The following briefing was originally published in Le Monde Diplomatique in 2005. Now, two years later, its relevance is all too apparent.
Kikuyus Muscle in on Security & Politics: Kenya's Righteous Youth Militia
Jean-Christophe Servant
Nairobi's 143 shantytowns are lawless zones patrolled by armed vigilante gangs of destitute youths. The largest and most remarkable of these militia is called Mungiki. It began as a spiritual movement but now mixes hustling and extortion with politics.
John Maina Njenga, head of the Mungiki militia, says: ‘The government is our number one advertising agency. The more they repress us, the more popular we get. Out of 4,000 prisoners here, more than 1,000 are Mungiki supporters.’ ‘Here’ is the high security Kamiti prison just outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The state has charged Njenga, 36, and 32 of his lieutenants with murder, and they are awaiting trial: ‘Twelve of us to a cell built for three, and with no mattresses.’ Not that Njenga is particularly worried about the verdict. ‘I am not guilty,’ he says, ‘we have been smeared by the media – it's just another manoeuvre against our movement.’
According to Kenyan newspapers, Mungiki is a private army, responsible for a high proportion of the many incidents of violence each day in Nairobi, a city whose population has reached an estimated 3 million in just over 100 years, and with one of the worst crime rates in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Mungiki is regularly implicated in attacks on police officers, hustling on public transport, murders, drug dealing and protection rackets. It is one of the most powerful of the informal regulators of Nairobi's 143 outlying shantytowns; some 60% of its citizens are crowded into these lawless places at 4,000 a hectare. Mungiki provides a private security service, dispensing the justice of the streets where police services are in tatters.2It is the black market equivalent of the legal private security firms that look after the posh areas (Nairobi, with its United Nations organisations, has more than 20,000 expatriates).
‘Total War’
The Kenyan government has declared ‘total war’ on Mungiki. The Nairobibased African Church Information Service calls its members ‘predators’ whose ‘thirst for blood is matched only by that of vampires’. Foreign journalists in Nairobi are alarmed by Mungiki's violent afro-centric fundamentalism: it favours female circumcision and is committed to fighting ‘the more degenerate aspects of western culture’.3But Njenga's 22-year-old girlfriend, Irene, is an uncircumcised, trouser-wearing, soul music fan. She drives us to Kamiti prison to meet him. ‘The Mungiki aren't barbarians,’ she says as we crawl through the citycentre traffic, ‘they're the young.’
Irene is not alone in her assessment: opinions on the movement vary enormously. Wangari Maathai, assistant minister for environment, natural resources and wildlife, who last year [2004] became the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize, calls Mungiki members ‘the disinherited, the ones who have been refused everything. The schools have rejected them for want of space and they haven't found work. As far as they can see, they're excluded from everything simply for being ethnic Kikuyus’.4 The United States mentioned the movement in its 2003 annual report on international religious freedom, noting that the Kenyan government ‘frequently harassed and periodically arrested and detained’ Mungiki members.
The chameleon character of the organisation partly explains why you get such surprisingly different assessments of it, depending on whom you ask. Mungiki is involved in some way in all of Kenya's problems: religious and ethnic frictions, political struggles, property rights and security, which is Kenya's biggest headache. ‘It really is unique among the new vigilante groups in Nairobi,’ says David Anderson, lecturer in African studies at Oxford University. ‘No other organisation places so much emphasis on ethnicity and the tribal past. More importantly, no other organisation has the same capacity for mass violence’.5But similar militias are springing up all over disinherited urban Africa, each with its own rules and principles – from the notorious Oduduwa People's Congress in Lagos, Nigeria, to South Africa's Pagad (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs).
Mau Mau Descendants
Mungiki is a Kikuyu word, meaning multitude. The organisation emerged in the early 1990s as a traditionalist sect on the lush, mountainous slopes of the Rift Valley, the result of a split within another Kikuyu roots movement, the Tent of the Living God. As a more self-con-sciously African variant of the American Pentecostalism practised by growing numbers of Kenyans, the Tent both celebrates the courage of an older generation of Kikuyus in the Mau Mau wars of independence,6and promotes Kikuyu beliefs about the origin of the universe.
Styling itself as ‘a prophet of doom’, the movement has provided young Kikuyus with ‘somewhere to migrate in their heads when they could no longer migrate in search of land to cultivate’, as Hervé Maupeu, head of the French Institute for African Research in Nairobi, puts it.7
Most of the young followers of the two movements are descendants of Mau Mau fighters killed by British colonial power. They take snuff ‘to stimulate the mind’ and wear dreadlocks ‘like so many wounds’, says Ngonya Wagakonya, spiritual leader of the Tent of the Living God, ‘so that we never forget how the Mau Mau were betrayed by one Kenyan government after another’. Wagakonya first encountered Mungiki in June 1992. ‘These youngsters weren't interested in me as their spiritual leader. They wanted to be autonomous; their movement has turned political. But though we may have ideological differences, they are still my children.’
The years 1991-94 saw widespread ethnic violence in the Rift Valley province, the work of the government of Daniel arap Moi, who is a Kalenjin, with Kikuyus being the main victims. The violence widened Mungiki's support base, as tens of thousands of refugees left the slopes of Mount Kenya and piled into the Nairobi slums.
Once established in the capital, Mungiki began to preach a mixture of ‘second coming’ theology and militant politics. In the poor areas of eastern Nairobi, where 60% of the population is aged between 15 and 29, the movement became the voice of a generation, tying its ethnic demands to social slogans and lining up beside other movements in the struggle for democracy against Moi's autocratic regime. ‘We saw Mungiki's leaders as human rights campaigners,’ recalls Njuguma Mutahi of People Against Torture.8‘The authorities were clamping down on the movement because of its social demands: land redistribution, help for the unemployed, improved living conditions in the shantytowns.’
A Player in the Violence Market
But Mungiki had also become a dynamic player in the most important market in Nairobi's lawless areas: violence. In the rent wars that pitted landlords against struggling tenants, Mungiki members could be hired to fight for either side.9They also serve as forces of order in areas ignored by the police, and extort money from drivers and passengers of Nairobi's commuter taxis (matatus) on the routes between the city centre and outlying slums such as Mathare or Dandaura.
By the 2002 presidential election, which brought defeat for Moi's ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) party, Mungiki was no longer a small sect, but an underworld, with hundreds of thousands of members and a considerable amount of money. In the electoral battle between Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kanu candidate anointed by Moi as his chosen successor, and Mwai Kibaki for the opposition National Rainbow Coalition (Narc), Mungiki could not be ignored. Despite its ill-treatment under Moi, Mungiki supported Kenyatta.
Moi's final 10 years in power saw a massive escalation in corruption. Endemic embezzlement among the political class was accompanied by assassinations of its ethnic Luo and Kikuyu opponents. Law and order degenerated into little more than the rule of the rich over the poor: the police and the legal profession were both notoriously corrupt. Most of Nairobi's outlying areas fell into the hands of gangs of vigilantes. As the 2002 election approached, these were politically mobilised as Jezis, street armies that ethnic chiefs traditionally reactivate at election time. ‘Friends became enemies overnight,’ says a former member of the Baghdad Boys militia. Hundreds of poor, unemployed young people ‘joined the politicians’ gangs just in the hopes of getting something to eat in the evening’.
Light weapons poured into the ghettoes where at least 7% of the population carried a gun, according to alarmed international observers. Mungiki's activities provided further justification for their alarm. The sect now had clear political ambitions, aligning itself with the enemies of the Kanu party.
A show of strength on 3 March 2002 proved that it had joined the ranks of the political street gangs and was no longer different from the rest. In the Kariobangi North area Mungiki members went on a punitive expedition against a rival militia known as the Taliban; 21 people died, and with them the great hopes that many young people had pinned on the movement, the only urban youth group to be based on a genuine social and political agenda. A few days later the Moi government banned Mungiki along with 17 other sects, gangs and private armies, blaming them for the rampant insecurity.
But Nairobi did not burn, defying many a gloomy prognosis. In December 2002 the Narc won the election and Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, became president, ending 24 years of Kanu party rule. Now, though, Kenya finds itself in a period of confusion where, as the Kenyan journalist David Kiare puts it, ‘no one dares make any kind of prognosis for the future’. Summing up the mood of dissatisfaction, popular slang has decided that Narc stands for ‘nothing ’as really changed’.
The largest two parties in the coalition, President Kibaki's National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK) and the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) led by Raila Odinga, a Luo, are locked in battle over constitutional reform to limit the powers of the executive.10 Meanwhile the ‘Mount Kenya mafia’, a clique of ministers and other Kikuyu friends of President Kibaki, are seen as a serious threat to national unity and the establishment of genuine democracy.11
The prices of essential goods have risen sharply and fares rocketed. This is a serious blow to the shantytowns, where 80% live on less than a US dollar a day. The Narc promised to set up a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ to look into crimes and abuses committed since independence, but is now dragging its feet.
Njuguma Mutahi, a Kikuyu, is not surprised: ‘How could it be any other way? Many members of this government as well as previous governments are or were involved with the militias. They might be OK with reconciliation, but they are frightened of justice.’ He finds it hard to maintain an objective position on Mungiki. Though its members may have committed acts of violence, ‘they have never had a chance to explain themselves. We can argue with their methods, but the things they have fought for are still of great importance. And frustration is growing with each generation. Every day the young become more radical and more violent. The person who succeeds in putting forward a programme based on these issues will have not only Mungiki's support, but that of all our country's disenfranchised youth.’
In Mathare Valley, one of Nairobi's largest and most notorious shantytowns, there has been a severe government clampdown on Mungiki activity. Hundreds of presumed members were arrested there in 2004, clogging up the detention centres. The police are even encouraged to shoot on sight. Yet on an ordinary day you cannot get into Mathare without Mungiki's permission. This even goes for police officers, according to the five I met in one of the made-for-guerrillas alleyways.
‘We Are Reinventing Ourselves’
We were led around Mathare by a group of Mungiki members. Their leader claims to have 1,600 local affiliates. ‘Sometimes we lend a hand to landlords for a percentage of their rent; we also clean up the rubbish and then go round collecting cash: 15 shillings a week per member. We reinvest the money.’ He says his group is not violent, but ‘we defend ourselves. Why should we turn the other cheek?’ ‘If I didn't have Mungiki, I'd be a street child,’ says a youngster. ‘I don't believe in politics. We will never be manipulated again. We are reinventing ourselves.’
Ezekiel Waruinge was Mungiki's national co-ordinator until recently, but then he experienced ‘divine revelation’ and joined the Neno Evangelical church, where he is now a prominent figure. He plans to pursue the same goals as he had with Mungiki with the youngsters who have followed him here,’but through Christianity, not Kikuyu tradition’. During the election period, Waruinge had ties with a number of high-ranking Kikuyu politicians, including the notorious current interior minister, Chris Munrungaru, who is suspected of affiliations with the Mount Kenya mafia. ‘I helped him get elected, and then he just did like they all do as soon as they are in office: he turned into a wild animal. He turned against us. But the Lord will be his judge.’
Many Mungiki members hold Waruinge responsible for compromising the movement through involvement with shady politicians, and call him a traitor. But though he is truly ‘born again’, he does not regret his association with Mungiki. He still prefers his old African name, Ndura, to Ezekiel and wants to fight against ‘the American evangelical churches’ demonisation of our tradition’.
‘Yes, we supported the Kanu candidate, Uhuru Kenyatta,’ he admits, ‘but the reason we supported him is that he is young.’ Kenyatta has since denied all association with Mungiki, but he is not fooling anyone. ‘Kikuyu history is a long series of betrayals,’ says Ndumgi Gotukhu of the Mulika association, which films and records the stories of people persecuted under previous Kenyan governments. ‘They fought for their lands and ended up with nothing. The politicians made similar promises to Mungiki, but the dream never materialised. But now the movement is reorganising, and the Mau Mau influence is even stronger in this third generation.’
Nairobi is the headquarters of the United Nations human settlements programme (UN-Habitat). It is also home to Kibera, sub-Saharan Africa's largest slum, where almost 700,000 people live in corrugated iron shacks. On 4 October 2004, World Habitat Day, the Kibaki government and UN-Habitat launched the Kenya slum upgrading programme, a plan to rehouse the slum-dwellers in blocks of flats with water and sanitation. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-Habitat, sees this project as a first step towards ‘improving poor Kenyans’ quality of life and employment prospects, as well as combating crime, especially among the young’.
But it needs to go further, says Juma Assiago of UN-Habitat's safer cities programme: ‘We need to promote real social inclusion, rather than a violent scramble to the top. Young people in Nairobi have developed a whole parallel society, and they are governed by their own values. The vigilante groups are one expression of this. But rather than stigmatising our young people as criminals, why not move towards recognising some of the values championed by this counter-cul-ture, and formalise its relations with institutions like the police?’ But would the state be prepared to recognise the legitimacy of a movement that is against the state? ‘Indeed. What we are talking about is the wholesale renewal of how this country is governed.’
The alarming Mungiki phenomenon is part of the erosion of political legitimacy and physical security in Nairobi, which continues to worsen as its population grows by 5% a year. Mungiki's next moves will decide what becomes of the sociological time bombs of the shantytowns. It will also determine the future of the Rift Valley, where ethnic resentment over land rights is threatening to boil over (see box oppposite). Could Mungiki be the new Mau Mau? Wangari Maathai does not doubt it: ‘If the oppression continues, if we keep on killing our brothers, there will be civil war in this country.’
Jean-Christophe Servant, e-mail: latitude4243@123456yahoo.fr. Translated from the French by Gulliver Cragg for Le Monde Diplomatique; see also by Jean-Christophe Servant: ‘Landless in the Rift Valley’, ‘Mau Mau’; www.mondediplo.com or www.monde-diplomatique.fr
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Mungiki, ‘Neo-Mau Mau’ & the Prospects for Democracy in Kenya
Awinda Atieno
Political insecurity in Kenya has recently focused attention on the emergence of the Mungiki movement. Depicted in the Kenyan media as a thuggish, criminal organisation set on disrupting the already insecure climate in Nairobi and its outskirts, a spate of Mungiki-attributed activity (numerous beheadings of Mungiki opponents, racketeering, vigilantism, extortion of matatu (taxi) businesses, forcible circumcision of women) has for obvious reasons been condemned in the press as unnecessarily brutal and savage.
The media portrayal of Mungiki echoes the moral panic and folk-devilling of the Mau Mau land, freedom and independence movement by the British press in Kenya and Britain during the Emergency in the 1950s. This is not to say that Mungiki are not responsible for some of the tragic events that have occurred in recent months, but rather to point out that the picture is far more complex than that propagated by the media and Kenyan government. In particular it is notable that Mungiki view themselves as the successors of Mau Mau. A multitude of questions remain unanswered surrounding Mungiki and the implications of their involvement in the political and democratic landscape of Kenya leading up to the general election in Kenya provisionally scheduled for November/ December 2007. An article by Jean-Christophe Servant (2005), reprinted in this issue of ROAPE, provides an excellent grounding in the roots and organisational structure of Mungiki. Here I reflect on a closer view, deriving from fieldwork carried out amongst youth activists in Nairobi from 2004 to the present (see also Katumanga, 2005)
A recent brutal crackdown by police on Mungiki in Nairobi has triggered an outcry from Kenya and beyond – from politicians, concerned citizens, NGOs and the international press. In a swoop aimed at recovering police guns said to have been stolen by Mungiki, extreme heavy-handed policing culminated in the killing of more than thirty innocent residents of the Mathare slum in Nairobi (Amnesty International Public Statement, June 2007). According to Amnesty this attack was precipitated by John Michuki, Minister of Internal Security in Kenya, allegedly declaring all Mungiki persona non grata. Michuki reportedly stated that:
We will straighten them and wipe them out. I cannot tell you today where those who have been arrested in connection with the recent killings are. What you will be hearing is that there will be burial tomorrow. If you use a gun to kill you are also required to be executed(Amnesty International, 2007).
One interviewee living in a Nairobi slum settlement in the east of the city described the climate of fear and tension in his ‘estate’:
there is so much happening with all this political heat in the air. … Michuki has already started a war up here. There is loads bullshit (sic) going on in Kenya … the police have already started harassing us youths here … we fear for our lives after Mathare(interview conducted 2007).
Amnesty International is further concerned that such remarks would appear to endorse the extrajudicial execution of criminal suspects, contrary to Kenya's obligations under international law. Amnesty International calls on the Kenyan authorities to establish an inquiry into the police killings of 5 and 7 June, in compliance with international standards which require thorough, prompt and impartial investigation of all suspected cases of extrajudicial executions. The inquiry should be carried out by a body which is independent of those allegedly responsible and has the necessary powers and resources. Its findings should be made public. Anyone identified by the inquiry as having been responsible for extrajudicial executions should be brought to justice in a trial which complies with international fair trial standards. The families and dependents of those killed shall be entitled to fair and adequate compensation within a reasonable period of time.
The Kibaki premiership's response to examples of corrupt governance and political scandal has been disappointing to those who expected a change. Amongst numerous examples are the Anglo Leasing affair (commonly referred to by Kenyans as ‘Anglo Fleecing’), Kamlesh Pattni's very premature release from prison following the Goldenburg Inquiry, John Githongo's dossier exposing gross state corruption and his subsequent self exile, Dr. Margaret Gachara's dazzlingly gross embezzlement of National AIDS Control Council funds, an attack on the offices of the Standard newspaper, and numerous incidents of harassment and intimidation of activists who dare speak out or act against the political establishment, such as Ngugi wa Thiongo and his wife Njeeri, and the tragedy of David Munyakei's last years.
How does all this affect the average Kenyan citizen? And how does it relate to Mungiki and the prospects for democracy in Kenya? The next section attempts to go some way in addressing these questions, using excerpts from hip-hop poetry that is recited there by youth as a form of entertainment, and quotes from interviews with residents of a slum settlement in the east of Nairobi.
Mungiki, ‘Neo-Mau Mau’ & Dispossessed Youth in Nairobi
In conducting research on gendered responses to youth unemployment in this shanty neighbourhood, I observed a thriving arts scene expressing high levels of awareness of the gap between rich and poor, as well as indescribable impoverishment. Residents of the estate and in particular those aged between thirteen and 35 had adopted a ‘neo-Mau Mau’ philosophy to describe, cope with and come up with solutions to their desperate situation as the lowest economic class in Nairobi. This came out strongest in Sheng hip-hop poetry. Sheng is a Swahili-English, hybrid and everevolving patois used by Nairobi youths.
The following are a selection of quotes illustrative of prevalent views in the settlement. Whilst not necessarily representative of the general population, they do exemplify the kinds of politicised views which are vocalised by youth through hip-hop. They express the anger and alliances of support which such youth maintain. I have chosen to use the phrase ‘neo Mau-Mau’ to describe the adoption and adaptation of Mau Mau philosophy exemplified here. However these were not Mungiki members and they had created no formalised grouping or political organisation.
The young people in that part of the ‘estate’ had simply got together and done what young people do everywhere: danced, sang, talked, gossiped, smoked ‘weed’ and flirted. Out of this heady atmosphere in conditions of hardship has come a new permutation of Mau Mau ideology through poetry which has become hugely popular and fashionable.
Sadly, these young people are being punished (arrested and persecuted) for their use of Mau Mau vocabulary, because it is being mistaken for direct association with Mungiki. There are some Mungiki elements in the ‘estate’, though nowhere near the levels reported by the press. I observed only one incident that could definitely be identified as Mungiki: a young man came to visit his cousin and people whispered that there was a Mungiki in their midst. The fear from the older people in the estate was that the government-sponsored persecution of the ‘neo-Mau Mau’ youngsters, coupled with an extremely high lack of employment opportunities, would lead to a fertile breeding ground for converts to the extremism of Mungiki.
The musicians were female and male residents of Dandora who had set up a youth collective that used music, theatre, arts, dance, football and gymnastics as a way of filling up the time left vacant by a widespread lack of employment in the formal sector and resulting scarcity of socio-economic resources.
On using hip-hop poetry and the arts as a form of didactic resistance and coping:
This refers to the government turning down an application for funding from the youth collective for a ‘poetry day’ event in their ‘estate’. This comment came from a young man who believed that the poetry sessions taught the youths about important issues that were not covered on the government school curriculum; for example, decisions about sexuality, anti-tribalism and gaps in Kenyan history that are glossed over in the curriculum like the Mau Mau and the oppression of the Kikuyu in Nairobi.
On the situation of the oppressed poor:
Hivi imepeta rangi ya ngozi, na kabila unajua ni mbili tu: maskini na mdosi(It has happened that things have gone beyond the colour of one's skin, you know now there are only two kinds of people: the poor and those who can employ the poor).
… kaploti hana, serekali wanataka kuwafukuza Nairobi(… the ones that don't have houses or a plot of land, the government wants to kick them out of Nairobi).
The youths saw themselves as persecuted by police shoot-to-kill policing methods and viewed this as a government ploy to run them out of Nairobi because they are poor, landless ‘troublemakers’.
Ni machozi yako ni ya nani vunja moyo, umeona sasa dunia imekutupa. Usikate tamaa … angalia saa, wewe ni shujaa (Those tears of yours whom are they for? They break the heart, you are seeing that the world has thrown you away. Please don't give up hope, look at these times, you are the real hero).
The youths didn't believe that Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki were the heroes of Kenya. They see themselves as the true heroes.
Civil society imepoteza social justice.(Civil society has lost any elements of social justice).
