Africa News blog

Operation Somalia: The U.S., Ethiopia and now Kenya

By Aaron Maasho

Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes.

The catalyst for Nairobi’s incursion was a series of kidnappings by Somali gunmen on its soil. A Frenchwoman was bundled off to Somalia from northern Kenya, while a British woman and two female aid workers from Spain, abducted from a refugee camp inside Kenya,  are also being held across the border.

The incidents caused concern over their impact on the country’s vital tourism industry, with Kenya’s forecast 100 billion shillings or revenue this year expected to falter. The likes of Britain and the United States have already issued warnings against travel to some parts of the country.

Kenyans have so far responded with bravado towards their government’s operation against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group. Local channels regularly show high approval ratings for the campaign, some as high as 98 percent.

“The issue of our security is non-negotiable,” one commentator told a TV station in the wake of the announcement. Another chipped in with:  ”We’ve been casual to the extent of endangering our national sovereignty.  Kenya has what it takes to get rid of this dangerous threat once and for all.”

Britain on Sudan: Selling out or cashing in?

Britain’s new coalition government made its priorities on Sudan very clear as Henry Bellingham, the minister for Africa, used 90 percent of his opening remarks at his first press conference in Khartoum to outline how Britain could increase trade with Sudan.

The other 10 percent dealing with the run-up to the south’s referendum on secession, which is likely to create Africa’s newest nation state, and the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide all seemed like just an afterthought.

At first glance many would say Britain was selling out — engaging economically with a government whose head is a wanted man would destroy the global divestment campaign’s years of efforts to make investing in Sudan a poisoned chalice and to pressure Khartoum to stop rights abuses and allow democratic freedoms.

Many Darfuris and rights activists who have been victims of torture and harassment will be dismayed by the move, which clearly extends a hand of friendship to Khartoum, virtually a pariah since the ICC warrant for Bashir last year.

Is Britain selling out?

In fact many ordinary Sudanese say no. They say U.S. sanctions since 1997 have had little effect on the government, which took control in a bloodless coup in 1989 and was elected in disputed elections in April this year.

The economy has grown on average eight percent a year, Khartoum extracted the oil found on its territiry pretty much without Western companies, built hundreds of miles of tarmac roads, and erected high-rise government buildings which sparkle nicely in the sun, visible from the heavily secured U.S. embassy compound.

Washington and Sudan’s elections: When interests collide

The talk of the town for Sudanese is the position of Washington’s envoy Scott Gration after he met the National Elections Commission, the body accused of irregularities and bias towards the ruling National Congress Party.     “They have given me a lot of information that gives me confidence that the elections will start on time and that they will be as free and fair as possible,” Gration told reporters.

“This has been a difficult challenge but I believe they (the NEC) have stepped up and met the challenge,” he added.

Gration refused to answer a question on his opinion of the accusations of fraud and bias against the NEC, presiding over the polls to begin next week.

These include the NEC imposing restrictions on political party meetings, pre-recording and censoring political party broadcasts, intervening in the U.N. tender process to allow the government printing press to print the presidential and gubernatorial ballots and a later revelation they allowed the same press to print the voter registration books and slips.

The last contract was paid for with international donor money. Washington is the main bilateral donor to the presidential, legislative and gubernatorial polls, offering some $95 million.

The NEC has not published its finances so no one knows how much the elections will cost. But international sources estimate between $300 to $400 million.

Gration arrived after the shock decision by the main south Sudan party to withdraw its presidential candidate last week, citing massive fraud and sparking a wave of withdrawals which threatened the credibility of the polls.

Are you the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement?

There is a classic scene in Monty Python’s film The Life of Brian where the hero sets off in search of a secret band of insurgents. “Are you the Judean People’s Front,” he asks a group of malcontents. “The Judean People’s Front!” they reply in disgust. “We’re the People’s Front of Judea … The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f***ing Judean People’s Front … And the Judean Popular People’s Front. Splitters!”

Darfur’s more Islamic rebels will not appreciate the Judean comparison. But there has been an undeniable Pythonesque quality to recent efforts to negotiate with the splintered insurgent factions in Sudan’s strife-torn west.

Last month, Khartoum signed a ceasefire with Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Days later, JEM threatened to pull out of further peace talks saying it was furious about Khartoum’s decision to sign a similar deal with the new rebel umbrella group the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).

JEM lashed out at LJM, saying most of its constituent groups were bogus with no military strength, many of them government stooges. (The LJM’s member parties, who deny JEM’s accusations, include the United Resistance Front – URF, the Sudan Liberation Movement Mainstream – SLM-M and the Democratic Justice and Equality Movement – D-JEM, together with even more obscure bodies.)

