Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline: World Bank & ExxonMobil in ‘Last Chance Saloon’
Jeremy H. Keenan
One of the biggest issues facing global development is that oil exports have contributed so little to the welfare of developing countries. The ‘paradox of plenty’, or the ‘resource curse’ as it is generally known, is that countries rich in natural resources, especially oil, tend to suffer from lower living standards, slower growth rates and higher incidence of conflict than their resource-poor counterparts. Between 1970–1993, for example, resource-poor countries, without petroleum, grew four times more rapidly than resource-rich countries, with petroleum, despite the fact that they had half the savings.1 The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have both confirmed that the greater a country's dependence on oil and mineral resources, the worse its growth performance.2
The World Bank, as a significant source of financing for oil and gas development projects in developing countries, has been at the centre of what has now become a global debate about the relationship between the extractive industries and poverty, and the proper roles and responsibilities of international institutions, oil companies and civil society in addressing this problem. As this debate has intensified over the last few years, neither oil companies nor the World Bank and its associates have made many friends for themselves. Indeed, the evidence has been stacking up so heavily against them for so long now that they are being seen more often than not as part of the problem, not the solution. One only has to look at the behaviour of such ‘resource-blessed’ regimes in the developing world, the characteristics of rentier economies, and the theoretical weaknesses of the development discourses propounded by the World Bank and its associates over the last two generations to realise that we are not dealing with rocket science.
This Briefing is merely the latest illustration of how damaging the World Bank and oil companies can be to the development and welfare of African (and other) peoples. It highlights two highly problematic dimensions of the World Bank-funded Chad Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project (CCPP). The first is by way of a review of the Catholic Relief Services' and Bank Information Center's (CRS-BIC) recent report into the way in which the CCPP is developing in Chad.3 The second is a preliminary investigation into serious allegations regarding the environmental impact and safety of the Pipeline itself.
The main parties in the CCPP are the World Bank (and its partner Donors), a three-company oil consortium comprising Exxon Mobil (40%), Petronas Malaysia (35%) and ChevronTexaco (25%) and the governments of the two countries (Chad and Cameroon). The effective ‘leadagent’ in the project has been Exxon-Mobil.
The Chad experiment4
Those, who, at the end of the last millennium still had some faith left in the World Bank/IMF and its associated donor system, as well as the ability of hydrocarbons to lift developing countries out of poverty, were desperately looking for a model of how to make petroleum work for the poor. Their answer was Chad. The CCPP was set up and designed to show that petrodollars really could be used to alleviate poverty. For both the World Bank and the oil companies, going into Chad was like going into the Last Chance Saloon. It was the great experiment: the proof that the ‘resource curse’ really could be broken.
The technical details of the project were relatively straightforward. Significant oil deposits have been found in southern Chad. Reserves of the Miandoum, Bolobo and Kome fields in the Doba basin are put at over 1 billion barrels. ExxonMobil plans to add 5 new ‘satellite’ fields in 2005–6. Along with other companies, notably EnCana, ExxonMobil is also exploring other parts of Chad. As Chad is land-locked, the only way to export the oil is by a 1,070 km pipeline that runs from Kome in southern Chad across Cameroon to the Atlantic coast at Kribi; 890 kms of the pipeline are in Cameroon.
The pipeline was completed in July 2003, fourteen months ahead of schedule, with ExxonMobil making its first royalty payment to Chad's escrow account at Citibank in London later in the year. Production from the three Doba fields reached peak capacity of 225,000 bpd in late 2004. Chad is likely to receive $140-150 million during 2004 and more than $200 million in 2005. Over their proposed 25-year production span, these first three fields may earn Chad more than $5 billion. Further substantial revenues will flow to Chad from fields that fall outside the three Doba fields specified in the project.
The World Bank provided financing that catalysed the ExxonMobil-led project. Originally costed at $3.5 billion, ExxonMobil confirmed in October 2004 that the total project cost had risen to $4.2 billion.
Against widespread public concerns, the World Bank promised that the new oil revenues would not be lost to corruption (in spite of Chad's ranking as the third most corrupt country in the world) or mismanagement, but that petrodollars would be channelled to Chad's poor. The Bank's promise, which it described as ‘a major new opportunity to accelerate development in one of the world's poorest countries’, was based on the ingenious but seemingly simple and straightforward ‘Revenue Management Plan’ (RMP). The RMP was the key feature of the new legal framework, known as Law 001, established to manage the Project. The principles of the RMP are that:
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All direct revenues: royalties and dividends are paid by the Exxon-Mobil consortium into Chadian government-controlled escrow accounts at Citibank in London.
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Indirect revenues: income taxes on the oil companies, customs duties, etc., are paid directly into Chad's treasury.
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10% to a Future Generations Fund to save for the post-oil era in Chad.
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72% to capital investments in 5 ‘priority sectors’ to fight poverty: education, health and social services, rural development, infrastructure, and environmental and water resources.
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4.5% to the oil-producing region in Southern Chad as additional, earmarked funding.
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13.5% to Chad's treasury for discretionary spending, until 2007; thereafter, these funds will be divided among the priority sectors.
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A joint government-civil society Petroleum Revenue Oversight and Control Committee – known as the Collège – would be established with the authority to approve or reject specific projects financed by direct oil revenues.
Many, especially the participants, hailed the Chad project as a ‘new model’ for harnessing oil revenues to benefit development. At the groundbreaking ceremony in 2000, Tom Walters of Esso (Exxon-Mobil) Chad proclaimed:
We know that profound poverty is an unfortunate reality in much of Africa. Its alleviation requires private investment, collaboration and responsible governmental policies. The Chad-Cameroon Project embodies all these elements. It offers great hope to the people of these two countries and we are proud to be involved now and in the future.
Many of the details regarding the calculation of revenues and many of the key agreements between the oil companies and the Chad government remain secret.
These weaknesses mean that it will be very difficult to verify the accuracy of the revenue information disclosed, and that much oil revenue will fall outside the provisions of Law 001 and the oversight of the Collège.
The project's ‘watchdogs’ are ‘toothless’. The Collège has no legal power of enforcement nor sufficient capacity to track spending through to end use, while the World Bank's own International Advisory Group (IAG) is largely ignored.5 The IAG has continuously critiqued the 2-speed nature of the project, whereby construction of the pipeline (finished 14 months ahead of schedule) has far outpaced the urgently required building of the institutional and technical capacity of the Chadian government, which, at present, is quite incapable of managing the project, especially its legal and financial components. The IAG's repeated calls for urgent measures to accelerate capacity-building efforts have gone unheeded.
Of the other two Monitoring mechanisms, the External Compliance Monitoring Group (ECMG) is staffed by a consulting firm under direct contract with the International Finance Corporation (the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank group) to monitor the Consortium's compliance with the environmental management plan. As shown below, in the case of Cameron especially, the CCPP is in breach of numerous international environmental safety standards and regulations.
The Comité Technique Nationale de Suivi et de Contrôle (CTNSC) is the government body in Chad charged with oversight of the environmental and social impacts of the petroleum sector. The CTNSC suffers serious capacity restraints, financial and organisational difficulties. This is in part because it is heavily reliant on funding from World Bank capacity building loans that have largely failed to achieve their objectives and are now depleted. The Chad government has failed to budget any resources for the CTNSC in 2004 and 2005, casting doubt on its commitment to the monitoring agency and thus making the CTNSC reliant on ExxonMobil's facilities and data. Given ExxonMobil's violation of environmental regulations (detailed below), this is merely another case of getting the fox to guard the chickens.
A general criticism of the project is its rentier nature. Apart from making the country's economy increasingly dependent on oil prices and thus vulnerable to external shocks, oil sales tend to push up the exchange rate and thus make other exports non-competitive. In Chad's case, this tendency will impact negatively on the labour-intensive agricultural sector. As the CRS-BIC report noted:
As a form of rent, petrodollars decrease the government's reliance on non-oil revenues, including taxes, and actually weaken one of the links between people and their government, which is essential if there is to be any popular control over major decisions affecting a country and its resources. In such a context, governments tend to rely increasingly on repression through the use of security forces (rather than consent of the governed) to remain in power. Indeed, countries that depend on oil exports are among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most conflict-ridden states in the world today. 6
These failures, which must be laid at the door of the World Bank and ExxonMobil, have gone a long way to establishing the sort of framework within which corruption and mismanagement can flourish. Indeed, cynics might suggest that such an outcome is in the misguided interests of all three parties – the ExxonMobil-led oil consortium, the Chad government and the World Bank. Considering the way in which all three parties have ignored the advice that has been given them, it is difficult to counter such a suggestion, although the potential for increased political risk is now very much higher and is likely to become a cause of increasing anxiety to all oil and gas companies in the region.
In a careful choice of words, the CRS-BIC report concludes that ‘it is too early to declare the Chad experiment a failure or a success’, but that the experiment ‘hangs by a thread’. That may be optimistic. Quite apart from the findings of the CRSBIC report, there are other pointers suggesting that oil production in Chad is likely to lead to corruption, conflict and the further concentration of power in the hands of a few. If that becomes the case, then the people of Chad risk bearing enormous costs.
Cameroon threatened by environmental disaster9
Cameroon benefits from the CCPP through the receipt of transit fees. Set at $0.41 per barrel, these could amount to $500 million, or higher if new oil fields are developed in Chad, over the 25-year life of the project. Although Cameroon was ranked by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, the World Bank did not use its leverage to ensure that new revenue management laws were enacted, nor have any increased transparency concessions or other special measures been put in place to manage this new revenue source.
During the course of 2003 and 2004, allegations began to appear on the Internet and elsewhere regarding the CCPP's violation of a number of environmental and other safety measures.10 A preliminary investigation suggests that not only are the people of Cameroon unlikely to see any benefits from these new revenues, but that their welfare and lives have been put at risk by the project's serious violation of social and environmental safety standards and regulations. These are far too extensive to document here: at least 13 major mandatory standards appear to have been compromised. The main violations are:
Emergency Shut-down Valves (ESDVs): International regulations (and US Standards) require that ESDVs are installed at ‘strategic’ locations, including both sides of major river crossings in order to protect drinking water resources from the threat of oil pollution. The pipeline crosses some 25 rivers, 17 of which ExxonMobil has identified as being ‘major’.
ExxonMobil states that 48 Main Line Valves (MLVs) have been installed along the length of the pipeline, including at both sides of the 17 major rivers. The importance of having MLVs on both sides of the river is to prevent backsiphoning into the river in the event of pipeline rupture or other such accident. However, an examination of Exxon-Mobil's table of MLV locations reveals that only 28 of the 48 valve stations are in fact MLVs, as mandatorily required.11 The remaining 20 are listed as being ‘Check Valves’, which are not a substitute for MLVs. Senior site engineers have stated that ExxonMobil installed valves on only one side of the rivers. This would appear to be born out by an examination of ExxonMobil's MLV locations in relation to river crossings,12 which reveals that of the 17 major rivers, only 5 rivers have valves on both sides (or near both sides). However, 5 of these 10 valves are Check Valves. Assuming that MLV location data is correct, this means that only one of the 25 or so rivers crossed by the pipeline, the Nyong River, would appear to be properly protected by ESDVs as required by international regulations.
