Three of them were on HIV/AIDS. As a result, Africa—as a narrative—never It should of course be taken into considera- comes as a surprise. To most people in the tion that the survey was made during the build- Nordic countries, Africa is perceived more as a up to the Iraq war, but still, where were the country than a continent (or two countries at articles on the inter-African protest against the the most: Africa and South Africa). To them, same war? And where were the analyses of the any African war seems like ‘business as usual’. A ongoing crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, the failures of peace agreement in Burundi is of limited inter- the NEPAD initiative, the warnings on the re- est, because there is still war in Liberia. A

14 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 commentaries/media peaceful electoral process in Ghana does not hand and pathological happiness on the other. change the image of a continent ruled by dicta- They are both too predictable, and too much in tors like Mugabe. A change in government in line with our missionary tradition and our Nambia, consolidating the disputed power of history of wanted-to-be-colonialists-too. What Sam Nujoma, is not of any political interest in we need instead is some realism, some context, the North. Africa is illness and suffering, pov- some dialogue and some continuity. erty and war, exotic animals and strange human customs. This is how we prefer to see it, and this Why Africa? may be why we feel we do not need to write At the media conference organised by the Nor- much about Africa. We already ‘know’ what’s dic Africa Institute, Sarah Chiumbu, Zimba- going on. bwe Director of the Media Institute of South- ern Africa (MISA) asked the question why a Positive image of Africa? Nordic audience should be interested in Africa. Like the rest of the world, Africa is dynamic. I must admit I had never really asked myself All places, countries and regions have their own that question. Answering it requires a certain development—some for the better, many for amount of cynicism. the worse. Some of these developments are easy If people are interested in Africa today, it to grasp, others not. But the image of Africa has usually stems from one of the following per- not evolved in any substantial manner since the spectives: heyday of development enthusiasm changed 1. The humanistic approach, telling us that into pessimistic gloom in the 1980s. nothing in human life is foreign. We all Not that there have not been any attempts. inhabit the same planet and we should all be In the 1990s we had the debates about ‘positive interested in one another. image of Africa’, fronted by aid and solidarity 2. The altruistic approach, telling us that we NGOs. The idea was that Africans should no (still) have a civilising mission: people in longer be portrayed as victims of starvation, Africa need assistance, food, money and de- underdevelopment and war. They were to have mocracy. faces and full names and be seen as smiling 3. The self-protective approach, telling us that agents in their own history of development. we should help them to help themselves. This was an image that suited the aid agencies’ Otherwise the bottle called Africa will turn agendas, badly in need of success stories as they itself upside down and pour all its people into were, but the public found it boring. The public Europe. likes drama, and the smiling Africans could never compete with the tragedies, the rescue I personally favour the first approach, even if I operations, the heroes and the grateful aid realise that it is not the one selling newspapers. receivers. (On the other hand, who said that Africa As a journalist, I have also advocated the should necessarily sell newspapers to have the ‘positive image of Africa’, at a media seminar in right to a decent coverage?) I favour the first Oslo some years ago. During the debate, I was approach because I favour friends to clients, brutally cut down to size by the representative counterparts to patients and subjects to objects. of Norway’s biggest tabloid claiming that he I also favour dialogue to teaching. I even believe was “tired of being kind to Africa”. that these are some of the elements that can I resented him for his arrogance, and I actually create more interest for the various would prefer to resent him still, but he made me African realities. realise that a positive image is no more dynamic than a negative image. And as we all know from Bringing Africa home watching television every day: if it is not art, an All listings of news criteria tell us that the public image that does not move is doomed to receive prefer news/information they consider as ‘close limited interest. to home’. Africa will never be geographically The point is that we should not have to close to home, but it is possible to imagine choose between images of destitution on one African lives as intertwined with our own,

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 15 commentaries/media bringing them ‘home’ in a more metaphysical faces of globalization and the world outside the sense. nation-state. In the Nordic countries, a par- How do we do this? The obvious answer is ticular paradox is how the dominating dis- to make journalists travel more, and give them course of egalitarianism has become an obstacle time and space to get to know people in Africa to dialogue. and the realities that surround them. But expe- Most Nordic citizens, including journal- rience shows us that even if this is done per- ists, are proud of living in relatively egalitarian fectly, it will not necessarily change the patterns societies, and they believe—maybe naïvely— of understanding in the heads of the audiences that the world would be a better place if every- back home. The media not only report on what body lived like us. The problem with this is going on, they also reflect and recreate their egalitarianism is that other ways of life are often audiences. And people prefer stories that fit perceived as non-equal and in need of correc- their presumptions. tion. We compare, not always consciously, an To change this, it is not enough to go idealised image of our own societies with the banging at the journalists, telling them to create most negative sides of African societies. This is space for dialogue. Even if the media are pow- not a good point of departure for a dialogue erful (according to Le Monde Diplomatique edi- with Africa. The Nordic countries are situated tor Ignacio Ramonet the media are moving on top of the human food chain, while African from the fourth to the second power of the countries are at the bottom. How do we balance state), journalists are far from omnipotent. Jour- these unequal positions? nalists have editors and editors have owners, If we want to communicate with Africa, as and the media are, as they have always been, a friends and not supervisors, we must address curious mix of enlightenment and money. what Ashis Nandy (in The Intimate Enemy. Some dialogue-resistance is also inherent Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, in the way media work. Nordic media are Delhi, 1991) calls “unlearning privileges”. We linked to the construction of the nation state in have to understand that privilege is also loss, the 19th and 20th centuries. Their story-telling and we have to moderate our presumptions and tradition is authoritarian. Journalists are trained our willingness to produce sweeping state- to tell factual stories about other people’s lives, ments and analysis. We have to include Afri- not to dialogue with them. Journalism is about cans in our own countries in the debate, and use essentials, not doubt and ambiguity. This works their competence and knowledge as relevant pretty well when there is continuity in the sources. We also have to disagree more, with coverage, as there is for instance in the coverage Africans and each other, about politics, images of day-to-day national politics. But it does not and solutions. Maybe then we can cut the work well when it comes to covering the world, umbilical cord that exists between Nordic aid because the dynamics of a foreign society are initiatives and journalistic reporting on Africa. lost in the distillation process. Maybe then we can bring reporting closer to The limits of journalism are becoming more real life. Probably at the cost of the most apparent every day, in particular through greater flamboyant reporting, and most certainly by knowledge of the media’s excluding practices. cutting the umbilical cord that exists between Mainstream media have a hard time coping Nordic aid initiatives and journalistic reporting with our own multi-ethnic societies, the many on Africa. ■

16 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 media Nordic Media and Africa

As part of a project to develop a pro-active media policy, the Nordic Africa Institute in May 2003 organised a conference for journalists from the Nordic countries. The commentary on the previous pages by Anne Hege Simonsen and the article by Sarah Chiumbu on the following pages are both results of this conference. Some facts on the conference—and pictures from the event—are presented on this page.

Media Conference, May 2003 18 journalists and information officers from the five Nordic countries participated in the Nordic Africa Institute’s first media conference on 9–10 May 2003, together with special guests Sarah Chiumbu, Director of the Media Institute of South- ern Africa (MISA) in Zimbabwe and John Matshikiza, actor, journalist and column- ist for The Mail & Guardian, South Africa. The main purpose of the conference was to discuss how journalists and the Nordic Africa Institute together can further the coverage of Africa in the Nordic media. Researchers, information staff and management representatives from the Insti- tute also participated. For reports and more information see www.nai.uu.se/media/ conf-reporteng.html. Swedish-Kenyan reporter Moussa Awunda and Amin Kamete, the Nordic Africa Institute.

Photos: Mai Palmberg

One of the two main speakers: John Kirsten Larsen, journalist at Ebrima Sall, researcher at NAI, Matshikiza, The Mail & Guardian. Danmarks Radio (Danish Broad- gives a talk on Côte d’Ivoire. casting Corporation).

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 17 media Hunger and Politics: What international media did not report

By: Sarah country produced a skewed land ownership Chiumbu structure where 50 percent of the best land was Director, Media owned by the white minority, while Africans Institute of were expelled from their choice of land and Southern Africa, through systematic land segregation policies, Zimbabwe were squashed in reserves, most of them with poor soil quality or located far away from water and the main lines of communication. Major laws relating to land were passed to legalise the racial character of the colonial state. In short, black farmers were converted from successful