LJM leaders lashed out at JEM, saying JEM had no right to monopolise the negotiations taking place in Qatar’s luxury hotels and conference centres.

Meanwhile the whole process was dismissed as a farce by the faction of the insurgent Sudan Liberation Army/Movement still loyal to commander Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur (SLA/M – Abdel Wahed), as well as by Abdel Shafie of the rival SLA/M – Abdel Shafie.

There is a serious point to make behind the Monty Python references and the ever thickening stew of rebel acronyms.

Lessons for coup makers?

President Barack Obama’s decision to end trade benefits for Guinea, Madagascar and Niger shows some stiffening of Washington’s resolve to act against those seen to be moving in the opposite direction to demands for greater democracy in Africa.

But the fact that new benefits were simultaneously extended to Mauritania may also give a lesson in how would-be coup makers should best behave if they want to get away with it.

In the first three countries, there is no clear idea as to how they will return to a form of government more acceptable in the eyes of Western countries or those of their neighbours.

Guinea and Madagascar in particular both look in real danger of much greater turmoil.

In Mauritania, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz overthrew an elected president in 2008 – the country’s first freely elected president – but managed to get elections organised and himself voted into office by July, although the ballot was condemned by his opponents.

Perhaps crucially for the Western support, he also swiftly promised to cooperate in fighting al-Qaeda in the Sahara.

Uncertainty over transitions in both Guinea and Madagascar has stoked internal instability as well as costing foreign assistance.

The African brain drain

          Africans living in the United States are twice as likely to graduate from college as the average American.These African students often come from families who value education as a way to get on in life and place a high value on working and studying hard.Sara Tsegaye, a straight-A student at UCLA, is one example of that success. Her parents fled Ethiopia in the late 1980s, first to Sudan and then, when Sara was one year old, they moved to San Jose, California.Sara’s father works on a mobile ice cream truck in San Jose and her mother used to be a factory worker before she got laid off.”We manage to pay for school because I’ve been working since I was 11,” Sara told Reuters Africa Journal. “I’ve been working with my dad on his ice cream truck, he’s been paying me and I’ve been saving the money. Also I had two jobs in high school and I saved up a lot of money. I understand the value of money.”Sara wants to work with an NGO or a non-profit organisation after she graduates. She wants to travel and she wants to make a difference in the world. Other African students say they want to go home once they get a bit of experience in their careers.But Africa is suffering from a massive brain drain just now and it’s questionable whether enough of those highly motivated students from America will return home in large enough numbers to really make a difference.

Is Sudan’s Darfur crisis getting too much attention?

from Global News Journal:

Norwegian memo sparks PR crisis for UN’s Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon isn't having a good year for public relations. Halfway through a five-year term as U.N. secretary-general, he's been hit with a wave of negative assessments by the Financial Times, The Economist, London Times, Foreign Policy and other media organizations. In a March 2009 editorial entitled "Whereabouts Unknown," the Times said Ban was "virtually inaudible" on pressing issues of international security and "ineffectual" on climate change, the one issue that Ban claims he has made the biggest difference on. The Economist gave him a mixed report card, assigning him two out of 10 points for his management skills while praising him on climate change (eight out of 10 points).      This week, Norway's Aftenposten newspaper made an unpleasant situation much worse. It published a confidential memo assessing Ban's 2-1/2 years in office from Oslo's deputy U.N. ambassador, Mona Juul, to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Juul's report is scathing -- and it comes from a representative of one of the world's body's top financial contributors. She says the former South Korean foreign minister suffers from a "lack of charisma" and has "constant temper tantrums" in his offices on the 38th floor of the United Nations building in midtown Manhattan.      She describes Ban as a "powerless observer" during the fighting in Sri Lanka earlier this year when thousands of civilians were killed as government forces ended a 25-year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels, trapping them on a narrow strip of coast in the country's northeast. In Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Congo, she wrote, Ban's "passive and not very committed appeals seem to fall on deaf ears." She says that his recent trip to Myanmar was a failure and that some people in Washington refer to Ban as a "one-term" secretary-general.      Juul's letter could hardly have come at a more inopportune time. Ban is planning to visit Norway in the coming weeks, where he intends to meet with government officials and visit the Arctic circle to see for himself the effects of global warming and the melting polar ice. Now U.N. officials fear reporters will be more interested in what he says about Juul's memo than climate change.