Further examination of ExxonMobil's MLV location data suggests that the remaining MLVs have been placed randomly and not strategically, as mandatorily required. For example, there is not a single MLV in the first (Chad-end) 137 kms of the pipeline.13
Furthermore, 7 of the MLVs are listed as being manually operated. In the event of a disaster, an entire pipeline should be able to be shut down in 10-15 minutes. With manually operated MLVs this is almost certainly impossible, especially if accessibility to many parts of the pipeline, as site engineers claim, is not easy. Indeed, in the event of a major storm, ground access may be precluded and helicopters be grounded, thus delaying access to manually operated MLVs for some time.
The cost saving of not installing the MLVs would have been considerable. Of the 48 MLVs that ExxonMobil claims to have installed, only 28 are in fact MLVs. The remaining 20 are Check Valves. In addition to this shortfall of 20 MLVs, 12 of the 17 major rivers have only one valve of any sort, making a total shortfall of at least 32 MLVs. The total cost of a valve station, which, in addition to the valve, involves the installation of such things as air conditioning, fibre optic cable connections, electronic systems, satellite communication, etc., is considerable and can run into millions of dollars. Project engineers have estimated that properly equipped MLV stations can cost as much as $10–15 million. This could give a saving of $320–480 million – not far short of Cameroon's total revenues for the project over the next 25 years!
Proof of the absence of MLVs can be obtained by simple ocular inspection. Although the project's website and ExxonMobil's many published documents contain hundreds of ‘happy-snap’ photographs of the project, neither ExxonMobil nor the World Bank's IAG appear to have produced a concise photographic record of the project through its design, construction and completed works stage. This apparent omission is surprising for a project this size ($4.2 bn), the largest public-private development partnership in Africa.
The Floating Storage & Offloading Vessel (FSO): The ideal form of transfer of crude oil from a land-based pipeline to ocean-going shipment is for the pipeline to feed into a ‘storage tank farm’ close to deep water, as is the case in Saudi Arabia. The shallow water along the Cameroon coast does not permit such a terminal. Storage and loading is therefore by means of an FSO. In this case, the FSO is a 30 years-old, obsolete, singlehull crude oil tanker converted to stationary duty, moored some 7–12 kms off Kribi. Its stated storage capacity is 318,000 cubic meters (2 million barrels, approx. 85 million gallons), almost eight times the capacity of the ill-fated Exxon Valdez (11 million gallons). In other words, it holds roughly one week's pipeline output at peak capacity. The oil is pumped from Chad and across Cameroon in a 30-inch pipeline to a ‘pressure reducing station’, some 10 kms inland. The oil is then pumped to the FSO through a slightly narrower pipeline on the sea-bed.
The FSO is in violation of numerous international standards and regulations, mostly regarding failures to meet oilspillage safety requirements, such as inadequate booms, oil recovery capacity, etc. (see below). The most serious violation is that the FSO is not compliant with the new International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations that came into force on 6 April 2005. These require that the FSO be double-hulled. This new legislation is designed to close the ambiguous loophole that might have allowed for FSOs, as distinct from tankers, to be single-hulled. The new legislation could easily have been foreseen before the pipeline construction was even started and the FSO moored off Kribi. ExxonMobil claims that the FSO is in a ‘benign weather area’, which is not true. ExxonMobil also claims that the worstcase offshore spillage scenario is 7,100 metric tons of crude oil (approx. 450,000 barrels). Since the FSO holds some 2 million barrels, the worst case scenario, should the FSO explode, break its back or be ripped open in a collision, is obviously 2 million barrels – four and a half times greater than ExxonMobil's claim.14 This would be even higher if a loading tanker were also involved in the disaster. ExxonMobil's understatement is contrary to US law, which requires the worst-case discharge to be based on the entire contents of the FSO (especially as it is single-hulled!). The alternative to an FSO would have been for the construction of a ‘tank farm’ with an undersea pipeline to a loading terminal.
Area specific oil-spill response plans (ASOSRPs)
Statutory regulations require all response plans to be approved and in place before a pipeline is commissioned.
The World Bank Inspection Panel (the policing arm of the World Bank) has so far undertaken two investigations. Their report states the ASOSRPs shall be in place 180 days before the first oil is pumped. The report also states that emergency shutdown valves (see above) shall be placed on both sides of the major rivers.15
The pipeline was commissioned and began pumping crude oil in July 2003. The World Bank has repeatedly failed to answer the question of whether ASOSRPs were in place. Finally, after being threatened with the publication of documentation, the World Bank's African Office confirmed that oil-spill plans were not available or approved as at 23 December 2004.16 The World Bank thus confirmed that the Cameroon Oil Transportation Company (COTCO), effectively an ExxonMobil subsidiary, had been operating illegally for 17 months. It is unlikely that COTCO's oil-spill response plan will ever be approved. According to a number of environmental specialists, such as the Centre pour L'Environment et le Développment (Yaoundé, Cameroon), COTCO's Plan is riddled with inadequacies and in contravention of a raft of international regulations. Its worst-case scenario (See FSO above) is a gross misrepresentation of the danger facing Cameroon and surrounding areas, and in gross contravention of US law. A report by a senior site engineer, so far ignored by the World Bank, states that:
World Bank Operating Policies and procedures for environmental protection have been circumvented. The contract terms and conditions mandate an ‘independent’ consultant/expert to approve the ASOSRP, but project records will show that ExxonMobil's associated company [Oil Spill UK Ltd] has approved the ASOSRP.
… Contingency plans for clean-up, personnel and public safety and property are not in place. [There is] risk of serious and grave pollution to the Atlantic Basin, Gulf of Guinea and Eco-systems over the entire 1000 km (pipeline) route … [There is also] risk of contaminations to key waterways and drinking water supplies, fishing and farming industries. Lake Chad, which is an internationally shared water resource, is not protected by the mandatory ESDV and ASOSRP. This is a critical safety and environmental issue which has been neglected.
Damage to Local Environment: Site engineers also claim that ExxonMobil has undertaken illegal, cost-saving practices in the installation of the pipeline trench erosion protection. Instead of inserting gabion bags (wire baskets) filled with stone/rock into the parallel (contoured) protection trenches as required by regulation, ExxonMobil is reported to have filled the trenches with cement bags mixed with cement and topsoil. This not only forms a dam, preventing the water percolating through the trench, but the washout of the cement means that water resources along the route are being polluted by calcium hydroxide.
Violation of Indigenous Rights: The Pipeline route violates the rights of Cameroon's Bagyeli and Bakola indigenous peoples (Pygmies). It was recognised at the outset of the CCPP that the pipeline might go through the lands of indigenous peoples. This was a ‘red flag’ to the World Bank, which suggested to ExxonMobil at the planning stage that a plan be set up to protect these indigenous communities. According to a leading World Bank environmental specialist, ‘ExxonMobil didn't take it (the plan) seriously. After much ‘lively debate’ and hassle (from ExxonMobil), ExxonMobil assessed the impacts of the pipeline on the Bakola and an evaluation of their needs. The pipeline didn't need to go through their area. It could have followed the road on the outside and be laid into the soft shoulder. But, ExxonMobil didn't relocate the pipeline. They put it directly through Bakola lands, doing much environmental damage in the process’.
The CCPP did in fact set up the Foundation for Environment and Development in Cameroon (FEDEC) fund, as part of a compensation package to communities affected by the pipeline. The fund is mandated to finance an Indigenous Peoples Plan (IPP) in consultation with the indigenous communities. In 2003 the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) reported that there had been no involvement of the Bagyeli or Bakola peoples. In 2004 the World Bank's Inspection Panel found that there had been serious delays in the development of the much-promised IPP. In its 2004 Annual Report the IWGIA confirmed that after 3 years, the IPP remains ‘virtually non-existent’.17
Conclusions
This Briefing raises many questions as to why the World Bank and ExxonMobil have acted so brazenly and with such seeming disregard for both the law and the safety and welfare of the peoples of this part of Africa. Those questions, along with an analysis of how this project and its management relate to the wider political economy of Africa, the Bush Administration's ‘War on Terror’ and America's energy crisis, will be covered in a substantive article, which is being prepared for a future issue of ROAPE. In the meantime, the following pointers can be given:
The Bush administration's decision to define African oil (in the context of the US's energy crisis) as a ‘strategic national interest’ and thus a resource that the United States might choose to use military force to control …’ 18
ExxonMobil (and perhaps also the World Bank) will, at some point in the future, almost certainly find itself being sued for the violation of these and other safety and environmental laws, regulations and standards. The calculation, which ExxonMobil has almost certainly made, is that the fines and damages payments imposed by courts, whether in Africa, the US or elsewhere, will be less than the cost savings made through such deliberate violations, plus the additional profits gleaned by getting the project running more than one year ahead of schedule (with the consequent damages of such haste to the peoples of both Chad and Cameroon – see above).
At this stage it is impossible to know the precise cost of this project, and especially the breakdown costs of its component parts, other than statements that the gross project cost has risen from $3.5 bn to $4.2 bn. This is for two reasons. First, neither of the main parties, the World Bank Group and ExxonMobil, have given a clear breakdown of budget allocations and costs. Second, the project has been riddled with ‘change orders’, the funding of which has not been publicly disclosed. In view of the use of taxpayers' money from so many countries (including the UK), and the damages that are likely to be incurred by the peoples of Chad and Cameroon, it is imperative that the entire cost of the project, including ‘change orders’, is made publicly accountable.
Finally, if there is any doubt that the World Bank Group and ExxonMobil may have been operating without the support of the US government, the case of John M. Fitzgerald makes illuminating reading.
Fitzgerald was an analyst with the US Agency for International Development (USAID). His job was to evaluate proposed international aid projects to ensure that they met environmental requirements. Under a statute called the ‘Pelosi amendment’, US delegations to the World Bank and regional development banks cannot support any aid project without an environmental review, if that project will have significant environmental effects. Fitzgerald drew attention to the CCPP for its lack of detailed plans for dealing with oil spills etc. He is reported to have told colleagues that the CCPP was an ‘environmental time-bomb’. He consequently filed a whistle-blower complaint, charging that US Treasury officials had pressured USAID to approve energy projects in South America, Eastern Europe and Africa (Chad-Cameroon) without the requisite reviews. He was dismissed and made jobless. Two years later, in September 2004, the federal civil service court, the Merit Systems Protection Board, ruled that he had been wrongfully terminated. According to the court ruling,
USAID removed its sole analyst overseeing environmental compliance in multinational development bank projects to prevent him from reporting violations to Congress and watchdog organizations.
The Bush Administration is in good company with ExxonMobil: a leading official with decades of World Bank experience stated that
Exxon people are the least responsible organisation I ever dealt with. They couldn't give a damn about the environment, such as prudent routing of the pipeline, vulnerable ethnic minorities and their life-support systems, double-hulling, spill response plans, and greenhouse gas emissions. Getting them to consider such prudentiary measures is like getting blood from a stone.
Jeremy H. Keenan; e-mail: Jeremykeenan@123456hotmail.com
Famine in Niger is not all that it appears
Jeremy H. Keenan
The increasingly serious famine situation in Niger has finally hit the British television news. News bulletin reports that up to 4 million people face starvation as a result of last year's harvest failure are correct. Explanatory statements, à la Geldorf-G8 style, that the seriousness of the current famine situation is the result of tardiness on the part of world agencies and the EU to recognise the inevitability of this year's famine and send either sufficient food or financial aid are not correct. The reality of the situation, like so many other famine situations in the less developed world, is rather more complex.