Photo: Mai Palmberg and enterprising people growing a surplus of The international media, by concentrating on the food into impoverished subsistence farmers in overcrowded reserves, practising inefficient ag- plight of white farmers, did a great disservice to ricultural techniques. Indeed, land has proved the struggle for democracy and human rights on to be a thorny issue in Zimbabwe. the part of many Zimbabweans. The reporting on Zimbabwe in the past two years should be a lesson Politicisation of land for Western journalists covering Africa and its con- In the early 1990s, an alliance of labour and flicts. students movements began to openly question the hegemonic one party state advocated by Zimbabwe is now facing a hunger crisis un- ZANU-PF. However, it was the formation of the precedented since independence. Normally a National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in 1998 food surplus country, Zimbabwe has seen a that changed the political face of Zimbabwe. sharp deterioration of its food security. Today, The NCA was a grouping of a number of civic 7.2 million of the 14 million Zimbabweans do groups which included human rights organisa- not have enough food. Of this figure, approxi- tions, churches, women’s groups, opposition mately 5.5 million are facing starvation (accord- parties, media and labour. Its main objective ing to the World Food Programme). The was to lobby the government and the general present hunger crisis in Zimbabwe is due to a public for a broader popular process of constitu- combination of factors: erratic rainfalls, a rap- tional reform. idly declining economy and the negative impact With the NCA civil society began to occupy of the government’s land reform programme. a meaningful space in the national discourse However, it is the land reform programme, and public sphere. Apart from demanding a coupled with economic mismanagement and new constitution, the NCA began to question the poor governance that have exacerbated the cur- government’s very legitimacy in the face of rent hunger crisis. The government seizure of increasing economic decline. The NCA in col- almost all productive farms formerly owned by laboration with the Zimbabwe Congress of white commercial farmers has significantly re- Trade Unions (ZCTU) among other alternative duced food production in the country. groupings drove forward the formation of a new The land question in Zimbabwe and indeed political movement, the Movement for Demo- in many African countries cannot be under- cratic Change (MDC) in September 1999. The stood outside colonialism. Colonialism in the leadership of the new party represented a com-

18 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 media bination of trade unionists and leaders from the The land discourse became increasingly NCA. In late 1999, the MDC began to make racialised. The land invasions led to the deaths inroads into rural areas through trade union and of many supporters of the MDC and some white NCA structures. This meant that the rural peo- farmers as well as human rights violations of ple, the traditional support base of ZANU-PF, approximately 18,000 people. The violations began to receive alternative political messages. included assaults, property damage, detention, After the formation of the MDC, the govern- abduction, death threats and displacement from ment launched a deluge of abuse on the oppo- home areas. sition, calling them puppets controlled by whites and the Western world. It was also at this time The role of the media that the discourse on land resurfaced in the The political drama related to the land issue was public sphere. ZANU-PF’s campaign slogan dur- played out prominently on the international ing the whole of the constitutional debate and media scene. The international media depicted thereafter the general elections held in June the growing crisis in Zimbabwe as solely an 2000 was “Land is the economy and the economy issue of land and race. In most cases the media is land”. It was thus land that provided the failed to articulate the Zimbabwean crisis of central ideological theme for ZANU-PF and this legitimacy and governance. The most vulner- was employed to garner support and gain legiti- able group in the whole land reform process has macy from the rural populace. been the 1.5 million black farm workers who ZANU-PF’s increasingly eroding legitimacy have been displaced. However, the interna- in the 1990s gave the ruling party a political tional media, especially in the UK, concentrated space to launch a renewed nationalist ideologi- on the plight of hundreds of white farmers cal assault around redistributive demands relat- forced off their land. The twin issues of race and ing to the land question. The political face of property in Zimbabwe were brought into sharp Zimbabwe changed dramatically in February focus by the international media at the expense 2000 when Zimbabweans went to vote in a of the gross human rights violations suffered by referendum for a new constitution. This was the the majority black people. At the centre of the first referendum to be held in independent land reform programme in Zimbabwe has been Zimbabwe. 53 percent of the population voted a struggle by a political party to retain power at “No” to the government-sponsored constitu- any cost. tion. The government blamed the referendum The effect is that some sections of the inter- defeat on the minority white community and national media have played right into the hands the Western world. of the government by giving the government On 26 February 2000, a combination of war the excuse that opposition to the land reform is veterans, unemployed ZANU-PF youths and other tied to Western interests. Mugabe has success- members of the party began a series of violent fully put forward within the region the percep- land occupations throughout the country. Gov- tion that the opposition MDC, civil society or- ernment and army trucks were used to transport ganizations in Zimbabwe and the international these people to the farms. The farm invasions media are fronts for championing white minor- had a devastating effect on the white commer- ity colonial interests in Zimbabwe. Many peo- cial sector, the main producer of food in the ple asked why the international media and the country. The farm invasions increased as the Western governments remained quiet and un- country was nearing the crucial General Elec- concerned when the Mugabe regime killed ap- tions in June 2000. Initially, the government proximately 10,000 black people and tortured told the international world that the land inva- thousands more during the Matebeleland Cri- sions were a result of land-hungry peasants sis in the early 1980s and yet the deaths of five denied access to land by the white commercial white farmers in 2000 made headline news and farmers. However, it became quite obvious that changed the course of international policy to- the government was using land as its last trump wards Zimbabwe. card to win the hearts and minds of voters for The skewed reporting of the land crisis in the elections. Zimbabwe by the different international media

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 19 media had a great impact on many people in Africa. Conclusion No issue in Africa today has divided the ‘Afri- The situation in Zimbabwe has had a boomer- can progressives’ as much as the Zimbabwean ang effect on the region. Zimbabwean political crisis. While the international community, led scientist Brian Raftopoulos aptly describes the by the United Kingdom condemned the violent situation when he writes that Mugabe has gen- land invasions, Robert Mugabe justified them eralized “the struggle for land to a continental by saying that he was correcting historical im- level and project it into the broader terrain of balances. He depicted the crisis as “a struggle by global politics in a manner that displaces the Zimbabwe to gain its rightful heritage against a inadequacies of ZANU-PF’s state policies over the colonial power acting on the behalf of the white last twenty years” (‘The Labour Movement and community to protect their interest”. He blamed the Emergence of Opposition Politics in Zim- the whites for their refusal to cooperate with the babwe’ in Brian Raftopolous and Lloyd Sachi- government and attacked them for their “en- konye (eds) Striking Back: The Labour Move- trenched colonial attitudes” and their “vestigial ment and the Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe attitudes from the Rhodesian yesteryears—at- 1980–2000. Harare: Weaver Press, 2001.) Al- titudes of master race, master colour, master though there seems to be a shift in some SADC owner and master employer”. (Quotes from: countries regarding Zimbabwe, the situation Human Rights NGO Forum (2001) Who Was still remains grave. The perception by African Responsible? Alleged Perpetrators and Their governments that Western and ‘imperialist’ in- Crimes during the 2000 Parliamentary Election terests are threatening African sovereignty has Period.) Mugabe’s arguments somehow struck a made them stick together and block vote in positive chord in the hearts of many African favour of Zimbabwe whenever the Zimbabwean people. They praised him for standing up to the situation is on the agenda at Human Rights former colonial masters and giving back land to Commission meetings, the recent meeting in the black people. The ‘new nationalism’ es- Geneva in April offers as an example. The poused by Mugabe was reinforced by the sup- American and UK war in Iraq has worsened the port he got from other African heads of govern- situation and the recent American rhetoric about ment and some African-Americans and given “regime change” will only exacerbate the situa- immense publicity by magazines such as the tion and African governments will close ranks New African which is widely distributed all over with each other. The polarization between the Africa and the world. “South” and the “North” will only increase. ■

The Human Rights situation in Zimbabwe

The following is an extract from a statement by ZimRights in association with and on behalf of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum at the 33d ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights which was held in Niamey, Niger, in May 2003:

“The human rights organisations in Zimbabwe encour- - a country running out of fuel, forex and basic food age the resolute pursuit of economic and social rights, staffs, but are gravely worried when the process of political - a country where the national currency collapses governance leads as is the position in Zimbabwe now to: against major currencies from trading around 1 USD - the possibility of 6 out of 12 million people dying out to Z$55 to trading 1 USD to Z$1,500 in two years, of starvation, - a country having a domestic debt of over Z$360 bil- - 1 out of 3 adults living with AIDS and HIV, lion, and - 80 out of 100 people being unemployed, - a cumulative negative growth of the aggregate - inflation running at over 230%, economy in 3 years of over 21%.”

20 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 interview Interview with Juhani Koponen

Juhani Koponen is Director at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) of the University of Helsinki and was recently appointed to a five-year position as Professor of Development Studies at the same Institute, having occupied the position on an acting basis for more than three years. Before that he worked at the IDS in Helsinki in several academic positions, with a few short visiting positions in inter alia Dar es Salaam. He spent three and a half years as Finnish Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala in the early 1980s. In his own words: “I went there as a Finnish journalist engaged in research and came out as an international academic”. Among his publications could be mentioned Development for Exploitation. German colonial policies in Mainland Tanzania, 1884–1914 (Helsinki/Hamburg, 1994).