Economy ikona leakage … ecology ina decline … na ugonjwa ya syphilis … (There is a leakage in the economy … the environment is in decline … and the illnesses of syphilis [appear]…).
The youths saw Kenya as having too many problems that the government seemed unwilling to deal with properly on the ‘estate’ and beyond (e.g. lack of employment, government brutality, AIDS etc).
… ka Kenya ni Matrix na mimi ndio Neo (It's as if Kenya is the Matrix and I am Neo).
The youth identified with the fictional heroic (world-saving) character Neo in the film ‘The Matrix’ which they had watched in a ‘video café’ in the ‘estate’. Neo's struggle in the movie has become part of the language of these young Kenyans. They often say this when something goes awry in the ‘estate’ particularly if it seems like the government has let them down again.
On Mau Mau and the Kibaki, Moi and Kenyatta regimes:
Jasho, machozi, Mau Mau walipigania uhuru maspectators wakaenda na trophy (Sweat and tears, the Mau Mau fought for liberation then the spectators went with the trophy).
The ‘spectators’ are Kenyatta, his political elite and the British who benefited from Kenya economically and are viewed as still benefiting.
ka Kimathi akukua the one and then society got drunk na opium, inasemekana kama na Karl Marx(It is as if Kimathi wasn't the one and then society got drunk on opium like Karl Marx said).
Dedan Kimathi is viewed as the true liberator of Kenya by the youths. He was a well-known Mau Mau freedom fighter who was executed by the British during the Emergency. He is rumoured to have been executed with Kenyatta's approval (see Elkins, 2005 for background to this).
On the insecurity in Nairobi, rape and powerlessness:
Njeeri bibi ya Ngugi wa Thiongo ukoo strong sana too sana … writer mfamous aliyibiwa na wife yake akarapiwa ndio hio asante aka patiwa kuwatolewa maideas yakuwasaida kubadilisha city(Njeeri, wife of Ngugi wa Thiongo, you are strong, so strong, too strong … a famous writer was robbed and his wife raped and that's the thanks he got for imparting ideas to help people change the city of Nairobi for the better).
Na pay tax to be harassed daily(I pay tax to be harassed every day).
Mothers can't even protect their babies, wanaume hawezi protect their ladies… vita za bundiki tangu era za nyayo (Mothers can't protect their babies and men can't protect their women …wars with guns here since the days of the Moi regime).
Locating Mungiki and ‘neo-Mau Mau’ in the global context:
Paul Rogers (2007, personal discussion) commented on the Mungiki phenomenon, asserting that these kinds of groups are increasingly becoming a feature of the globalised market which fosters ‘growth without emancipation’. He believes that the contemporary era is characterised by a widening gulf between the richest and the poorest, with a huge gap where a middle class (classes) tended to emerge in less aggressively globalised decades. Moreover, according to Rogers, the majority on the margins are more likely to have some education, with at least four years of primary school education on average in countries in the South, thus changing the aspirations and educational sophistication of the lowest economic classes worldwide. In his book Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century, he writes: ‘… the combination of a widening rich-poor gap with an increasingly knowledgeable poor, is leading to a revolution of unfulfilled expectations’. He gives the Sendero Luminoso of Peru and Hamas as examples of this.
Applying Rogers's thesis to Mungiki in Kenya we could note that the economy is thriving but there is no trickle-down effect. The mass of Kenyans have been let down by every regime since independence, though educational opportunities have also increased with each passing decade. In a situation of ‘unfulfilled expectations’, Mungiki represents itself as the revolutionary element. The prospects of democracy for Kenya remain to be seen. Unless Mungiki are brought to the negotiating table to at least explain their objectives, things look set to get worse. As one alarmed interviewee from a Mungiki-populated area told me:
Nairobi may fall. We hear Mugiki are storing bundikis [guns] bought from the Somalis. We hear they want to kill the rich in Lavington, Karen and Westlands [affluent Nairobi suburbs]. The young men in Mungiki are angry(2007).
Awinda Atieno , c/o of editor@123456roape.org
Profiles of Courage: Ramogi Achieng' Oneko
Peter Anyang' Nyong'o
When he passed away on 9 June 2007 at his lakeside home in Kunya village in Rarieda in Nyanza Province, Kenyans mourned him as the last of the Kapenguria Six. The little town of Kepenguria gained notoriety in Kenya's struggle for independence when it became the scene for the trial of Jommo Kenyatta, Achieng' Oneko, Paul Ngei, Kungu Karumba, Bildad Kaggia and Fred Kubai (the Kapenguria Six).
In what was essentially a kangaroo court, the six were found guilty of having been involved in organising the Mau Mau rebellion against the colonial order and were put into detention following their arrest on 20 October 1952. This date, celebrated since independence as Kenyatta Day, should appropriately be celebrated as the National Heroes Day, or, more specifically, as the day of the Kapenguria Six. Jommo Kenyatta never accepted, either at the trial or later on in life, that he was involved in the Mau Mau. What he conceded to and had no apology for was that he had always championed the freedom of the African people from colonial oppression, and in this he had freely associated with other Kapenguria colleagues in organising the first nationalist political party in Kenya, the Kenya African Union (KAU). Kenyatta's association with Oneko can therefore be rightly traced to their work in KAU in which Oneko featured as a prolific ideologue, political organiser and superb tactician.
Born in 1920 to peasant farmers and later christened as Richard, Oneko attended Maseno missionary school and was taught by the legendary Carey Francis and the fiery Kenyan nationalist, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. He was a good athlete who always excelled in the short distance races. He was eloquent in speech and attracted friends and admirers with ease. His elegant gait and love for smart dressing earned him the nickname Nyakech which means ‘antelope’, an animal the Luo people admire for its gracefulness and charm.
My father, the late Canon Hezbon Shimei Nyong'o, was only two years older than him when they attended Maseno school together and lived in the same dormitory. This generation of Luo intelligentsia, led by Jaramogi and Oneko, founded the Luo Thrift and Trading Corporation (LUTATCO) as a cooperative and business entity to pool resources together for business ventures and trading. They built office blocks in Kisumu, established a supermarket in Maseno (Maseno Stores), ran posh mills in various market places in Nyanza, built houses and real estates under the direction of Mzee Ong'er and published newspapers which Oneko edited – Ramogi and Nyanza Times. It was around this time that Oneko dropped his name Richard and took Ramogi; the initial ‘R’ remained the same.
A few months before he was arrested with Kenyatta for involvement in KAU activities – and hence Mau Mau – Oneko introduced Kenyatta to Jaramogi while the latter was on a visit to Kisumu. Once the two were detained, Odinga took it upon himself to continue the struggle for Kenya's freedom and to demand for their release.
The first election of African members to the Legislative Council in 1957 was therefore held with the Kapenguria Six still under detention although the Mau Mau as a rebellion had virtually been defeated. Jaramogi, however, rallied African nationalists, and African Members of the Legislative Council – organised as the African Elected Members Organization (AEMO) – to champion the release of the detainees as a priority in the agenda for independence. In this, Jaramogi was ably supported by Thomas Joseph Mboya and C.M.G.
Argwings-Kodhek, who had also acted as the lawyer of many of the Mau Mau detainees and their families. When Oneko was finally released together with Kenyatta in 1961, he was already more than a household name in the Kenyan political landscape. He immediately assumed his responsibilities as Kenyatta's private secretary planning the logistics of the nationalist campaigns and running in the inside lane when Kenyatta took over the leadership of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) that year. In the so-called Kenyatta Election of 1963, Oneko captured the Nakuru Town seat on a KANU ticket, trouncing his nearest rival by thousands of votes. When Kenya gained independence on 12 December 1963, Achieng' Oneko was in Kenyatta's first cabinet of some powerful eighteen ministers. He was minister for Information, Broadcasting, Wild life and Tourism. Oneko performed his duties with alacrity and commitment to national goals. He initiated, nurtured and established the Kenya News Agency (KNA) which has remained the back bone for news gathering in government to date. Many of the people trained through the KNA went ahead to join the private sector media houses and to build them to what they are today.
Post-independence politics led to differences between Oneko and Kenyatta that somehow became irreconcilable. Oneko strongly believed in championing the interests of the poor, particularly with regard to access to land. Like his political comrades Jaramogi Oginga and Bildad Kaggia, he was an uncompromising Fabian Socialist who could not put his total faith in the market as the ‘deliverer of development to the common man’. At that point in time African socialism as was expounded by Nyerere in ‘Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism’ was in vogue. Oginga Odinga and Achieng' Oneko were perhaps the strongest Nyerereist on the north-western side of the Kilimanjaro.
Kenyatta's Vice President Odinga had too strong of a popular base to be ignored by KANU. Combined with Mboya's support in the trade union movement and the growing middle class, Kenyatta and his ethnic associates found themselves out of depth in controlling KANU. The first scheme in 1965-66 was to marginalise Odinga with Mboya's help. This succeeded at the famous Limuru Conference in 1966 which saw Odinga, Oneko and other left-wingers move out of KANU to form the Kenya People's Union (KPU) whose manifesto, ‘The Wananchi Declaration’ was written as an alternative to Mboya's ‘African Socialism and its Application to Planning in Kenya.’
Achieng' Oneko's resignation speech from Kenyatta's government remains to this day a solid example of words of integrity, well thought out and succinctly summarising the crisis of moral authority that African nationalists faced at that point in time with regard to the aspirations of the masses. Oneko stated that he was painfully leaving a government he had helped to put together, but one he had to leave because of its departure from the principles that were supposed to be its foundation. He could no longer justify to himself why he flew a flag as a minister, symbolising the independence of Kenyan Africans, while he himself was still literally in chains.
The years in the KPU were both exciting as well as frustrating. Exciting in the sense that the majority of the people supported the ideas expressed by the KPU leadership. Frustrating because the Kenyatta government made it difficult for the KPU to operate as the authoritarian state grew vicious by the day. I joined the KPU Youth League while in high school in 1966.
Poised to win the Local Government elections in 1968, Tom Mboya manipulated the process thereby disqualifying all KPU candidates except Mrs Grace Onyango in Kisumu. Soon after that the political entourage behind Kenyatta began plotting to get rid of Mboya. Achieng' Oneko became the intermediary between Tom Mboya and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga. Given the plot against Mboya it became necessary for the two to come together. Both Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Milton Obote of Uganda felt this rapprochement was vital, and several messages were exchanged through intermediaries to speed up this process soon after the sudden death of Kenya's Foreign Affairs Minister in early 1969. I was at that point in time a student at Makerere University in Kampala, and a student leader on the campus. I was also active in KPU politics and got to know the goings on in the party.
When the news of Mboya's assassination on that fateful Saturday morning of 5 July 1969, it is said that he almost fainted. The history of Kenya was never to be the same again; generations of Kenyans have been adversely affected by that event. It is quite possible that Kenya would have followed in the footsteps of Singapore had that bullet not been fired at one o'clock on Government Road that day. By the end of that year, Kenyatta had proscribed the Kenya People's Union, detained all its leaders and turned Kenya into a one-party state. The British Government, styling itself as the flag bearers of democracy; the US government, never reluctant to proclaim its support for freedom everywhere did not say anything against Kenyatta. Oneko ended up spending another six years in detention under a government he had fought to establish by spending eight years in detention under the colonialists.
Ramogi Achieng' Oneko was released from detention in 1976 when I was about to finish my graduate school work at the University of Chicago. When I came back to Nairobi in 1977 to teach at the University of Nairobi, I visited him at his modest house in Woodley Estate and we had some porridge together. He was as lively and as cheerful as ever. He had no trace of bitterness in him. He laughed mirthfully; we immediately started plotting on how we could still play an active role in Kenyan politics.
Some after that we put together a group of academics with his son Ongong'a to discuss this matter further at the Woodley residence one Saturday afternoon. The question was: in the likely event that Kenyatta passes away, what would be the best alliance the pro-Odinga forces should make so as to be in government under KANU? We came out with several scenarios but agreed that all had to be kept secret else the secret police would make mince meat of us before we put anything in practice. Unfortunately one big mouth left the place to boast immediately in a public bar how Oneko had been consulting him on some political project. We buried the scheme before it was even born!
With Kenyatta's death in August 1978 and the ensuing politics under Moi and Njonjo, Oneko became very cautious. Some time in 1980 Hezekiah Ougo resigned his Bondo seat so that Jaramogi would take it over. This was with the understanding that Jaramogi would team up with Moi so as to help give some political counter weight to the Kikuyu bourgeoisie. We were at that point in time also raising funds for the building of the Ramogi Institute for Advanced Technology (RIAT). Oneko was the chairman of the Nairobi committee.
I noticed one Friday morning that the Weekly Review had carried a rather unflattering article abound Odinga, and warned Oneko that we should shield Odinga from journalists that weekend. Odinga was due to be travelling to Mombasa that evening and I pleaded with Oneko to accompany him so that Oneko would ensure that his public utterances and interactions did not fall into the trap I saw being laid by the Weekly Review. Oneko declined arguing that Moi's system was more preoccupied with the ‘Muthemba Trial’ than what was going on in our camp. Muthemba, a close associate of Charles Njonjo, had then been accused of plotting to overthrow Moi's government.
Odinga's journey to the Coast proved fatal. In a public address he accused Kenyatta of having been a land grabber and promised the Coast people that he would join Moi's government to help the president fight this vice. The next day the forces in this government, including Moi himself, denounced Jaramogi. The Bondo seat disappeared from both Ougo and Odinga; the land grabbers had joined ranks; forgot about Nuthemba and once more threw Oneko and Odinga into the political limbo. When I met Oneko in the wake of these events, all he could tell me was A Luta Continua!
In 1989 we started plotting seriously to restore democracy to Kenya. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall we felt the global scene was changing fast and very soon we would have more friends to support our stand within and outside Kenya. Bishop Henry Okullu and I started working within the Church. We communicated with Jaramogi as well. Very soon we brought in Oneko, then Luke Obok and Munyua Waiyaki. Okullu introduced me to Paul Mwite, and I introduced Mwite to my friend Joe Ager. We decided to form a team to start working on an opposition political party which we eventually called The National Democratic Party (NDP), the forerunner of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy.
I noticed during our struggle to organise the NDP that Oneko was no longer as fiery as he used to be. He was becoming more cautious, more circumspect in doing things. This was quite understandable. For a man who had spent 14 years in detention a time comes when you want to say that life needs to be lived a bit at a time, and that those who come after us must also continue with the struggle: A Luta Continua. With the passing on of Oneko (Nyakech, Mbalawandu) a generation of profiles in courage in Kenyan politics is gone. The only unfortunate thing is that Oneko did not live long enough to witness the final transition to democracy in Kenya. This, I dare say, is a legacy we have to pass on to Oneko's family as a cherished memory of one who fought wisely and enduringly that we may be free from colonial oppression as well as post-colonial authoritarianism.
Peter Anyang' Nyong'o,e-mail: anyongo@123456yahoo.com. See also Anyang' Nyongo's' articles in ROAPE: Special Issue on Kenya, 1981 (No. 20) and in July 1992 (No. 54).
DARFUR: STOP! Confrontational Rhetoric
Julie Fint
The one bright light in the dismal international response to the slaughter and starvation in Sudan's Darfur region has been a humanitarian effort that has kept more than two million displaced people alive. In the fifth year of the war, mortality levels among Darfurians reached by relief are marginally better than they were before the war – and lower, remarkably, than in the suburbs of the capital, Khartoum. In South Sudan, where a peace agreement signed in January 2005 officially ended a 21-year civil war, children have worse life chances: higher death rates and lower school enrolment.
This is a formidable achievement, better than achieved in any other comparable war zone in Africa. Credit is due to the likes of Oxfam, Mercy Corps and Medecins Sans Frontieres, and their 13,000-strong army of relief workers – 90% of them Sudanese.
All this would be lost if US Democratic presidential candidates got their wish and a no-fly zone were militarily enforced over Darfur in an attempt to pressure the Sudan government into allowing the immediate deployment of a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. ‘If they fly into it, we will shoot down their planes,’ Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said recently. ‘It is the only way to get their attention.’
That it most certainly would. But what then?
Aid agencies operational in Darfur are quietly but unanimously appalled by the prospect of a no-fly zone. They believe Khartoum would respond by grounding humanitarian aircraft and, in a worstcase scenario, by forcing all aid agencies to leave, with no possibility of return. They warn, too, that, there is a high probability that humanitarian assets would be hit if government assets at airports were hit, since the two share the same locations and warehousing sites. Without humanitarian air access, Darfurians would soon suffer massive health and food crises. The quickest and safest evacuation routes for humanitarians would be cut. In the event of heightened military activity on the ground, Darfurians would either be trapped or caught in the crossfire. The people of Kosovo and Bosnia had easier access to host countries. Darfur is vast and dry. Its people would not be able to flee to safety easily.
We do not support the military enforcement of a no-fly zone over Darfur,’ a relief planner told ROAPE. ‘We are skeptical of its effectiveness to stop the main source of insecurity for civilians: attacks on the ground by proxy militias, between rival groups and between parties to the conflict. We also do not support non-consensual military intervention. We believe both measures could do more harm than good, because of the expected retaliation against civilians and aid workers and end to aid operations.
Today, as Khartoum's proxy Janjaweed militias turn against each other, rebel movements fragment and banditry spirals out of control, millions of Darfurians who depend on humanitarian assistance can be reached only by air. UN and AU traffic accounts for nine of every ten planes flying in Darfur, and some agencies deliver as much as 90% of their supplies using aircraft. The collapse of the humanitarian apparatus would be a death sentence for Darfurians – especially those who are receiving food, clean water and shelter in the camps for the displaced in government-controlled areas.
A major concern is that aircraft belonging to the Sudan government would be difficult to distinguish from humanitarian aircraft, making it hazardous to fly. The United Nations and African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) have both publicly have reported that the Sudanese Air Force has intentionally made its aircraft look like humanitarian and AU aircraft in order to hinder monitoring of the ceasefire. Humanitarian workers are concerned that deceptions like this could escalate if a no-fly zone were military imposed, perhaps with disguised military planes taking off at the same time as humanitarian flights.
‘My first concern is how to implement the no-fly zone without hindering humanitarian air flights,’ says a relief official with long experience of Sudan. ‘The Humanitarian Air Service of the World Food Programme alone operates 16 aircraft doing 30 rotations a day between Khartoum and Darfur and within Darfur. One can fear that distinguishing between military flights, humanitarian flights and commercial flights would be very difficult. This might imply a preflight clearance system with the military authority in charge of enforcing the nofly zone, a system which could hinder the flexibility of the humanitarian air service. This without considering the fact that enforcing a no-fly zone means basically shooting at planes without clearances – an act of war which might trigger retaliations by the Sudanese army against humanitarian workers on the ground …
The cost might be politically acceptable if aerial bombardments were responsible for a large number of deaths. But while air bombing has a major psychological impact in distilling fear and terror among the population, the number of people being killed by aerial bombardment in Sudan is limited.
In April 2003, addressing an open-air rally in el Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, President Omar Bashir promised to ‘unleash’ the army to crush the rebellion launched a few months earlier by Darfur's two newly-emerged rebel movements - the Sudan Liberation Army and smaller Justice and Equality Movement. But it was not just the army and its proxy Janjaweed militias that the regime unleashed. It was the air force. Ground attacks that killed hundreds of people were coordinated with Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships that flew before, during and after the offensives – often, it seemed, to ensure that there were no survivors.
I spent a month in West Darfur early in 2004 and met hundreds of members of the Masalit tribe, a farming people who had already been the target of a govern-ment-supported war in the late 1990s. Their stories were remarkably consistent. Government planes, they said, had bombed Masalit villages heavily and systematically between August 2003 and February 2004, when I began my research.
Typically, the village of Tunfunka in West Darfur was bombarded by two Antonovs on 7 February 2004, killing eight people. A 28-year-old villager who witnessed the bombardment said the Antonovs returned the following day, but did not bomb. He surmised this was because the village had been completely destroyed; there was nothing left to burn. On 27 August 2004, at least 26 civilians died in the town of Habila when Antonovs launched the fiercest bombardment of the war thus far. Jamal Abdul Hamman Arbab, a graduate of Khartoum University who was visiting relatives in Habila at the time, saw his brother, sister and two nephews killed. Five others were wounded, including his mother and another two brothers.
Antonovs bombed Habila six times that day,’ he told me. ‘There are many questions about this bombing: there were police in Habila, and army. But Habila was full of people displaced by attacks on villages all around. We think the bombing was because of the displaced.
The air campaign of 2003-4 was qualitatively different from aerial bombardment in other, earlier Sudanese theatres. Antonov cargo planes were no longer blindly scattering barrels of explosives. The army had acquired ground-attack helicopters and tactical support aircraft that delivered their deadly loads with a new precision – most lethally, according to eyewitnesses, when targeting columns of displaced people.
When it was finally, belatedly taken to task, the Sudan government simply denied it was using planes. In Darfur, this claim was treated with the contempt it deserved.
A no-fly zone as a solution to Darfur's increasingly complex crisis is an easy sound bite for presidential hopefuls eager to harness the massive grassroots support enjoyed by the Save Darfur Coalition, the high-profile, high-decibel advocacy movement which has campaigned vigorously for this. But those who are demanding a no-fly zone are reading from an outdated script. The numbers of civilians killed by air attacks this year is in the dozens. It's a shocking crime for a government to bombard its own people. But it's simply wrong to say, as Senator Hillary Clinton did during a speech in Washington at the end of June, that US action should be ‘focused on the air support the Sudanese provide to the Janjaweed as they rape and pillage their way through villages.’ Aerial bombardment, Clinton claimed, ‘comes before, during and after.’