A combination of climatic conditions last year, combined with a series of locust plagues, made it blindingly obvious to everyone, including world aid agencies, the EU and local populations, as long ago as last October that famine was inevitable. However, it has been especially difficult for world aid agencies and EU countries to intervene when Niger's President, Mamadou Tanja, has stubbornly refused to admit that his country faces a famine. Niger's own President has thus made it extremely difficult for external agencies to provide timely assistance. The consequence, as we are now seeing on out TV screens, is that the long-predicted famine, which has for some time been the cause of widespread ‘anti-government’ demonstrations and social unrest, has now reached a crisis: people, especially infants and children, are now dying in sufficient numbers to have western TV cameras turned upon them.
The answer to the question of why Mamadou Tanja wittingly led his country to this crisis has many strands to it. Key amongst them is his new alliance with the Bush administration in its highly questionable and duplicitous African ‘war on terror’. Niger is one of the four states which accepted US military intervention (training of counter-terrorism, etc) in January 2003 under what was called the Pan Sahel Initiative (PSI). With the inclusion of four more countries in the region this June (2005), the PSI has been transformed at some $100 million per year for five years into the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI). The fact that virtually all experts on this part of Africa agree that there was no ‘terrorism’ in this region prior to the US presence is another matter.
The point is that Mamadou Tanja is now a critical ally in America's militarisation of Africa and the securitisation of its oil resources, now defined as a ‘US strategic national resource’. In addition to the military and financial largesse that he is receiving, the prospect of an invitation to the White House to meet both President Bush and the Chairman of Exxon (who has interests in Niger), which was fulfilled this June, was seen by Tanja and his coterie as an immense personal accolade and an important step-up for his impoverished and little-known country. However, it seems that Tanja, not well-known in Washington circles, did not want to go to Washington as President of what ‘Washington's philosophers’ refer to as ‘basket cases’. Niger, after all, is an up-and-coming state and a key player in the new US military alliance.
If that sounds slightly cynical, let me throw a little light on Mamadou Tanja's domestic performance since the commencement of the PSI. Four weeks after the arrival of US Special Forces in his country, Tanja ordered the arrest of Rhissa ag Boula, leader of the 1990s Tuareg rebellion, their signatory to the subsequent Peace Accord and subsequent Minister of Tourism. Boula was alleged to have been involved in the murder of a young political party worker. Although no charges were brought against him, he was dismissed as Minister and taken into detention, being held in jail for 13 months until his release this March. This action was widely believed to have been designed to provoke the Tuareg into taking up arms so that the government could secure more military aid from the US. The move had its desired effect: anger at Rhissa's detention led to increased political tension, especially in the northern mountainous regions of Air, and an escalation of banditry, for which Rhissa's brother, Mohamed ag Boula, reportedly claimed responsibility. This confirmed the prevailing ‘group-think’ of US military intelligence that the Sahara was a nest of putative terrorists.
In September (2004), the Niger government sent some 150 troops into Air in a move which many thought likely to ignite a new Tuareg rebellion. However, the troops, recently trained by the US marines as part of the PSI, were ambushed by the Tuareg, with at least one soldier being killed, four wounded and four being taken hostage. RFI (Radio France Internationale) subsequently carried an interview in which Rhissa's brother said he was leading a 200-strong group which was fighting to defend the rights of the Tuareg, Tubu and Semori nomadic populations of northern Niger, and that he was personally responsible for the attack.
Following Rhissa's release, the Tuareg set out to negotiate what they believed would be a quite straightforward request for an amnesty for those who took up arms. Libya's Guide, Mouamar Qadhafi, who had brokered the safe return of the captured Niger soldiers, used his good offices in May and June to negotiate the amnesty, only to find that it was being blocked by US pressure on the Niger government. The Americans seemingly wanted a further excuse for a ‘shoot up’ in the Sahara to justify their TSCTI. For the first time, and to the Tuareg's surprise, France failed to assist them in their negotiations. Finally, in the third week of July, Tripoli announced the successful conclusion of an amnesty. According to sources involved in the negotiations, Qadhafi was able to talk with certain senior Niger army officers who were anxious about the direction in which Mamadou Tanja and the Americans were taking their country. The expression of such sentiments, combined with Tanja's current attempt to follow the example of his neighbour, Chad's President Deby (another recipient of the PSI), in changing the country's constitution to seek a third term and become ‘president for life’, suggest that elements in the army may be considering using their position to save their country from the perils into which Tanja is taking it.
Returning to the immediacy of the food crisis, reports suggesting that the outside world has not been generous in its aid are not entirely true. It is certainly difficult for the UN World Food Programme to raise extra funds to purchase additional food for Niger when the country's own President has for so long denied such a crisis. There is also a difficulty in that the same conditions which devastated Niger's cereal production also hit harvests in neighbouring Mali, Benin, Burkina Faso and northern Nigeria.
Perhaps more serious, however, is the recurrence of a particularly nasty problem, namely the embezzlement of foreign aid by members of the country's political and commercial elites. One the triggers of the Tuareg rebellions in both Niger and Mali in the 1990s was the discovery by Tuareg that foreign aid destined for their drought-ridden areas on the desert margins was being embezzlement by senior government officials in both Bamako (Mali) and Niamey (Niger) for personal use. It seems that the same situation may be flourishing once again in Niger. Since 1984 Japan has provided Niger with regular gifts of rice. The condition of this gift is that it is sold by Niger's National Office of Food Products into domestic distribution channels at normal market prices in order not to destabilise the local markets. The money from this sale is then used to purchase additional cereals such as millet, sorghum and maize.
At the end of June, a shipment of 7,408 tonnes of Japanese rice was transported by road from Cotonou to Niger. At or before the frontier, 47 Niger traders, including a number of Deputies (MPs), bought the entire shipment of 148,160 fifty kilogram sacks for 232,560 Francs (CFA) per tonne, this being 11,625 CFA per sack, and a discount of 22% to the normal market selling price of 14,500–15,500 CFA per sack. However, these sacks were not sold onto the local market, but exported directly into Nigeria where they were sold at an average of 20,000 CFA per sac, thus giving the ‘traders’ a quick turnaround profit of €1.13 million, or an average of just over €24,000 per trader. Not bad for a day's business in the world's second poorest country. Japan has asked the Niger government for an explanation.
Jeremy H. Keenan is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Saharan Studies Programme at the University of East Anglia.
The political & economic effects of Nigerian Shari'a on Southern Niger
Matt Kirwin
In an attempt to eliminate reported societal ills, in 1999 some Muslim dominated states in Northern Nigeria adopted Shari'a law and subsequently outlawed activities such as drinking, prostitution and gambling, in addition to less controversial practices as praise singing and integration of the sexes in public places. The neighbouring state of Niger, which has a large Hausa population as well, has, by contrast, been reluctant to base its legal codes on Qur'anic law. When bars, brothels and informal casinos were shut down in Nigeria, the same establishments were opened in Niger. I argue that Niger's secular political orientation amounts to an economic comparative advantage, which financially benefits traditional elites and political elites in government. I explore these developments through brief field enquiries and the lens of literature on trans-border economies and patron clientelism. Likewise, the study raises a host of questions that deal with the concept of development – especially in light of the fact that the economic comparative advantage is rooted in an economy that is tied to the existence of prosititution. In other words, how sustainable is a form economic development that is anchored to activities that are oftentimes health averse and in the eyes of many, morally questionable?
In 1999 after nearly twenty years of authoritarian rule, Nigeria successfully held democratic elections that witnessed the victory of Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian from the South. Unfortunately, not all political actors interpreted the election as a positive step. The results forced the Hausa ethnic group to relinquish power after nearly twenty years of power. The Hausa elites resisted this and in an attempt to demonstrate their political power, traditionally Muslim Hausa speakers implemented Shari'a in the northern part of the country in the months following the national election. In the case of Shari'a, religion is an instrument for acquiring prebendalist concessions in the distribution of power and wealth (Abubakar, 2001). The installation of Shari'a in Northern Nigeria had a pronounced effect on Southern Niger.
Niger and Nigeria are linked culturally, economically and politically, particularly in the north of Nigeria and south of Niger. Trade and contraband activities between Niger and Nigeria have historically been a part of both economies (Azam, 1991; Baier, 1980; Collins, 1976; Gregoire, 1992; Lund, 2001; Miles, 1994). Black market trade between Nigeria and Niger in goods such as alcohol and peanuts are legacies of different colonial policies in both states. The implementation of Shari'a in Nigeria changed the cross – border dynamics of relations between the two countries. Because Niger has been and continues to be a secular state, it stands in contrast to the Shari'a based government in Northern Nigeria. The government of Niger has vigorously discouraged attempts by some Islamic leaders to introduce a more radical branch of Islam (Davis & Kossomi, 2001). Nigerians who sought access to alcohol and prostitutes were obliged to travel across the border to Niger and this demand created a supply. Though the indigenous Hausa in Niger and Nigeria share a common religion and strong cultural traditions, Nigerien Hausa and other dominant Muslim ethnic groups as the Songhay were willing to accommodate that which their Nigerian counterparts would not.
In Africa, borders do not inhibit economic activities; in some cases they actually act as ‘corridors of opportunity.’ Differences in policy and protectionist barriers are advantages that can be used for financial profit (Meagher, 2003). Parallel trade has flourished across the Niger-Nigeria border due to the fact that legal exports on one side of the border sometimes become illegal on the other side of the border (Azam, 1991). The secular nature of the Nigerien government created a ‘corridor of opportunity’ thanks to the implementation of Shari'a in Northern Nigeria. The informal exchange of goods and products is an integral component of African economies and the term etat entrepot describes states that survive on well structured and dynamic parallel economies (Igue, 1976; 1992).
Three towns relatively close to the Nigerian-Nigerien border underwent spectacular changes due to the illegalisation of alcohol and prostitution in Northern Nigeria. Firgi, located within the department of Maradi, was the first town to receive an influx of prostitutes, gamblers and bar owners from Northern Nigeria (New York Times, 2001). Mai Mujia and Adare, in the department of Zinder, also experienced drastic changes, but at later dates. Although changes were observable in all three villages, this briefing focuses specifically on the village of Mai Mujia.
Mai Mujia
The first state in Nigeria to implement Shari'a law was Zamfara at the end of 1999. People who were affected by the installation of Shari'a were those said by the local government to be taking part in activities contrary to Islamic beliefs. Almost as soon as the aforementioned activities were outlawed, bar owners and prostitutes emigrated to Niger where they assumed the new identity of baki, or visitor.
A visit to Mai Mujia reveals the magnitude at which life in border towns in the Hausa region of Niger has changed. Mai Mujia is located on a major axis of transportation that connects Zinder to Kano. Conversations with villagers revealed the extent to which the village has changed due to the introduction of Shari'a in Northern Nigeria. Interviews with Sarkin Baki, literally translated as the ‘ traditional chief of visitors’ revealed how Niger has changed as a result of Shari'a law in Nigeria. He is responsible for all immigrants who have settled in Mai Mujia.and has provided great insight into the attitudes of Nigeriens. At the same time, he is grateful for the arrival of the bakis who have brought, as he terms it, blessings and good luck to Mai Mujia.
Traditional chiefs such as Sarkin Baki greatly profited from the arrival of bakis due to the fact that they were able to rent their houses to them. Chiefs are the modern legacy of a pre-colonial feudal system and still own significant plots of land and houses. Due to a lack of multistoried buildings, villages tend to grow outwards and not upwards. Sarkin Baki owns most of the land that surrounds the village and he is remunerated for the land that it is built on. The bakis buy land on which to build their homes, and Sarkin Baki has sold tracts of land to the bakis in addition to renting them rooms in his houses. He also collects taxes from each of the bakis who has moved to Mai Mujia. Finally, he, for a fee, resolves conflicts that frequently occur among the baki population.
El Hadjia Fatouma Zara is one of the people who has helped enhance Sarkin Baki's economic status. Fatouma Zara, originally from Maradi in Niger, worked as a prostitute in Kano up until Shari'a was introduced in Kano state, Nigeria. When she perceived the threat of Shari'a to be real, she moved all of her belongings to Mai Mujia in Niger and continued to work as a prostitute. She explained why she moved to Mai Mujia and how the village has changed. to me
Shari'a chased out a lot of people. Tandja [the current President of Niger] refused to do Shari'a in Niger so many of us moved to here, where we would not be bothered. Before Mai Mujia was empty, now it is full. I bought a piece of land from Sarkin Baki for 70,000 cfa [a little more than $100] and I plan to build a restaurant on the land. Both Sarkin Baki and the police have made money from the bakis and the police do well because many of the bakis do not know their rights. If the bakis get in trouble with the police they are forced to give them money or to sell their belongings, such as a mattress or clothes in order to get free (Field Notes, August 2003).
I used to live in the town of Daura. After I found out that Shari'a would be brought to Nigeria, I sold all my belongings and moved to Mai Mujia where I bought a house from Sarkin Baki. I did not want to be locked out and lose all of my belongings. The house that I bought has four rooms and I rent them out to other women who have relocated here (Ibid).
Villagers states that the presence of bakis created the need for water merchants, masons, clothes washers and food preparers. Villagers experienced an increase in economic opportunities since the arrival of the bakis. A sector of the economy that benefited were the masons who were employed in the construction of new houses. New houses needed to be built to house the bakis, therefore brick builders, masons and water carriers experienced a dramatic rise in employment opportunities. Local women as well took advantage of the opportunity and set up informal restaurants that serve the basic needs of people in search of food.
Since Shari'a was implemented in Northern Nigeria, three bars have been constructed in Mai Mujia. Two of the bar owners are Nigerians who relocated their business to Mai Mujia. The third bar owner is a Nigerien who also owns a bar in Matameye. There is also a vibrant live music scene. Under Shari'a, integral components of traditional Hausa culture such as dancing, drumming and praise singing have been seriously proscribed in some parts of Northern Nigeria (Miles, 2003). Each of the bars had live house bands that performed late into the night and one of the bands consisted of Yan Bori. The Yan Bori are Hausa but are differentiated because some of them are possessed by traditional spirits. No longer allowed to perform in Nigeria, Yan Bori musicians moved to Mai Mujia.
All of the economic opportunities resulted in what most villagers refer to in Hausa as cin gaba which can be defined as development. Cin gaba translates literally as to move ahead and figuratively as to progress or to develop. In effect, villagers in Mai Mujia and Firgi interpreted the changes as overwhelmingly positive. Although the changes were ostensibly ephemeral and only consisted of menial service jobs, they referred to the changes the same way that someone would refer to an improvement in infrastructure. The prostitution and gambling that has been imported into Niger stands in direct opposition to the religious values of the Hausa who reside there. It is therefore somewhat ironic that the importation of un-Islamic activities was described by the local population in positive terms as cin gaba.
Another word that Nigeriens used to describe the changes brought about by Nigerian Shari'a was ‘bunkassar tattalin arziki’, which translates as economic development. This term was used most frequently by traditional leaders to describe the improved economic situation. As traditional leaders benefited the most from the changes, it is understandable that they would use a positive term to characterise the changes. They referred to the time before the bakis arrival as pre-bunkassar, and to the time after the bakis arrival as post-bunkassar.
Although Nigeriens were overwhelmingly satisfied with the changes, they were still disillusioned with the lack of improvements in infrastructure. The chief of the village of Mai Mujia, Maman Maigari, stated the village had undergone development (cin gaba). Maigari intimated his disappointment that there was still no water pump, medical clinic or electricity and only a small school in the village. The sudden growth in population placed an extra burden on the school and exposed the lack of available medical care. Maigari expressed incredulity that the government could not make a commensurate amelioration in basic social services.
A Hausa businessman based in Niger recognised the economic impact of the bakis. The businessman stated that ‘In wane ya zo ya zama kudi’ (If a baki arrives, he or she brings money). They bring money to Mai Mujia and they also spend money in Mai Mujia. This man also noted that since the bakis arrived the government has constructed a new police post, but has made no other significant improvements to the infrastructure of Mai Mujia. The businessman in a certain sense ‘commodified’ the bakis who have come to live in Mai Mujia.
The dismal economic situation in Niger forces many men to travel to wealthier countries in the sub-region in search of work. This phenomenon is a form of seasonal labour migration and Nigeria is the most popular destination. Historically, work migration to countries south of Niger has been an integral part of the region's economy and there is even a Hausa term, cin rani, that describes the phenomenon (Lund, 2001). The influx of people to dynamic border towns along the Nigerian border has had an effect on the seasonal labour migration of Nigeriens, and many who typically went to coastal countries in search of jobs, have now decided to remain in Niger. One example of this trend is a local Hausa trader who formerly made his living by working in southern Ghana. The trader found that economic opportunities in Mai Mujia enabled him to remain there year round as a cloth seller.
Not only have prostitutes from Nigeria settled in Mai Mujia, but prostitutes from other parts of Niger have moved to Mai Mujia as well. Interviews with sex workers revealed that a number of them are actually citizens of Niger. Several prostitutes intimated that they moved there after hearing that Mai Mujia possessed an active market in commodified sexual relations. Many sex workers had left larger towns, such as Niamey and Zinder, to relocate in Mai Mujia because of the economic opportunities. Prostitutes presented a unique perspective on the changes that Shari'a had engendered. The prostitutes from Nigeria could attest to the changes that had occurred in Nigeria, while the prostitutes from Niger could discuss how business in Nigerien border villages was attractive from an economic standpoint. Interviews with prostitutes also revealed how politically marginalised actors view the changes that have occurred in Niger.
Prostitution is usually regarded as a profession that is practiced by those who are financially strapped and lacking in formal education. If a prostitute is to work she must have a card that is signed by a government employed medical technician which ensures that she is in good health and not carrying any contagious diseases. Although the medical visit does not include a test for HIV/AIDS, the prostitute may continue to work as long as she shows no external signs of illness. If, however, the prostitute does not have her health card stamped by a health technician, the police can prevent her from working. The hospital where the prostitutes get their exam adminstered is in Matameye, which is 25 miles away. This situation has given rise to instances where sex workers must pay a bribe to police if they are found to not have the proper paperwork. Due to prostitutes' marginalised social standing, they are not a segment of society that has much leverage in defending their rights. Informal transactions between authorities and prostitutes works to further entrench the system of patron clientelism.
Rather than harping on the unsavory attributes of the bakis, most villagers look to the advantages that the bakis have brought. Most villagers are content with the addition of several hundred prostitutes to their community in spite of the numerous possible negative consequences. Traditionally, sex workers have high incidence rates of HIV/AIDS. By at least one account HIV/AIDS rates for the village of Firgi (located in the Department of Maradi) has risen dramatically. Although Niger in general has low HIV/ AIDS infections rates compared with other sub-Saharan African countries, the regional director of public health responsible for Firgi found significant rates of infection among the population. Public health workers tested 200 of the prostitutes in Firgi and found approximately one in three HIV positive (Reuters, 10 January 2002). Despite these alarming numbers, the population of Firgi and Mai Mujia had little knowledge of the potential epidemic in their village.
The reaction of the state of Niger
The authorities of Niger have limited options in the way that they can react. Due to the fact that influential people such as traditional chiefs and local authorities are profiting from the changes, it is not evident that the government is compelled to intervene on the behalf of its citizens. A dire economic situation has also limited the ways that the Nigerien government can provide support to the communities that have undergone changes. Only when the President of Niger directed the dispersion of the community of bakis in Firgi, did the state deal directly with changes that have occurred in border villages. Rather, forcible dispersion only served to scatter the baki population through other parts of Niger. Interviews with other political leaders provided some insight into how they perceived the changes in border towns. The Prefet (governor) of Zinder recognised that Shari'a in Nigeria had brought changes to Niger, but no changes of real consequence. The Sous-Prefet (regional governor) of Matameye, who administrates Mai Mujia, acknowledged that Mai Mujia had experienced changes and that he had done all he could to accommodate Nigerians who come to Niger.
Conclusions
Now that prostitution, gambling and bars have increased dramatically in Niger's border towns, it is necessary to examine the broader implications for the state of Niger and its citizens. The changes in Niger raise a host of issues that are worth debating such as the concept of development, the saliency of patron/clientele networks in African states, and the existence of trans-border economies.
Within the context of Niger, patron/ clientelism emerged long before the contemporary era. In the period since the introduction of Shari'a to Northern Nigeria, patron/clientelism has become especially salient with the emergence of increased border traffic. Increased cases of immigration from Nigeria to Niger offers police officials greater opportunity to exact profit seeking. The greatest amount of power abuse occurs in interactions between rent seekers and the newly arrived bakis. The resolution of disputes which involve marginalised actors unaware of their rights are perfect occasions for profit seeking patrons. These changes in Nigerien border towns help to further entrench pre-existing patron clientele networks. Interactions between the powerful and the powerless are the central tenets of patron clientelism (Lemarchand, 1972). In a highly illiterate society like Niger, citizens are acutely unaware of their civil rights and are vulnerable. to people in positions of relative power. Prostitutes are some of the most vulnerable.
The movement of prostitution, gambling and bars to Niger is yet another contemporary example of how borders in Africa create artificial differences. The existence of Shari'a banned activities in Niger is an alternative structure for economic accumulation. One strain of literature argues that ‘cross-border trade in some ways constitutes an economic alternative to an increasingly weak state’ (Hashim and Meagher, 2000).
Hashim and Meagher also point to the fact that the ideological role of Hausa commercial networks has been historically shaped by the needs and opportunities of the prevailing economic context. Modifications in the characteristics of interregional markets have incited adaptations in the identities of participants and the way that they act (Hashim and Meagher, 2000). In the case of Shari'a law in Nigeria, prostitution, gambling and alcohol have been outlawed in some states and, as a result, the identities of participants in trans-border markets have changed. Some Nigeriens have altered the way that they participate in the interregional market in order to maximise their profit-making possibilities. The creation of bars, brothels and gambling casinos has created a sub-culture in Niger which is a mix of non-Hausa businessmen, Hausa prostitutes and local Nigeriens who have adapted their businesses to the changes engendered by Nigerian Shari'a.
Informal trans-border business is an important resource for economic development, but it is not capable of being integrated into a regulatory framework that may support the state. As most of the increased economic activity is informal in nature, very little of it benefits other segments of the population. It is also important to identify the negative aspects of the changes that accompany the economic advantages. A rise in patron clientele networks, possible increases in HIV/AIDS cases, and stress on beleaguered infrastructure are drawbacks.
Bakis are a new identity group that have emerged in Niger and it will be interesting to see what position they will occupy in society. The implementation of Shari'a in Nigeria both greatly increased their activities and contributed to the visible expansion into Nigerien border towns. Another key question worth consideration is how the enlarged baki population will be integrated into Nigerien society: will they be integrated and form civil society groups that will ultimately strengthen the state of Niger?
Our review of the changes engendered by the implementation of Shari'a in Nigeria raises several questions about a number of issues. Definitely, the border towns of Nigerien Hausaland have been transformed. Still, it is important to ask if the state of Niger will maintain its current detachment about the changes that have engendered the arrival of the bakis. Moreover, the enthusiastic reception of the bakis by Nigeriens merits a reconsideration of the very term ‘development’. A proliferation of bars and brothels is not a typical orthodox manifestation of development, yet in the words those most affected by these changes, it is considered development, cin gaba. The implementation of Shari'a in Northern Nigeria and its subsequent effects on Niger point to the saliency of patronclientelism networks and the adaptive nature of trans- border economies in the African context.
James Mittelman's The Globalization Syndrome provides a theoretical framework that is useful for the issues that this study investigates. Mittelman theorises that the aftermath of the Cold War has fomented an eruption of sub-surface tensions formerly stifled by the state. The tensions, exacerbated by globalisation, affect the political, social and economic stability of developing nations. One of the states that has emerged from the tumultuous period is the ‘courtesan state’. By definition, a courtesan services clients, especially wealthy or upper class ones (Mittelman, 2000:25). Mittelman does not declare that the courtesan state is a distinctive form of state; it is rather dominated by different policy orientation characteristics.
In the ‘courtesan state’ model, the state does not provide social protection but rather tacitly forsakes safeguarding the local citizenry through the provision of social services in favour of regional market forces. Mittelman argues that the ‘courtesan state’ is ‘not solely a national phenomenon, but is rapidly becoming a trans-state structure in it own right’ (Mittelman, 2000:26). An example of a ‘courtesan state’ is the Southeast Asian country of Thailand. The sex trade in Thailand has had a dramatic effect on the local culture, yet it persists because of the hard currency that it brings into the country. Other countries in the region as well as those outside Asia serve as clients of Thailand's service.
Through the use of Mittelman's theoretical framework, Niger can also be regarded as a state that possesses the characteristics of a courtesan state. The demand for bars and brothels created a market in Niger. Social protection consists of, among other things, health care, education and household security. The clients who visit the border towns of Niger not only engage in activities that are outlawed in Northern Nigeria, but they spend significant sums of the money that is ultimately infused into the local and regional economy. Bars, brothels and casinos provide the services that are outlawed in some parts of Northern Nigeria. The establishments, some of which are organised transnationally, fulfill the demand that is in short supply in Northern Nigeria.
Mittelman's idea of the ‘courtesan state’ also argues that the state does not intervene on its citizens' behalf in the face of relatively undesirable activities and threats to the local population. Social protection can be regarded as the provision of schools, potable water, security and health care.
Nigerien's interpretation of the Shari'a induced changes demands a reassessment of the term development within the context of Hausa culture. Is mere economic advancement the only tool by which to measure development? Common indicators of development, such as access to health care, clean water and education have not experienced any amelioration in Mai Mujia. A reassessment of the notion of development within the local Hausa context is necessary. The inhabitants of villages such as Mai Mujia demonstrate remarkable agency in the way that they have accepted the changes and adapted their lives in ways that are financially beneficial. It is important to consider the implications of Shari'a for Niger, especially in light of a population that is 90% Muslim. Will more conservative elements of Islam surface and attempt to combat these changes through a shift to Islamic fundamentalism?
Red Star, Black Gold
Chris Alden
China's growing public presence in Africa, coming as it does against the backdrop of a sustained Western media campaign of ‘shock and awe’ at China's new-found power, raises important questions about the nature of this emerging relationship. Once an avowedly antiimperialist force on the continent with aspirations to ‘third world’ leadership, Beijing's recent foray into Africa has been characterised by a singular focus on resource acquisition and commercial opportunism that seemingly belies the rhetoric of partnership. While increasingly necessary to the health of the Chinese economy, Africa occupies an important place in its global ambitions as well.
Feeding the ever-increasing demands of its robust economy is a major pre-occupation of Chinese authorities. Having outstripped its own domestic capacity in petroleum in 1993, and with the shrinking of other energy sources coupled to the absence of many strategic minerals in the country, China has looked to the resource-rich developing (and, in the case of Canada and Australia, developed) world to fulfil its economy's insatiable needs.
Africa's relatively unexploited energy sources, timber and fisheries offer the Chinese a unique opportunity to lock in through formal or informal means a steady supply of key resources. This is reflected in trade value between the two regions, with total trade US$10 bn in 2000, rising to US$18 bn in 2003 and expected to exceed US$30 bn by 2006. Even when compared to other parts of the developing world, Chinese investment in Africa stands as significant: for example, while trade with Africa was only 2.1% of China's total trade in 2003, as an investment destination it commanded 16.39% of the country's total overseas investment.1 (This compares with, for example, its traditional trading partners in Asia, which occupies 53.4% of China's trade and 28.3% of its investment respectively.) Big projects, such as the investment in Sudan's oil industry from 1996 onwards, where the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has transformed the moribund energy sector into the country's leading export (with China as its top destination), are clearly at the forefront of China's interests in Africa. Equivalent investments, if not as significant to the domestic production (CNPC owns a 40% share of the Sudanese government's Greater Nile Petroleum Corporation), have been made by Chinese multinationals in Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, as well as purchases of shares in Algeria's natural gas fields.
Linked to these investments are projects aimed at improving the physical infrastructure of these countries, especially roads and port facilities which aim enhance the attractiveness of Chinese ventures to African governments as well as improving the export efficiency of these enterprises. Here Chinese companies have often successfully outbid their Western (as well as that of other developing countries such as India, Brazil and South Africa) through the traditional strategies of linking investment to tie-in projects and providing lower labour costs in the form of introducing their own contract workers. This latter measure has sometimes proved controversial with local workers and their representatives but, generally, African government officials have been willing to overlook these concerns.
High profile investments in the energy sector may have grabbed the international headlines, but other forms of commercial engagement with Africa play an important part in shaping trade and investment ties. Commercial logging in Equatorial Guinea, plantation agriculture in Tanzania and Zambia, the rehabilitation of railroads in Botswana, and manufacturing in Zimbabwe and the installation of sophisticated telecommunications systems in Djibouti and Namibia. Many of these ventures are promoted and managed not by Chinese multinationals but small and medium enterprises, some even part of the troubled State Owned Enterprise sector. For example, China's third largest trading partner in Africa, Nigeria, non-oil exports topped US$500 m in 2004 based on the sale of agricultural products such as cotton and timber products, both of which involve Chinese companies or joint ventures.
The government has established eleven Trade Promotion Centres around the continent and Chinese businesses are actively encouraged to see Africa as a trade and investment destination. The now ubiquitous Chinese-owned retail trading shops across the continent which sell low cost and low value products made in China directly to Africa's rural population are also the products of individual entrepreneurship. This dimension of Chinese investment in the continent is not well understood or documented as it is having an impact on the social landscape as well as the economic patterns for ordinary Africans. And, finally, in common with other countries, there are Chinese nationals involved in criminal activities who use front companies to illegal export everything from timber in Liberia and Mozambique to rhino horn and abalone from Southern and Central Africa.2
Though the world's attention has focused on China's acquisition of oil concessions and expansion of commercial activities in Africa, the thrust of Chinese interests in Africa go beyond this resource drive. With 53 states, Africa represents an important regional presence in most if not all international institutions and one which can tip the balance on contentious debates be they in the area of trade or human rights. This point was driven home to China's leadership in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when Western condemnation and sanctions contrasted with the expressions of sympathy and even support from African governments. China's commitment to playing a greater role on the global stage impels it to develop closer relations with Africa and this is a position it has assumed for a considerable time now. The issue of Taiwan, which has official ties with seven African states at this moment, is particularly important in this regard. Chinese diplomacy is aimed at cementing ties with local African governments and, concurrently, ousting official Taiwanese diplomatic missions from those states. A renewed effort to isolate Taipei is part of the government's strategy to narrow the options for Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian in his apparent bid to win international sympathy (if not support) for a possible declaration of independence.
A crucial tool in wresting official recognition away from Taiwan (and one used by Taipei to ward off this possibility as well) is development assistance. Again, though competition with the ‘renegade’ province was once a key rationale for Chinese engagement in African affairs, it is fair to say that this forms only a part of its wider interests in the region at this point. Between 1957 and 1996, China has provided over US$4,912 bn to the African continent, much of it in the form of technical assistance and training programmes (Brautigam, 1998). Though significantly smaller than major OECD donors disbursements, the impact of its agricultural assistance programmes in rural Africa have been recognised by African producers and governments alike. More recently, Beijing has embarked on direct support to cover core administrative costs of governments like the Central African Republic and Liberia. In the case of the latter, nearly 600 Chinese peacekeepers drawn from engineering and medical battalions have been brought in as part of the international community's efforts to restore stability to the war-torn country. Prestige projects such as the construction of new ministerial buildings in Uganda, Mozambique and Djibouti as well as stadiums and trade centres in a number of other countries have been supported by China. Military co-operation is a growing feature of relations as is arms sales, though it is nowhere on the scale of traditional providers in the West and Russia. Perhaps the most publicised expression of this is the Chinese sale of armaments and heavier equipment, including helicopters and Shenyang fighter jets to Sudan and more recently to Zimbabwe.3 Chinese weaponry, including light arms and ammunition, have been shipped through Dar es Salaam and onto the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the late 1990s while Chinese arms played an important role in Sierra Leone's civil war and in the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict.
Crowning the new relationship with Africa is the China-Africa Co-operation Forum process, a summit meeting between Chinese and African leaders convened every three years. The first of these was held in Beijing in 2000 and the follow up came in Addis Ababa in 2003. While international summitry is generally characterised as more theatre than substance, there were some notable aspects to the process so far. In particular, at the Addis Ababa summit China announced that it was cancelling its outstanding debt of US$1.27 bn to 31 African countries as well as committing all parties to increase overall trade to US$28 bn by 2006 (something that is already on the cusp of being achieved).
Ultimately, the question asked from Lagos to Maputo is whether China's renewed focus on Africa is in the continent's interests. In one sense, any new entrant to the foreign investment arena is seen by African governments as a positive sum game. Beyond the machinations of diplomacy between Beijing and Taipei, the fact that China joins the bidding for projects enables African governments to broaden the range of potential players and raises the financial stakes in Africa's favour. Against that position some have argued that, as the world's largest recipient of FDI, China itself represents competition for foreign investment with Africa, but this seems to miss the point. Despite the focus on growing international competition to secure access to energy resources, it is China's investment, especially in the small and medium enterprise area, aimed at rehabilitating agricultural production or in a few instances industries, which is filling a gap that might otherwise not forthcoming from traditional Western sources. The shadow boxing over the Darfur issue between Beijing and Washington, while rooted in local dynamics of the Sudan crisis and the ongoing ethnic cleansing, nonetheless carries with it dimensions of global rivalry over influence and especially access to oil in that strife torn region. How responsible African governments manage and exploit to their best advantage the various forms of international competition, including China, is another matter.
Of more concern, in terms of the prospects for democracy, is the explicit posture of Beijing that it invests without ‘strings attached’: this is clearly appealing to African governments subject to various forms of conditionalities or sanctions. Chinese policy makers are forthright in admitting that their ‘competitive advantage’ is this willingness to engage with regimes deemed to be beyond the pale by many in the international community. Providing a further international prop to dictators, in keeping with the policies too often pursued by Western governments, obviously does not further the interests of African society nor better the conditions for democracy to take hold. Given that China itself remains under single party rule, there is little to expect in this area from Beijing. At the same time, China's current emphasis on personal ties with regimes or elites within Africa carries with it some of the same factors that have both sustained and undermined relations with other foreign actors. This is reflected in, for example, the proximity of successful Chinese investment bids for large infrastructure projects in Zimbabwe with its cultivation of Zanu-PF elites. The costs of this approach are increasingly recognised by Chinese working in various official and unofficial capacities across the continent, though this is only beginning to be appreciated by authorities in Beijing.
In the end, underlying much of the interest in China within Africa is its appeal (or ‘soft power’ attraction) as a model for development with African elites. Sharing a common history of exploitation by imperialists, victimised through externally-funded civil wars and subjected to calamitous socialist projects in the name of idealism, the two regions have complementaries that go beyond the standard primary product-manufacturing relationship that has characterised the continent's external ties since independence. Chinese success in extracting itself from this legacy is much admired by visiting African delegations to that country and an understandable source of pride for China. Whether the Chinese development experience offers significant and transferable lessons to the African environment, or China falls into the now familiar mould of an external power pursuing narrow self-interest, remains to be seen. But, if the situation in Sudan is anything to go by, then it is the latter aspect that is coming to preside over this latest putative African partnership.
Chris Alden , e-mail: J.C.Alden@123456lse.ac.uk
Re-enter the dragon: China's new mission in Africa
Lindsey Hilsum
The day after the United Nations released a report condemning Robert Mugabe's government for demolishing 700,000 homes and businesses ‘with indifference to human suffering’,1 the Zimbabwean President flew to Beijing. He visited a car factory, signed a loan agreement and received an honorary professorship from the Foreign Affairs University for his ‘remarkable contribution in the work of diplomacy and international relations.’2
The friendship between Mugabe and the Chinese dates back to the bush war in the 1970s, when China provided Mugabe's ZANLA guerillas with weapons and funding to fight white minority rule in Rhodesia. Now, however, China's interest has less to do with political solidarity and more with commercial opportunity, and its growing need for natural resources.
Zimbabwe is only one example of China's aggressive new policy in Africa, which poses a challenge to G8 leaders' plans to make ‘good governance’ and human rights determining criteria in decisions on trade, aid, debt relief, loans and investment. As the EU and US target sanctions on Zimbabwe and other African countries, including oil-rich Sudan, which abuse their citizens' human rights, China is moving to fill the gap. Yet, at their meeting in Gleneagles in July 2005, when Africa was at the top of the agenda and President Hu Jintao of China was present, G8 leaders did not make the connection. Foreign affairs ministries in G8 countries show no sign of adequately analysing the new role China is playing in Africa, let alone coming up with a strategy to address it.
Thirty years ago, China was trying to spread communism in Africa through prestige projects like the TanZam railway. During the early stages of capitalist transformation, China turned inwards, but the first China-Africa Forum, held in Beijing in 2000, marked the beginning of a push to revive links. Trade between China and Africa tripled from US$10 bn in 2000 to US$30 bn in 20043 and is set to rise further. The Chinese government has set up a special fund to help stateowned enterprises invest in Africa, and provides preferential loans to private Chinese companies doing likewise. By mid-2004, 674 Chinese companies had established themselves in 49 African countries, in sectors including mines, fishing, construction and telecommunications.4
The reason is China's own phenomenal growth. Industrial development has been so fast, China's oil consumption is now second only to the USA. Africa is already providing a quarter of China's oil needs, and this may increase as Chinese companies position themselves to benefit from new oil discoveries in the Gulf of Guinea. China is also becoming a major player in the timber trade and in mining.
Dubbing the first two decades of this century a ‘period of important strategic opportunities’ 5 in which Africa will play a crucial role, the Chinese government has told its companies to ‘go global’. With costs high and competition fierce in the USA and Europe, they have chosen Africa as the proving ground for Chinese companies aiming to be multinationals. All over the continent, Chinese companies are building hotels, parliaments and government buildings, and refurbishing stadiums they originally constructed in the 1970s. China has become a very visible presence in Africa, frequently importing labourers as well as project managers.
China is also a major supplier of arms to African regimes, notoriously providing an estimated US$1 bn worth of weaponry to both sides during the Ethiopia/Eritrea war in the late 1990s.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China does not want to be left out of international efforts in Africa, so has provided a small number of peace-keepers, notably in Liberia and southern Sudan. However, its bilateral political aims are limited, insisting only that recipients of aid and investment back the ‘one China’ policy, forgoing links with Taiwan. The key policy principle is to stand aloof from political developments in African countries unless they adversely affect investment. ‘China doesn't interfere in another country's internal policies,’ is the standard line from the Foreign Ministry when asked about human rights abuse, corruption or dictatorial policies in countries such as Zimbabwe, Angola or Sudan. As Chinese economic influence grows, this stance may pose a serious threat to emerging democracy and civil society movements in the continent.
Zimbabwe
At celebrations to mark 25 years of Independence in May 2005, President Mugabe told the crowd,
China, India and Pakistan have replaced the UK, the US and the EU as Zimbabwe's biggest source of investment, with China leading the pack.6 Western companies have deserted Zimbabwe because they cannot survive capricious government policies and shortages of fuel, food and foreign exchange. But China is thinking strategically. It can take advantage of Zimbabwe's decline to secure mining concessions and trading opportunities at knock-down prices and get loans repaid in kind with badly needed commodities.China's 300 million smokers are benefitting from Zimbabwe's land reform programme. While Chinese businessmen bought tobacco at auction when commercial farms were owned by white Zimbabweans, the Beijing Review reports that ‘the new situation in Zimbabwe has provided Chinese companies with an opportunity to invest in plantations and processing of crops.’7 In return for a share of the tobacco harvest, China provides loans to struggling new black farmers who have taken over commercial farms. China has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, but is short of commodities, while Zimbabwe has almost no foreign currency at all, so needs cash loans to buy fertiliser and spare parts for agricultural machinery (which can be sourced from China). Zimbabwean tobacco and cotton are also being used as repayment for a loan worth US$110 million from the China National Aero Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) to the national power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).8
Chinese investment may not to save Zimbabwe from economic ruin, but it offers a temporary lifeline to President Mugabe, as Zimbabwe faces expulsion from the IMF by the end of 2005 over US$300 million in unpaid debts. While the EU maintains an arms ban, the Chinese have provided the Zimbabwe airforce with six K8 jet fighters. In the long term, China has its eye on Zimbabwe's platinum deposits, the second largest in the world, currently controlled by the South African company Impala Platinum holdings.9 Several delegations of Chinese businessmen have already held talks with Zimbabwe Platinum about potential investment.
China also needs markets for its manufactured goods. Many Zimbabweans believe that the government destroyed market stalls in Harare, Bulawayo and other cities between May and July 2005 in Operation Murambatsvina (‘Operation Clean the Dirt’) to make way for Chinese businesses.
‘The country has been mortgaged to the Chinese,’ said Morgan Tsvangerai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. ‘How can we violently remove Zimbabweans from our flea markets to make way for the Chinese? 10
Sudan
Officials at Sudan's Energy Ministry say their country now provides 12% of China's oil.11 The state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) owns a 40% share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, the Sudanese state company which operates most of the country's oilfields. In the 1980s, the prolonged civil war between north and south drove out American oil companies, notably Chevron, while in the 1990s the US imposed financial sanctions against Sudan because of the government's links with militant Islamist groups. Now American oil companies are watching in dismay as China takes over where they left off.
The People's Republic first became involved in 1996, when drilling started in the Higlieg oilfield in Unity State, which lies on the border between north and south Sudan. According to Human Rights Watch, government attacks forced 80,000 civilians out of the oil-rich Ruweng County and another 50,000 from Unity State in 2001 and 2002. The US-funded Civilian Protection Monitoring Team said that government troops had ‘sought to clear the way for oil exploration and to create a cordon sanitaire around the oil fields.’ When a Canadian company, Talisman, withdrew in 2003 under pressure from shareholders over human rights abuse, China and India increased their involvement, providing further capital, technology and expertise. Many of the Nuer and Dinka people displaced by oil exploration now live in poverty in Khartoum.
Investment is good. It will develop our land, but the most important thing is how we are treated,' said James Lei, a refugee forced out of Unity State, in an interview with Channel 4 News. ‘In the end, the Chinese must go home. This is not their country. Then this will all be ours. 12
China has a stake in the ABCO consortium now drilling for oil in Darfur, where government-sponsored ‘janjaweed’ militia have murdered and raped local people, driving two million from their homes, in a campaign the US has described as genocide.
[With the Chinese], we don't feel any interference in our Sudanese local business, or any of our traditions or politics or beliefs or behaviours. They just devote their time and their energies to their business as we planned for and agreed to,' said Awad Al Jaz, Sudanese energy minister, in a recent interview. ‘Business is business. There's no business but the business.’ 13
Both the EU and US maintain arms sanctions against Sudan. This has had little effect as most of the weaponry used by the Khartoum government, including helicopter gunships, fighter planes and tanks, are Chinese made. China has built three factories on the outskirts of the capital assembling small arms and producing ammunition. Defectors from the government side to the Sudan People's Liberation Army showed a researcher from Britain's Rift Valley Institute AK47s and rocket launchers inscribed in both Chinese and Arabic. Similarly marked shell-casings have been found in Darfur.
Now a peace deal has been signed in the long running war between the government and the SPLA/M, people allowed to remain in the oil-producing area hope to benefit from Chinese investment. Chinese-built roads and electricity extended to village homes from facilities around Higleig oilfield should be a basis for development. However, the relationship with China enables the government in Khartoum to resist pressure from western countries to improve human rights, and end the campaign against the people of Darfur. New oil discoveries have strengthened Khartoum's hand, as the government consolidates its relationship with China and rejects initiatives from G8 goverments and non-governmental organisations working in human rights and humanitarian relief.
Sierra Leone
In West Africa, Chinese construction workers never seem to rest. Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, is dominated by new Chinese buildings – the parliament, the main government office block, the military headquarters and the newly refurbished stadium have all been completed in the last year. ‘The Chinese work 24 hours a day,’ said the Information Minister, Septimus Kaikai, in a recent interview. ‘We could learn from them.’14
According to the World Bank, Sierra Leone is the poorest country in Africa. Seventy per cent of Sierra Leoneans live in poverty. Electricity is intermittent, many households have no running water and 60% of young men are unemployed. Ravaged by civil war, Sierra Leone's stability is guaranteed only by British and UN troops. Western governments see the country primarily as a recipient of aid, an emblem of the Africa British Prime Minister Tony Blair described as a ‘scar on the conscience of the world’.
While western investors see little potential for profit in a country like Sierra Leone, where poor infrastructure hinders all endeavours and government corruption is growing, Chinese companies can keep their costs so low, their investments rapidly pay off.
The starting point is the 270-bed Bintumani Hotel, renovated by the state owned Beijing Urban Construction Group. Capital outlay is minimal because everything is imported from China – the red lanterns swinging in the porch, the television and kettles in the rooms, even the bedsheets and towels. The signs on the toilets are in Chinese and a form of English – the one in reception reads ‘Ladie's’. ‘Africa is a good environment for Chinese investment because it's not too competitive – unlike Europe and the USA,’ explained Yang Zhou, the Bintumani manager.15
The private company Henan Gouji has invested US$4 m in a small industrial centre in what used to be a transit camp for people displaced to the capital by war. It will serve as a showcase for imported and locally assembled Chinese goods.
‘Our company has just started to enter the international market’ explained Xu Ming Zheng, the Henan Gouji representative in Freetown. ‘We need to gather some experience from our operation here, so that we will be able to build a good foundation for our future global operation. We would like to invest in more African countries using this model.’ 16
Many Sierra Leoneans speculate that ultimately the Chinese are interested in the country's diamonds, and the potential for off-shore oil exploration. Certainly, China is positioning itself well in the eyes of the government in Freetown.
‘If a G8 country had wanted to rebuild the stadium, for example, we'd still be holding meetings!‘ said Sahr Johnny, Sierra Leone Ambassador to Beijing. ‘The Chinese just come and do it. They don't start to hold meetings about environmental impact assessment, human rights, bad governance and good governance. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying Chinese investment is succeeding because they don't set high benchmarks.’ 17
Bangura fears a new cold war between China and G8 countries, in which corrupt African leaders will be able to play one off against the other, as they did with the Soviet Union twenty years ago.
‘If our leaders know that China can sustain and support them, and China effectively becomes a donor country, then the United States and Britain will start accommodating them,’ she said. ‘So if a leader starts trying to change the constitution, or imprisoning journalists, or breaching procurement rules and regulations, they'll pretend not to understand, for fear they'll go over to China.’19
Frustrated by the bureaucracy and high overheads incurred by G8 governments and multilateral donor-funded projects employing expatriate personnel, some African governments are already beginning to see Chinese investment as an alternative.
‘Chinese are investing in Africa and getting results, while the G8 are putting in huge amounts of money, and they don't see very much,’ said Sahr Johnny, Sierra Leone Ambassador to Beijing. 20
Conclusion
Not all African governments are so sanguine. In Lesotho, Chinese investors started textile factories to take advantage of the US Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which gave preference to African countries producing certain manufactured goods. However, when the World Trade Organisation lifted quotas for textiles made in China at the beginning of 2005, they immediately transferred production to China, shutting down the factories and causing nearly 10,000 redundancies.21 South Africa, where China is the biggest new investor, fears both the dumping of cheap products and downward pressure on wages. South African economist Moeletsi Mbeki has described China as ‘both a tantalising opportunity and a terrifying threat to South Africa.’22
In Tanzania, where Chinese companies are involved in major construction projects, a recent ILO study notes that, ‘three of the four project sites with the lowest labour standards are operated by Chinese contractors.’23 Long hours and low pay have led to labour unrest.
Africa is part of China's strategy to become a fully developed, globalised market economy; G8 countries, by contrast, see Africa primarily as a problem to be solved with aid. Many African governments admire the Chinese model, which has combined rapid economic development with authoritarian rule. According to the World Bank, China has lifted 400 million of its own people out of poverty in 20 years – a considerably better record than that of G8 countries in Africa. Unless G8 countries engage China on Africa, their hopes of buying influence in the continent through aid and debt relief may have little impact. African governments will see no incentive to move towards democracy or reduce corruption, if they see Chinese investment as an easier or more effective option than western aid.
© Lindsey Hilsum , Channel 4 News International Editor, London.
The politics of private security in Kenya
Rita Abrahamsen & Michael C. Williams
The privatisation of security has attracted considerable attention in recent years and months, but amidst all the discussion of mercenaries and private military companies one aspect of this security privatisation has gone almost unnoticed: the phenomenal growth of private security companies.
While a lot less spectacular than the mercenary activities of someone like Simon Mann or the Iraq involvement of private military companies like Erinys and Blackwater, the size, scope and rate of expansion of private security companies dwarf that of private military companies. Similarly, while their concentration on the more mundane aspects of security such as guarding, electronic alarm systems, patrolling, risk analysis and management may lack the eyecatching cachet of the new ‘corporate dogs of war’ they have a profound impact on the day-to-day provision and politics of security. In fact, the growth of private security companies has significantly altered the landscape of security both locally and globally, leading to and reflecting an increasing commodification and politicisation of security.
Africa is no exception. While in the popular imagination, private security on the continent is predominantly associated with post-apartheid South Africa, the influence and expansion of private security provision is far more widespread that this impression allows. To be sure, South Africa has experienced an explosion in the number of private security companies, and as a percentage of GDP the country has the largest security market in the world. But as crime and insecurity has become endemic in large parts of Africa, private security companies have increasingly taken over the role of protection for individuals, households, neighbourhoods and businesses alike. As a result, the uniformed guards of the literally thousands of security companies have become a familiar feature of urban life. In Nigeria, for example, there are now an estimated 1,200 security companies, employing at least 100,000 people. In Kenya, there may be as many as 2,000 security companies, while in Uganda the number of private security officers equals that of the public police, and in post-war Sierra Leone private security is just about the only economic sector to show any sign of growth.
Increasingly, Africa is also becoming part of a global security market. By the year 2000, the global security services market was estimated to be worth US$83 billion, with a predicted continued growth rate of 6-8% per year. While the largest security markets are in North America and Europe, growth is higher in the so-called ‘emerging markets’ and the major international security companies are looking to Africa and other developing countries for profitable expansion opportunities. Recently merged Group4- Securicor, for example, now operates in 40 African countries, and employs 60,000 people on the continent. Two international companies, ADT and Chubb, also dominate South Africa's lucrative armed response market, while numerous international risk analysis and risk management companies operate throughout the continent.
This briefing focuses on private security in Kenya, and especially Nairobi, where private security has become both increasingly indispensable and controversial. As in so many countries where the state is either unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, private security is at the heart of both the maintenance of law and order and the politics of protection. While Kenyans rely extensively on private providers for their day-to-day security needs, the commodification of security simultaneously raises difficult questions about the equality of protection. Presently, the private security sector in Kenya is entirely unregulated, and there is considerable controversy regarding the relationship to the police. The government is currently considering legislation to regulate the sector, but judged by its actions to date, the enforcement of any new regulation may leave much to be desired.
The growth of crime & private security in Kenya
Both the rise in crime and the growth of the private security sector in Kenya are intimately connected to the erosion of state capacities and services that began in the late 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s. For Kenya, as for so many other African countries, this was a period of declining economic prosperity. State expenditure and investment were drastically reduced, often in line with international donor requirements for economic liberalisation and structural adjustment. The result was a continuing deterioration of the capacity of government and municipal institutions to deliver services, including the provision of law and order. At the same time, the state elite showed little inclination to curtail its own appetite, and corruption and mismanagement of state assets continued unabated. As the capacity of the state declined, so too did its previous ability to provide employment, contributing to a rapidly expanding problem of urban unemployment, swelling the shanty towns and informal settlements around Nairobi. This setting has provided the conditions for an increasingly criminalised environment. Crime in Kenya, and particularly in the capital, has risen sharply in the last decade, to the extent that crime levels in Nairobi are now far higher than in comparable cities. A victimisation survey of Nairobi found that 66% of respondents had been victims of crime, while 86% had witnessed crime within the city. The survey also found that the levels of insecurity are increasing, and there is a clear sense among the population that crime has become more violent, more ruthless and also more organised (Ngugi et al, 2004).
According to the same study, there is also a strong perception among Kenyans that criminals are collaborating more and more with law enforcement agents. The police are under-funded and poorly paid, even after recent pay rises, and often resort to extortion and corruption in order to subsidise their wages. In addition, the police force has frequently been implicated in political intimidation and violence, especially during the Presidency of Daniel arap Moi (see Human Rights Watch, 1993; Kenya Human Rights Commission, 1998). As a result, the public has little confidence and trust in the police, and in one survey 36% of people attributed all crime in Nairobi directly or indirectly to the police force (Stavrou, 2002). Whatever the reliability of such figures, they reflect a deep and widespread distrust in the police, and the extent to which the police are frequently regarded as part of the problem rather than the solution to crime and disorder. Even the most positive appraisals, which acknowledge recent improvements following reforms and increased resources, recognise that the reliability of the police force remains woefully below satisfactory standards. The Government itself blames this on ‘low moral …, low professionalism, inadequate allocation of required resources, and endemic corruption in the force’ (Government of Kenya, 2003:10).
As the state has failed to provide protection for its citizens, people have organised in various ways to maximise their own safety. The growth of private security companies is one element of this politics of protection; the formation of various forms of neighbourhood watches or vigilante groups another. While the more affluent sections of the population can afford to hire private security firms, the majority of people rely on more informal forms of protection. Vigilante groups are now common in most poor estates and informal settlements around Nairobi, providing some level of protection in the face of rising levels of crime and police inefficiency but also occasionally involving extortion and resulting in violence between rival groups.2
High crime rates, combined with the inability of the public security services to provide adequate protection, are thus the main factors driving the expansion of private security in Kenya today. In addition, fear of international terrorism following the attack on the US embassy in 1998, and the hotel bombing and failed missile attack on an Israeli airliner in Mombasa in 2002 have increased demand for security services, especially among international clients. The US State Department still gives Nairobi its highest (‘critical’) ranking for both crime and international terrorism risks, while the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office similarly warns of a high risk of terrorism.
The minimum wage & security for all?
Although no exact data exists, there may currently be as many as 2000 private security companies (PSCs) in Kenya (Wairagu, Kamenju and Singo, 2004). The private security sector is also a major source of employment, and the same study estimates that the sector employs over 48,000 people. Given the country's high dependency ratio, the sector may indirectly support a total of over 195,000 people (Ibid.). Private security is thus an important part of the economy, providing much needed employment. On the other hand, guarding is a notoriously low paid occupation, and this is also the case in Kenya, where guards often work very long hours for very little remuneration.
In an attempt to deal with the level of exploitation, the Government in May 2003 introduced a new minimum wage for the sector.3 Including monthly housing and other allowances, the new wage legislation brought the minimum wage for a guard to Ksh 9,469. It is, however, clear that salaries continue to vary considerably between companies, and the majority still pay their guards well below the minimum wage. In fact, the wage legislation has led to considerable controversy in the private security sector. The main industry association, the Kenya Security Industry Association (KSIA), quickly endorsed the bill and made payment of the minimum wage a condition of membership of the association. A number of security companies, however, refused to accept the government's regulation, and in protest formed a new security association, the Protective Services Industry Association (PSIA).
The May 2003 legislation increased the minimum wage by 12.5%, thereby significantly adding to the cost of salaries for private security companies. The PSIA, which has a membership of approximately 30 companies, argues that the new minimum wage would make security available only to the wealthy, and also that it would force a number of smaller security companies out of business. In fact, the PSIA regard the wage legislation as a product of lobbying by the larger security companies represented by KSIA, and hence as an effort to squeeze smaller companies out of the market. Rather than a uniform minimum wage, the Chairman of PSIA argues for a differentiated salary structure, where the top-tier companies providing highly trained security guards and integrated security solutions pay a substantially higher wage than the lower-tier companies, who offer less intensive security consisting predominantly of static guarding. PSIA rejects notions of exploiting the labour force by paying below the minimum wage, arguing that there are ‘plenty of people on the street’ willing to work for the wages on offer.
PSIA members have openly stated that they will not comply with the minimum wage requirement, and to date there are no signs that the government will attempt to enforce the regulation. On the contrary, the Minister for Planning and National Development, Professor Peter Anyang'Nyong'o, was present at the launch of PSIA, endorsing its contributions to Kenyan security. Moreover, despite openly breaking the law, PSIA companies continue to sign new contracts with government agencies, thus gaining a competitive advantage on companies that comply with the minimum wage regulation. In this way, the Government is not only demonstrating a striking lack of commitment to enforcing the minimum wage, but it is also helping maintain a vicious circle of low pay, low service and the accompanying temptation towards crime that can make private security a source of insecurity. While it is possible that the minimum wage, if enforced, would make security less available to the poor, it is equally clear that the current low wages contribute to the cycle of poverty and crime. To date, the government's contradictory policies and practices have done little to remedy or resolve the situation.