Susanne Linderos (SL), information manager at to understand how they survive, seeing how the Nordic Africa Institute: What prompted your people are so different and still basically so interest in studying Africa at the outset? similar here and there. If there is an other to me I came to development studies and African in Africa, it is at the same time the other within studies through self-made journalism and stud- myself. ies in history and social science. I have never considered myself an Africanist. My interest in SL: What has been your research focus in the past Africa has been simultaneously part of a larger, and what is it at present? global interest in the Third World and part of Looking back, it is obvious that I have been a smaller, local interest in Tanzania. My need to moving back and forth between several pairs of understand Africa, the real Africa, that impos- poles, although it may not be as obvious what ing, harsh and beautiful continent with its those poles are. They include at least Europe marvellously resilient and enduring people, and Africa, Finland and Tanzania, past and arose from my attempt to understand Tanza- present, materialist and constructivist views of nia, the idealised picture of a young ujamaa history, and engagement and detachment. Si- nation. What started almost from curiosity multaneously I have been extending my scope became a serious ‘will to know’: What on earth but, hopefully, sharpening my focus. It is now were they trying to do in Nyerere’s Tanzania? firmly cast on the history of development. First First I asked: What were the historical and I did some contemporary history of Tanzania, social preconditions? Now I ask: If they failed then went way back to pre-colonial history and did they ever have a chance? worked towards the present through colonial Even in retrospect, and after all the expo- history, finding that development and exploita- sure to post-modern discourse I cannot see tion are two sides of the same coin. That Africa as my ‘other’. Tarzan I always found journey is still unfinished. Meanwhile I have boring. There are exotic and luxurious petty strayed to Finnish development aid, also else- things I enjoy in Africa, such as a cold beer after where than in Tanzania, and aid more gener- a sunny day on a palm-dotted seafront at sunset, ally. I have also developed a research interest in but the things I most enjoy in Africa are every- global history and theoretical and methodo- day or even banal. I am trying to make sense of logical approaches to the study of society and the ways people think and behave, attempting history more generally.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 21 interview

Yet back in my heart I remain to a great tions as given and has practically banned at- extent a Tanzania researcher. The logic of re- tempts at industrialisation. There are no cred- search is that of long commitment. The better I ible political alternatives in sight. understand what is happening in other parts of A state of peace is promoted as a basic asset the world the better I think I understand Tan- in Tanzania, and rightly so. We have had dooms- zania. And the better I understand Tanzania the day soothsayers prophesising it cannot last for better I understand myself and my position in ever and we have become understandably tired the world. There is also a moral dimension here. of such unfulfilled prophesies. But if the actual I think in our development set-up, people en- trends are not reversed, the day may come when gaged in the development of other, faraway they are proven right. countries escape the consequences of their ac- tions all too easily. I want to resist that. SL: What is your experience of making research results available to policy-makers? SL: What are, in your view, the present social, I sometimes complain that I am not listened to political and economic trends in Tanzania and but I shouldn’t. In general, I think in our socie- what are the future prospects? ties researchers can make their voices heard if It is very contradictory. It is so much better for they really wish to. The real question is why myself and my colleagues, foreign and local. It is should they be listened to—what are they able to much easier to work, move around and live now give. The job of researchers is to do long-term, in Tanzania than it was fifteen years ago. Shops in-depth academic research. It is on the basis of are full of goods. Roads are in much better shape such research that they should feed what they and the streets are even getting congested in Dar can to the decision-making process. But the es Salaam. The public atmosphere is much more relevance of such research to our daily concerns open than it used to be. For Northern academics is not always obvious. Perhaps their main con- and others with money and connections, Tan- tribution will often be less in their substantial zania is a good place to be in. ‘results’ and more in their considered approach— Yet we know that the picture is starkly something which is probably different from that different for the great majority of the people in of a politician or an NGO activist even when the the squatters’ areas and villages. Widespread researcher agrees substantially with the latter. poverty persists and social inequalities are grow- This is closely connected with the problem ing alarmingly. Those who want to believe in the of consultancy. In the development business, market reforms say that as good policies are now decision-makers increasingly turn directly to in place and macro-economic fundamentals are researchers and give them questions to be an- correct, it is only a question of time before the swered through consultancy assignments. Fi- fairly high rates of economic growth and low nancial rewards may be lucrative and there may inflation will be turned into tangible improve- be access to sources otherwise unattainable but ment in people’s lives. I am much more doubt- the terms of reference are often very narrowly ful. Many of the apparent achievements are conceived and —above all—researchers are not based on the inflow of aid and suspicious grey given enough time either to go into the issue or money. Goods in shops are mostly imported. reflect upon it. A modicum of consultancy can The basic developmental problems remain un- be quite healthy for a university researcher as a resolved. I detect very little if any structural reality check, but if you are not careful it easily change in the economy. Quick exploitation of grows out of control and turns into academic exploitable natural resources is the call of the cancer. This has happened in some developing day. Mama and the hoe economy continue. countries, Tanzania unfortunately included. Worst of all, I do not see any serious attempt at Many of the best researcher resources are en- such a structural change. Poverty reduction gaged in consultancies—for obvious reasons of thinking fashionable among the donors and financial survival. That precludes them from taken over by Tanzanian decision-makers with doing more long-term research which might at warts and all takes the low international com- the end of the day have more to give to decision- modity prices and other global structural distor- makers as well.

22 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 interview

SL: What is the position of African and development needs than to furthering Finnish commercial studies in Finland today and what are the future interests. prospects? Yet I cannot fail to see that there is so much We Finnish development researchers are as that is seriously problematic in aid. Aid has peripheral as ever, but for the moment at least it become a big machinery of its own, encompass- is a fairly stable periphery if not unmovable. Our ing both donors—and lenders—and recipients. resources at IDS Helsinki in terms of teaching It works as a self-referential system, creating its capacity are not growing but rather diminishing own truths, impervious to outside arguments. a little. Yet our student numbers are growing We are exhorted to give more aid so that the and we are also accommodating growing num- Millennium Development Goals set by the bers of PhD students. New Masters’ pro- United Nations, such as halving poverty by 2015, grammes are being established in other univer- will be achieved. Yet I have failed to find any sities such as Jyväskylä. I think it is time to basis for thinking that 0.7 percent of GNP or any proceed on two fronts. One to strengthen co- comparable volume of aid for which we have so operation between development studies and area long been campaigning would be ‘enough’ to studies institutes in Helsinki and elsewhere in reach, say, the Millennium Goals. Nor can I the country. Pooling the resources we should be think that these particular goals in themselves able to handle the student numbers in sight. The are ‘enough’ as goals. Not only do they leave other is to turn our peripheral position into a hundreds of millions of people in poverty, but resource. As development researchers we should they also represent what I call poverty reduction know that the periphery can be an opportunity thinking, which I see basically as structural for and a locus of creativity. I have become more adjustment combined with social cushions and more convinced that our old structures of against some manifestations of extreme poverty. the social sciences need a thorough overhaul. They deal with symptoms, not with causes. Let us start from our own nest. We boast of our Tanzania is the obvious case in point. multi-disciplinarity but what do we actually Aid, of course, sees itself as an open process, mean by it? Co-operation among the social and always ready, even eager to learn from its past cultural sciences and in the best case a degree of mistakes. That makes it eminently reformable. integration among them! I agree this is neces- I used to think that was one of the strengths of sary but I cannot see that it is sufficient. We aid but I have started to think that it actually may should also think about what we mean by social be part of the problem. In constantly reforming and cultural, and how they relate to biology and itself aid does not have to stop to rethink the environment and the sciences dealing with them. grounds for reform. We must not stop asking Without tackling this theoretically it is difficult ourselves how the assumed lessons learned were to meet the challenges arising from sociobiology actually arrived at? This makes it possible for aid or deep ecology, for instance. to continue to lead a life of its own, only tangen- tially touching those in whose name it is being SL: What are your views on Finnish development carried out. aid and what are the present trends? Yet I do not want to use any of this as a I am afraid my views both as regards aid in defence for poor performers in aid volume such general and Finnish aid in particular are deeply as Finland! Aid is a great opportunity which we ambivalent. I think the existence of develop- must not and cannot give up. Aid is a magic web ment aid is a political achievement in itself and from which we cannot disentangle ourselves. As must be defended. I share the constant collective a researcher I can only say: let us try to under- shame at the low volume of Finnish aid as stand better how it works. We need studies not compared to the other Nordics and I am glad of only on aid policies and short-term effects of aid the small improvement that is taking place at but also of its wider and broader impacts, its present. I am particularly happy that the quality unintended consequences. I wonder, for in- of Finnish aid has considerably improved during stance, to what extent we really understand what the last ten years or so. It is now more culturally has been the Nordic contribution to what has ■ sensitive and attuned to better tackling recipient happened in Tanzania.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 23 research Guest Researchers

During late spring and early summer 2003, the Institute hosted African Guest Researcher Prof. Amina Touzani from Morocco. Further, Dr. Bolade M. Eyinla visited the Institute under the Georg Foster Research Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. Their respective research projects are presented below.

Culture and Cultural Policy in Morocco By: Amina Touzani, Professor, Mohammed V University, Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Econo- miques et Sociales, Rabat-Agdal, Morocco If some words are more frequently used than The importance of the traditional sector is others, culture is certainly one of them. There not the same in every field. Thus if in the field are hundreds of definitions of the word ‘cul- of education the traditional school is losing ture’ and they appear conflicting. This feeling ground to the modern school, in politics, for of paradox is inherent in the blending of ‘cul- example, it is as if modern institutions— both ture’ in the humanist sense of the word as the elected ones (from communal level up to related to arts and ‘culture’ with its anthropo- the parliament) and the government—exist on logical significance relating to patterns of hu- the margins of central decision-making—the man behaviour, both material and immaterial. monarchy (Makhzan). My subject is the question of culture in its What does this duality mean for people’s anthropological sense and its changing and lives? Let’s take the example of a peasant. He contradictory forms and expressions within usually does not come in contact with govern- Moroccan society. ment officials, because he still manages to live Morocco has been at the crossroads of the independent life of a villager. However, his different civilizations for centuries, and it has son has to go to school. On registration day, been exposed to many foreign ideas, customs, the father presents a black chicken to the and practices. So culture in Morocco is made director of the school who gladly accepts the up of layers of elements derived from many gift. What is the meaning of this behaviour? Is sources and the main problem is that most of it a gift, a sacrifice, magic or corruption? For the time these elements coexist and interact the peasant the four aspects are linked. without the benefit of any overriding princi- Maybe the peasant did not realize the ple. complexity of his behaviour (he is not neces- Anyone who observes Moroccan life no- sarily aware of all the logic implied in his tices that it is governed by a complex interac- action). The central theme of my research tion of forms in which traditional and modern project focuses on an in depth analysis of the are intertwined in dualities and contradictory development of these cultural attitudes. Since ways. the distinctive feature of our culture is its The existence of a dual legal system, one commitment to a synthesis, the capacity of respecting Sharia (Koranic law) the other in- Moroccan heritage to accommodate modern spired by the French legal code—the two often concepts, I attempt to understand the struc- in conflict—is only one example of this dis- ture of ideas, the world of imagination and the juncture. There are others that permeate pub- experience of Moroccans as far as national lic as well as private life: heritage and western values are concerned and - politics: elected institutions and monarchy to trace the evolution of the present culture as - education: modern schools beside Koranic that constellation of relationships that can be schools collected under the general heading of ‘influ- - health: doctors and healers ences’. The influences that are at work and give - economy: formal and informal economy. Moroccan culture this hybrid nature. ■

24 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 research

Aid as an Instrument of Political Reform: Donors, Democracy and Democratic Consolidation in Sub-Sahara Africa By: Bolade M. Eyinla, Department of History, University of Ilorin, Nigeria

The issue of democratic transition and good democracy in the post-transition stage. This is governance dominated the African political attributable to the immense interest generated agenda throughout the 1990s. Confronted by a by the immediate democratic possibilities in number of internal and external factors, many the wake of the second wave of democracy in Sub-Sahara African states were compelled to Sub-Sahara Africa, which is said to lack the reform their political system, leading to the socio-political culture upon which liberal de- termination of military rule and one-party au- mocracy can thrive, and the overt concentra- thoritarianism, restored freedoms of assembly, tion on the interface between political democ- association and expression, multi-party politi- ratisation (good governance) and economic cal systems and competitive elections. Un- liberalisation (free market economy). Conse- doubtedly, the donor community acted as ef- quently, beyond the global drive for multi- fective and important players in this political party ‘electoral democracy’ and demand for reform processes. However, the complete pic- economic reform, the problems and possibili- ture of the effects and consequences of the ties for the sustainability of democracy in Sub- donors’ role in the use of the aid instrument to Sahara Africa’s emerging democracies have promote democracy is still unfolding, while the not been fully considered. There is therefore sustainability of the various democratic experi- need to highlight the importance of donors’ ments in the sub-continent remains, at best, democratic assistance and to critically analyse uncertain. its impact in the nurturing of democracy to the My research work is aimed at examining point of irreversibility in the post-election and the role of democratic assistance in the promo- post-transition period. tion and sustenance of democracy in Sub- In doing this, five main themes in the Sahara Africa. The research seeks to find an- schematic typology of democratic governance swers to such pertinent questions as: What has will be used to measure the process and out- been the impact of democratic assistance on come of the democratic experiments in four strengthening democratic governance? Have selected Sub-Sahara African states. This is donors made effective use of their chances and with the aim of assessing the level to which the latitude of action to make sufficient contribu- rule of the democratic game has become en- tion to the sustenance of democratic institu- trenched, sustainable and irreversible. These tions? If so, why have these institutions, which are: 1) legitimacy, which incorporates adequate are necessary for sustaining democracy, re- control over sovereignty and power, as well as mained weak in many of the transiting states? the election of a government that enjoys the Is the accusation that donors have been much trust of the people; 2) accountability, which more reluctant in providing the wherewithal incorporates exclusion of arbitrariness, clear for building the socio-economic environment definition of powers and duties, as well as conducive for the development of democracy transparency in policy formulation; 3) security and the inculcation of the democratic culture in of human rights and civil liberties, which in- post-transition states correct? To what extent corporates respect for basic human and minor- did competing national interests prevent do- ity rights, as well as the ability of government to nors from establishing policy coordination and improve the well being of the citizens and of clear procedural mechanisms among them- the organs of civil society to function without selves in monitoring the socio-political devel- let or hindrance; 4) local autonomy and devo- opment in post-transition states? lution of power, which incorporates decen- The motivation for this research work de- tralisation of power and autonomy at the local rives from the fact that very little attention has level of governance; and 5) civilian control over been focused on the role and activities of do- the armed forces, incorporating reduction in nors in the sustenance and consolidation of military spending and non-interference of the

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 25 research military in governance. Using the four by four perhaps the most important building block for matrix, the policy and impact of the democratic sustaining democracy. Subject to verification, assistance activities of four main donor coun- some of the expected findings from the re- tries, viz, the United States, Britain, Germany search would be that: 1) there is concentration and Japan in the democratisation process in on promoting multi-party elections, while in- four Sub-Sahara Africa states will be used in sufficient attention is devoted to enhancing the assessing the possibility for democratic con- institutional structures of governance and the solidation. The four states are: 1) Nigeria, emergence of a virile civil society; 2) beyond where there was regime change from military winning for the people the right to a periodic to civilian; 2) Zambia, where there was regime vote, donors are not paying sufficient attention change from one set of political actors to an- to the twin problem of political marginalization other set of political actors; 3) Kenya, where and increasing socio-economic inequalities; 3) there was limited democratic reform and an only few Sub-Sahara African states are capable expansion of the democratic space but where of meeting the demands for a living wage and the incumbent regime remained in power till better social conditions from their politically recently and; 4) Liberia where the reform proc- mobilized but highly discontented population. ess resulted in a civil war but culminated in It is expected that the outcome of the democratic elections and later a return to a civil research will have both domestic and external war situation. impact on the debate, and the course of demo- The choice of the four donor countries and cratic assistance and sustainability of democ- the four-targeted/recipient states is deliberate. racy in Sub-Sahara Africa. On the African Together, the four donor countries are respon- domestic front, it is hoped that it will encour- sible for amounts, ranging from 50 to 75 per- age: 1) regime change only through the elec- cent of the total bilateral aid flow from DAC toral process; 2) mass participation in demo- countries to the four African states in the 1990s. cratic processes and vibrancy of civil society; 3) This choice will therefore allow for easy analy- horizontal and vertical separation of power and sis of the extent to which cooperation and bureaucratic autonomy, with the ability of the coordination among the donors was a potent democratic system to cope with domestic and factor in the democratic transition process, as externally induced political and socio-economic well as in the efforts towards sustaining the crisis. The donor community is also expected democratic experiment. Another deliberate to adopt and pursue proactive policy measures action is the choice of the four-targeted Afri- towards post-transition and post-conflict states can states within the matrix of strong and weak that will prevent a reversal to authoritarianism states. While Nigeria and Kenya can be re- and chaos by: 1) monitoring civil and political garded as strong states, Zambia and Liberia are rights on a continuous basis; 2) enhancing the relatively weaker states; thereby providing an capacity of the legislature and the judiciary in opportunity to examine the hypothesis that performing their overview functions; 3) pro- donors’ latitude for action seems to be more viding necessary assistance towards empower- effective in weak states than in strong states. ing the organs of civil society and professionali- The major test hypothesis is to determine sation of the armed forces. whether: 1) the volume of bilateral aid flow It is my belief that the research, which is from the four selected donor countries to the being undertaken in collaboration with Profes- four-targeted Sub-Sahara Africa states makes sor Dr. Cord Jakobeit of the Department of them major players in the democratic transi- Political Science, University of Hamburg, Ger- tion programmes with the clout to intervene many will not only complement the existing and even determine the course of the political literature on the use of aid as an instrument of reform process, 2) whether there is a credibility political reform, but also contribute to the gap among donors between their push for understanding of the dynamics and intricacies democracy and good governance and their of democracy and democratic consolidation in inability to institute appropriate measures to Sub-Sahara Africa in particular and other encourage socio-economic growth, which is transiting countries in general. ■

26 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 African institution Panos West Africa

Panos Institute is an international NGO with Panos West Africa continues and develops the the two objectives of: 1) strengthening the media activities previously undertaken by Panos Insti- in the South and their capacity to produce, along tute Paris in West Africa between 1988 and with all the components of the civil society, 1999. These activities were: pluralist information, which is the guarantee of 1988–1991: The Sahel programme took place in a culture of peace and democracy; 2) supporting the Inter-State Committee against Drought the production of information on priority issues, in the Sahel (CILSS) countries and aimed at furthering the circulation of this information at developing the capacity of journalists to pro- a global level, arousing, stimulating and inform- duce information on sustainable development, ing public debate in both the South and the North particularly on environmental issues. on topical themes. In the era of new information 1991–1993: The battle for pluralism of informa- and communication technologies, Panos wants tion involved all ECOWAS countries. to promote the central role that information and 1993–1997: The second battle of radio-plural- communication play in the development of so- ism. cieties, both in the North and in the South. 1997–1999: The challenge of a pluralistic and Panos aims at reducing inequalities between the ethical information; adoption of new tech- ‘information rich’ and the ‘information poor’. nologies of information and communication.

Background Priorities and programmes Panos Institute was created in London in 1986, The priorities of Panos West Africa reflect the and within a few years three institutes operating challenges of democratisation and peace in West in different geographical areas were created: Africa. The priorities are: peace-building; good Panos London (Eastern and Southern Africa, governance and civil society; diversity and gen- South Asia), Panos Paris (Central, Northern der equality; diversity and cultural innovation; and West Africa), and Panos Washington (Car- adoption of new information and communica- ibbean Islands). In 2000 the first Panos Institute tion technologies. in the South was created: Panos West Africa in Based on these priorities, a number of pro- Dakar, Senegal. A number of others have fol- grammes have been started. The on-going pro- lowed or will do so soon. On the African conti- grammes are on the themes: conflicts; human nent, there are Panos Institutes in Kampala rights; gender; culture; new technologies of (Panos Eastern Africa) and in Lusaka (Panos information and communication; minorities. Southern Africa). All Panos Institutes are mem- For more details, please visit Panos West Afri- bers of the Panos Council, a body for internal ca’s website, www.panos-ao.org. ■ regulation, consultation and co-ordination. Panos West Africa has its head office in Compiled by Karin Andersson Schiebe Dakar, Senegal and operates in the whole of the (main source: www.panos-ao.org) West African region. It has a second office in Bamako, Mali and representatives in several other countries. Financial support comes mainly Contact information, Panos West Africa from Danida (Denmark), Directorate-General Director: Diana Senghor for Development Cooperation, Sida (Sweden), Postal address: 6 rue du Docteur-Calmette, Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations. BP 21132, Dakar-Ponty, Senegal In its first four-year work programme for the e-mail: [email protected] period 2001–2004, ‘Information and communi- website: www.panos-ao.org cation: For a culture of citizenship in Africa’,

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 27 publishing Recent Publications

Henning Melber (Ed.) Re-examining Liberation in Namibia. Political Culture since Independence ISBN 91-7106-516-4, 187 pp, 200 SEK, 20 Euro

From 1960, SWAPO of Namibia led the organised and later armed struggle for independence. In late 1989, the liberation movement was finally elected to power under United Nations supervision as the legitimate government. When the Republic of Namibia was proclaimed on 21 March 1990, the long and bitter struggle for sovereignty came to an end. This volume takes stock of emerging trends in the country’s political culture since independence. The contributions, mainly by authors from Namibia and Southern Africa who supported the anti-colonial movements, critically explore the achievements and shortcomings that have been part of liberation in Namibia. Henning Melber was Director of the Namibia Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek between 1992 and 2000 and has been Research Director at the Nordic Africa Institute since then.

Lise Rakner Political and Economic Liberalisation in Zambia ISBN 91-7106-506-7, 240 pp, 220 SEK, 22 Euro

This book analyses the implementation of political and economic liberalisation in Zambia during the first two election periods (1991–2001). Focussing on the negotiations between government and the key domestic interest groups, as well as the dialogues between the MMD government and the international donor community, the book argues that despite a disastrous socio-economic record, the processes of political and economic liberalisation proceeded concomitantly without seriously affecting or undermining each other. Lise Rakner is senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute Bergen, Norway. She holds a PhD in political science. In recent years, she has conducted field research in Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda and Namibia.Thematically her work has focused on the issues of democratisation and human rights, economic reform, taxation, institutional change and international aid.

28 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 publishing

Minette Mans Music as Instrument of Diversity and Unity. Notes on a Namibian Landscape Research Report, no. 124, ISBN 91-7106-510-5, 55 pp, 100 SEK, 10 Euro

This report explores the interface between recent socio-political changes in Namibia, and the way they are reflected in emergent musical practices and identities within the country. The potential tension between unity and diversity is investigated within musical landscapes in traditional and contemporary frames. Sadly, diversity is often seen to be the precursor of divisiveness rather than a product of human creativity and ingenuity. Based on a decade of field research undertaken mainly in the north and central areas of Namibia since 1993, this report poses questions about fundamental purposes of music-making, and the conscious response of people to the contemporary Namibian socio-political situation. It provides a broad overview of music emanating from different cultural practices in Namibia, and relates this to the State’s political strategies for ensuring unity and nation-building through policy-making, education and broadcast media. The changes that occur in musical practices are seen as strategic cultural choices and ongoing identity-formation. Minette Mans has a PhD in Namibian music, dance and education and is currently Associate Professor at the Performing Arts Department, University of Namibia.

J.Clark Leith and Ludvig Söderling Ghana—Long Term Growth, Atrophy and Stunted Recovery Research Report no. 125, ISBN 91-7106-514-8, 111 pp, 100 SEK, 10 Euro

Ghana’s independence in March 1957 was celebrated with great flourish. “Free at last!” Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s leader, proclaimed. Yes, Ghana was free to follow an independent political course, and free to experiment with an independent economic direction. But the exercise of that freedom proved to be destructive. More than a quarter century of increasingly chaotic political and economic turbulence followed. Eventually a major reform program was launched, but after fifteen years its success has been modest. While the downward spiral has been halted, and real growth resumed, real GDP per capita and total factor productivity have barely exceeded the levels achieved at independence. The long-run economic and political records are both lackluster, each limiting the potential of the other. The question is, why has Ghana not achieved sustained and rapid long-term growth? This study seeks to provide an answer. The authors are, respectively, Professor of Economics, University of Western Ontario, and Economist, International Monetary Fund. At the time of writing, Söderling was at the OECD Development Centre, Paris.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 29 publishing

Dahilon Yassin Mohamoda Nile Basin Cooperation. A Review of the Literature Current African Issues, no. 26, ISBN 91-7106-512-1, 41 pp, 80 SEK, 8 Euro

The literature on utilization and management of the Nile waters related to basin-wide cooperation efforts has been growing fast during the last decade.This paper reviews literature on the Nile basin cooperation and issues related to this process, focusing on more recent publications. Dahilon Yassin Mohamoda has a MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is particularly interested in political, economic and social developments in Nile basin countries. He recently joined the Centre for Development and Environment at the University of Oslo, where he has been working on this paper.

Forthcoming (fall 2003)

Signe Arnfred (Ed.) Re-thinking Sexualities in Africa ISBN 91-7106-513-X, 215 pp, 220 SEK, 22 Euro

The volume brings together papers by African and Nordic gender scholars and anthropologists, in attempts to investigate and critically discuss existing lines of thinking about sexuality in Africa, while at the same time creating space for alternative approaches. Issues of colonial and contemporary discourses on ‘African sexuality’ and on ‘female genital mutilation’ are being discussed, as well as issues of female agency and of feminists’ engagement with HIV/AIDS. The volume contributes to contemporary efforts of re-thinking sexualities in the light of feminist, queer and postcolonial theory. Signe Arnfred is co-ordinator of the Nordic Africa Institute’s research programme Sexuality, Gender and Society in Africa.

Forthcoming title in Swedish (spring 2004)

Kristina Rylander (Ed.) Att studera Afrika. Vägar till källorna 3rd ed. Revised and updated, ISBN 91-7106-519-9, 150 pp, 180 SEK

This new edition of ‘Att studera Afrika’ has the same structure as its predecessors. The first section is a student’s guide to bibliographic tools and reference material. It contains chapters on bibliographies/bibliographic databases, encyclopedias/handbooks, periodicals, statistical information sources, maps/atlases, government documents, and a newly written chapter on information sources on the Internet. The second part of the book presents introductions to the literature in some central topics in African studies, written by senior scholars. The featured topics are history, politics/political economy, geography, culture and education. Some of the chapters are newly written for this edition. The others are thoroughly revised and updated. The main target groups for this publication are students and researchers on an academic level. Librarians, senior high school students and teachers, journalists, and personnel in development cooperation are other groups that might also find it useful. Kristina Rylander is librarian at the Nordic Africa Institute

30 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 conference reports Conferences and Meetings

Citizenship and Social Reconstruction in Rwanda 27–28 March, Butare, Rwanda Understanding how Rwandans—nine years af- sity of Rwanda, discussed the issue of ‘The ter the genocide—are trying to invent a citizen- University as a Site of Citizenship’. The first ship that transcends ethnic and other kinds of panel, was concerned about ‘setting the scene’. identities, seems to be one of the most important Presentations by the policymakers were devoted tasks for social research in Rwanda. This is what to the following topics: ‘Managing Change to- the team of researchers working with the Nordic wards the End of the Political Transition: Pros- Africa Institute, through the Post-Conflict pects and Challenges’ (Hon. Protais Musoni, Transition programme, and the Centre for Con- Secretary of State in charge of good govern- flict Management (CCM) of the National Uni- ance); ‘Overview of the National and Regional versity of Rwanda are looking at. The team was Security Situation: Key Actors and Their Peace established at the beginning of this year, and on Agendas’ (Major General Kayumba Nyamwasa, 27–28 March it held a workshop in Butare, about Secretary General, National Security Service); 150 km from Kigali, to identify some of the most ‘The Need for Community Policing: Back- pertinent research questions. ground to the Rwanda National Police’ (Dep. The main objective of the Rwanda team is Com. Frank Mugambage, Commissioner Gen- “to contribute to the understanding of efforts eral of the National Police). In addition to the aimed at reducing tensions after a massive geno- background paper in which conceptual and cide, the strengths on which the Rwandan gov- methodological issues were addressed, the schol- ernment and people can build, and challenges in ars discussed issues ranging from the mass char- the process of re-building lives of individuals acter of the genocide, and how politics, demo- and groups as well as re-establishing the nation- graphy and land were all factors in it, to the ways state in a profoundly fragmented environment”. in which both the trauma of the genocide and This was seen at the Butare workshop as “one of the idea of a new kind of citizenship are ex- the most pressing moral issues of our times: the pressed in songs and other works of art. It was reinvention of coexistence in the wake of mass agreed that studies also be conducted on other violence”. relevant topics, such as Women in Politics, Most of the 16 members of the research team Democratisation, and Identity and the Diaspora. are Rwandans living in Rwanda. The workshop The national and sub-regional contexts in was also attended by several foreign scholars which the workshop was held were reflected in who were in Butare at the time, members of the the discussions. Rwanda had troops in Eastern National Commission on Reconciliation, lead- Congo (DRC), where there is a civil war partly ers of civil society organisations, and some key involving elements of the infamous Interhamwe persons in the government, the security forces militias that carried out much of the killing and the media. The team is jointly coordinated during the 1994 genocide. The relations be- by Alice Urusaro Karekezi and Eugene Nta- tween Uganda and Rwanda were all but smooth. ganda of the CCM, and Ebrima Sall of the Nordic In neighbouring Burundi, a government headed Africa Institute. The workshop had two exter- by a president from the Hutu ethnic group, i.e. nal facilitators: Jonas Ewald, Director, Centre the majority, was about to take over from the one for African Studies at PADRIGU, Göteborg Uni- headed by a Tutsi president. The trials of those versity, and Kayode Fayemi, Director, Centre who planned and gave orders for the genocide for Democracy and Development (based in Ni- are going on in Arusha, very slowly, but surely, geria and the UK). and Rwanda itself was preparing for several key In his keynote address, Professor Emile developments in its own transition programme: Rwamasirabo, Rector of the National Univer- last year, the gacaca courts (reformed and up-

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 31 conference reports graded traditional courts) began the trials of the need for comparative research on post-conflict tens of thousands of genocide suspects detained transition in different parts of the world was in Rwanda’s jails; a referendum to adopt a new expressed. This is an area where the sharing of constitution was to take place on 26 May 2003; experiences could be useful, although each case and presidential and legislative elections were is more or less unique. planned for August and September-October On Sunday, 30 March, the Rwandan Na- this year. The launching of a research project on tional TV devoted two hours to broadcasting citizenship and social reconstruction was there- unedited highlights of some of the presentations fore very timely. made at the workshop, which was a good indi- A documentary on the work of the Sierra cation of the gradual expansion of the space for Leone team working with the Nordic Africa free expression taking place in Rwanda. Institute on the challenges facing that country after the ten-year civil war was projected. The Ebrima Sall

Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives 9-11 April, Arusha, Tanzania

In recent years, Africa has undergone profound and uncertainty in their everyday life. Rather political, economic and social changes, driven than focusing on suffering and seeing people as by an array of internal and external forces. merely victims of adverse circumstances, the Examples of the former are such recurrent conference aimed at understanding how people phenomena across the continent as the civil respond and act on their life situation in an wars and famines that have resulted in wide increasingly troubled world. scale displacements of people and, conse- Do people draw upon specific ‘cultural mod- quently, led to a weakening of the social fabric els’, techniques or prescriptions and, thus, rely and social support networks. The latter are on a specific course of action when they are constituted of such phenomena as modernisa- facing grave problems and contingencies in life? tion and globalisation which, while sometimes Do they feel alienated and helpless in a risky equated with progress, have also contributed to and uncertain world? Or do they generally take an increase in social distress, insecurity and a pragmatic approach to suffering and misfor- compounded the uncertainties in people’s eve- tune in an increasingly troubled world? These ryday life. were some of the questions discussed. ‘Uncertainty in Contemporary African Panel sessions dealt with six main themes, Lives’ was the theme of an international confer- namely, ‘Agency, Risk and Uncertainty’, ‘Veil- ence convened by Liv Haram and the Nordic ing Tears: Gendered Equanimity’, ‘Control? Africa Institute at MS Training Centre for De- Hope and Ultimate Despair’, ‘HIV/AIDS Man- velopment Cooperation, in Arusha in Tanza- agement: Strategies and Intervention’, ‘Solace nia, April 9–11, 2003. and Certainty in Religion?’, ‘Uncertainty, Mis- Scholars from South Africa, Botswana, fortune and Modernities’. Prof. Sandra Wall- Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, as man, University of London, Prof. Susan well as from England, Denmark, Sweden and Reynolds Whyte, University of Copenhagen Norway, participated and presented papers, 24 and Dr. Todd Sanders, University of Cam- in all. An additional five local people partici- bridge, were specially invited persons, who both pated. chaired sessions and presented papers. Other The conference sought to explore and un- chairs included Prof. Francis Nymanjoh, Uni- derstand how people in contemporary Africa versity of Botswana (currently acting head of experience situations of great upheaval, stress publications and communications at CODESRIA),

32 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 conference reports

Dr. Bawa Yamba, the Nordic Africa Institute The closing session, ‘Certainty—Uncer- and myself. tainty: Life on an Even Keel?’ facilitated by The particular nature of the conference Sandra Wallman, revisited some of the central topic led to scholarly explorations into medical issues, and spurred lively and involved discus- anthropology, the anthropology of religion as sions. well as local views on what constituted moder- Regarding recreation a ‘local’ Meru lunch nity, in its various manifestations. The various was organised, as well as an excursion to histori- discussions quite soon seemed to crystallise into cal sites on the slopes of Mount Meru, with an a fruitful division, between those scholars who optional visit to the International Criminal saw as their task the applying of research to Tribunal for Rwanda, in Arusha town. doing something about the situations on the The submitted papers were pre-circulated ground, and those of a more academic bent, as electronically and were available in hard copy at it were, who expounded on theoretical themes the conference. Papers from the conference are without necessarily seeing the ameliorating of being revised and edited. Some of the papers the situation on the ground as a corollary of will be edited by Liv Haram and published by research endeavours. Thus the former were the Nordic Africa Institute. Another set will be more concerned with the sources of uncertain- co-edited by Bawa Yamba and Liv Haram, and ties, what resources would be required to con- published in a Special Issue of the African trol them, and the possibility of actively chang- Sociological Review. ing people’s behaviour so as to improve their More detailed information about the con- life-situation. The latter, however, were more ference, the complete conference programme, interested in demarcating uncertainty as a so- and list of participants can be found at the cial phenomenon, and establishing its relation- Institute’s website: www.nai.uu.se/sem/conf/ ship to “certainty” in people’s lived experience. uncertainty/uncertaintyeng.html Both exegeses supplied a refreshing vitality to the proceedings. Liv Haram

Participants in the Uncertainty in Contemporary African Lives Conference gathered outside the conference venue.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 33 conference reports

Identity, Security and the Renegotiation of National Belonging in West Africa: Reflections on the Côte d’Ivoire Crisis 15–16 May, Dakar, Senegal

On 19 September 2002, what first appeared to (six of the commissioned scholars are also be a mutiny involving 700 soldiers of the Ivorian Ivoirans, two of whom still lived in the country army resisting government attempts to demo- at the time of the conference). In all, 70 people bilise them quickly turned out to be the begin- participated in the conference. ning of a civil war. By these events, the country Panel discussions were interspersed with broke decisively with its legendary reputation ‘testimonies’ from Ivorians who had had very for peace and cosmopolitanism. It had already, special personal experiences during the con- since the military coup that overthrew the gov- flict, and from civil society organisations of the ernment of Henri Konan Bedie in December region, such as the West Africa Network for 1999, become chronically unstable. Within a Peacebuilding (WANEP, based in Accra), and few weeks after the outbreak of the 2002 mu- the Inter-African Union of Human Rights tiny, the northern half of the country fell under (UIDH, based in Ouagadougou). The ECOWAS the control of the combatants of the Ivorian parliament, which had just completed a fact- Patriotic Movement (MPCI). A third move- finding mission on the Ivorian crisis and its ment, the Mouvement Populaire Ivoirien du impact on Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and Grand Ouest (MPIGO) was later to carve out a Guinea, was also represented by its Speaker, Dr territory for itself in the western part of the Ali Nouhoum Diallo, who came with two of country, close to the Liberian border. Prior to the parliamentarians who were on the fact- the 1999 coup, Côte d’Ivoire registered high finding mission, the Hon. Siradio Diallo of rates of economic growth most of the time and Guinea and the Hon. Fatoumata Jahumpa- hosted nearly four million foreigners with no Cessay of The Gambia, the Chief of Protocol of major tensions among the different ethno-lin- the Hon. Speaker, and one other person. The guistic and national groups. What went wrong? ECOWAS parliamentarians presented the main How is the current crisis going to affect the findings of their mission in a special panel various ethno-national groups living in the discussion chaired by Professor Adebayo country? What is the impact of the crisis on the Olukoshi, the Executive Secretary of CODESRIA. other countries of the region? Finding answers Discussions at the conference were centred to these and many other questions had become on four broad themes: urgent and underpinned a Nordic Africa Insti- 1) the history, and the dynamics of conflict; tute–CODESRIA initiative steered by Ebrima Sall 2) migration, land, identities, rights and citi- and Jean-Bernard Ouedraogo. zenship; Earlier this year, the Nordic Africa Institute 3) national and regional security and govern- and CODESRIA commissioned 24 eminent Afri- ance; can, Nordic, other European, and North 4) economic crisis, changing development and American (Canadian) scholars who are among citizenship paradigms, political succession, the most knowledgeable on issues related to democratisation and structural adjustment in conflict and social dynamics in Côte d’Ivoire Côte d’Ivoire. and other countries of West Africa, to write The roots of the recent crisis were traced back ‘think-pieces’ on the Ivorian conflict and its to the colonial period, when the economies of repercussions on the rest of West Africa. The the region were organised in ways that made of reflections of these scholars were presented at a Burkina Faso a labour reserve for Côte d’Ivoire, conference held in Dakar, Senegal, in May as the latter was developed into a coastal growth 2003. Participants in the conference also in- pole with a flourishing plantation economy. cluded policy makers and civil society organisa- Houphouet Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire’s first presi- tions of the region, as well as a large number of dent, a rich plantation owner in his own right, Ivorians, some of whom travelled from the maintained that policy. Boigny encouraged country, while others were in exile in Senegal immigrants to own land and allowed them to

34 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 conference reports

Panel: Lennart Wohlgemuth, director of the Nordic Africa Institute, Abdoulaye Bathily, deputy speaker of the Sen- egalese National Assembly, Adebayo Olukoshi, executive secretary of CODESRIA, Ali Nouhoum Diallo, speaker of the ECOWAS parliament, and Annika Magnusson, Swedish ambassador to Senegal. vote in Ivorian elections, but his own party lost their lives and thousands more lost their dominated the political landscape. Several of property, jobs or businesses. Death squads were the participants noted that the prospects for the terrorising many people suspected of harbour- outbreak of a crisis were heightened by the ing political views that were somehow identical power struggle that followed the death of with those of the opposition or the rebel move- Boigny, at a time when the country was under- ments. Thus, the flow of refugees and internally going a severe economic crisis due to the fall in displaced persons grew. cocoa prices, the country’s main export crop, It was however very clear from the discus- and onset of an IMF/World Bank programme of sions that in this crisis, notions of belonging structural adjustment. The pressures to democ- and citizenship took on different meanings for ratise were also high. These were the signs of different people as the circumstances were the collapse of what one of the participants, changing. What was initially developed as part Professor Francis Akindès, called the “Hou- of a scheme to marginalize political opponents, phouetist Compromise”, characterised by open- had become a xenophobic ideology reminiscent ness to foreigners and foreign capital, but also of extreme rightwing hate ideologies elsewhere. an authoritarian neo-patrimonial mode of gov- As young unemployed people from the cities ernance. It was in that context that a thinly returned to their villages and reclaimed the land veiled xenophobic ideology called Ivoirité ceded to ‘foreigners’ under the Boigny principle (‘Ivorianness’, or ‘being Ivorian’) was conceived, of ‘the land to those who can develop it’, farmers initially as a way of marginalizing one of the from the south working in villages in the west main contenders in the power struggle, who and central regions of the country became tar- was also the last person to serve as a Prime gets of anti-foreigner feelings, and were ex- Minister under Houphouet Boigny, M. pelled, just like the people of ‘foreign’ origin Alassane Ouattara. Ouattara was then accused who had been born to parents themselves born of being a ‘foreigner’. In the event, the very in the country. notion of Ivorian citizenship was redefined, as As one of the papers demonstrated, for different degrees of citizenship or ‘Ivorianness’ those who, after having lived in Côte d’Ivoire were invented. for decades, returned to Burkina Faso as a result The practical implication of these develop- of the crisis, the situation was worse for they ments was the rise in the tension between discovered that in Burkina Faso they were also different sections of the community, as distinc- seen as ‘Ivorians’, or some kind of stateless tions between ‘northerners’ and ‘southerners’, people called ‘les diaspos’ (the people of the Muslims and non-Muslims, ‘true Ivorians’ and diaspora), singled out as political or trade union ‘circumstantial Ivorians’, etc all became con- agitators, or troublemakers of sorts. flated and confused. In the process, the circle of The dialogue among Ivorians present at the ‘true Ivorians’ became smaller, to the exclusion conference was, however, rather difficult. One of many so-called ‘Burkinabe’, among others. of the objectives of the conference was to create As the civil war unfolded, the security situation a neutral forum for Ivorian scholars to begin a became worse. Hundreds of innocent civilians dialogue among themselves, given that the aca-

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 35 conference reports demic community in their country is also di- to be close to those of the current Ivorian vided along lines that are quite similar to those government. of the political divisions. To make things easier The regional nature of the crisis was also still, it was decided that the famous ‘Chatham highlighted, not only because of the impor- House Rules’, named after a forum for dialogue tance of the size of the immigrant population in that existed in Britain in which parties to a the country, but also because of the position of conflict could speak freely without fear of being Côte d’Ivoire in the region. Regional integra- quoted, or being persecuted afterwards, would tion efforts under the auspices of the West apply to this conference. Furthermore, the panel African Monetary and Economic Union discussions and roundtables were moderated by (UEMOA) and the Economic Community of carefully chosen, experienced mediators, such West African States (ECOWAS) are currently as Professor Abdoulaye Bathily of Cheikh Anta running the risk of being significantly ham- Diop University, currently a Deputy Speaker of pered, as both the relationships between the the Senegalese National Assembly, Dr. Lennart communities and between the states of the Wohlgemuth, director of the Nordic Africa region are riddled with tension, and the fledg- Institute, and Dr. Ali Nouhoum Diallo, Speaker ling economies further shaken. Peacemaking in of the ECOWAS parliament. Despite all that, it Liberia, and peace-building efforts in Sierra was rather sad to note that the dialogue was not Leone are complicated by the greater possibili- really between Ivorians of different views on the ties that the crisis offers to mercenaries and conflict but who were all still living inside Côte armed groups to move around. The prospects d’Ivoire. Instead, it was a dialogue between of a return to a smoother economic and human Ivorians in exile and the other African, Euro- development path and to democracy in the pean and Canadian scholars, on the one hand region are thus made much more distant, unless and, on the other hand, the Ivorians still living an acceptable political solution to the Côte in the country who held positions that appeared d’Ivoire crisis is found. The active participation of the Speaker and members of the ECOWAS Parliament in the conference was, therefore, very significant. Post-conflict transition involves a certain amount of renegotiation of the relations between groups, generations, genders and regions, and may lead to the definition of new bases for citizenship and belonging, whether to local communities, or to nations. This raises questions of identity, rights, justice and power, as well as the question of the nature of the public sphere and its transformation along democratic lines. The groups involved in the struggles for peace, of which the renegotiation of belonging is a part, include women’s and youth groups, religious confraternities, trade unions and various movements for rights and meaningful lives. One of the main conclusions of the conference, therefore, was that both theories of citizenship and development strategies ought to be re- examined in connection with the need to reinvent the basis of government in the whole of the region in ways that put people’s demo- The heads of the two co-organisers: cratic rights first. Adebayo Olukoshi, CODESRIA, and Lennart Wohlgemuth, the Nordic Africa Institute. Adebayo Olukoshi & Ebrima Sall

36 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 conference reports

African Languages in Education: Where Linguistics and Pedagogy Meet 4 June, Stockholm, Sweden

This international workshop was sponsored Following this came the comments of five jointly by the Centre for Research on Bilingual- discussants. The first was Margaret Obondo, a ism and the Institute for International Educa- graduate of the Centre and current researcher at tion (IIE) at Stockholm University with the the Rinkeby Language Research Institute support of Sida/SAREC. The eight workshop (Stockholm), who developed her points around participants, all specialists in the field, presented Courtney Cazden’s concept of a ‘gamma’ or original papers on i.a. Guinea Bissau, South ‘contact’ zone in which languages, texts and Africa and Tanzania in two parallel sessions that community intersect like the confluence of bod- were followed by a detailed discussion. At the ies of fresh and salt water. If the ocean is too conclusion, all of the participants met to hear the powerful, like the official language, there is discussants’ comments and to conduct a more domination and a homogenizing force. Obondo general discussion. saw positive examples of contact in the localized The workshop opened with comments from zones discussed in some papers, for example the Holger Daun, director of IIE, who talked about window of opportunity created by South Afri- the institution’s ongoing research in African can language policy (cf. Heugh) and PRAESA’s education, some inherent contradictions such as work at the community level; teacher creativity the role of language standardization in eliminat- in implementing new methods (cf. Mbatha) ing linguistic and cultural diversity, UNESCO’s while the homogenizing waters swirl around promotion of linguistic human rights, and the them; the continuing work of experimental importance of interdisciplinary work in this schools (cf. Benson) as alternatives to submer- area. Kenneth Hyltenstam, director of the Cen- sion in the official language; and the rise of tre for Research on Bilingualism, then discussed smaller languages vs. Chichewa in Malawi (cf. the range of evaluations and other research done Legère). According to Cazden, these spaces by Centre staff and graduate students on African must be fought for and documented so that the languages and mother tongue education pro- interaction is equitable. grammes, including a SAREC-supported study of The next discussant was Lennart Wohl- the state of bilingual education in developing gemuth of the Nordic Africa Institute, who countries and current cooperation with the wondered whether to be optimistic or pessimis- Project for the Study of Alternative Education tic given that the debate over instructional lan- in South Africa (PRAESA) at the University of guage seems not to have moved forward since Cape Town, three of whose scholars were par- Torsten Husén commented on the use of Set- ticipating in this workshop. Both IIE and the wana in Botswana more than 30 years ago. What Centre have research and other professional has changed is who is doing the discussing; for links to Sida/SAREC and to the Nordic Africa example, Wohlgemuth recently witnessed a dis- Institute. cussion between 35 West African researchers The discussion following the presentations regarding the problems in Côte d’Ivoire, where focused on policy formation and the gap be- the issue of language was raised. Wohlgemuth tween policy and implementation. There was also used the example of Iceland, population consensus that the problem is not lack of evi- 280,000, where mother tongue use has never dence supporting mother tongue instruction; it been questioned, a fact that surprised African is a combination of factors such as presence or planners who visited there. Even where people absence of committed individuals, ability to get are aware of the research, other issues seem to funding, how arguments are presented, political override the language question. Politics obvi- will, vestiges of colonial attitudes, and so on. ously matters, since the well-researched evi- There are a number of inherent contradictions, dence has not been matched by a political re- such as foreign (ex-colonial) institutions pro- sponse. moting official languages while other donors Holger Daun commented that overall the promote mother tongues. workshop papers support two categories of find-

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 37 conference reports ings on language of instruction in countries in - What are the effects of international develop- the South. First, existing language policies are ment agreements such as Education for All? based on needs and interests other than peda- - How does globalization influence people’s gogical. Language policies to a large extent perceptions of local vs. regional vs. European follow previous colonial patterns and are cur- languages and their relative functions? rently steered by elite interests to maintain Eu- - Are policymakers (or even donors) truly aware ropean languages in the countries concerned. of the research findings regarding mother Second, study after study has demonstrated that tongue instruction? How can researchers be children learn most efficiently in their mother more effective in disseminating these findings tongue. If policymakers do not take this into so that they influence practice? serious consideration, according to Daun, then - How can cross-border activities promote Af- researchers have to use the predominating dis- rican languages? course in educational policymaking—the eco- - Can politicians be circumvented by finding nomic one. The argument should go along mechanisms to promote local languages lo- economic lines: that in the long run, instruction cally and in the schools? in the mother tongue is likely to be more cost- - How can the economic benefits of mother effective and efficient than use of a foreign tongue instruction be researched and ana- language for instruction. lyzed? Finally, Kenneth Hyltenstam and Chris- - How can parents be empowered to choose topher Stroud commented on the social impli- effective educational alternatives? cations of language policy. Hyltenstam noted - How can donors providing sector-based fi- that while it seems to be a simple issue, and most nancing be encouraged to support educational would agree that the best vehicle for communi- language programs that reach traditionally cation should be used for schooling, things do marginalized groups? not seem to have changed for the better. It is - What new spaces can be created to connect possible that our deeper understanding of the research with practice? complexities can help, including the relative - Through what means can African and North- functions of different languages in society. ern researchers and educators support each Stroud mentioned the new ecological discourses other more effectively to promote African on the function of local languages and how more languages in education? diverse methodologies may reveal issues of power and ideology. Stroud sees language as a site of struggle and presented the idea that education is Carol Benson, Centre for Research on in fact social reproduction through language. Bilingualism, and Christelle Garrouste Norelius, The open discussion at the end of the work- Institute for International Education, shop raised a number of interesting questions: both at Stockholm University

Dialogue in Pursuit of Development 11 June, Stockholm, Sweden and 17 June, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Dialogue is often considered to be the hub of respect not an interaction between equals. international relations, not the least in develop- Lennart Wohlgemuth, the Nordic Africa Insti- ment cooperation. However, it is extremely tute, and Jan Olsson, Sida, have recently edited difficult to achieve dialogue, in its true sense, an anthology published by The Expert Group between partners in development. Its efficiency on Development Issues (EGDI) on the subject is severely constrained due to the asymmetry in which, after a seminar on June 11 at the Ministry financial and human resources and knowledge. of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, was launched in Dialogue in development cooperation is in that Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on June 17 at the

38 News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 conference reports

Economic and Social Research Foundation the achieving of complete national ownership. (ESRF). Participants from amongst the authors, Making foreign aid a permanent post in the NGO and governmental representatives were all budget does not create incentives for self- invited, a total of approximately 70 persons. sustainability. Tanzania was given as an exam- Tanzania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, ple of a country that, since independence, has Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, opened the conference not implemented its own policies on self-reli- highlighting Sweden’s long-term relations with ance. The floor agreed that countries need to and support to Tanzania. The first session was come out of the bondage of aid but also saw the chaired by Benno Ndulu of the World Bank, difficulty of this, one reason being that donors also a member of the EGDI reference group. This have their own economic objectives at heart session emphasised mutual trust as a basis for making it difficult for countries to be truly true dialogue. Problems pointed out were those independent. of dual accountability, particularly for countries The second panel dealt with the dialogue receiving support. The experience with Make- relationship and the asymmetry of power. How rere University in Uganda and the Rockefeller do you control the dialogue? Is dialogue a tech- Foundation was brought up as a positive exam- nical mechanism that should be used as a politi- ple of partners in dialogue where the experi- cal tool? When then does dialogue become ences were seen in a wider picture. Lessons oppression? Participants also highlighted the learnt in the capacity building of Makerere importance of the participation of the civil soci- University, were to be disseminated into gov- ety in dialogue. As programmes, policies and ernmental institutions, a transfer of knowledge conferences have come and gone, but poverty into all levels and areas of Uganda society. and problems persist, one can clearly see the Many opinions from the floor expressed need to identify the partners in a dialogue and their concern about the difficulty in having a the viability of claimed representation. true partnership when one partner is essentially The publication Dialogue in Pursuit of De- begging. They also emphasised the importance velopment was warmly welcomed and eagerly of analysing the objectives of and reasons for aid. debated. Everyone agreed that this is an impor- The second session, chaired by Ambassador tant contribution to the question of equal part- Lennart Hjelmåker, was divided into two pan- nership and the pursuit of true development. els. The first panel started off by questioning the Over 20 examples from macro and micro levels, (un)necessity of aid. Several participants argued theoretical frameworks and grassroots experi- the need for an end to aid and that in this, the ences provide testimonies of a dialogue that question of ownership must be better defined. should be at the top of everyone’s agenda. Only then can a transitional plan eventually be drawn up concluding in the fading out of aid and Nina Frödin

The Expert Group on Development Issues (EGDI) The Expert Group on Development Issues, EGDI, was established by the Swedish government in 1995 with the objective of contributing to an increased understanding of development issues in a global context and increasing the effective- ness of development co-operation policies. The task of the EGDI is to initiate studies that will have the potential to make contributions to development thinking and policy-making. Seminars are organised to discuss findings of the EGDI studies in a broader context. In order to ensure a close relationship with research and policy communities around the world, the Expert Group consists of internationally renowned specialists with extensive networks in their respective fields. A secretariat assists the group and each ongoing study is supported by a reference group. EGDI is funded by the Swedish government. J. Olsson and L. Wohlgemuth (eds), For more information, visit the EGDI website: www.egdi.gov.se. Dialogue in Pursuit of Develop- ment. Stockholm: EGDI, 2003.

News from the Nordic Africa Institute 3/2003 39 NAI Research Retreat

Members of the Institute’s research unit went on their annual, two-day retreat on 2–3 June. This year’s retreat was at Grisslehamn, a village some 80 km east of Uppsala. The main topics for discussion were research encounters and research collaboration. Discus- sions were centred around three key questions: ‘Can there be research encounters and research collaboration without paternalism?’, ‘What effects do structural inequalities play in the meetings between European- based and African-based researchers?’ and ‘What should be, what are the roles at play when European and African researchers meet?’. Each participant prepared a written text based on his/her experiences and reflections which was circulated to all participants prior to the seminar, together with some carefully selected reading material. The papers and notes on what transpired Members of the research unit in Grissleham. In the back row: Liv Haram, in the discussions are being com- Catrine Christiansen, Nina Klinge-Nygård; middle row: Henning Melber piled for limited circulation, and and Redie Bereketeab; and in the front: Päivi Hasu, Ebrima Sall, Signe may be accessed upon request. Arnfred and Mai Palmberg.

Publications Received

The following publications have been submitted to the Institute for possible review:

Griffith-Jones, Stephany and José Antonio Ocampo, and South Africa. Stockholm: Expert Group on What Progress on International Financial Reform? Developmen Issues (EGDI), 2003:3. Why so Limited? and Ocampo, José Antonio and Hettne, Björn and Bertil Odén (eds), Global Govern- Maria Luisa Chiappe, Counter-Cyclical Pruden- ance in the 21st Century: Alternative Perspectives tial and Capital Account Regulations in Develop- on World Order. Stockholm: Expert Group on ing Countries. Stockholm: Expert Group on Developmen Issues (EGDI), 2002:2. Developmen Issues (EGDI), 2003:1. Olsson, Jan and Lennart Wohlgemuth (eds), Dia- Hadenius, Axel (ed.), Decentralisation and Demo- logue in Pursuit of Development. Stockholm: Ex- cratic Governance. Experiences from India, Bolivia pert Group on Developmen Issues (EGDI), 2003:2.

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