In 2003-2004, it did. In 2007, it does not. The worst violence in Darfur this year has not been caused by aerial bombardment, or by Janjaweed attacks against villages, as it was at the height of the conflict in 2003-4. Darfur in 2007 is not Rwanda. There is a multiplicity of conflicts in Darfur today – government vs. rebel, rebel vs. rebel, former rebel vs. rebel, Arab vs. Arab, Janjaweed vs. Arab, Central Reserve Police vs. Popular Defense Forces, armed bandits vs. anyone with anything to loot… The most lethal battles this year have been caused by fights over land between Arab militias initially armed by Khartoum but now fighting each other. A distant second is attacks on rebel-controlled villages by former rebels now alighed with the Sudan government. Not once has there been bombing ‘before, during and after’ attacks. Today, stopping military flights wouldn't make much of a difference to the Darfurian people.
On 13 July, the US envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, seemed to imply that it would, thereby giving fuel to the interventionist lobby in the US – a lobby that some see as an obstacle to peace because of the influence it exerts over the US Congress. This infuence, one of Ameri-ca's most eminent Sudan scholars says, ‘intimidates the State Department and hinders any rational approach to Sudan.’
After a brief visit to Darfur in July, Natsios told a news conference in Khartoum:
After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur … We urge the Sudanese government to end all bombing in Darfur immediately.
The background to the renewed bombardment is this: addressing visitors to the Holocaust Museum in Washington on Remembrance Day, in mid-April, President Bush launched a broadside against the rebels who refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006. ‘They're roaming the Darfur countryside pillaging and stealing at will,’ he said. ‘They have killed civilians, they've plundered vehicles and plundered supplies from international aid workers, they've added to the lawlessness. The government in Khartoum has been unable to control the problem.’ He might as well have said ‘unfortunately’.
A few days after Bush spoke, Khartoum took its helicopter gunships out of wraps and attacked the area of north Darfur where scores of non-signatory commanders from the Sudan Liberation Army were meeting to try to unify their ranks and their negotiating position. First Antonov bombers struck north of Amarai, the village in which the commanders were gathering. There were no casualties. Then they struck south, killing a young woman. Four days after Bush's grotesquely exaggerated accusation, they hit the conference site itself - unleashing two Antonovs and two helicopter gunships in the most brazen and egregious violation of the ceasefire in many months. They did not hit the commanders, who were hidden from sight in Amarai's wooded valley. They hit Amarai village and its small market. One SLA leader claimed the bombardment killed 26 civilians. Privately, another said the true toll was two. A third said it was three.
‘I do not think we have to convince the world there are abuses in Darfur,’ he said. ‘We have to keep ourselves honest, or we will lose our credibility.’
‘Yes, the air strikes need to stop,’ said one relief official in Darfur, ‘but this is no more than one of many protection issues – and it's not the biggest problem. It's still completely true to say that the biggest threat to civilians is from ground attacks rather than air.’
Enforcing a no-fly zone would in any case be a phenomenal challenge: Darfur is bigger than Iraq and nearly 50 times larger than Kosovo, with the nearest airfields in Chad themselves a vast distance away from any NATO bases. Many military planners doubt its practicality. Humanitarians are concerned that a military approach to a no-fly zone would require bases in Chad. They believe this could exacerbate tensions between Sudan and Chad and undermine security and the peace processes in and between both Sudan and Chad.
The humanitarians’ opposition to a nofly zone has not diminished the enthusiasm for it of presidential hopefuls. In a YouTube debate among them on 23July, Sen. Clinton proposed that the US military take over the humanitarian airlift to Darfur in the event of a no-fly zone leading to the grounding of humanitarian flights. She did not explain how the US military would deliver aid to those whose lives depend on it even if, as seems unlikely, US troops got as far as el Fasher without adding fuel to the existing fire.
‘In theory perhaps 2500 US troops could secure the airfields and the supply routes to the camps for the displaced,’ said Alex de Waal, programme director at the Social Science Research Council and a director of Justice Africa. ‘But we can be sure that the Sudan government would strenuously object and we would be locked into another cycle of escalating threats and counter-threats. For what? To stop the air force – a minor player in Darfur's crisis today – from flying. I cannot think of a serious humanitarian or human rights organization that advocates anything approaching this. It's very strange that politicians should be advocating a no-fly zone when most activist groups have abandoned the idea.’
De Waal warned that Darfur was becoming a blank screen onto which US politicians projected their moral credentials.
‘A simplified genocide narrative is getting in the way of seeing Darfur with any clarity,’ he said. ‘The presidential hopefuls are floating military proposals that might have made sense at the height of the Bosnian war or the Rwanda genocide, but which bear little relation to the realities of Darfur today. In his testimony to the House of Representatives in April, John Prendergast of ENOUGH spoke of the dangers of a no-fly zone, remarking that taking this action resulted in a humanitarian crisis, that crisis would be on ‘our watch’ and therefore the US should be ready to deploy ground forces to sustain the humanitarian effort. It is a short step from this position to advocating an invasion for humanitarian purposes.’
Khartoum is already claiming that international aid organizations are agents of hostile Western governments whose ultimate goal is regime change. Threats of coercive military action are giving oxygen to regime hardliners. A military strike would most likely hand President Omar al Bashir the same kind of propaganda victory he scored when American cruise missiles knocked out a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum in 1998.
Sound bites are no substitute for solutions. To address the problem of air strikes, those who work in Darfur – and who understand how the Sudan government works – want strengthened monitoring of hostile flights as envisaged under UN Security Council resolution 1591. This would require permanent AMIS access at airfields, where government officials routinely make access difficult, with no curfew limitations. To be really effective, it would require new resources for the already overstretched AU forces.
Those concerned about Darfur – primarily the United States, Britain and, since the election of President Nicolas Sarkozy, France – must stop indulging in confrontational rhetoric, empty threats and megaphone diplomacy. Instead, they must support efforts to mend rebel divisions, engage constructively with Khartoum, and encourage new peace talks that are not tied to artificial deadlines. They must push for strengthened monitoring and public reporting of hostile flights, and develop an international consensus for effective actions to change the situation where it would really make a difference – on the ground. AMIS needs to be strengthened immediately, with a new mandate that authorizes its troops to protect the camps for the displaced.
As with medicine, the humanitarian's first obligation is to do no harm. All talk of coercive military action must end – it's recklessly dangerous and doesn't address real solutions. The road to hell is still paved with good intentions.
Julie Flint , e-mail: flintjulie@123456hotmail.com
Editor's Note: In the cacophony buzz that surrounds these issues the frustration is acute amongst those who care passionately about the Sudanese people. We ask ourselves, ‘have they taken leave of their senses'? The ‘they’ being those who profit from this despicable tragedy. Many thanks to Julie for continuing to speak out where few do (and a plug for her book!)
Darfur: A Short History of a Long War by Julie Flint & Alexander De Waal published by ZED Books, London.
Nigeria: Contested Elections & an Unstable Democracy
Usman A. Tar & Alfred B. Zack-Williams
On 14 and 21 April 2007, Nigerians went to the polls to elect a President, 36 State Governors, 109 Senators (Upper House of Parliament), and 360 members of the House of Representatives (Lower House). The elections were supposed to showcase Nigeria's capacity to conduct – for the first time in the country's 47 years of independence – a peaceful transition from one ‘democratic’ regime to another (HRW, 2007c). Two previous elections of this nature (1983 and 2003) proved disappointing, as they became a mere charade for reproducing regimes in powers. Indeed, 2007 turned out to be a case of deja vu, as President Olusegun Obasanjo who had been rebuffed by the legislators in his quest for an unprecedented and unconstitutional third term, succeeded in thwarting the political ambitions of his rivals by imposing his chosen successor – Musa Yar'Adua – the younger brother of his erstwhile military comrade, General Shehu Yar'Adua.
Like all previous post-Independence elections, the 2007 elections were full of controversies and were widely condemned as fraudulent, violent and stagemanaged by the outgoing president Olusegun Obasanjo and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party. The nature of the conduct of the elections has generated widespread anger and fury amongst Nigerians, as well as local and foreign observers. In spite of this, both the outgoing President and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) defiantly declared that the elections though far from perfect, yet, the faults do not warrant cancellation. Indeed, Obasanjo warned that the elections should not be judged against the standards of mature democracies of Europe and America. Hence, on 29 May Presi-dent-Elect, Musa Yar'Adua of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was sworn in amidst much international and local displeasure.
In this briefing, we shall examine the elections as an indicator of the country's crisis of democracy. In the following section, we briefly examine why democratic consolidation and, therefore, peaceful elections have defied Nigeria. Thereafter, we assess the conduct and outcome of the elections, public reactions, and implications for Nigeria's fledgling democracy.
Background: Nigeria's Crises of Governance & Democracy
The Nigerian ‘state’ (particularly access to state resources and power) has been a subject of fierce contestation between different factions of the ruling class and components of the federation (federal ‘centre’ versus federating ‘states’). Given the contentious nature of Nigerian federalism, democracy and nation building have proved elusive. In the aftermath of independence, the Nigerian ruling class failed to deliver a functioning and viable democracy resulting in periodic military intervention in the nation's affairs. Elected representatives became local champions, drawing support from their disparate religions/ ethnicities, effectively transforming the state into a theatre of ethnic politics.
Between 1960-1966, Niger-ia's first experiment in Westminster-style ‘liberal democracy’ failed as politicians abused state power for personal aggrandisement and perpetuating power through appeal to ethnic and regional cleavages. This paved the way for a prolonged military intervention (1966-1979) as well as a bloody civil war (1967-1970) in which over one million lives were lost and vital social and physical infrastructures destroyed. Between 1979 and 1983, Nigeria witnessed a second democratic experiment led by Alhaji Shehu Shagari, a politician who had served as junior minister in the first Republic. The new democratic government reinvented the ills of the first republic. In particular, the ruling class resorted to ‘prebendal politics’ (Joseph, 1983) by transforming the state into an instrument of personal enrichment through a client-patron relationship between the political class and those loyal to it.
On 31 December 1983, the military overthrew the Shagari administration on the grounds of the rapidly deteriorating economic situation and the turmoil that followed the rigged 1983 national elections by the ruling National Party of Nigeria. The military remained in power, largely through deceit, repression and manipulation, for a protracted period (1983-1999), in what has been described as a period of ‘permanent transition’ (Beckett & Young, 1997). In spite of achieving democracy, Nigerians have not witnessed the so-called ‘democratic dividends’: the transition to civilian rule has not delivered a democratically accountable government for Nigerians. The usual chaos and rancour that characterised politics in the first and second republics are evident in the new democratic era, and continue to pervade public life. Governments and elected representatives at all levels of the federation are preoccupied with self-centred ‘power politics’, rather than social welfare.
A number of pervasive indicators are evident in Nigerian politics, with adverse implications for the conduct of ‘elections’ and democratic consolidation. First is the politicisation of sectarian differences, particularly by politicians who use it as a means to achieving and perpetuating power. A second feature is the militarisation of the state and political culture, resulting largely from prolonged military rule and its attendant institutionalisation of violence. It is worth noting that a significant proportion of the Nigeria ruling class, including some ‘civilian democrats’ and political appointees are ex-military men with an infectious penchant for ‘barrack culture’. A third pervasive feature which complements the above is the privatisation of violence, particularly the establishment of private and party militias by politicians as a means of protecting their loot from state plundering by demonstrating the power of the gun and intimidating rival politicians and members of the public. The privatisation of violence produces a multiplier effect of violence: as various militias seek to intensify their defences, the state in turn resorts to massive firepower to rein in militants. A fourth feature is the personalisation of state apparatus by those in power – often for personal gain and enforcing legitimacy. Key examples include a) alleged conversion of the Nigerian anti-corruption commission by the outgoing president, as a designer agency for discrediting and marginalising real and potential enemies through trumped-up charges of ‘corruption’ which, in fact, is a nationwide disease; b) the use of state security services to silence political foes and c) the use of electoral institutions in preventing select politicians from contesting for power.
The 2007 General Elections: Dramas & Controversies
A number of agencies had pointed to potential fault lines in the electoral process that would negate any attempt at free and fair elections. For instance, the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a Pan-African NGO based in London, Accra and Lagos, had warned that:
the 2007 polls […] contain huge potential to go badly off-track; to become not a milestone in democratic consolidation, but instead one marked by malpractice, injustice, criminality, violence, human rights abuses and increased instability . Already, at least 18 months before polling, there is a clear trend towards negative developments oriented towards the 2007 elections (CDD, 2007:1, our emphasis).
Outside party bickering, election monitors were somewhat unanimous about the flaws of the election. Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the voterigging as ‘shameless’ while the European Union observers claimed that in half a dozen states there was no real election. Reporting on the conduct of elections in the country's largest oil producing region, the Niger Delta, HRW monitors alleged that:
Open rigging of an electoral process that deprived voters of the opportunity to cast their ballots in many areas. Voting failed to take place in many areas where INEC later reported voter turnout in excess of 90%(HRW, 2007a).
The extremely high voter turnout as reported by INEC was not borne out by the situation witnessed on the ground, indicating that the elections in those two states were systematically rigged in favour of the PDP(Ibid.).
The controversy over the Gubernatorial Round did not augur well for the impending Presidential Round, in particular, fears about President Obasanjo and his ruling party's mendacious determination to manipulate the election, noted by Polgreen (2007:3):
Partial results from Nigeria's highly contested state elections appear to hand most victories to governing Peoples Democratic Party, prompting violent protests to break out in several of the country's 36 states; allegations of vote rigging, ballot stealing and intimidation in several states raised fears that presidential voting, to be held later this week, could fail; Peoples Democratic Party has struggled to retain its dominance as infighting rages over who will replace Olusegun Obasanjo; there are two dozen candidates.
On the eve of the Presidential election, the BBC reported that Nigeria remained ‘tense’, citing politically-motivated violence carried out by, and between, rival party militias; a heavy presence of the military deployed on the streets of major cities to maintain ‘law and order’, noting that at least 26 people had died in election-related violence. INEC offices were burnt to the ground in several places by protesters angry at its conspiracy in electoral fraud. The result of the Presidential Round announced by INEC inevitably showed a resounding victory for the candidate of the ruling PDP (see Table 1 over).
To some commentators, the outcome of the Presidential Election was not fortuitous – it was the product of meticulously planned political manoeuvres by the ruling party; it was not just brazenly rigged, but the widespread violence resulted in at least 300 election-related deaths (Albin-Lackey & Rawlence, 2007). According to domestic and international election observers, the same trends were in evidence throughout much of the Federation. The Group called for a re-run of the presidential polls while European Union observers documented massive irregularities and said that the process ‘cannot be considered to have been credible’. Teams from the US National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute both said that the process ‘failed the Nigerian people’. All appeals for cancellation fell on deaf ears, as outgoing President Obasanjo claimed the election does not warrant cancellation.
Public Reactions on the Conduct & Outcome of the Elections
The brazen conduct of the elections surprised and infuriated a lot of people and organisations. Others though, were simply happy that at least ‘Nigerians have made a choice’ and their democracy was still alive. Reactions to the election ranged from outright rejection to passionate acceptance. The following statements, gathered from the media and internet chat rooms, capture the mood of a number of commentators: ‘A first degree murder of Africa's largest democracy’; ‘why Nigeria may go nowhere’; ‘2007 Elections: Nigerians are no fools’; ‘Iwu's 419 elections’; ‘Yar'Adua and the question of legitimacy’.2 A key concern was that the elections were merely held as a symbolic gesture to endorse the preferred candidate of President Obasanjo, and the winner, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua of the ruling PDP, contrary to the will of Nigerians, as Chinuwuba (2007) observed:
It is heartbreaking as enthusiastic Nigerians who were eager to effect a change of government watched helplessly as PDP in connivance with INEC subverted the transition process. Before the sham called an election, I had posited that the election was predetermined, and that any result that goes against the expectation of the PDP stands unacceptable. This has eventually played out, and explains the mal-practices/fraud/violence that trailed the entire exercise.
Both Obasanjo and INEC's Chair, Maurice Iwu argued that half a loaf of democracy is better than none. In response to concerns raised by the domestic and foreign press, the President noted that without doubt the elections were imperfect; however that does not warrant cancellation. Almost repeating his master's words Iwu observed:
The 2007 election is far from perfect. The Commission concedes that. But we are proud of the polls. We are also proud of the fact that this election has been free and fair … Nigerians must not lose sight of the numerous difficulties and hindrances in the political environment and the very tense and hostile atmosphere in which the Commission had to operate … Many people believed that it was impossible to print 65 million ballot papers in three days. But we did it. To God be the glory (INEC, 2007 ).
| Candidate | Party | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Umaru Yar'Adua | Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) | 24,638,063 |
| Muhammadu Buhari | All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) | 6,605,299 |
| Atiku Abubakar | Action Congress (AC) | 2,637,848 |
| Patrick Utomi | African Democratic Congress (ADC) | 50,849 |
| Lawrence | Adedoyin African Political System (APS) | 22,409 |
| Emmanuel Okereke | African Liberation Party (ALP) | 22,677 |
| Chukwuemeka Ojukwu | All Progressives Grand Alliance | 155,947 |
| Pere Ajuwa | Alliance for Democracy (AD) | 89,241 |
| Bartholomew | Nnaji Better Nigeria Party | 11,705 |
| Maxi Okwu | Citizens Popular Party (CPP) | 14,027 |
| Attahiru Bafarawa | Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) | 289,324 |
| Chris Okotie | Fresh Democratic Party | 74,049 |
| Ambrose Owuru | Hope Democratic Party | 28,519 |
| Mojisola Obasanjo | Nigerian Masses Movement | 4,309 |
| Olapade Agoro | National Action Council | 5,752 |
| Emmanuel Obayuwana | National Conscience Party | 8,229 |
| Habu Fari National | Democratic Party | 21,934 |
| Orji Uzor Kalu | Progressive Peoples Alliance | 608,803 |
| 1. The result did not show the total votes scored in each state or the percentage of scores by candidates. |
Outside Nigeria, the country's African ‘peers’ have been seemingly complicit and complementary. For instance, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa was the first to congratulate Yar'Adua on his victory; President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia’ also sent warm congratulations to Yar'Adua on ‘his landslide victory’. However, within Nigeria opposition parties vehemently condemned ‘the electoral fraud’. Tom Ikimi of the AC and Lanre Amusu of ANPP made the following statements:
In most of the states, only the Resident Electoral Commissioners and the PDP Agents signed the results. We have been here since yesterday (Sunday) to observe this collation and we only collated eleven states and the INEC Chairman just rushed down to declare the results and declare Umaru Yar'Adua as the winner (Ikimi, in Ojeifo, 2007).
results … were collated and signed by the Resident Electoral Commissioners in the States and the PDP Agents. Our agents did not sign these results(Amusu, in Ojeifo, 2007).
Other opposition parties including the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Action Congress (AC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), National Advance Party (NAP) and the National Democratic Party (NDP), also called for the cancellation of elections and the establishment of an Interim National Government to set the stage for fresh ‘credible’ elections. They cautioned against the dangers of military intervention. Prominent personalities too joined the call for fresh elections, including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka who urged Western powers to impose travelling embargos on the international movement of INEC's chair, Maurice Iwu for his ‘complicity in the fraudulent elections’ (BBC News, 27 April 2007).
There were also widespread concerns expressed by the international community. The US expressed deep concern regarding violence and voting irregularities during both state and presidential elections. Furthermore, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who visited Nigeria as the head of an international observer mission, expressed her concerns at Nigeria's inability to conduct genuine elections:
These ‘condemnations’ not withstanding, the US and the UK Governments gave a thumbs up to Obasanjo's machinations resulting in a winner of his choice, one who would not come back to haunt him by demanding accountability of his stewardship to the Nigerian people. For the US, it provides the transition to a safe pair of hands, of one of the most important sources of oil for American consumers in the troubled campaign on the war against terrorism, thus reducing the Super-Power's dependence on oil of the troubled Persian Gulf.Implications of the Elections
Given the manner in which the elections were conducted and the outcome, the political class must brace itself for challenges for state hegemony. Within Nigeria there now exists a crisis of legitimacy, in particular, the credibility of the state and its ruling classes to command the loyalty of aggrieved Nigerians. In a recent report, the International Crises Group (ICG) argues that the failure of the April elections has major implications for Nigeria's governance, internal security and stability (cited in allAfrica.com, 2007). The report notes that although a new government has taken power in Abuja, it has yet to earn a place in the hearts of Nigerians. It quotes several leading figures, both in government and civil society, who are worried about the likely legitimacy crises that might accompany the flawed elections. For instance, the outgoing Senate President P. Nnamani laments that: ‘people will hate the new administration and they will have a crisis of legitimacy.’ Similarly, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Abdul-waheed Omar, stated at a Labour Day rally in Abuja that: ‘Any government based on the outcome of the elections will be politically and morally disabled’. As we write, The Labour Congress has embarked on a national strike, which began on 20 June with regards to fuel price hikes imposed by the new government.