So far Ban has not reacted to the letter. However, a Norwegian diplomat told Reuters that Ban's press office had been instructed to hold off on confirming his visit to Norway shortly after the news of Juul's memo began to spread.      Ban's PR difficulties didn't start this year. In March 2008, his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar sent a memo to U.N. employees explaining how to say his boss's name. "Many world leaders, some of whom are well acquainted with the Secretary-General, still use his first name mistakenly as his surname and address him wrongly as Mr. Ki-moon or Mr. Moon," Nambiar complained.   Then came Ban's own speech to senior U.N. officials in Turin, Italy last year, in which he described how difficult it was to improve the working culture inside the United Nations. The secretary-general seemed to acknowledge that his internal management style had failed. "I tried to lead by example," Ban said. "Nobody followed."      Ban's aides vehemently defend him, saying he's being treated unfairly by the press. One senior U.N. official suggested privately that Ban could very well turn out to be "the greatest secretary-general ever." They complain that people continue to compare him to his predecessor Kofi Annan, who was a very different U.N. chief and relied less on "quiet diplomacy" than Ban. Annan became a hero to many people around the world for standing up to the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Annan called the March 2003 invasion illegal. U.N. officials also complain bitterly about the indefatigable blogger Matthew Lee, whose website Inner City Press regularly accuses Ban and other U.N. officials of hypocrisy and failing to keep their promises to reform the United Nations and root out corruption. (Some U.N. officials accuse Lee of not always getting his facts right, but his blog has become unofficial required reading for U.N. staffers around the world.)      Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, diplomats in New York say, is among those supporting a campaign against a second term for Ban. Juul's memo said Helen Clark, New Zealand's former prime minister and current head of the U.N. Development Program, "could quickly become a competitor for Ban's second term." But diplomats say they expect the United States, Britain and other major powers to reluctantly back a second term for Ban, if only because there appears to be no viable alternative whom Russia and China would support.      A recent article in the Times of London said the best U.N. chief in the organization's 64-year history was not Swedish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dag Hammarskjold but the Peruvian diplomat Javier Perez de Cuellar, who held the top U.N. post for 10 years until 1992. Nicknamed "mumbles" because he was so difficult to understand, Perez de Cuellar kept a low profile and, like Ban, preferred backroom diplomacy, not Annan's bully pulpit. Among the Peruvian diplomat's successes were managing the end of the Cold War, leading a long-delayed revival of U.N. peacekeeping and encouraging member states to back a U.S.-led military operation to drive Iraq's invading forces out of Kuwait in 1991.      Will Ban's preference for quiet diplomacy make him as good or better than Perez de Cuellar? That remains to be seen.

Can U.S. trade help Africa?

Sudath Perera has every reason to be content. He started up his textiles factory outside the Kenyan capital Nairobi nine years ago; today, he employs 1500 workers and turns over between 18 and 20 million U.S. dollars a year.

“We are contributing to the local economy by creating employment,” he says. “And indirectly there are a lot of local suppliers also relying on us.”

Perera’s factory is one of thousands of businesses on the continent that are taking advantage of a U.S. trade programme under which certain goods from around 40 sub-Saharan African countries can be imported to the States duty-free.

It’s known as AGOA – the African Growth and Opportunity Act – and was one of the main reasons for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the continent.

“The ingredients are all here for an extraordinary explosion of growth, prosperity and progress,” said Clinton at the AGOA forum in Nairobi last week. “I know how important it is to translate legislation like AGOA into daily changes that people can look to.”

Many on the continent say they’re already feeling those changes. Textiles factory worker Christine Mwende didn’t have a job before Perera employed her; and though the 120 dollar-a-month salary she makes is low by Western standards, she says it’s made all the difference.

“This job has really helped me,” she told Reuters Africa Journal correspondent Vivianne Mukakizima. “When I started working here, my child had not started school – but he is now in class 4.”

China shunts U.S. into second place in Scramble for Africa

A presidential visit followed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s African tour cannot conceal a stark reality: China has overtaken the United States as Africa’s top trading partner.

That is one of the main problems facing Clinton on a seven-nation jaunt meant variously to spread Washington’s good governance message and shore up relationships with its key oil suppliers on the continent.         

U.S. officials are keen to trumpet a 28 percent jump in 2008 in trade with sub-Saharan Africa to $104 billion, even if the increase is attributable mainly to the high price of oil, which accounts for more than 80 percent of U.S. imports from Africa.

However, there is another statistic that says more about the direction of development on the poorest continent: this decade’s tenfold increase in trade with China to $107 billion last year, narrowly eclipsing the United States.

The financial and then economic crisis that has pushed U.S. and European economies into recession and forced their companies to crimp overseas expansion is only likely to accelerate the trend despite the regional goodwill towards U.S. President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan.