www.africa-confidential.com 5 April 2002 Vol 43 No 7 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL SIERRA LEONE 2 SIERRA LEONE Whose best friend? The war in which more than 50,000 Heading for the door people died was mainly about Problems with the election timetable and organisation undermine resources or people’s lack of them. the huge peacekeeping mission Now the government is being President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah seems sure to win Sierra Leone’s presidential election on 14 May. pushed to police the rogue gem trade that fired the fighting. He has support from Sierra Leoneans relieved that peace has come at last and from an international community (led by Britain) which sees him as the candidate most likely to follow its agenda. They hope that a second Kabbah presidency will at least reduce corruption and bring in new blood. His KENYA 3running mate, Attorney General Solomon Berewa, dismisses as ‘wild rumours’ talk that 70-year- old Kabbah has offered to step down after two years. Chairman Moi Donors had hoped a new Kabbah government would have a stronger mandate than the present one, President Moi and Trade Minister which was elected in 1996 in a poll that could not be held everywhere and whose term of office Biwott have used KANU’s merger officially ended a year ago. The main opposition is missing, though. Leaders of the Revolutionary with Raila Odinga’s NDP to United Front met on 1 April and threatened not to participate in the presidential and parliamentary reshuffle the party. As Chairman of the merged party, Moi will retain elections. Foday Sankoh, whom they want as their presidential candidate, is on trial for murder, sick great power and influence – even and in any event ineligible because he is not a registered elector. RUF Secretary General Pallo if he retires after the elections. Bangura, close to Sankoh, has been insisting, along with the RUF rank and file, on Sankoh’s right to stand. So by the deadline on 2 April, the RUF had not registered any candidate for the presidential GHANA 4 poll; the deadline was immediately extended as almost everyone hopes the RUF will reconsider. If the RUF stays out of the elections, it risks undermining the peace – declared just two months ago – Grabbing at growth between government and rebels. Frustrated by the manoeuvring, some senior RUF figures have defected and their spokesperson, Ghana is in political crisis after Jibril Massaquoi, has joined Kabbah’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). When the news clashes in Yendi resulted in the murder of the Dagomba King. This became public, an angry mob of RUF supporters beat him up. focuses attention on the weaknesses of President Kufuor’s Violent electoral legacy government: security lapses and a sluggish economy. The RUF was against holding elections in 1996 and its opposition led to widespread violence and intimidation. Corruption haunts the ballot-boxes. In late February, Clare Short, Britain’s International Development Minister, flew to Sierra Leone and flew straight back after delivering a ZIMBABWE 6 speech warning that further British support depended on an end to corruption. She spoke, perhaps fancifully, of ‘a strong mutual commitment to the building of a competent, transparent and uncorrupt Stalemate modern state’. Shrinking credibility and shortages Her speech, to an invited audience of government and opposition politicians and local non- of food are forcing President governmental organisations, coincided with the start of the election campaign, after which many Mugabe’s hand. Under pressure people will expect to be rewarded for standing by Kabbah and the SLPP. The anti-corruption from South Africa and Nigeria, he is negotiating with the opposition campaign gives the President advantages over his rivals and the process is overseen by Berewa, who MDC as more details emerge about won the nomination as vice-presidential candidate over the incumbent, Joe Demby. fraud in the March elections. The Chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Walter Nicol, isn’t universally admired. Nicol is a former Inspector General of Police who was sacked in 1994 by Captain Valentine Strasser’s military government for alleged ‘subversive political activities’. Now there ERITREA 6 are allegations in Freetown that Nicol has more legal problems and that Western officials have been Politics before pressing the Kabbah government for his removal. Yet in an interview with Africa Confidential, Attorney General Berewa elegantly dismissed the reports: ‘I’ve not heard that there’s anything like economics a corruption indictment against him or that he’s in any way corrupt.’ President Issayas is consolidating The international community relies on consultants from the International Foundation for Electoral his base and blocking Systems to keep the NEC on the straight and narrow. IFES has a solid reputation but tries to stay investigations into the war with diplomatic about the NEC; it has also been quick to defend the obvious faults in the recent elector Ethiopia, ahead of the elections. registration. Members of the Anti-Corruption Commission told Short of their frustrations, saying they had often compiled evidence of corruption by ministers and officials, only to find that nothing POINTERS 8 happened when they reported cases to government department; they suspected pressure was being applied. Nevertheless, Britain probably wouldn’t dare to cut off aid to a government that was Angola, CAR & rescued by British troops – and Prime Minister Tony Blair likes to claim Sierra Leone as a foreign Madagascar 5 April 2002 Africa Confidential Vol 43 No 7 Whose best friend? The slaughter in Sierra Leone was mainly about resources and financial difficulties in Angola and is now controlled by Lyndhurst most people’s lack of them. For decades, the Freetown elite and of South Africa, whose chairman, Antonio Teixeira, took over as its foreign friends kept the spoils of the diamond business; for company President in May 2001. In January 2000, Teixeira denied most of the past decade, the Revolutionary United Front controlled accusations by Peter Hain, then a junior minister in Britain’s the diamond fields of the east, matching its Freetown predecessors Foreign and Commonwealth Office, of sanctions-breaking by in corruption and brutality. In February, the RUF was driven from flying diesel to Angola’s União Nacional para a Independência the diamond fields and the chaos has widened as RUF-sponsored Total de Angola rebels. miners are joined by others working for politicians, generals and A British company, Mano River Resources, resumed exploration traditional rulers. in February on its three licences close to the Koidu pipes. Mano Friendly governments want President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah hopes to repeat its success in Liberia, where it has found kimberlites to get the business under control, to stop other rebel groups (and using new techniques in a similarly underexplored area (and enjoys perhaps terrorists) exploiting the trade to raise and transfer funds. close ties to President Charles Taylor). In January, Britain’s Department for International Development The British consultants’ report projects a rise in Sierra Leone’s published a study on reform and development of the business, diamond output from about 250,000 carats forecast for 2002, to prepared by AMCO Robertson Mineral Services. It lists options 750,000-1,000,000 carats in four to five years. That would increase of varying cost and complexity, from appointing an expatriate income from around US$50 million in 2002 to $180 mn. by 2006 commissioner to oversee the industry to establishing a new and require investment of $140-$200 mn., almost entirely from Diamond Authority or to strengthening the Ministry of Mineral abroad. (Artisanal mining would produce diamonds worth some Resources and the Gold and Diamond Office. The report $40-80 mn. and require investment of $5-$15 mn.) That would recommends that the 1996 Mines and Minerals Act should be raise direct government revenue from less than $1 mn. to more than complemented by a Diamond Act covering corruption, security, $7 mn. in four to five years, if all goes well. The industry could trading and exporting, plus social aspects. Many of the artisan employ 10,000 to 15,000 workers, indirectly employing as many as miners who sieve through mud for alluvial diamonds work in 140,000 people. appalling conditions for the Lebanese traders who dominate the There are also hopeful signs of a resumption of production early business. Britain will lend the President’s Office an official for next year at the Sierra Rutile (titanium) mine, now wholly owned a year, to give advice and to take the blame for unpopular by mining magnate Jean-Raymond Boulle, who in May 2001 decisions. acquired the 50 per cent stake owned by Australia’s Consolidated Most of the easily exploited resources have been worked out Rutile. Earnings from rutile exports could quickly outstrip those but the report identifies significant reserves, such as the from gemstones. Bauxite production is also set to resume soon. underground kimberlite deposits at Tongo and Kono. Branch Oil is the next prospect. Kabbah plans to offer offshore acreage Energy, which holds 60 per cent of a property with two known in a licensing round to be launched in late April or early May. The kimberlite pipes in Koidu near Kono, has reopened its Freetown acreage will be promoted by a United States’, Houston-based, office and started repairing its facilities (AC Vol 39 No 10). geological services company, TGS-NOPEC, and the endeavour Branch was driven out in 1998 after RUF rebels grabbed its could turn the election campaign spotlight towards oil and away concessions, and its operations are now overseen from from the distasteful diamond industry. As the economy recovers Johannesburg by its new South African managing director, from the civil war, farming, bauxite and rutile should revive.