It is evident that the legitimacy of the political class and the state are apparently at a very low ebb. Since 1999, there has been mounting apathy and discontent over the shameless conduct of the political class and its inability to deliver the so-called ‘democracy dividend’ to Nigeria's teeming population of 140 million. This concern has intensified in the aftermath of the April 2007 elections. A case in point is the Niger Delta, a region plagued by violent contestations over minority and environmental rights (see Idemudia & Ite, 2006:391-406; see also Ifeka, 2006). Many observers are sceptical about the legitimate capacity of Yar'Adua's newly inaugurated government to win the hearts and minds of people of this restive region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), one of the region's main militant groups, has warned that unless genuine steps are taken to address the problem through dialogue, violence will continue. The region's familiar security threats, such as hostage taking and abduction of expatriate oil workers, have worsened: ‘the militants have been increasing their violent attacks in the oilrich Delta. Dozens of foreign workers have been kidnapped this year’ (VOA, 2007).
The foregoing situation is likely to deteriorate, as noted by Joseph Croft of the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN):
I think you are likely to see an increase in activity by armed groups and interest in people using violence to air their grievance and challenge the state, because the state does not have any legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the people in the Niger Delta at the moment and that's a very worrying situation(cited in VOA, 2007).
The conduct and outcome of the elections is already impacting on Nigeria's reputation within the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and its peer-review mechanism for democracy and development. Nigeria's longstanding failure in organising credible elections could be contrasted with the relatively stable democratic polities such as Botswana, Comoros, Seychelles and South Africa, who continue to develop. An important question is whether or not Nigeria could continue to lay claim to continental leadership as the Economist has questioned:
If Africa's vaunted renaissance is to mean anything, Nigeria – it is widely agreed – must point the way. It is Africa's most populous country (with 140m people), its biggest oil producer (with 3% of the world's exports), and fancies itself as the continent's diplomatic leader, alongside South Africa. Its relatively smooth transition from military to civilian rule in 1999 had raised hopes that Nigeria might be leaving the cruelty and mismanagement of the two previous decades behind it – and put the country squarely back as a respected giant of the continent(The Economist, 19 April 2007).3
Conclusion
The conduct of the elections has brought to the fore the question of whether free and fair elections can be successfully conducted by the Nigerian political class. The elections have shown that ‘instead of guaranteeing citizens’ basic rights to vote freely, the government and its electoral officials have actively colluded in fraud and violence that marred the whole exercise as officials closed their eyes to human rights abuses committed by supporters of the ruling party and others (HRW, 2007b).
The conduct of the elections is symptomatic of a deeply rooted malaise within the political economy of Nigeria, a polity that depends on prebendalism and patrimonialism. Thus it seems that Nigeria's inability to live up to local and international expectations, as manifested by its appalling failure in building a stable democracy has justified the country's description as ‘a regressive state’(Tar, 2007).4
Usman Tar,e-mail: usmantar1@123456google mail.com; Alfred B. Zack-Williams,email: abzw@123456blueyonder.co.uk
| Nigeria: Demographic Facts & Figures | |
|---|---|
| Population in 1991 | 88.9 million |
| Projected Population (2003) | 126,252,844 |
| Projected male population (2003) | 63,241,808 |
| Project female population (2003) | 62,911,036 |
| Population Growth rate | 2.9% p.a. |
| Urban Population | 37.7% |
| Rural Population | 62.3% |
| Totality Fertility Rate | 5.7 (NHDS 2003) |
| Crude Birth Rate | 40 per 1000 live births |
| Life Expectancy at birth | 52 years |
| Infant Morality Rate | 100/1000 births |
| Maternal Mortality Rate | 800-1,500/100,000 |
| Under-five Mortality Rate | 210/1000 births |
| Contraceptive Prevalence Rate | 8% |
| Literacy Rate | 45% |
| Source:National Population Commission (2007) Nigeria Population Facts and Figures,available: http://www.population.gov.ng/factsandfigures.htm. |
Verdicts on Nigerian 2007 General Election: Motive vs. Judgement
Usman A. Tar
Commentators and observers of Niger-ia's 2007 elections have aired diverse opinions, even though, with the exception of the state, there is a relative consensus that the events were violent, fraudulent, and far from being ‘free and fair’. In this briefing, I examine the substance of such commentaries, and explain motives behind them. I also try to capture the degree of credibility in claims advanced by observers.
Verdict 1: The Elections were a Success Given the Underlying Circumstances – Obasanjo & International Peers.
The earliest position, in support of upholding the elections in spite of staggering deficiencies, was advanced by the outgoing president and the INEC. Fielding questions to the media after the election, President Obasanjo noted that without doubt the elections were characterised by violence and fraud; however, he noted, given the difficulties and limitations encountered in the course of the elections, there is not compelling moral ground to cancel the elections or conduct another round. He also stated that the elections should not be judged by western standards.
Outside Nigeria, the country's African ‘peers’ have been seemingly complicit. For instance, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa was the first to congratulate Yar'Adua on his victory. Others, including President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, congratulated Yar’ Adua on ‘his landslide victory’. Surprisingly, some Western governments and institutions, too, have been tempted to remain hesitant (a clear sign of acceptance), while also showing some degree of displeasure with both the election and the subsequent swearing-in of President-elect Umaru Yar'Adua. Such reticence is perhaps influenced by ‘the default position that a civilian president with no mandate is better than the alternatives: chaos or military rule’ (Albin-Lackey and Rawlence, 2007. It is argued, however, that ‘if Nigeria's recent democratic failure passes without consequences from the international community, then the very idea of democracy in Africa is at serious risk’ (Ibid.).
Clearly Obasanjo's desperate attempt to save the election is informed by the need to maintain the status quo. He has been indicted for manipulating the entire process and brokering the victory of the president-elect. On the other hand, it is no surprise that Nigeria's African peers and international creditors remained apparently supportive of the country's ruling class, as its struggles to reproduce dominant power. Their aim is to ensure stability in Africa's most populous nation, rather than sanction principled observance of democratic ethos. It is thus reasonable to argue that both the ruling class and its international allies are complicit in the game of reproducing hegemonic stability in Nigeria.
Verdict 2: ‘The Elections were Fraudulent and Deserve Outright Rejection’ – Local and Foreign Monitors.
Foreign and local observers condemned the elections in strong terms (see Table 1 over). However, there are moral issues about how far and wide monitors have witnessed the elections to lay claim on the authenticity and legitimacy of their verdicts. Consider the following:
Summary of Local Observer's Verdict
Because of the sheer number of monitors they trained and deployed (50,000), as well their sustained presence and participation in Nigeria, the verdict of local observers – the Local Election Observation Group (hereinafter ‘the Group’ or LEOG) – deserves a more detailed assessment here. The Group consisted of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Labour Election Monitoring Team (LEMT), Citizens Forum for Constitutional Reform (CFCR), the Electoral Reform Network (ERN), Muslim League for Accountability (MULAC), Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), and Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE-Nigeria). Most constituent members of the Group participated in the 1999 and 2003 Elections.
| Observer Group | No. of Monitors | Summary of Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | 150 | At least 200 were killed, including voters, police and candidates in both the state and national elections: ‘EU observers witnessed examples of ballot box stuffing, alteration of official result forms, stealing of sensitive polling materials, vote buying and underage voting’. |
| International Republican Institute, USA | 59 | ‘Underage voting, voter registration list errors, stuffed ballot boxes, group voting, party observers and police instructing individuals on who to vote for, lack of privacy for voting, lack of results sheets and other materials, falsified results sheets, and early closings’. |
| Commonwealth Observer Group, London, UK | 17 | ‘We got reports that in several places the delay was there. The polls were supposed to open at 10 a.m. but we got reports in certain places they opened at one, at three and some at five or later… What we have received is not widespread. Stuffing [of ballot boxes] was reported in one area, pre-marked papers in one area. So we cannot take that as general, but it is a shortcoming. I'm waiting until I have all the facts before I make an assessment.’ |
| Joint Action Forum | n.a. | ‘An appraisal of the electoral process reveals an INEC that is not only partisan in siding with the ruling PDP but is generally unprepared for the elections … ‘Worst of all is the presidential poll … marred by voters’ apathy as a result of INEC failings to hold as scheduled the Presidential and National Assembly elections in some parts of the country. States such Anambra, Imo and Plateau dispatched election materials at about 6 p.m. when voting ought to have been concluded an hour earlier.’ |
| National Democratic Institute, USA | 61 | ‘Regrettably, the 2007 polls represent a step backward in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. At the same time, there are positive trends in the country's democratisation process that give rise to hope … ‘The serious flaws witnessed during this electoral process threaten to further erode citizen confidence in the country's democratic institutions.’ |
| Local Election Observer Group, Nigeria | 50,000* | ‘Our monitors throughout the country… documented numerous lapses, irregularities and electoral malpractices that characterised the election in many states … We therefore reject it and call for its cancellation’ (emphasis added). |
| Source: BBC, ‘What Nigerian Elections Observers Say’, available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6582979.htm, accessed 11 July 2007; *Note the disparity in the number of monitors deployed by Local Elections Observer Group as compared to others. |
The Group report (LEOG, 2007) highlights a number of reasons why the elections failed. This includes the fact that preparations for the elections were chaotic and unpredictable and noting that in many states, especially in the Southeast (e.g. Abia Anambra and Imo) and Northeast (e.g. Adamawa), elections did not take place due to the nondelivery of election materials and this created a major challenge for the security agencies. In others, Senatorial and House of Assembly Elections were either not held or held in selected polling stations and constituencies due to confusion in names and photographs of candidates as well as logos of political parties. In places where elections were held, voting did not commence until late in the afternoon due to late arrival of election materials. Voters waited in the scorching sun and those that could not wait went home angry and disappointed at a system and process that denied them their sovereign right to elect leaders of their choice. Some that waited could not cast their votes, as INEC did not avail Presiding Officers of rechargeable lanterns even though it claimed to have them in store. In some places, voting did not take place at all due to the non-delivery of election materials and this created challenges for the security agencies. The Group lamented that INEC offered ‘no satisfactory explanation’ for this state of affairs.
Furthermore, local observers pointed to INEC's appalling performance in the management of the elections, raising doubts about its independence, impartiality and competence as an election referee. The Groups claims that:
The logistics arrangement made for the elections can only be described as shoddy. A few days to the elections, the INEC leadership was still moving around Resident Electoral Commissioners in some states. Some of the RECs were redeployed less than 48 hours to the elections. No satisfactory explanation has been offered by INEC for these redeployments. It is difficult to understand the rationale for these redeployments and how the RECs could be expected to familiarize themselves with their new states and deliver.
There were a number of compounding factors behind INEC's poor management of the elections. The first was INEC's secretive decision to procure and stock election materials in South Africa, a decision taken without broad consultation with political parties and civil society. Concerns were also expressed that outsourcing and stocking of election materials carried the risk of logistic failure, fraud and ballot stuffing. Secondly, the last minute inclusion by the Court of Appeal of the once disqualified former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, forced INEC to reprint the ballot papers for the elections, thus increasing the chances of fraud and other malpractice.
The Group claims that in the period preceding the elections, INEC's Chairman, Maurice Iwu, was more concerned with ‘making political statements and fighting political battles’, rather than ‘ensuring that arrangements were put in place to guarantee a smooth electoral process.’ The Group also noted that in spite of government and INEC's constant assurance in the period leading up to the election, to guarantee the personal safety of citizens, there were rampant breaches before, during and after the polls. For instance, the then Inspector- General of the Police informed the nation that state-of-the-art policing equipment had been procured to ensure safety and security during the elections. Disappointedly, the Group reports that ‘the electoral process, from voter registration, party primaries and political campaign to polling has been characterised by widespread violence and general insecurity’ (LEOG, 2007:4).
Monitors drew attention to the harassment to which many members and workers for the opposition parties suffered, as well as the government's mismanagement of the electoral process. They also pointed to the flouting of electoral laws by law enforcement agencies, who constituted themselves into complainants, accusers, investigators, prosecutors and judges:
working in collaboration with the INEC and the Federal Ministry of Justice, they indicted and excluded opposition politicians from the electoral process at will. On several occasions, candidates belonging to the opposition parties in several states across the country were arrested and taken to Abuja, which impacted negatively on their preparations for the elections and frightened their supporters(LEOG, 2007).
- •
In virtually all states, elections did not start on time with the exception of Abuja, the Federal Capital. States such as Imo, Abia, Anambra, and Enugu, started so late that many people were unable to cast their votes;
- •
In most states of the federation including Katsina, Kaduna, Enugu, Benue, Niger, Nasarawa, and Adamawa, there was widespread hoarding and a shortage of voting materials;
- •
In many constituencies, polling centres were closed, particularly in the North East and South East;
- •
In states such as Kaduna, Niger, Lagos, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Abia, Katsina, Imo, Anambra and Enugu, House of Representatives and Senatorial elections were not conducted at all and in those that were, logos of some parties were omitted from the ballot papers;
- •
There was lack of security of the ballot. In states such as Kaduna and Niger, adequate security of the ballot was not provided as election officials had to trek with their election materials for several kilometres to their polling stations without proper security;
- •
Voter turn out was so low in many states that they could be described as a ‘voter boycott because the outcome did not reflect the will of the people as expressed through their ballots;
- •
Lack of secrecy in balloting across the 36 states and Abuja;
- •
INEC officials who presided over the elections in many states were not properly trained and some were children;
- •
Police officials were also not properly trained and had no communication capabilities, which made them helpless;
- •
Disorganised voter registration which made it difficult for voters to identify their names;
- •
Presidential ballot papers did not have serial numbers which made it difficult for voters and observers to know how many were actually printed.
- •
Complete lack of transparency in the conduct of the elections (LEOG, 2007:5)
Observing the Observers: Issues Regarding Local & Foreign Monitors
There are issues regarding the modus operandi and relative influence of local and foreign (particularly European and American) observers. Obviously, the ‘politics’ of monitoring was in display: foreign observers were more privileged and had more clout than their local counterparts. First, compared to local monitors, foreign observers were present only in a few cities, while local monitors were deployed throughout the country; they required huge resources and manpower, but had to make do with little. Yet, foreign monitors enjoyed far greater funding and led posh life styles which stood in the way of accessible, modest and trustworthy monitoring. They were based in the most luxurious hotels in Abuja and other centres of power such as the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Agura, Rockview, and the Nico Noga Hilton. These hotels symbolise the wealth and grandeur that local monitors can only dream of; worse, they are worlds apart from the gloomy settings of the voting public (such as households, village squares and voting stations; the majority of Nigerians live on less than a dollar a day!). Foreign monitors ‘imported’ their food and drinking water, drove the most expensive jeeps, carried the most expensive computers and mobile telephones during the elections. They observed less gothic scenes in Nigeria's centres of power (Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt), rather than remote locales where electoral fraud and violence were more rampant, albeit under-reported. In many villages, violence was more catastrophic as uneducated local people were wrongly informed to vote on the basis of religion, ethnicity and regionalism, and to use machetes, knives and traditional dane guns to attack political enemies and guard electoral malpractice in their communities – all for few Naira notes given to them by politicians.
Second, foreign observers deployed far fewer individual monitors than their local counterparts (see Table above). Worse, their observations were the ‘tip of the iceberg’; for instance, in Nigeria, ‘alteration’ (a method in which election results were altered with a stroke of pen) took place in the middle of the night, when foreign observers retired to their posh hotels or private houses (in this scenario, it would take a fearless endeavour to detect high level fraud). LEOG reports have vividly documented scenes of sophisticated electoral fraud, usually unreported by their foreign counterparts. The point is, local monitors have revealed more than their foreign counterparts in detecting and reporting sophisticated electoral crimes. It is worthy of note, however, that in this area, the capacity of local monitors too have remained limited.
Third, foreign observers received a wider audience and publicity than their local colleagues. The reports of foreign monitors were timely and effectively carried, some live, in the international media houses such as BBC, CNN and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Individual monitors and heads of mission were regularly invited to give media interviews. In addition, foreign monitors had access to the most advanced technology and internet facility. Their websites contained easily accessible materials and privileged information, some of which were commissioned work produced by local civil society on their behalf. For instance, the European Union, Election Observer Mission in Nigeria, has a dedicated website administered in Brussels (http://www.eueom-ng.org/). Surfing through the content of the site, including the imposing profiles of individual EU-EOM monitors for Elections 2007, as well as detailed reports of all stages of the 2007 elections, one wonders how the site was developed and its contents uploaded: were they drawn from material gathered during few days visit to Nigeria? Were they written in liaison with local election monitors and civil society? Were they written by some invisible observers?
On the other hand, local observers were, and have always been, left to their own devices in observing elections and reporting them. Though some, such as the Group, have limited access to ‘overseas’ media and internet, overall local monitors were constrained from communicating their concerns to the wider world. Within Nigeria, too, their voice was seemingly scuttled by the one-party state and state-controlled media houses. Nevertheless, Nigeria's private media have given some attention to local observers and some too, have developed in-house newsletters in which reports and press releases are regularly published and disseminated.
Finally, it is worthy of note that financial support for local monitors, including the Group, came mainly from foreign donors – particularly the EU, the DFID Govern-ance Fund, Office of Transition Initiatives of the USIS, German Embassy, International Federation of Electoral Systems, International Republican Institute, National Endowment for Democracy etc. Yet some issues arise from this trend. First, foreign funding comes with a huge moral, economic and political burden. Local monitors have to channel a significant proportion of their energy chasing and justifying funds and pleasing donors. Second, because of foreign funding, local monitors and civil society risked suspicion and red tape from state actors and ‘gatekeepers’ – particularly in the provision of access and safety to monitors. Too often, they were branded as a sell-out or ‘saboteurs living on the handouts of foreigners and helping them to achieve their sinister motives of destabilising Nigeria’.
The truth is, local monitors are neither saboteurs nor sell-outs: they are a middle class elements struggling to both execute a national duty (election monitoring) and make ends meet in a competitive world.
Conclusion
The Nigerian 2007 general election demonstrates two nuanced arguments, each framed by, and based on, contrasting positioning of actors in state (including its international peers) and civil society(local and foreign observers). On the one hand, despite the failure of the elections, the political class and state institutions unrepentantly defended the election claiming that half a loaf of bread is better than none. Their aim, of course, was to sustain the status quo– PDP-dominated political victory. Here, democratic morality and political correctness are irrelevant: they could be sacrificed to save hegemony. On the other hand, local and foreign election monitors who observed the election first hand and witnessed a colossal amount of fraud and violence, vehemently rejected it – defying their previous leniency, for instance, in 1999 when they conceded that in spite of irregularities, there is a scope to learn lessons after two decades of military dictatorship.
In 2007, observer groups were unanimously united and furious with the failure, indeed unwillingness, of the political class to conduct free and fair elections. Nevertheless, beyond the vinyl of unity between foreign and local monitors, there are issues about striking disparities between the two in terms of their access to funding, methodology and information dissemination. Obviously, while local monitors, deploying 50,000 observers, were largely left to their own devices, their foreign counterparts – some of whom actually employed a dozen monitors – had a field day driving luxurious jeeps, carrying exotic technological gadgets and concentrating in cities (as opposed to remote parts of the country where irregularities were far worse). At issue is the inequality between a much resourced and publicised foreign monitor on the one hand, and an under-resourced and less publicised local monitor, on the other.
Usman Tar,e-mail: usmantar1@123456gmail. com.
| Nigerian Poverty Incidence, Provincial & National Trends (1996, 2004) | ||
|---|---|---|
| State | 1996 | 2004 |
| Abia | 56.2 | 22.27 |
| Adamawa | 65.5 | 71.73 |
| Akwa Ibom | 66.9 | 34.82 |
| Anambra | 51.0 | 20.11 |
| Bauchi | 83.5 | 86.29 |
| Bayelsa | 44.3 | 19.98 |
| Benue | 64.2 | 55.33 |
| Borno | 66.9 | 53.63 |
| Cross River | 66.9 | 41.61 |
| Delta | 56.1 | 45.35 |
| Ebonyi | 51.0 | 43.33 |
| Edo | 56.1 | 33.09 |
| Ekiti | 71.6 | 42.27 |
| Enugu | 51.0 | 31.12 |
| Gombe | 83.5 | 77.01 |
| Imo | 56.2 | 27.39 |
| Jigawa | 71.0 | 95.07 |
| Kaduna | 67.7 | 50.24 |
| Kano | 71.0 | 61.29 |
| Katsina | 77.7 | 71.06 |
| Kebbi | 83.6 | 89.65 |
| Kogi | 75.5 | 88.55 |
| Kwara | 75.5 | 85.22 |
| Lagos | 53.0 | 63.58 |
| Nassarawa | 62.7 | 61.59 |
| Niger | 52.2 | 63.90 |
| Ogun | 69.9 | 31.73 |
| Ondo | 71.6 | 42.14 |
| Osun | 58.7 | 32.35 |
| Oyo | 58.7 | 24.08 |
| Plateau | 62.7 | 60.37 |
| Rivers | 44.3 | 29.09 |
| Sokoto | 83.9 | 76.81 |
| Taraba | 65.5 | 62.15 |
| Yobe | 66.9 | 83.25 |
| Zamfara | 83.9 | 80.93 |
| FCT | 53.0 | 43.32 |
| All Nigeria | 65.6 | 54.4 |
| Source:National Bureau of Statistics Nigeria Living Standards Survey, 2004available: http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/nlss/2006/index.html |
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF): The Dilemma of its Struggle in Ethiopia
Abdi M. Abdullahi
The international media has paid very little attention to the Somali region of Ethiopia, also known as the ‘Ogaden’, mainly as a result of the region's remoteness and peripheral status. Nevertheless, the recent Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attack on a Chinese oilfield in Obolo village in the Dhagabour zone, and the current Ethiopian and American coalition under the global war on terror in the Horn of Africa, sheds light upon the continuing conflict in the region.
The general attitude among Ethiopian highlanders towards the Somalis in the region is ambivalent as there have always been disputes between Ethiopia and Somalia. Consequently, the Somali region has been chronically affected by violent conflict since its incorporation into the Ethiopian state in 1888. There have been several periods of local and regional conflict, including full-scale war between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977/ 78 over the Ogaden. Despite the victory of Ethiopia over Somalia, the government continued to sponsor the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), the leading liberation movement at the time of the Ethiopia–Somalia war. Nonetheless, WSLF was affected by the withdrawal of Somalia government support when both military governments in Somalia and Ethiopia signed a peace agreement to end the hostilities in Djibouti in 1988.1However, the WSLF was also challenged internally by a ‘front within a front’ led by young Ogaden intellectuals, who believed that Ogaden destiny had to be decided by what they call ‘Ogaadeenia’, rather than the Somali government and their client organisation WSLF. This conviction of Ogaadeenism led to the birth of ONLF in the Gulf States in March 1984.2 Nevertheless, the ONLF was inactive in the region until the military regime in Ethiopia was overthrown by the Tigrai People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in 1991.
The political transformation in Ethiopia led by the TPLF in 1991 appears to have been a watershed moment for the Somali people when they apparently gained their own full regional autonomy for the first time in Ethiopian history. Both ONLF and WSLF participated in the transitional government led by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF). During the heyday of the transitional period, ONLF secured the majority of the first regional council election in 1992.3 Abdullahi Mohamed Sacdi, one of the founders of ONLF, was appointed by the council as the regional president over the Somali ‘Region 5’.
However, the relationship between the EPRDF government in Addis Ababa and ONLF was unstable due to ONLF's assertive ‘secessionist’ policy opposed by the regime. As decentralisation based on ethnic federalism was introduced in Ethiopia, almost each Somali clan in the region rushed to set up a political party.4Among them were the Democratic Unity Party, the Ethiopian Somali Democratic Movement, and the Democratic Action. However, ONLF considered this to be undermining their role in the region, and opted out of participation in the constitutional process in 1994. They demanded full self-determination for Somalis in the region, arguing that the Ogaden region was colonised by the successive Ethiopian regimes, and therefore required special attention from the government.5As a result, ONLF influenced the regional councils under the leadership of late Hassan Jire Qalinle, and unanimously voted for the self-determination of the people in the region in 1994. The EPRDF government actively tried to neutralise ONLF by engaging the traditional elders and other non-Ogaadeen Somali clans to form their own political party, Deri Dawa, in Huurso in 1994. This led to the formation of the Ethiopian Somali Democratic League (ESDL).
Meanwhile, ONLF was divided into two major groups. The first was hardliner wing led by Sheik Ibrahim Abdalla, who resided in the Gulf States. The government banned this group, who later went on to fight with the EPRDF regime. The second wing was an ‘accommodationist’ led by Bashir Abdi Hassan,6 who participated in the new ethnic federalism processes in Ethiopia. The EPRDF backed the latter group, who later merged with ESDL under the leadership of the late Dr Abdulmajid Hussein and formed the current ruling party of the Somali regional government – the Somali People's Democratic Party (SPDP).
Rebellion
The outlawed wing regrouped and appointed Admiral Mohamed Omar Osman, a retired Somalia marine, as their Chairman in 1998. Their stated aim is to liberate the Ogaden people from Ethiopia by creating an independent state called ‘Ogaadeenia’.7 Initially, ONLF attempted to mobilise the members of the Ogaadeen clan against what they consider to be the historical colonisation and marginalisation of the Ogaadeen by the Ethiopian state. Nevertheless, while the organisation claimed to represent the entire Somali people in the region, other non-Ogaadeen clans, including the Jidwaaq, Iise, Garre and ‘minority’ clans and groups, withheld their support since they perceived ONLF as an exclusively Ogaadeeni political body. For them, supporting ONLF's struggle meant empowering Ogaadeen domination in the region. Consequently, some allied with the government, while others took a ‘wait and see’ approach. This is linked to various factors, one of which is the controversial name ‘Ogaden’, which these clans consider to be the name of a clan rather than land or territory. However, ONLF defied either changing or dropping the name by insisting that ‘Ogaden’ signifies a territory and land, and hence it is the internationally recognised name of the region.
Because of this rift, OLNF forces are predominantly fighting in areas that are inhabited by the Ogaadeen clan, such as Dhagahbour, Fiiq, Godey, Qorahay and Wardheer zones. Their strategy is based on carrying out hit-and-run attacks against the government army, which controls the main towns in these areas, while the ONLF is in charge of the ‘bush’. Both the government and ONLF claim victory over the fighting in the region, but no independent body verified these claims.8 An ONLF member that I interviewed recently stated:
EPRDF failed to defeat us and we also failed to remove them from our territory, and therefore we are drawn.
In conventional warfare the ONLF insurgents are no match for the might of the Ethiopian army. However, the ongoing conflict does have a significant impact upon the region, especially the civilian population. In the words of an old Somali saying, ‘When the elephants fight the grass gets trampled.’
It is reported that both the government army and ONLF insurgents commit human rights abuses against civilians. There have long been periodic reports of the government army arresting and assassinating individuals accused of being ONLF supporters, as well as other instances of extra-judicial killings.9
Equally, the ONLF carries out the assassination and kidnapping of citizens who oppose their policies. A good example is the recent assassination of Suldan Ibrahim Ali Saafi – traditional chief of Ibrahim, a sub-clan of Makaahil of Ogaadeen – and six of his fellow men in the Aado village of the Wardher district in early 2006. During this attack, ONLF also injured and kidnapped dozens of civilians.10
On the other hand, the current EPRDF government is yet to win the hearts and minds of the people in region. This failure is linked to various reasons. First, the people in the region have not experienced the benefits of the Ethiopian state since the region beyond the urban centres of Jigjiga has been a highly militarised zone. For instance, basic public services such as infrastructure, education, water and health are limited, if not almost entirely absent, in most of the region. As a ‘pastoralist livelihoods study on the Somali region’ carried out by Stephen Devereux in 2006 indicated, the government of Ethiopia does not even know how many primary and secondary schools are in the region.11 It is believed that this absence of state benefits and services in the region alienates the local people, and leaves no option but to support the insurgents, perpetuating the violent conflict. Also, regional administration has been highly affected by serious political instability and weak administration, despite decentralisation based on ethnic federalism. For instance, almost every two or three years for the past decade, the ruling party has replaced the regional president with a new one with the blessing of the central government.
Internal Crises
There has been growing leadership division between ONLF's Chairman Mohamed Omar Osman, Vice Chairman Abdukadir Hassan Hiirmoge (Adani), General Secretary Mohamed Ismail, and fifteen members led by Dr Mohamed Sirad Dolaal, Head of the Planning and Research Department of ONLF. The Chairman dismissed 11 ONLF central committee members in 2006, and the dismissed group argues that the decision is unconstitutional and that the Chairman does not have any legitimacy to take such action since his term of chairmanship had expired and he failed to seek approval from the general assembly of the organisation. According to Dr Dolaal:
A declaration has been issued by fifteen members. In that statement, it has been declared that the chairman and his two deputies were suspended from the organisation for violating the constitution respectively. Instead, the declaration appointed to supreme council until the general congress to take over the leadership of the organisation.
Although some low-profile attempts were made by some central committee members of ONLF to bring the two groups closer, it is still doubtful whether such a move will resolve the current political tensions in the organisation. Some central committee members who called themselves ‘neutral’ organised a conference in Copenhagen in December 2006 in order to resolve the deepening political crisis. After drawn-out dialogue, both groups agreed to select an ad hoc committee that would investigate whether the dismissal of the committee members was legal, as well as how and when the general assembly of the organisation would take place. While they endorsed the selected technical committee, Chairman Osman intervened in the committee by replacing three members of the committee. The opponent of the Chairman considers this move as a way to extend his powers to influence the committee. Although the final decision of the committee is expected to come out this month, it seems unlikely that they will be able to resolve these internal political crises.
The recent surrender of high-ranking officials to the Ethiopian government, including Suldan Adan Yusuf Tani and Sulub Ali Abas, along with their militias, deepens the crisis in the ONLF leadership political rift. Recent reports from the region indicate that further ONLF militias have handed themselves over to the government.13 These ‘defections’ have damaged the overall unity of the ONLF struggle. In particular, Suldan Taani's defection was a serious blow, as a former ONLF representative in Eritrea who held various significant positions in the organisation. He is seen by the EPRDF government as a valuable asset to crack down on insurgent movements in the region. Suldan Taani has already set up his own militia to wage war against ONLF in Wardher zone. There have been serious clashes between the federal troops, the local militia (Tadaqi) and ONLF insurgents in Dartoole, Farhareeri and Biladaye in the Danoot district in early May 2007.14
Because of this political rift, the leadership of the organisation is divided. For example, key diaspora grassroots activities, some insurgent members in the region, and the main communication facilities of ONLF, including radio freedom (Xoriyo) in Germany, are under the leadership of Dr Dolaal and his team, while the rest are still in the hands of Chairman Osman.15
Despite this growing division – and perhaps because of it – the ONLF signed an agreement with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Coalition of Union of Democracy (CUD) on 21 May 2006, wherein they formed a New Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD).16 The stated aim of this AFD alliance is to work through a democratic approach and conduct a peaceful struggle against the EPRDF government. This alliance calls into question the political programme of the ONLF, since some of its AFD allies such as the CUD would question the ONLF's secessionist aspirations. Moreover, critics argue that the process of the AFD alliance agreement was a bit transparent, with only few individuals taking the decision to endorse the AFD agreement without consultation and discussion with key ONLF members.
External Factors
Initially, the ONLF has been getting support from its members and grassroots activities in order to maintain its struggle against the Ethiopian government. However, as available reports indicate, this has changed since the onset of the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998-2000. Because of this, the Eritrean government offered support by supplying arms to army opposition in Ethiopia, including the OLF and ONLF, via the warlord Hussein Aided during 1999/ 2000.17 And, more recently, the ONLF received military support from Eritrea through the Union of Islamic Courts in Southern Somalia.
Nevertheless, recent Ethiopian intervention in Somalia has also had a negative impact upon the ONLF army's struggle. Obviously, the collapse of the Union of Islamic Courts (UICs) was seen by the government to be a severe blow to the ONLF movement in the region, though ONLF officials deny the existence of any relationship with the UIC. It is widely reported, however, that there were alleged ONLF members detained by the Kenyan government on the border between Somalia and Kenya. They were later handed over to the Ethiopian government via the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia. Among them are Bashir Makhtal, a Canadian National, Abdullahi Osman, Ali Safi Jama, and Hussein Awnur Garaase.18
On the other hand, it is reported that the Eritrean government revitalised the opposition forces to a form a coalition against the EPRDF regime and the TFG in Somalia, including ONLF, OLF, UIC members and some of the TFG members, such as Hussein Aidid and Sharif Hassan – the former TFG house speaker.19 They appointed Sheik Sharif Ahmed as the leader of the new coalition. Nonetheless, the ONLF officials in Asmara were reluctant to endorse this move by arguing that their case was independent of any state, and thereby they cannot be part of a Somalia coalition.
Oil Factor
Prior to the recent Chinese-managed mineral explorations in the region, there had been a number of unsuccessful oil exploration attempts carried out by American oil companies such as Sinclair, Tenneco and Sicor since 1948, especially in the Jeexdin locality of the Shilabo district. In 1974, a Russian gas company called Calub took over oil exploration in the region and symbolically changed the name Jeexdin to Calub. Other Malaysian and Indian oil companies also attempted to conduct oil explorations in the region with the backing of the central government in 2004.20 Nonetheless, most of these attempts were unsuccessful because of the insecurity and the violent conflict. Equally, the absence of effective and coherent policy for the central government to carry out holistic and practical operations to utilise natural resources – including the Jeexdin/Calub gas field – contributed to the limited developmentof this project. For instance, the establishment of the refinery factory in Awash for Jeexdin/Calub gas, 700km away from the project site, not only alienates the local people from benefiting from what they consider to be their own resource, but at such a distance it is also impractical.
China's Zhongyan Petroleum Exploration Company began oil exploration operations at a new site – Obolo village of Dagahbour district – in early 2006 with 200 Chinese and local staff. The ONLF considered this intervention as an intrusion, and in 2006 warned foreign oil exploration firms not to intervene in the Somali region. However, the government dismissed this as a baseless claim.21
The recent ONLF attack on the Chinese oilfield in Obolo calls into question the government's claims to pacify the region. On 26 April 2007 the ONLF mounted an attack on the Chinese oil exploration site, killing 65 Ethiopians (32 of whom were of Somali ethnic origin) and 9 Chinese; 7 others were kidnapped but later freed.22Although the ONLF officially accepted responsibility, the government severely criticised this action as a terrorist attack. However, the motive behind this attack was not merely rebellion against unauthorised Chinese intervention, as claimed by ONLF, but also to assassinate a local contractor, Ibrahim Xaad, who was opposed to ONLF activities in the Dagahbour zone.
Due to this incident and the responses of the government to it, clashes between the government army and ONLF insurgents in Qalafo, Danoot and Dagahbour have increased. Journalists are banned from reporting the incidents, and therefore it is difficult to verify who has the upper hand in this violent conflict. Even those who attempt to visit the region are either arrested by the government army or deported. One example is the govern-ment's arrest of three American New York Times journalists who were in Dagahbour to report the violent conflict in the region, later freed by the government.23 Moreover, on 29 May 2007, simultaneous blasts occurred in Jigjiga and Dagahbour, and killed 11 people and wounded the Somali regional president. It is unclear who was behind them. The government blamed the strike on the ONLF, though ONLF has denied any involvement in those blasts.24
Peaceful Settlement
With regard to the prospect for peace settlement between the government and ONLF, experience in the Somali region indicates that neither the EPRDF government nor ONLF is committed to resolving their differences at the table. Both use zero-sum approaches. The government does not consider the ONLF insurgents as a serious threat, while the ONLF maintains its separatist ideology. However, behind the curtain, the government pushes low-profile diplomatic attempts. More recently, some traditional elders from the Somali region attempted to mediate between the government and ONLF in order to resume negotiations. Some of the elders even visited Europe and North America to meet with ONLF officials, but this attempt failed after ONLF officials refused to come to the negotiating table without the presence of an international neutral mediator, an idea that has been resisted by the Ethiopian government for the last decade. The prospect for peace does not only depend upon a comprehensive agreement over the region but also the wider stability in the Horn of Africa.
Abdi M Abdullahi , Freelance Researcher; e-mail: masaare@123456googlemail.com
Africa: Green Revolution or Rainbow Evolution?
Carol B. Thompson
Kofi Annan has just agreed to head the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The goals of these foundations are ambitious. ‘Our initial estimate is that over ten years, the program for Africa's seed systems (PASS) should produce 400 improved crop varieties resulting in a 50 percent increase in the land area planted with improved varieties across 20 African countries,’ reads the initiative's press release. ‘We have also initially estimated that this level of performance will contribute to eliminating hunger for 30-40 million people and sustainably move 15-20 million people out of poverty.’
But can Africa afford this proposed ‘green revolution’ in terms of human health and environmental sustainability? The foundation goals require resources that the continent does not have while derogating the incredible wealth it does possess. Although scientists, agriculturalists and African governments all agree that the continent has not remotely reached its agricultural potential, their advocated policies for food sovereignty drastically diverge from the high-tech, high-cost approach promoted by Gates and Rockefeller.
In 2002, while UN secretary general, Kofi Annan asked, ‘How can a green revolution be achieved in Africa?’ After more than a year of study, the appointed expert panel of scientists (from Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa and elsewhere) replied that a green revolution would not provide food security because of the diverse types of farming systems across the continent. There is ‘no single magic technological bullet … for radically improving African agriculture,’ the expert panel reported in its strategic recommendations. ‘African agriculture is more likely to experience numerous “rainbow evolutions“ that differ in nature and extent among the many systems, rather than one Green Revolution as in Asia.’ Now Annan has agreed to head the kind of project his advisors told him would not work.
Behind the Green Revolution
The green revolution of the 1970s promoted increased yields based on a model of industrial agriculture defined as a monoculture of one or two crops, which requires massive amounts of both fertiliser and pesticide as well as the purchase of seed. Although this approach to food production might feed more people in the short term, it also quickly destroys the earth through extensive soil degradation and water pollution from pesticides and fertilisers. It ruined small-scale farmers in Asia and Latin America who could not afford to purchase the fertilisers, pesticides, and water necessary for the hybrid seed or apply these inputs in the exact proportions and at the exact times. To pay their debts, the farmers had to sell their land.
Increasing yields to provide food for the hungry remains the central justification for a green revolution. But as the expert panel above analysed in great detail, increased yields of one or two strains of one or two crops (‘monoculture within monoculture’, as stated by a Tanzanian botanist) will not solve Africa's food problems. Africa's diverse ecological systems, and even more diverse farming systems, require multiple initiatives, from intercropping on to permaculture, from respecting and using traditional ecological knowledge to training and equipping more African geneticists. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, for example, now promotes farmers’ breeding seeds (in situ) as a better conservation measure than collecting seed for refrigeration in a few large seed banks (ex situ). The very best food seed breeders in Africa, the ‘keepers of seed’, are women who often farm less than one hectare of land.
The key to ending hunger is sustaining Africa's food biodiversity, not reducing it to industrial monoculture. Currently, food for African consumption comes from about 2,000 different plants, while the US food base derives mainly from 12 plants. Any further narrowing of the food base makes us all vulnerable because it increases crop susceptibility to pathogens, reduces the variety of nutrients needed for human health, and minimises the parent genetic material available for future breeding.
Seeds are a key element in the equation. One figure not often quoted among the depressing statistics from the continent is that African farmers still retain control over this major farming input: of the seed used for food crops, 80% is saved seed. Farmers do not have to buy seed every season, with cash they do not have. They possess a greater wealth – their indigenous seeds, freely shared and developed over centuries. The proposed green revolution would shift the food base away from this treasure of seed. Instead, African farmers would have to purchase seed each season, thus putting cash into the hands of the corporations providing the seed. Is there a way of developing new varieties without further enriching Monsanto or DuPont by removing genetic wealth from African farmers?
Corporate development of new seed varieties, as promoted by the foundations, raises other questions. Will the new varieties be patented or protected by farmers’ rights? Who will own and control the seed? One major reason for the decline of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the global South's resistance to patenting life forms. In 1999, the African Union, representing all African governments, asked that its unanimous resolution rejecting any patenting on life be put on the agenda at the Seattle WTO meeting. The United States refused the request.
Another source of African wealth derives from indigenous ecological knowledge, reflecting centuries of adaptation to the different ecological zones, which values interspersing different plants to enrich the soil and deter pests from food crops. Shade trees, often cut down to open the land for monoculture farming, are not necessarily in the way of a ploughing tractor. African farmers have the knowledge to use these trees as wind breaks, medicine, habitats for biodiverse insect communities, and food for all.
This wealth of knowledge raises another question: whether the African continent needs newly manufactured varieties of food crops, or is the problem the lack of scientific recognition and market valuing of what African farmers have cultivated for centuries? Does the colour green in this Green Revolution favour crops known and owned by the global North?
Sorghum is one example of a crop lost to markets in the global North but not to Africa. On the continent, it is planted in more hectares than all other food crops combined. As nutritious as maize for carbohydrates, vitamin B6, and food energy, sorghum is more nutritious in protein, ash, pantothenic acid, calcium, copper, iron, phosphorus, isoleucine, and leucine. One of the most versatile foods in the world, sorghum can be boiled like rice, cracked like oats for porridge, baked like wheat into flatbreads, popped like popcorn for snacks, or brewed for nutritious beer.
Although indigenous knowledge designed these diverse and rich uses of sorghum, most contemporary scientists have ignored its genetic wealth. ‘Sorghum is a relatively undeveloped crop with a truly remarkable array of grain types, plant types, and adaptability,’ concludes the National Research Council in the United States. ‘Most of its genetic wealth is so far untapped and even unsorted. Indeed, sorghum probably has more undeveloped genetic potential than any other major food crop in the world.’
Engaging African scientists to discover the potential genetic wealth of sorghum would assist African food security. In a first glimpse of foundation expenditures, however, we see funds directed to the Wambugu Consortium (founded by Pioneer Hi-Breed, part of DuPont) for experiments in genetically modified sorghum. By adding a gene, rather than mining the genetic wealth already there, the consortium can patent and sell the ‘new’ variety at a premium price for DuPont.
Toward Sustainability
Given the well-documented destruction of the previous green revolution, what if we decided that Africa's lack of use of fertiliser is a sign of sustainable development not of backwardness? Africa's use of chemical fertilisers is extremely low: nine kilograms per hectare in sub-Sa-hara Africa, compared to 135 kilograms per hectare in East and Southeast Asia, 100 kilograms in South Asia, and an average of 206 kilograms in industrialised countries. Originating from excess nitrogen production left over after World War Two, the massive use of chemical fertilisers defined industrial agriculture in the 20th century. Surely for the 21st century, yields can be increased without such a high cost of African environmental degradation.
The African continent also uses different terminology from that of the green revolution. Instead of food security, African voices articulate the goal of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty expresses resistance to the notion that food security can be provided by reliance on global markets, where price and supply vagaries can be as capricious as African weather. Experiencing political manipulation of global markets by the more powerful, African governments seek to control decisions about food sources, considering such choices as vital to national sovereignty.
African governments work to defend local, small-scale farmers from highly subsidised farmers in the United States or Europe. In most of Africa – with South Africa a notable exception - the majority of the population still lives in rural areas and still derives their incomes from farming. Dislocation of farmers to consolidate land for high-tech, green revolution farming is as serious a threat as chemical pollution of the environment.
Should the green wealth of ecological and farming knowledge among local small-scale farmers be destroyed for the cash wealth of much fewer large-scale farmers buying all their inputs from foreign corporations?
Each African government will answer the above questions about a green revolution differently. The diversity of policies matches the diversity of the continent. Yet they all reject patenting of life forms and strive to attain food sovereignty. High-tech answers to Africa's food crises are no answers at all if they pollute the environment with fertilisers and pesticides, destroy small-scale farming, and transform the genetic wealth of the continent into cash profits for a few corporations.
Carol B. Thompson, professor of political economy at Northern Arizona University; e-mail: carol.thompson@123456nau.edu. For more detailed analyses, see Andrew Mushita and Carol B. Thompson, Biopiracy of Biodiversity published in 2007 by Africa World Press. Thanks to Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org) for permission to reprint this briefing.
Somalia: Amidst the Rubble, a Vibrant Telecommunications Infrastructure
Bob Feldman
Thirteen attempts to form a central government in Mogadishu since 1991 have been thwarted by the parochial interests of feuding warlords. Finally, in 2004, through a reconciliation project, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was created, though it remains weak and unable to exert control in most of the country.1
Complicating matters for the new government was the takeover of Mogadishu, the nation's de facto capital, in mid-2006 by the Islamic Courts Union, essentially a fundamentalist group attempting to establish sharia, Islamic law, in the country. Much of the land's infrastructure lies in ruins, serving as sources of scrap metal to be bartered for basic necessities. The people are impoverished, the economy shattered. And, amidst the rubble and the juxtaposition of modern antenna it has one of the most vibrant and least expensive telecommunications sectors in the world.
The description of Somalia in this briefing does not include Somaliland, a breakaway republic in the northwest which did maintain a government, and which wants to be recognised as an independent country. This will be discussed in further detail when comparing telecommunications in Somalia to those present in Somaliland. The word Somalia will also not be used to include Puntland, an area in the northeastern region of the country, which has declared itself to be an autonomous state of Somalia.
VSAT: First to Fill the Gap
Somalia had only 8,500 fixed lines in 1990 to serve a countrywide population of nearly 10 million.2 Even worse for the rural population, most of these lines were in the capital, Mogadishu. With the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime the following year the country devolved into anarchy. Much of the infrastructure, including the Public Switch Transmission Network, was destroyed. A large portion of Somalia was literally cut off from the outside world, the people unable to communicate with their friends and relatives in the United States, Kenya, and other countries with large Somali expatriate communities.
Eventually satellite communication devices with very small aperture terminals (VSAT) were installed by private operators to meet the demand. These devices often have antennas less than two meters in diameter, though some are considerably larger.3 They are a mature technology introduced in the 1980s, and now comprise hundreds of thousands of units installed worldwide.4 A typical VSAT star network configuration includes several components. Each user has a box that interfaces between their computer and an outdoor antenna. The antenna serves as a transceiver, capable of sending signals to a satellite as well as receiving them. When the first user sends a message to the second, the information goes from user one's terminal antenna to the satellite and then down to an Earth station hub. There it is sorted and sent back to the satellite where it will be relayed to the terminal antenna of the second user. Companies such as AT&T and Tella were contracted by private operators to provide the transit facilities (earth station hubs) for incoming and outgoing messages.
There are several possible reasons VSAT's were the first units to be utilised to provide telecommunications capabilities in war torn Somalia. These include:
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They are relatively inexpensive, with some units available for approximately $3,500.00;5 Units that can handle larger bandwidths, and thus exchange more data, are more expensive;
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They do not require a significant amount of additional infrastructure;
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Their power requirements can be met by small generators;
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They are readily available on the open market;
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They are fairly durable, an important quality in a high heat, high humidity environment such as Somalia. Failure to properly seal the cables, leading to loss of the signal when it rains, appears to be the main preventable problem afflicting them;6
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They are capable of handling data, voice over internet protocol or VOIP (allows for voice conversations if additional components are installed), and video;
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VSAT is particularly well suited for cybercafes, an increasingly popular telecom venue, where a small number of computers, and perhaps some voice lines, are required; Cybercafes have the user come to the private operator's site, as opposed to trying to provide the infrastructure necessary to bring telecommunications capabilities to the user's home;
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They are expandable to meet increasing needs. Additional remote terminals can be added on an essentially plug and play basis; These can readily be interconnected with existing PBX, LAN servers, and WAN telecommunications in-frastructure;7
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It offers the private operator near total independence from other companies. Thus, companies, at least initially, are free to develop without being dependent on the good will, or lack thereof, of other telecom operators;
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VSAT lends itself to being shared. Thus, the VSAT of one operator can interact with the VSAT of another;
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They are relatively small, making them easily transportable to sites where larger items, due to the lack of roads, could not be brought;
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They are relatively simple to set-up and operate. No extensive engineering knowledge, nearly impossible to find since the outbreak of hostilities, is required. Those that use geosynchronous satellites require an initial precise aiming of the antenna. Once the antenna is aimed, it generally does not require further adjustment.8
Today, including Somaliland and Puntland, there are nine telecom companies, over 105,000 fixed lines and nearly 39,000 mobile lines.9 Telephone coverage now extends to 87% of the country.
Cooperation Without Regulation
The lack of regulation following the collapse of the central government meant anyone with a VSAT system could enter the telecommunications market. There were no filings, public hearings, zoning notices, or other governmental impediments. Those who could fill the infrastructure vacuum were allowed to do so. However, without a government to provide regulations, users of one company's phones often could not connect with users of a different company's phones. For growth to be sustained cooperation would have to occur.
The United Nations Development Program, which was encouraging private enterprise in the region, recognised the chaotic situation. In cooperation with the International Telecommunications Union, it invited the heads of some of the private companies to a series of meetings in Dubai. There, in November 1998, the companies formed the Somali Telecom Association. Being based in Dubai helps mitigate fears of favouritism to any region or operators. Also, since most of the Somali telecom companies already had their offices in Dubai, it made for a convenient location conducive to interaction among them.
The Association is financed by its members and associates, with a mandate to develop the telecommunications industry in Somalia. It has provided training both overseas and in-house, to engineers and managers. Additionally, the association represents Somalia at international telecommunications conferences.
According to Abdilghani Jama, Secretary of the Association, the lack of connectivity among the various companies was due to a lack of trust. In a pilot project, the Association brought the local operators together with international experts on the economic benefits and costs of having interconnectivity. This led to the companies purchasing new equipment and actually forming a jointly owned entity. Now the residents of Mogadishu who have phone service can talk with each other, no longer hindered by a lack of connectivity among different operators.
Comparison to Somaliland
Somalia was formed in 1960 by the union of the northern Somaliland Protectorate, formerly ruled by Britain, and the southern portion, known as Italian Somalia, named for its ties to its colonial ruler. As the southern section delved into anarchy in 1991, following the overthrow of the repressive Siad Barre dictatorship, the northern section declared the union over, claiming itself to be a sovereign entity and adopting the name of Republic of Somaliland. Unlike the southern part of the country, the north retained a government. Its requests to be recognized as a separate sovereign country, however, have so far fallen on deaf ears. Not a single foreign country recognizes it as such.
Somaliland, like its southern counterpart, has also enjoyed a rapid development in the telecommunications sector. In 1993 the country had a single phone company that only provided fixed phone lines. A decade later there were four private telecommunication companies offering fixed, mobile, and internet services. However, those four companies in Somaliland, unlike the ones in Somalia, were unable or unwilling to invest the time, effort, and money to provide interconnectivity among themselves.
While Somalia, a country with no central government, driven by the profit motives of its telecom operators developed interconnectivity, Somaliland, with a central government, did not. It is difficult to say whether the Somaliland government was the reason for this lack of cooperation, or if there were other factors. Still, it is an interesting demonstration that the presence of a government does not necessarily lead to optimal economic benefits for its citizens. Furthermore, in an unregulated society, such as exists in Somalia, a form of self-government, essentially self-regulation, for an individual sector can arise to provide optimal benefits.
Telecom Not a Terrorist Target
First and foremost are the overwhelming wishes of the everyday people to be able to communicate via telecommunications with one another. As Abdi Karim Mohamed Eid, manager of Telesom, a private telecommunications company in Somaliland said, but with relevance to the rest of Somalia, ‘In traditional African societies, it's sometimes difficult for government officials to embrace technology, but here, it is the people who decide.’10 A particularly strong incentive in this is the dependency of many Somalis on remittances from their relatives and friends abroad. Much of this money is transferred via hawala, an informal honour-based system. As an example, a person could approach a hawala broker in Minneapolis to transfer funds to someone in Mogadishu. The first broker would then contact a second broker in Somalia to deliver funds to the intended recipient. The first broker promises to settle the debt at a later time.11 Since there is no legal enforceability of claims, the system can function where there is no government. Maintaining a telecommunications infrastructure facilitates the transfer of such funds.
Certainly a significant share of these monies also makes their way to the hands of warlords, militias and terrorists, helping to finance activities such as the tremendous amount of arms trafficking in the country. An added benefit for such groups is that in some instances hawala does not use any promissory instruments, making it difficult for outside intelligence and police agencies to trace money transfers.
Thus, a large reason the telecom sector is not just left alone but actually encouraged by ‘terrorist’ organisations is that it can serve as a major source of their funds, especially through money transfers. On 7 November 2001 the United States government designated al Barakaat, a bank based in Dubai that was also financially involved in the telecommunications sector of Somalia, as a ‘terrorist’ entity.12 At one point, al Barakaat was the major money transfer organisation in Somalia. Paul O'Neill, then Secretary of the Treasury, described the company and its branches as such:
The al Barakaat companies are the money movers, the quartermasters of terror. At core, it is a hawala conglomerate operating in 40 countries around the world with business ventures in telecommunications, construction, and currency exchange. They are a principal source of funding, intelligence, and money transfers for bin Laden. 13
There are additional reasons for terrorists to be supportive of the telecommunications infrastructure, particularly the high tech one that has grown in Somalia. Unlike the older fixed line telephones which were relatively easy to tap, disrupt, and trace, the newer technologies offer the potential for more anonymity. The mobile phone is rented, sometimes to several different users for short periods, in a cash only transaction, making it difficult to determine which wireless unit to place under surveillance. This multi-user arrangement also makes it difficult to know who made a particular call of interest.
With no police or legal system, the use of the telecom system to coordinate ‘terrorist’ activities can occur without fear of arrest in Somalia. Additionally, the provision of internet access by at least three of the telecom companies can allow Somalia-based terrorists to communicate via the web to collaborators in other countries. This means of sending messages, sometimes subtly hidden in websites, has proven difficult at times to uncover.
The use of telecommunications by ‘terrorists’, militias and warlords is so prevalent in Somalia that these individuals can possibly be considered the de facto governing body of that sector. Without at least their tacit approval, the hardware associated with sending and receiving messages would quickly be confiscated. Thus, while the warlords and terrorists may not form an official sanctioning body, their unwritten requirements, such as making the internet available for fund transfers, must be met. It's quite possible that interconnectivity among the different systems is yet another directive dictated by warlords and terrorists. Since such rules imposed upon the telecom sector are not readily apparent to the outside observer, the appearance of a free market that is totally absent any regulation is probably an illusion since some regulation exists in the form of pressure from these organisations; it's just not formally structured in a codified series of laws, and appears not to cover such areas as pricing and entry into the market.
No Government, No Taxes, No-Man's Land
Because there is no strong central government, Somali telecoms do not have to pay taxes. This, along with intense competition among the providers, has resulted in some of the cheapest call rates in the world. Another result of not having a strong central government is the ability of nearly any willing provider to establish a telecom company in the country. As Abdigani Jama, Secretary General of the Somali Telecom Association, says, ‘It's a no-man's land. Anyone can bring in equipment and no licenses are required.’15
Despite such advantages, the telecom companies are generally anxious to see a central government once again in Somalia. There are several reasons for this. A central government could reestablish a formal banking system, allowing both companies and customers alike to borrow in order to finance their telecom needs. Also, regulations do not necessarily have to impede development, especially if a significant portion of their thrust is standardisation and compatibility. The private telecom operators themselves chose to self-regulate so they could have the benefit, and the increased revenue associated with it, of phones from one system being capable of interacting with the phones from another.
Finally, there is the uncertainty that accompanies a country without a government. Today the warlords opt for telecom, but who knows what seemingly capricious reason might cause one or all of them to change their mind. The possible reasons for intentional or unintentional disruption of telecommunications in Somalia are endless.
The Reestablishment of Government: Future Unknown
Clues as to the possible shape of the telecom sector in Somalia should a strong central government be established can be gleaned by examining other African countries. Additional information can be obtained from the overall telephony strategies for the continent, as provided by the Panos Report, ‘Completing the Revolution: the Challenge of Rural Telephony in Africa.’16 Following are some possible changes that might be implemented:
1) An increased emphasis on providing telecom services to the remaining rural areas that do not presently have them. Because rural areas tend to have a low population density as well as a generally poorer population than the cities, the private telecom sector sees few economic incentives to service them. It would fall on the government to provide such incentives, perhaps through tax breaks (once the government starts taxing telecom) or direct subsidies. Though the establishment of telecom services in rural areas may offer significant benefits, such as increased development, it is not always an easy task to accomplish. Witness Senegal which signed a contract with France Telecom in 1997 to help provide rural telephony to 1,000 villages per year. Seven years later and they still had not connected even their one-year goal.17
2) A greater emphasis on mobile phone growth compared to fixed-line telephony. Mobile phone subscription in Africa within the past five years has grown more than any other region in the world.18Indeed, throughout most of Africa the installation of mobile phone infrastructure has taken a priority over the more expensive fixed-line infrastructure. As an example, in Uganda the number of mobile phone users multiplied 131 times in a span of six years, becoming seven times the users of fixed-lines.19 Similar growth will probably occur in Somalia. It is possible the government there will assist the expansion of mobile phone usage by providing incentives, such as property rights or reduced taxes, to install relay towers and other necessary infrastructure in geographic areas deemed less profitable by telecom operators.
3) Taxation of telecom. It would be difficult for the fledgling government not to look at one of the few successful enterprises in the country as a source of revenue. However, rate increases due to the imposition of taxes might eventually be offset by increased competition and savings through economies of scale. Also, as previously mentioned, the government could structure the taxation in such a way as to provide incentives for necessary infrastructure.
4) Continued growth. Establishment of a stable government will encourage new businesses, many of which will require phone and/or internet service. The government itself will also have needs in this area and, like many other countries, could become one of the major users of telecommunications.
5) Expansion and enhancement of VSAT. Satellite technology will surely continue to play a role, perhaps the dominant one, in meeting the continued growth of the telecom sector. Newer VSAT units will possibly provide larger bandwidths, especially if a power grid offering dedicated electrical service is created. The larger VSAT units require more electricity to operate.
6) Relocation of at least part of the Somali Telecom Association from Dubai to Somalia itself. However, it would be likely that the Association would retain a presence in the UAE. The fact that Dubai is a hub for both telecom and hawala is probably not a coincidence, with one business feeding the other.
7) A possible decrease and/or shift in the way warlords and terrorists use telecommunications. The new government will be under pressure on the domestic front to decrease the power and capabilities of the warlords and on the international front to do the same with terrorists. Both groups will probably find ways to adapt to technical or legal obstacles placed in their way. This could involve applying either a high tech or a low tech approach, with the use of more sophisticated equipment being an example of the former and the reliance on people as messengers an example of the latter.
It is uncertain at this time whether or not fiberoptic cable will play a role in the immediate future of telecom in Somalia even if a government is established. Fiberoptic offers two general advantages over VSAT: it readily carries a large bandwidth and it does not have the signal delay inherent in VSAT (this occurs from the signal having to travel from the ground station to the satellite and back). However, it can be expensive to lay cable, and few telecom providers are going to be willing to risk a large infrastructure investment in a country that has not shown stability for over a decade.
Conclusion
A large portion of Somalia was essentially a blank slate after 1991, but instead of a gradual evolution (or re-evolution) of telecommunications occurring, as had happened in the developed world, the country leapfrogged to wireless and other advanced technologies. Since successive generations of technology tend to be both more efficient and cost-effective than previous ones, it made perfect sense for the country to reestablish its telecommunications network with flexible and relatively inexpensive VSAT as opposed to fixed phone lines. Thus, what appears ironic at first, high tech satellite links arising in an impoverished country, is actually the most appropriate telecommunications development path the country could take.
As two simultaneous attempts are made, one by the Somalia Transitional Federal Institutions and the other by the Islamic Courts Union, to once again to establish a central government in Somalia, it will be interesting to observe the impact of a new government, or governments, on telecommunications. Will they view it as one of the few viable sectors of the economy and excessively tax it, raising rates to the point demand is significantly dampened? Will they try to control it with well-intentioned regulations that have the unfortunate consequence of stifling the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit it has exhibited? Whatever the government does, they should not do it in haste. Instead, they should take the time to study the telecom sector as a unique entity that has filled an important niche, and then look for ways to replicate that success with other aspects of the country's infrastructure.
Bob Feldman , Major, USAR; e-mail: robert.feldman1@123456us.army.mil
Desperate Days in Zimbabwe
Ian Phimister & Brian Raftopoulos
Go hang(Robert Mugabe, March 2007)
No matter how tough it gets… we have an agreement, even if we are murdered we have an agreement (to continue the struggle)(Morgan Tsvangirai, March 2007)
Towards the end of February 2007, the occasion of President Robert Mugabe's 83rd birthday was marked by a televised interview. Denying that the economy was in dire straits even if people were struggling to make ends meet, he took the opportunity to warn his would-be successors – ‘high ranking, ambitious individuals who were looking at themselves’ – that he would not be pushed out of office. While the day would come when he would retire, that point had not yet been reached. ‘Can you see any vacancies?’, he asked rhetorically. ‘The door is closed’ (BBC News, 21 February 2007). Preparations were anyway welladvanced for a huge birthday party to be staged in a football stadium just outside the midlands city of Gweru. For several months, the 21st February Movement, a state youth organisation whose sole purpose turns on Mugabe's annual birthday festivities, had been raising funds and finalising arrangements for the big day. ‘Farmers have donated 38 cattle while others said they would bring processed beef’, declared one of its leaders:
Our initial target was to raise Z$532 million (US$2.1 million) … but so far we have received well over Z$700 million in cash and kind (Mail & Guardian,23 February, 2007).
The contrast between such extravagance and the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans was not lost on local people or on critics of the regime. Such displays, of course, were neither new nor unexpected, but their insensitivity was seen as crassly provocative at a time when political tensions were rising. As hyper-inflation spiralled ever upwards, from an estimated 1,300% p.a. in the week ending 13 February, to 1,600% a week later, to over 1,700% in March, and predicted to hit 4,000-5,000% by the end of the year (Mail & Guardian, 13 February 2007; Daily Telegraph, 19 February, 2007; BBC News, 26 March 2007), evidence of acute hardship was everywhere. Emboldened by the manifest desperation of workers whose wages did not even cover the cost of daily transport never mind food, and by the swelling ranks of jobless youths in the high density townships surrounding Harare and Bulawayo, both the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the two factions of the divided opposition MDC had decided to raise their heads above the parapet. A decision by the general council of the ZCTU to prepare for a two day stayaway for early April (IOL, 25 February 2007), followed hard on the heels of a declaration by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of one MDC grouping, that he would launch his campaign for the 2008 presidential election in Harare's Highfield township.
On Sunday 18th February, crowds making their way to attend the rally, for which the required legal permission had been obtained, were dispersed by police firing teargas and water cannon. Clashes between heavily-armed riot police and stone-throwing protesters ended with an unknown number of assaults and the arrest of 122 people. In Bulawayo, a march through the city led by Arthur Mutambara's MDC faction was broken up in similar fashion. The next day, Highfield's deserted streets were still being patrolled by riot squads on foot and in armoured trucks. A heavy police presence was in evidence around the township shopping centre where roadblocks remained in place. Meeting on Tuesday, the Cabinet decided to ban all opposition political gatherings in Harare for three months. ‘The regime is panicking’, announced a spokesman for Morgan Tsvangirai. ‘They are trying to impose a state of emergency. This is tantamount to banning the MDC and all political activity’. But the MDC, he declared, would ignore the ban and continue ‘to organise our rallies and meetings where necessary’ (Mail & Guardian, 22 February 2007).
On the face of it, the ruling party certainly had plenty to be concerned about. Serious splits within ZANU-PF had burst into the open in December 2006. A Mugabe-backed motion to combine the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, ostensibly on grounds of efficiency but actually to extend his term of office until 2010 was not endorsed by conference delegates. In particular, it promised to frustrate the succession ambitions of the increasingly impatient factions clustered around retired army general Solomon Mujuru and his wife Joice, still deputy vice president but no longer enjoying Mugabe's favour; and Cabinet minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. More worrying for the regime were the first public signs of disaffection amongst rank and file members of the police and army. Claims to this effect carried by The Zimbabwean towards the end of last year now found independent confirmation. In late January 2007, junior officers were reported as having mutinied over low pay, this coming after a warning by the Commissioner of Police that ‘pay disparities within the security services risk(ed) propelling officers into “active rebellion against the government”’ (ICG, ‘Zimbabwe’; Mail & Guardian, 9 February 2007; Zimbabwe Standard, 17 February 2007).
Mugabe himself, however, displayed little outward sign of concern. Short-term measures to alleviate discontent took the form of the immediate issue of food rations to lowly-paid junior army officers and their families, with similar arrangements for the police to follow. Each junior officer received a ten kilogram bag of maize meal, two litres of cooking oil, a one kilogram packet of fish, and a one kilogram packet of sugar beans (Sunday Times, 18 February 2007). As the mouths of those higher up the food chain had had long been stuffed with gold – ‘majors, colonels, lieutenant colonels and brigadier generals are pampered with (Toyota) Prados, residential stands in posh suburbs like Borrowdale, Chisawash Hills, and farms’ – their loyalty was more certain (Mail & Guardian, 9 February, 2007). But leaving nothing to chance, the Central Intelligence Organisation began deploying secret agents inside the police and army with the aim of flushing out officers suspected of sympathising with the opposition (Ibid. 9 March 2007).
Satisfied that the situation was well in hand, Mugabe then flew off to Namibia on a four-day official visit. Ever true to form, Mugabe used a speech at a dinner hosted by the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry to rail against the ‘nonsense’ touted by the International Monetary Fund. ‘If you follow the IMF you will not go anywhere. They will always prescribe for you’, he told his appreciative audience.
We can help each other among ourselves. When we don't have that capacity, then we are like economic slaves. We go begging. There are still countries in Africa which go begging for money in order to pay their civil servants, and they got independent in the 1960s (The Star,5 March 2007).
Yet in Harare and Bulawayo, it was precisely the civil service, reeling under the shock of recent price increases which had pushed the cost of living for a family of five up to Z$686,000 a month, from Z$460,000 only a month previously, which was now threatening strike action (Financial Times, 17 March 2007). To observers, it seemed that ‘economic meltdown’ would propel ZANU-PF towards change, ‘since business interests of key officials are suffering’. In a report released on 5 March, the Brussels–based ICG argued that ‘after years of political deadlock and continued economic and humanitarian decline, a realistic chance has at last begun to appear in the past few months to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, by retirement of President Robert Mugabe, a power-sharing transitional government, a new constitution and elections’. For all that, elements of the report had the appearance of a wish-list rather than a likely scenario, its claim that sections within ZANU-PF were not only pushing for Mugabe's retirement but also negotiating transitional arrangements with the MDC, clearly hit the rawest of ruling party nerves (ICG, ‘Zimbabwe’). The very next day, the Minister of Information, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, angrily denounced the report and its authors as guilty of ‘political hallucination’. ‘No one within its (ZANU-PF's) ranks is poised to betray the national liberation legacy that binds the ZANU-PF government with the masses’, insisted Ndlovu. The government, he said, remained ‘peo-ple-centred’ (IOL, 8 March 2007).
Be that as it may, it was certainly prepared to beat people who stepped out of line. In late February and early March, members of the National Constitutional Assembly, an umbrella grouping of opposition movements, defied the recently imposed ban on demonstrations by staging marches in Harare, Bulawayo and other urban centres. Those taking part had been arrested and assaulted by the police, but this sporadic violence went largely unnoticed by the outside world until renewed clashes in Highfield between demonstrators and the police resulted in mass arrests, beatings and the death of one opposition activist. On Sunday 11 March, a prayer meeting called in Highfield's Zimbabwe Grounds by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign dissolved in chaos as heavily armed riot police used road blocks, tear gas, and water cannons to prevent people from reaching the event. As running battles erupted between stone-throwing activists and police, one man was killed and more than 100 were arrested. According to a police spokesman, MDC supporters hurling stones and teargas at the police, had defied orders to disperse.
One person has been shot dead by the police and three police officers are detained at Harare Hospital after sustaining serious injuries during an attack by MDC thugs this afternoon … Warning shots were fired and the group still advanced. The police shot one male adult, who appeared to be the leader of the group, in the chest.
The arrest of MDC leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambura, and other party officials ‘going around inciting people to come and indulge in violent activities’ was confirmed (IOL, 3 March 2007; Ibid., 12 March 2007; Cape Times, 12 March 2007).
By Tuesday, that is, two days later, it had become apparent that those arrested had been repeatedly and brutally assaulted while in police custody. Photographs of bruised and battered MDC members flashed around the world, particularly those of the grotesquely swollen features of Morgan Tsvangirai, whose skull had been fractured, it was subsequently confirmed. As Tsvangirai and other detainees, many alleging they had been tortured and some with broken limbs, were released into hospital care after briefly appearing at Harare Magistrates Court, it seemed that the Mugabe regime had spectacularly miscalculated the consequences of its heavy-handed actions. Far from the beatings having had the desired effect, they had revitalised a divided opposition which for some time past had been going nowhere. They had driven Tsvangirai and Mutambara together, if only for the moment, and they had left the MDC in undisputed possession of the moral high ground. ‘There are lots of people who've been subjected to this kind of torture, this kind of brutality by this regime’, declared Tsvangirai from his hospital bed. ‘It just shows the extent to which this brutal regime is trying to protect its power. For the struggle, I think it's an inspiration to everyone. There is no freedom without struggle, and there is no freedom without sacrifice’ (BBC News, 14 March 2007; The Independent, 15 March 2007).
International condemnation of Harare's actions was quick in coming. Citing eyewitnesses who claimed that activists had only turned on the police after the fatal shooting, most foreign media coverage was extremely critical of the official version of events which blamed the opposition MDC for the violence. Amongst the first to weigh in was United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who demanded Tsvangirai's immediate release. ‘The world community again has been shown that the regime of Robert Mugabe is ruthless and repressive and creates only suffering for the people of Zimbabwe’. The US, she said, would hold Mugabe personally responsible for the safety and well-being of those in custody. She was joined in her condemnation by the UN Secretary General, by the European Union, and by Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Even the discredited former colonial power, Britain, managed to muster a junior Foreign Office minister, who described the situation in Zimbabwe as ‘appalling’ (Daily News, 13 March 2007; Mail & Guardian, 14 March 2007; Zimbabwe Independent, 16 March 2007)
Paying no heed to Western criticism, Mugabe acted accordingly. On same day that the police were unleashed in Highfield, Mugabe had announced his intention of standing for another sixyear term of office. Any lingering doubts about his seriousness of purpose were dispelled at mid-week when the offices of the ZCTU were raided by members of the CIO.
In Bulawayo, Gweru, Kwekwe, and Mutare, more than 100 opposition supporters and students activists were rounded up and arrested. By this point, protest within the region had begun to mount. For the South African Foreign Affairs Department to observe only that ‘the problems of Zimbabwe will be resolved by the people of Zimbabwe’ was ‘disgraceful in the face of such massive attacks and human rights, especially coming from those who owed so much to international solidarity when South Africans were fighting for democracy and human rights against the apartheid regime’, noted a COSATU spokesman. Stung by such sharp criticism coming from one of its partners in the Tripartite Alliance, South Africa's ANC government belatedly called on Harare ‘to ensure that the rule of law including respect for the rights of all Zimbabweans and opposition leaders is respected’, but beyond that point it was not prepared to go. (IOL, 13 March 2007; Mail & Guardian, 14 March 2007
For Mugabe, what was crucial was South African president Thabo Mbeki's silence and implied support. Nothing else mattered, not even Ghanaian president and current African Union chairman, John Kufor's off-the-cuff remark that the situation in Zimbabwe was an ‘embarrassment’. Much more significant was public support from the Angolan government for the ‘appropriate measures’ taken by the Zimbabwean police in dealing with violence. In Harare to sign a security cooperation accord, Angola's Minister of the Interior referred warmly to the ties of friendship between the two countries which dated back to the days of the liberation war. These ties, he said, had now been strengthened (BBC News, 13 March 2007; IOL, 16 March 2007; Financial Gazette, 16 March 2007; The Herald, 19 March 2007). Also in the Zimbabwean capital was Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete. His Tanzanian counterpart had visited as a brother and an ally explained Mugabe, unlike the West
which has always supported the opposition here and elsewhere … Naturally, we take great exception to any support that has been given by foreigners or representatives of foreign countries to the political parties or opposition in the country. When they criticise Government when it tries to prevent violence and punish perpetrators of that violence, we take the position they can go hang (The Herald,16 March 2007).
Quite who was responsible for the escalating violence was far from clear. Over the next ten days, that is, the second half of March, there were reports of sporadic clashes between opposition activists and riot police, mainly in Harare and Bulawayo townships, but in smaller urban centres too. Four police stations were petrol-bombed, three in and around Harare, and the other in Gweru (Financial Gazette, 16 March 2007; Zimdaily.com, 17 March 2007; The Herald, 28 March 2007). A ZANU-PF office, a house belonging to a ZANU-PF councillor, two supermarkets, and a night club were all attacked. Boulders and logs were placed across the main railway line leading into Bulawayo, and a Bulawayo-bound passenger train was petrol-bombed as it was leaving Harare (Zim Online, 16 March 2007; The Herald, 28 March 2007) These and other violent episodes were seized upon by Western countries and Harare alike, but for very different reasons. For the former, it was all part of growing evidence of the long-predicted uprising by a population driven beyond endurance by an incompetent and tyrannical regime. ‘What I think we have seen in the last week is that people have turned a corner’, claimed the US ambassador to Zimbabwe. ‘They're not afraid any more’ (BBC News, 21 March 2007). This was not at all how Harare saw events. One week after the arrests and beatings administered to his opponents, Mugabe solemnly pointed to ‘terrorist attacks that are part of the desperate and illegal plot to unconstitutionally change the government of the country’ (Sunday Mail, 18 March 2007).
Even as Harare assiduously compiled a dossier of such ‘terrorist’ incidents, its agents continued severely to assault and arrest MDC office-bearers and supporters (The Times,20 March 2007; The Independent, 21 March 2007; for the dossier itself, see Zimbabwe Republic Police, ‘Opposition Forces in Zimbabwe. A Trail of Violence 1 January 2007 to 15 March 2007’;Ibid., Vol. 2). The initiative was now beginning to slip away from the opposition, for all that its leaders talked up the prospect of change. ‘We are in the final stages of the final push’, declared Arthur Mutambara.
We are going to do it by democratic means, by being arrested, beaten, but we are going to do it. We are continuing with defiance in spite of what Robert Mugabe says. We are talking about rebellion, war … Mugabe is fighting against his own people. That is war against the people. Already there is violence.
‘Things are bad’, Morgan Tsvangirai said in an interview, ‘but I think that this crisis has reached a tipping point, and we could see the beginning of the end of this dictatorship in whatever form’ (The Times, 17 March 2007; The Independent, 19 March 2007). Other MDC members were not convinced. ‘For all the publicity of the past week, the fact remains that the opposition hasn't been able to mobilise tens of thousands of people which is partly to do with fear, partly to do with divisions in the opposition and partly to do with a shocking lack of information for ordinary people about what is going on’, observed one opposition Member of Parliament. ‘This is a very weak population; weak economically, unhealthy because of AIDS, and a population that is starving’ (The Guardian, 20 March 2007). With a call by the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo for the population to fill the streets in protest falling on deaf ears, a note of caution crept into MDC pronouncements. Prudently distancing themselves from petrol bomb attacks, not least because of mounting suspicion that some had been the actions of agent provocateurs in the pay of the state, opposition leaders now acknowledged that it was ‘too early to talk of victory or tipping points’ (The Zimbabwean, 22-28 March 2007; BBC News, 26 March 2007; The Independent, 28 March 2007).
With opposition hopes for change increasingly pinned on a combination of external pressure and the ambitions of disaffected ZANU-PF party barons, the regime in Harare was sufficiently confident that it had regained control of the situation to lift the ban imposed on political meetings and demonstrations. It did, however, take the precaution of sending armed police and CIO operatives on the rampage through Chitungwiza where a rally was scheduled, in order to beat MDC activists into submission (The Herald, 26 March 2007; Zimdaily.com, 27 March 2007). Having accused Morgan Tsvangirai the previous day that ‘you want to rule this country on behalf of Blair, (but) as long as I am alive that will never happen’, Mugabe rammed home the message by authorising the temporary re-arrest of the MDC leader and his senior aides (BBC News, 28 March 2007; The Independent, 29 March 2007).
By mid-week, the Zimbabwean president was in Dar es Salaam for a meeting of the 12-nation SADC, where, according to Western prognostications, he was due to come under unprecedented pressure to accept an exit package and make way for an interim government. Instead, Mugabe briefed his fellow leaders on ‘MDC violence which its Western backers wanted to use to bring Zimbabwe under the UN Security Council’. Their attention was drawn to a dossier detailing ‘acts of terrorism’ carried out by the MDC's underground ‘Democratic Resistance Committees’, members of which were fortuitously being charged in Harare with attempted murder in connection with a string of fire bombings, even as the Summit was meeting (The Herald, 26 March 2007; BBC News, 29 March 2007; IOL, 30 March 2007). Apparently impressed and certainly unwilling to bow to Western pressure, the SADC leaders rallied around Zimbabwe's autocratic ruler. Far from criticising Mugabe, they directed their fire at the West. Recalling that ‘free, fair and democratic presidential elections were held in 2002 in Zimbabwe’, and reaffirming ‘its solidarity with the Government and people of Zimbabwe’, the official communiqué called for the lifting of ‘all forms of sanctions against Zimbabwe’, while reiterating an appeal to Britain ‘to honour its compensation obligations with regard to land reform’. Almost as an afterthought, President Mbeki was mandated to promote political dialogue within Zimbabwe (The Herald, 30 March 2007; BBC News, 30 March 2007).
Pleased with what he described as an ‘excellent meeting’, Mugabe returned home to further good news. Addressing a crucial meeting of his ruling ZANU-PF party, he claimed that he had not heard one word of criticism from his fellow southern African leaders at the summit just ended. Morgan Tsvangirai, he said, ‘deserved to be assaulted’, and to thunderous applause, he dismissed Western hopes of regime change. ‘Both governments of Bush and Blair think we have reached what they term a tipping point because of the hardships wrought by the illegal sanctions they have imposed on us … They are gravely mistaken’. Confounding MDC and Western expectations that the powerful factions associated with Solomon Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa would unite to depose him, Mugabe was again selected as the ZANU-PF presidential candidate for the 2008 election. This election would coincide with elections for parliament, which would be brought forward by two years. Standing on the steps of ZANU-PF's headquarters, and surrounded by cheering supporters, an obviously jubilant Mugabe denounced the West and Britain in particular, for funding the ‘violent’ MDC. ‘We can never entertain … a party that is walking the road of terrorism’, he told the crowd in footage subsequently screened on national television. ‘We will not allow that in Zimbabwe’ (BBC News, 30 March 2007; The Times, 30 March 2007; Mail & Guardian,31 March 2007).
The SADC invitation for Mugabe to enter into mediation with the opposition, is a process that the Zimbabwean leader cannot easily refuse if he is to maintain the integrity and support of the region. Developing regional solidarity has all along been a key element of Mugabe's survival strategy. It is certain, however, that Mugabe will make the mediation process as difficult as possible for his South African counterpart, Thabo Mbeki. Already the period since 11 March 2007 has witnessed continued arrests, violence, torture and killing of MDC activists, usually on allegations of terrorism. Equally significant is the fact that the recent violence is ZANU-PF's introductory gambit into the mediation process. Mugabe is likely to drag out the mediation for as long as possible, even as he prepares for another problematic election in 2008. The Zimbabwean government has already announced that a general election will take place at the end of March, and the current general assault on the opposition indicates Mugabe and ZANU-PF's election campaign is already underway.
Both Presidents Mbeki and Mugabe understand that the opposition forces in Zimbabwe have been seriously weakened by a combination of state repression, the split within the MDC, and a lack of support within the region. The MDC are unable to exert strong internal pressure as a bargaining strategy in the talks. This places the organisation in an invidious situation, in which their major points of pressure are a reluctant SADC mediation, pressure from the West and the possibility of a resurgent opposition in the future. The balance of forces in the current context thus weighs heavily against them. For Mugabe the two major pressures that confront him are the rapidly declining economy and the factional battles in his party. The indicators of decline in Zimbabwe have become a standard global reference for economic failure. At the time of writing, the inflation rate stands at about 3,700%, while by 2006 the GDP per capita was 47% below the level in 1980. At the end of 2006 the average minimum wage of Zimbabwean workers was only 16.6% of the Poverty Datum Line calculated at December 2006 levels, while the formal sector decreased from 1.4 million in 1998 to 998,000 in 2004. When these indicators are combined with anticipated shortage of food this year and the continued loss of high level skills from the country, the picture is bleak indeed.
An important dimension of the factional struggle within ZANU-PF is about a strategy for the normalisation of relations with the international community, one that will provide the party elite with time and space to consolidate recently acquired wealth. The terms of this reengagement will form the core of the mediation talks, while the future of Mugabe himself will be a major feature of this normalisation. On this matter, the veteran leader does not feel that he can hand over the torch to anyone else. It is for this reason that the ruling party structures were manipulated to ensure Mugabe's presidential candidacy in 2008. From this perspective, mediation is about making as few reforms as possible to gain acceptance for an election next year. On the other hand, the opposition faces pressures of growing national and international impatience with their divisions, and the prospect of major strategic and organisational dilemmas should mediation fail to open up new political spaces. This is not the best position for the Zimbabwean opposition to be in, but it is the reality that has to be confronted and negotiated.
More broadly, it is the dilemma of postliberation opposition movements that must confront the anti-colonial discourse of authoritarian nationalist governments, with a political language that negotiates the tensions between democratic political questions, and the pressures of redistributive economic demands. It may be that in the current regional and global context, diminished economic alternatives will continue to provide the conditions for generating renewed authoritarian nationalisms. However the challenge of developing an alternative, and more tolerant, language of national belonging remains an urgent task.
Ian Phimister (University of Sheffield/ University of Pretoria, e-mail: ian. phimister@123456btinternet.com; Brian Raftopoulos , Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape Town, e-mail: braftopoulos@123456ijr.org.za
Trading Guns for Gold: Pakistani Peacekeepers in the Congo
Martin Plaut
The United Nations Mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) was established as a result of the Lusaka Accord of 1999. The Accord was signed in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, on 10 July, by leaders of six countries involved in the conflict (the DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Rwanda and Uganda), but not by the Congolese rebel groups. Monuc itself came into being on 24 February 2000, when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1291. With a budget of over $1 billion it is the largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation currently run by the UN with a total of 16,500 troops at its disposal. Monuc's mandate was to take the Congolese – by stages – from a civil war to civilian rule, via democratic elections. The current head of Monuc, Ambassador William Swing outlined the magnitude of the task.
Two wars in the DRC from 1997 to 2002 produced the following sad legacy at the time of the first peace agreement, the Lusaka accords of July 1999: a country divided under three different belligerent's administrations; armies of six foreign nations occupying bits and pieces of the DRC; wide-scale plunder of the Congo's abundant natural resources; four million dead from war-related causes; 3.2 million internally displaced persons; 2.4. million HIV infected; 500,000 refugees; infrastructure of the country destroyed
(William Swing).
The elections – the first truly democratic, multi-party elections to be held in the country's history – took place on 30 July 2006 with a run-off between the presidential candidates on 29 October. The incumbent, Joseph Kabila was declared the winner in December 2006. Although the elections were far from perfect it was something of a miracle that they were held at all in such a war-torn country. It was a real credit to Monuc, which continues to work to bring a semblance of order to the country.
Having said this, the UN operation in the Congo has not been without its flaws and its critics. With its troops dispersed across this vast country and few means of policing their behaviour (since they are on loan from their respective countries, and not therefore directly answerable to the UN) some of the troops became a law unto themselves. The Washington Post uncovered a UN report documenting no fewer than 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by UN staff against girls and young women. UN investigations into these abuses were blocked and obstructed.
UN peacekeepers threatened UN investigators investigating allegations of sexual misconduct in Congo and sought to bribe witnesses to change their testimony, a confidential UN draft report says (Washington Post,16 December 2004).
There is evidence that Pakistani peacekeeping troops with the United Nations operating in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo established a network of gold trading with some of the militia they were supposed to be suppressing. As this developed in 2005 and 2006 they brought in Indian traders from Kenya and cut the Congolese army in on the deal. When the UN attempted to investigate what was taking place the Pakistanis refused to co-operate, putting UN military police behind barbed wire, and placing armoured personnel carriers outside the monastery where the investigators were living. The UN investiigation team, believing they were at risk, requested that they be airlifted out of the area. The UN investigation descended into acrimony, with allegations that it was being blocked for political reasons. Only after the UN was confronted with what had taken place was the investigation expedited and promises given that the UN would enforce a new system of disciplining its troops in peacekeeping operations.
The Gold of Mongbwalu
Gold was discovered in the area as early as 1903 and although around 400 tonnes of the precious metal are estimated to have been mined since then, the area is still described as containing possibly ‘one of the most exciting, and potentially the largest, unexplored gold reserve in Africa’ (Wardell Armstrong, 2006:2.1) Armed groups fought for control of this resource from the start of the Congolese war in 1998. It was, quite simply, the way of paying troops, providing them with arms and obtaining wealth for the leadership.
Mongbwalu, the town at the centre of much of the gold mining activity, changed hands between militia in bitter fighting no fewer than five times from 2002 to 2004. The majority of the fighting was between two ethnic based militia: the Hema based Union des Patriots Congo-lais (UPC) led by Thomas Labanga and the Lendu based Front des Nationalites et Integrationnistes (FNI) led by Floribert Njabu. It was the FNI that came to control the town and its mines, holding it until the UN Mission to the Congo (Monuc) stationed sufficient Pakistani troops in the area in 2005. The UN then held the area, with the Pakistanis patrolling on foot and in armoured cars, much to the relief of local people who had suffered terribly a the hands of the militia (Human Rights Watch). Over time the Congolese army also established a presence in Mongbwalu.
Pakistanis Turn to Trading
Evidence that the Pakistanis had more than peacekeeping on their minds emerged during a visit by Human Rights Watch (HRW) to Ituri in late 2005. Their researcher, Anneke van Woudenberg, collected detailed information about their involvement in the trade, including photographs and other documents, which were passed to senior officials in Monuc in the hope that they would investigate the matter and halt the smuggling activities. When this investigation appeared to be stalled, the information was passed to the author, and the BBC World Service began looking into the allegations. Much of the evidence in this article comes from that work.
There is little doubt that some Pakistani officers used their time in Ituri to make money. In Mongbwalu it is hard to find anyone who does not believe that UN troops were engaged in gold trafficking. Liki Likambo is the head of the association of miners.
I saw a UN Pakistani soldier who came to buy gold from one of the gold negotiators here in Mongbwalu. I was there in the shop.
And you saw PAKBATT (the Pakistani battalion) paying money for the gold?
Yes I saw it with my own eyes. I was a witness in a black market place, they could not see me, but I was there and I saw it. They wanted to buy gold in hidden places, where they could not be seen by people.
And you saw money change hands?
Yes, I saw that(interview with author).
Others will testify that the trade was directly with the FNI militia. Evarista Anjasubu, a local businessman was in the Monuc camp and saw a transaction between Pakistani officers and two of the most notorious FNI militia leaders, General Mateso Ninga, alias Kung Fu and Colonel Masasi, alias Dragon. Both were men with blood on their hands and both were arrested in October 2005 for war crimes. According to Evarista Anjasubu this did not deter the Pakistanis from dealing with them:
They had a very strong relation so generally the authorities [i.e. Pakistani officers] gave them food in sacks. I don't know if there was money inside. They were 20-30kg sacks with flour, fish inside.
Why did they give them the food?
What did they get in return?
They were already friends, I knew well it was gold which was the basis of the their friendship … I can confirm that because the two commanders were controlling the gold mines here – the mines were already in their hands. So the gold extracted from the mines went directly to the Pakistanis. They used to meet in the Pakistani battalion's camp – in a thatched hut … Dragon use to tell me that if I had gold I could give it to him, and he could sell it at a high price(interview with author).
Having established this relationship the Pakistani officers set about turning it into a professional operation. Indian traders were contacted, and links built with the Congolese army in the area. The traders were flown into Mongbwalu using UN helicopters, and put up at the Pakistani battalion base from where they proceeded to trade. According to Anneke Van Woudenberg (HRW), this soon became a lucrative process.
We documented that gold went to another eastern Congolese town, Goma, and then on to Rwanda and from there to the Middle East – Dubai – where it was sold on to world markets. We were able to document two trades, estimated to be worth $1-3 million. So these were substantial trades. I assume anyone involved making good cut(interview with author).
Among those observing this process was the Congolese official responsible for checking visitors passing through Mongbwalu airstrip, Richard Ndilu. In late 2005 he became suspicious when an Indian businessman arrived and was picked up by the Pakistani peacekeepers. Richard Ndilu says the next day he received a visit from a Pakistani officer – a Major Javed – along with the Indian businessman: The purpose of their visit soon became clear.
The Pakistani Major Javed brought the Indian to my house, asking me to buy gold for them. I told him that I don't know anything about gold. I said I am a civil servant and we don't trade in gold.
So what did they do?
When I said I could not help them, they went to look for other Congolese people to buy gold for them. Then he (i.e. the Indian) was driven to the airport on board a Monuc vehicle (and helped onto the plane.) He returned to Bunia (after 6 days) on a MONUC helicopter – all with the intervention of Major Javed, because at the first the pilot refused to take Mr Kagram but the Major himself insisted. I was there – he discussed for a long time, and finally the pilot agreed to take Mr Kagram.
How can you know what was on board the plane?
I did not know what was on board the plane, but I was persuaded the Indian left with gold, I say I don't know because this Indian was protected by the military authorities.
If you suspected something why did you not inspect the baggage?
I could not touch his suitcase, because this Indian was protected, supported by the Congolese army. … I made a report about the Indian to the authorities in Bunia.
That report reached the headquarters of the regional administration in Bunia. The district commissioner of the province of Ituri was Petronille Vaweka. Mrs Vaweka says when she heard about these attempts to illegally buy and export gold from Mongbwalu, she told the local authorities in the town to inform her immediately, if the Indian businessman or any of their associates returned. Soon she got a call.
Some days later, the mayor of Mongbwalu called me to say the Major from Monuc was going to the airport to collect a group of Indians. I said OK you follow him to the airport Then I called the head of UN here in Bunia and told him: there is a Major in Mongbwalu who is with a gold trafficker, and he's taking him to the UN camp. Then, the Mayor of Mongbwalu told me the plane was going to leave for Bunia, I again informed the head of UN and I asked him what shall I do? He said, I think, do your job. So, I went to the airport in Bunia. The plane arrived from Mongbwalu, and I arrested the Indians, and verified that their passports were not in order – no visas, nothing.
Mrs Vaweka concluded that members of the Pakistani UN contingent along with members of the Congolese army and Indian traders from Kenya were involved in a network, smuggling gold out of the country, without any of the necessary export permits. But the involvement of the army meant she could not keep the plane or the Indian businessmen under detention:
I knew they had gold because the price of gold increased when the Indians went to Mongbwalu. But when we wanted to verify that by looking inside the plane, the pilot refused to allow us to enter! Me, and I was in charge! He refused! But I could not use my police to enter the plane because certain members of the Congolese army were complicit in this. It was a major scandal!(interview with the author).
The activities of the Pakistani peacekeepers were therefore not only flouting Congolese law, but also undermining the fragile structure of Congolese local government.
Guns For Gold
In early 2006 the UN launched a major investigation into what was taking place by its internal investigation and auditing unit, the Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS). The OIOS team's preliminary enquiries confirmed that the Pakistani battalion was, indeed trading in gold, but what they uncovered went much further. OIOS discovered that not only were Pakistani peacekeepers involved in smuggling gold they bought from militia in Ituri, they were also trading weapons in exchange for the gold. In effect they were re-arming militia who had just been disarmed under the UN assisted Congolese government's disarmament programme.
The evidence they found for the trading of guns for gold was, prima facie, compelling. One of the witnesses they interviewed was a Congolese army major who has asked not to be named. This is from his statement.
The officer expressed his regrets over the malpractices of a Pakistani battalion under the auspices of Major Zanfar. He revealed the arms surrendered by ex-combatants were secretly returned to them by Major Zanfar thereby compromising the work they had collectively done earlier. Witness was not in a position to say why Major Zanfar did this, but knowing Major Zanfar's thirst for gold witness believes that it is highly, very probable that he did this in exchange for gold. He continued that he personally knew some elements of the UPC militia who had been armed by Major Zanfar himself. Repeatedly he saw militia who had been disarmed one day, but the next day would become re-armed again. The information he could obtain was always the same, that it would be the Pakistani battalion giving arms back to the militia(UN record of interview with witness, in author's possession).
The second source was an interpreter, who was used because the Pakistanis spoke no French. Called to the Monuc camp, he was asked to interpret between the Pakistani officer in charge of the Mongbwalu contingent, Major Ali and the FNI commander, known as Kung Fu.
(The interpreter)when asked what transpired at this meeting stated that the first comment from Major ALI was to Kung Fu and he said ‘what about the weapons I gave you, what about the weapons Monuc gave you’? Witness claimed that Kung Fu's response was ‘we share them out to different positions, the miltia don't respect us, Kuliba don't respect me as a General, it is tough trying to control them’. Witness stated that Major ALI's response to this was ‘Monuc gave you weapons to control the border, you should stay there to keep our security’. Witness stated that Kung Fu responded saying that ‘we will try to capture back the weapons, we don't need them at the moment, we have no problems’(UN record of interview with witness, in author's possession)
The UN's Troubled Investigation
On 14 August 2006 a team of three investigators from OIOS, accompanied by UN Military Police from Morocco and South Africa, were deployed to Mongbwalu to try to conclude their work. At first they were cordially received by the Pakistani battalion, which had orders to co-operate with them. But when they began probing into the question of weapons and asked to inspect files on one of the Pakistani computers, the atmosphere soured. After seeing files, which apparently contained information they considered important to their investigation, the OIOS decided to seize the computer. The Pakistani legal adviser refused, saying it contained personal information.
The ‘PAKBATT Liaison/Legal Adviser walked into the office declaring that he had just received new orders, and that the orders were that it was clear that the team is looking to dishonour PAKBATT, and that he therefore would no long allow anyone to walk or move inside the camp’ (Confidential Mission Analysis Report, 24 August 2006, in author's possession).
The OIOS team withdrew to the mission station where they were staying, only to discover that two Pakistani armoured personnel carriers had been brought up outside the building ‘… without clear justification and no evident change of the security situation …’ The UN military police, who were stationed at the Pakistani camp, were, according to the Report, surrounded by barbed wire and not allowed to leave their barracks even to shower, wash or shave. Believing that their investigation had been brought to a halt, and fearful for their safety, the OIOS team contacted their superiors in the regional capital, Bunia to request an immediate evacuation from Mongbwalu.
At this point the OIOS investigation descended into chaos. Their superiors in Bunia questioned the assessment of the team on the ground and tried to get them to stay. When the Mongbwalu team insisted, they were effectively removed from the investigation. The controversy about the way in which the investigation has been handled went all the way up the organisation. On 11 September 2006, the head of the OIOS Investigation Division, Vladislav Guerassev wrote to Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the Under-Secretary-General in charge of OIOS, complaining that one of his most senior African staff was implying that he was ‘behaving like the KGB’ (letter in the author's possession).
Deeply divided, the OIOS investigation into the Pakistanis made little apparent progress. Worse still, a UN official, who asked not to be named, was told that the enquiry was going nowhere because it had been blocked for political reasons. Essentially, Pakistan, as the largest troop contributor to the UN, with 10,000 of its soldiers wearing blue helmets, was too powerful to touch. The investigators were instructed to lay off.
The UN & Pakistan Respond
The evidence from Human Rights Watch, interviews, witnesses and the internal documents from the OIOS was compelling. A picture had emerged of a contingent of UN peacekeepers involved in illegal gold trading and smuggling through a network of connections that involved not just the Congolese army and miners, but also some of the most notorious militia in the country. The UN investigation into these events had apparently been blocked, both by the Pakistanis and UN officials fearful of jeopardising their relationship with the most important troop contributing country in the world, providing the UN with around 10,000 troops at any one time.
When the allegations of gold trading were put to the head of the UN operation in the country, Ambassador William Swing, he pointed to the ongoing investigation being conducted by the OIOS and promised swift action if these were proved. But on the question of arms being traded his response was a categorical denial.
We also have evidence that United Nations peacekeepers in the same region re-armed the militia who had already been disarmed by the Congolese troops.
This I can categorically deny. What we have done is just the opposite. We have demobilised more than 20,000. We are continuing to demobilise. We have taken in caches of arms. We have destroyed arms. We have done public burnings of these arms. And there is absolutely nothing to that allegation.
Well, let me read to you from a United Nations document, which refers to what was said by a Congolese major who witnessed this: ‘The major revealed that arms surrendered by excombatants were secretly returned to them by a major in the Pakistani contingent, thereby compromising the work that they had collectively done earlier.’ What do you say to that?
Your question was suggesting that it was something much larger than that. That a contingent or a battalion was automatically returning arms. If an individual, such as this major in question has done this, this would be an extremely serious offence and I would make sure that the full weight came down upon him. But our major focus has been at great cost to us – don't forget that we have lost 35 soldiers by bullets in Ituri and we are taking this very seriously. We believe we are making progress. There are three major groups left and we expect to have them disarmed in the very near future, co-operating with the government authorities(interview with author).
There was also the question of the treatment of the OIOS investigation team by the Pakistani battalion in August 2006. When the head of the Investigations Division of OIOS in New York, Vladislav Guerassev heard what had taken place, he demanded action from the UN force commander in the Congo, Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye. On 9 October 2006 Lieutenant General Gaye replied saying:
Thank you for your email requesting information on action taken with regard to the Bunia and Mongbwalu investigations. Following the report of obstruction, which occurred as a result of the initial joint attempt to conduct an enquiry into reported offences by the PAKBATT 1, I have directed the Military Police to conduct an immediate enquiry into these additional offences(letter in author's possession)
It's not normal that this letter be under your control … Do you think an investigation that is a UN one, I will have to discuss this type of thing publicly in all the radio stations? Really it's not normal …its not the way we are conducting something … I don't think it is normal. Any decision has been done by chain of command by Monuc be discussed publicly – you know – let's say - released on a radio station. I don't think its normal and I will not do it(interview with author).
The UN in New York also refused to say anything further, arguing that there was an ongoing investigation into the allegations of gold trading. However, on 23 May 2007 the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued the following statement:
The Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) is currently conducting an investigation into allegations that, in 20052006, a contingent of peacekeepers serving with the United Nations peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) was involved in mineral resource exploitation and weapons trading in the town of Mongwalu, in the Ituri District of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Secretary-General's Special Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, William Lacy Swing, requested an immediate OIOS investigation after an internal MONUC inquiry brought these allegations to light. That investigation began in early 2006.
OIOS informs us that the investigation is well advanced and is expected to be completed in about three weeks. Upon its completion, OIOS will transmit its findings to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for action. As per normal procedures, once the OIOS report is released, Member States will be provided with the report upon request.
The Secretary-General looks forward to the early completion of the investigation. He will act upon its findings expeditiously and transparently. If wrongdoing is found to have occurred, he will hold those responsible accountable. The Secretary-General calls upon any concerned Member States to do the same.
The head of the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Undersecre-tary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno has also indicated that he will be seeking to tighten up troop discipline following the revelations. He said that troop-contribut-ing countries would in future have to accept the introduction of formal discipline standards for peacekeepers or risk jeopardizing the United Nations’ entire recent campaign of zero-tolerance to peacekeeping crimes. The new standards, which would be contained in the Memorandum of Understanding, are part of the UN Secretariat's response to a series of scandals in recent years over the behaviour by some UN peacekeepers. But Mr Guehenno said some states have indicated opposition to the introduction of such standards, and he called on those unnamed countries to rethink their positions.
‘Sometimes countries want to have their cake and eat it,’ he said. ‘That is, you can't at the same time want the United Nations to have perfect discipline and everything, and then resist any U.N. encroachment or interference with their own national disciplinary procedures. It makes things very difficult.’ Although the UN can send misbehaving peacekeepers home, troop-contributing countries are responsible for their uniformed personnel, and UN rules can be made binding only with their agreement. Mr Guehenno said it is vital both the UN and member states ‘have the same understanding of what is acceptable, what is not acceptable, what is criminal, what is not’ (UPI, 30 May 2007).
Pakistan's response has been one of denial. Major-General Wahid Arshad, spokesman for Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relation, who was contacted for a comment prior to the broadcast of the programme, but failed to respond, dismissed the allegations as ‘preposterous, malicious and baseless’.
Aspersions have been cast on us without evidence. This is trying to tarnish our image and undermine our very strong contributions to UN peacekeeping worldwide(Agence France Press 1 June 2007).
It is important to point out that the allegations were not made against all Pakistani troops serving in the Congo. Only a limited number of officers were allegedly involved and since troops are rotated regularly, no allegations of wrongdoing have been levelled against the Pakistani officers or men serving in Ituri in May 2007.
Nonetheless, it is perhaps worth noting that reports of the Pakistani military's involvement in economic activities are not restricted to Congo. A recently published study outlined a vast array of financial dealings by the Pakistani military – something that could contribute to a climate in which seeking economic advantage from a foreign posting with the UN would hardly be out of the ordinary (Ayesha Siddiqa, 20007))
Martin Plaut , e-mail: martin.plaut@ btinternet.com.
MILITARY INC. Inside Pakistan's Military Economyby Ayesha Siddiqa
Published in 2007 by Pluto Press
US Silence as Sahara Military Base Gathers Dust
Jeremy Keenan
After almost four years of raucous propaganda and disinformation from Washington on its fabricated ‘War on Terror’ in the Sahara, the last five months have been characterised by a stony silence. This is for two reasons.
One is that the widespread anger and political instability generated by the US intervention in the Sahel, notably Niger and Mali, has led finally, and as predicted, to an expanding regional confla-gration.1 At the time of writing (1 September 2007) Tuareg rebellions in both Niger and Mali are escalating across northern Niger and NE Mali. This is immensely embarrassing for Washington. Firstly, since 2003, Washington has been very busy marking this region up (see EUCOM's maps of Africa) as an Islamist (Salafiste) ‘Terror Zone’. Countless US-inspired media articles have described this specific region (The Niger-Mali-Algeria border zones) as the locale of ‘Al-Qaeda terrorist bases lurking deep in the Sahara desert’ etc. etc. And yet the region is now entirely immersed in a rebellion, reminiscent of anti-colonial days, without a single Islamist in sight.
Secondly, it is not a good advertisement to the rest of Africa of how US-trained troops perform. The Pentagon has spent several million dollars since 2004 training Nigerien and Malian forces under Bush's much-heralded Pan Sahel (PSI) and Trans Saharan Counter-Terrorism (TSCTI) initiatives. The product is not impressive. Niger's US-trained forces have been severely humiliated in every encounter since the beginning of the rebellion in February, with an estimated 61 soldiers being killed and at least 70 taken hostage. In contrast, rebel casualties are minimal. The Nigerien army's consistent combat failure has effectively confined its troops to fixed bases dotted around the region from where their frustration and anger is being vent on the surrounding civilian population. Reports are growing of soldiers harassing local civilians, while at least ten old men, of whom one was a cripple and seven were on a local pilgrimage, have been murdered in a style of soldiering reminiscent of Iraq. The behaviour of US-trained forces in Mali is no better. Since spring, there have been constant reports of Malian troops violating nomadic camps and their womenfolk, while on the more military front some forty soldiers have now surrendered or fallen into the hands of the rebels, with dozens more having defected. Indeed, the first rebel attack on the police post at Tin Zaouatene (see ‘x’ on map) on 11 May was almost certainly an act of revenge by an aggrieved ‘former rebel’ returning home to find soldiers violating women in his camp.
The second reason for Washington's silence relates to the deterioration, since mid-2006, of its relations with Algeria, originally its main ally in the fabrication of the Saharan front. Reasons for this include Algeria's non-delivery on certain hydrocarbons expectations, the huge growth in Algeria's FOREX reserves (and hence greater financial independence from the US), Russia's emergence as a major player in the Algerian gas and arms markets and the associated development of tensions between fractions within Algeria's intelligence services. Moreover, and as far as the US is concerned, key elements in the Algerian intelligence services have not delivered as originally expected.2 These same tensions within the intelligence services have led to the public exposé of the activities of the US Halliburton Company in Algeria. In 1994, when the Algerian military regime was at the height of its ‘dirty war’ against Islamists, and the country technically bankrupt, the current US Vice President, Dick Cheney, in his capacity as Halliburton CEO, initiated what many now regard as a thoroughly corrupt and illegal arrangement. This was that Halliburton's engineering branch, Kellogg Brown & Root (49%) created a joint venture company with Sonatrach (51%) (Algeria's National Oil Company), called Brown Root Condor (BRC).3 President Boute-flika's investigative report (leaked on 23 July 2006) revealed that BRC had been given at least 26 major contracts, without tendering, as is required by law, and at inflated prices (i.e. overinvoicing), in the major markets of Sonatrach, National Defence, the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other industrial and real estate projects. However, the element of this scandal that most damaged US-Algerian relations (and which received hardly any press coverage) was that Russian military information services revealed to the leaders of Algeria's military intelligence service that the sophisticated communications system purchased in the USA by BRC on behalf of Algeria's General Staff had been tampered with by US services so that all Algeria's military communications were permanently connected to both US and Israeli electronic intelligence systems.4
BRC has now been closed down. Money has dried up. The huge military base that BRC has been constructing in the middle of the Sahara, next to Tamanrasset's airport, since 2001 and the focal ‘lilypad’ in US EUCOM's ill-conceived ‘War on Terror’ across the Sahara, has now been deserted by construction workers and US Special Forces. For the last five months, Africa's greatest monument to imperial over-reach has stood abandoned, sentry pill-boxes empty, dogs cocking their legs against its perimeter fortifications, gathering sand and dust in the middle of the Sahara. A day's drive south of it is the other legacy of America's Saharan intervention: the escalating Tuareg rebellions in Niger and Mali.