Private security & public policing
Another area of controversy concerns the co-operation between PSCs and the public police in Nairobi, and again, this has profound implications in terms of equality of protection and access to security. The relationship between the police and private security companies is best described as one of mutual suspicion, and even at times hostility. Private security providers are quick to point to police collusion with criminals, while the police are similarly inclined to dismiss security guards as compulsive lawbreakers. At the same time, a degree of interaction and cooperation between the two is required, especially as the private sector is unarmed, and hence relies on police backup in dangerous situations and of course also when arrests need to be made.
By necessity, therefore, co-operation between the police and private security companies take place on a daily basis, most frequently when companies are responding to incidents and alarms from clients. Most PSCs report that the number of armed incidents in Nairobi have increased significantly in recent months, with many companies referring to more than five incidents a week involving firearms. This poses a serious challenge: simply responding with non-armed guards provides limited security for clients, while simultaneously placing guards in significant danger. Guards are instructed to withdraw and wait for police assistance in the case of any serious incident, and PSCs will frequently send a vehicle to pick up police in order to ensure a more rapid response. In the case of alarmed response services, current practice is to send one vehicle to the incident and another to the nearest police station to transport the required number of police officers to the scene. This not only potentially delays effective response time, but also carries the risk that there may be no available police officers at the station.
It should be noted that guarding is an extremely dangerous occupation in Kenya. Guards are issued only with a whistle and a baton, whereas criminals often carry firearms, machetes or other weapons. Attacks and violence towards security guards are common, and sources within the industry estimate that within greater Nairobi and Mombasa combined, between five and ten security guards are killed every month. One leading company interviewed had lost 15 guards in the first 10 months of 2004, whereas other PSCs reported frequent violent incidents towards guards. In this context, many companies express concerns that police regulations make it difficult to issue guards with body armour, as this requires a firearms certificate. Despite this high incidence of violence, no nation or industry-wide statistics of guards hurt and killed on duty appears to exist, and the issue has received surprisingly little public attention.
There is a clear sense among the private security sector that the current arrangement for co-operation with the police is unsatisfactory. As they point out, PSCs and the police have a common interest in preventing crime, and whereas the police are short on transport and resources, the PSCs have approximately 200 alarm response vehicles stationed at strategic locations around Nairobi at any one time. KSIA is currently lobbying for the reinstatement of a previous pilot arrangement, whereby individual PSCs took main responsibility for various residential areas and the police provided two officers per PSC vehicle. Critics argue that this arrangement predominantly increased security to residential customers that could afford to pay for private services, and importantly, the scheme was only in operation in a few wealthy areas of the capital. The private security vehicles nevertheless also responded to incidents involving nonpaying clients, or members of the public, but it is unclear precisely how the division of public and private responsibilities and priorities was determined under this arrangement.
The arrangement was terminated by the new Provincial Police Officer in 2004, and currently the relationship between private security providers and the police appears to be largely informal, depending to a large extent on the personal relationships between company directors, high level police officials, and individual station commanders. Whereas some companies have succeeded in hiring police officers back on their patrol vehicles through ad-hoc arrangements, the majority patrol without police or any armed support. There are also reports that the police are objecting to being assigned to private security duties, regarding this as a misuse of their skills and resources (The Nation, 2005).
The politics of private security
The significance of private security in Kenya has recently been more clearly recognised, and the government has begun consultations over draft legislation to regulate the sector. Given the prominence of private security in Kenya, this is an important development, as currently the sector is entirely unregulated and little or no attention has been paid to its role and functions. There is no specific legislation or regulation pertaining to private security companies, and no oversight or monitoring of their practices, services or training of personnel. Accordingly, the quality of companies and their services vary considerably, and there are concerns that as a result private security companies (like the police) may, or have already, become a source of criminality and insecurity.
But while the move towards regulation is to be welcomed, it is clear that the private security should not be approached simply in terms of regulation, quality control and wages. Instead, private security needs to be regarded as part of a wider network of security provision, which has profound social and political consequences. Insecurity is a feature of life for almost all citizens in Kenya, but it affects people differently. Kenya is one of the ten most unequal countries in the world, and according to the Government's own figures, 56% of the population (or 17 million people) live in poverty, while a small elite of 10% control 42% of all wealth (Government of Kenya, 2003:1; Daily Nation, 2004). To a significant extent, crime and insecurity follow the lines of wealth and surveys show that the feeling of insecurity varies greatly according to income. In short, the poorer Kenyans are, the more they suffer from both the fear and the real experience of crime (Ngugi et al. 2004). Money buys security in contemporary Kenya, and as the wealthy barricade themselves behind higher security walls and advanced alarm systems, crime moves to the poorer neighbourhoods where the ‘pickings’ may be less enriching, but more accessible.
This development is by no means limited to Kenya, but holds for numerous African countries experiencing high levels of crime and low levels of public law enforcement. The provision of security is thus placed at the heart of the social and political order. Private security and the use of public police as an integrated part of private security, particularly vehicles and communication, clearly raise difficult questions. It is easy to see this as providing yet more protection to paying clients, while taking away public resources from those unable to afford private security. At the same time it is important to acknowledge that public policing is desperately inadequate for the poorer sections of the population at the moment. Kenya has one police officer per 850 people, well below the recommended UN minimum of one per 450. At this stage, the plan to reach the UN target by 2006 seems highly unrealistic, but at least until then, police resources are likely to remain severely over-stretched (Government of Kenya, 2003:11). As a result, individuals, businesses and organisations will have few options but to continue to rely to a large extent on private providers. Importantly, this is cannot be approached as an ideological or normative question of whether or not security should be a public duty – it is quite simply a reflection of the material resources of the present Kenyan state.
Private security provision in Kenya will thus require careful consideration, in particular as regards the co-ordination co-operation between PSCs and the police force. It is essential that the overall provision of security, both public and private, is such that it increases security for all, not just for some. Given adequate level of co-operation between public policing and private security companies, private security can act as a ‘force multiplier’ increasing security for all sections of society. On the other hand, a lack of coordination and co-operation can result in a gradual ‘privatisation’ of public policing, and hence an intensification and deepening of existing inequalities. In this way, private security, its regulation and incorporation into wider networks of security provision is a key future consideration for Kenya, and for many other African countries.
Rita Abrahamsen & Michael C. Williams, Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Can Mozambique's new president lead the fight against corruption?
Marcelo Mosse
Although the Mozambican discourse on corruption continues, it is mainly aimed at petty corruption. State funds continue to be drained off to benefit small numbers of the political elite; conflict of interest rules are ineffective. Indeed, there are no conflict of interest rules at all to regulate the actions of the new businessman president Armando Guebuza. And he has an enormous range of business interests which depend on government generosity, including fishing licences and soft loans. He also has a wide range of business associates in the Frelimo elite. Can he afford to push for a higher level of transparency and accountabilit?
Any transition from a socialist one-party system to a capitalist multi-party system means changes in the organisation of the state the character of the government. New institutions are required to prevent corruption, typically separation of powers to provide checks and balances, plus oversight and audit mechanisms. Transparency and accountability are central, as well as conflict of interest rules.
In the old authoritarian regime in Mozambique, corruption was not tolerated, and the political leadership severely punished those who abused their positions. The leadership also promoted a high moral standard which was maintained, despite the low civil service salaries and shortages of basic consumer goods. But democratisation and liberalisation have not been accompanied by an effective institutional redesign to safeguard against the development of corruption; there is no transparency or accountability.
When Mozambique made its brisk turn from socialism to capitalism, it was urgent, the argument went, to create a national bourgeoisie, and this was done with public funds. Political elites became businesspeople through privatisations, which were calamitous, and the squandering of bank resources that the state had to repay. In their desperation to be rich, some politicians crated companies in many different areas, but they lacked the resources and know-how to operate them successfully. The Mozambican bourgeoisie took from the state but gave nothing back.
Armando Guebuza, elected president of Mozambique in December 2004, was among the first to be convinced that the way forward was through primitive accumulation. Guebuza is an example of someone with a vast range of business interests, and he has had some success. As president, he will take important decisions on economic areas in which he has interests.
A businessman-president
The spread of Armando Guebuza's interests is shown just by checking the company registrations published, by law, in the official Boletim da República III. Guebuza was Minister of Transport and Communications from 1987 through 1994, and it remains one of his greatest areas of influence. Many of his companies are linked to transport, including:
Vehicle inspection: Inspetec, Sociedade de Inspecção de Engenhos Motorizados, created to carry out technical inspections and certify examinations of vehicles and boats. His partner is José Solomone Cossa, chairman of the board of Aeroportos de Moçambique, a public company supervised by the Ministry of Transport and Communications.
Vehicles: Tata Moçambique, with a subsidiary of the Indian automotive company. Another shareholder is Mbantine Investimentos is a company belonging to the family of Tourism Minister António Sumbane. Tata Moçambique is a partner with Navique and Emose, both public companies, in a company called Equimar.
Vehicle assembly and sale: MOVA, Montagem de Veículos Automóveis. This company appears to be inactive, but is important because it shows the range of linkages. Other shareholders include former Interior Minister Mariano de Araújo Matsinha and Scanmo de Moçambique, a company in which the Ministry of Transport and Communications had a major shareholding. It was created to import and provide post-sales assistance to Scania products.
Other transport: Cornelder, which manages Beira and Quelimane ports (the latter concession was granted in 2004 when Guebuza was already a presidential candidate) and in TRAC (Trans-African Concessions) which operates the toll road from Maputo to Witbank in South Africa.
Fish & water are other important areas
Fishing: Mavimbe and Maluandle. In both companies his partner is Moisés Massinga who was previously Secretary for State for Fisheries and is the most visible face of Guebuza's interests in this sector. José Luís Frederico da Costa Virott was also a partner in Mavimbe until he abandoned Mozambique in the mid-1990s under suspicion of drug trafficking.
Fishing and water: Água, Empreendimentos e Participações, established in 1999 to invest in ‘industrial, commercial, agricultural and tourism enterprises, manage shareholdings and provide services in the industrial, commercial, agricultural and tourism sectors’. Other shareholders include Tourism Minister António Sumbane, Fisheries Minister Cadmiel Muthemba and Moisés Massinga.
Water: Águas de Moçambique, the company that manages the public water supply in Mozambique's five main cities. One of his partners there is Raul Domingos. At the 1990-92 Rome peace talks, Guebuza was chief negotiator for Frelimo and Domingos was chief negotiator for Renamo; Domingos stood as a presidential candidate against Guebuza in 2004.
Other interests include:
Consultancy: Focus 21, Management and Development. The other shareholders are his son Mussumbuluko and his wife Maria da Luz Guebuza.
Electronic engineering and electricity: Electrotec and Intelec, Indústria de Material Eléctrico. Intelec depends on partnerships with foreign companies. Intelec also has a publicity arm, Intelec Lites.
Other: New Express Ltd, to ‘provide services in the area of correspondence throughout the country, carrying out the home delivery of parcels, documents, financial transactions and newspapers through a personalised service’ and Venturin, which has property, tourism and beauty interests. A partner in Venturin is Augusto Lucas who is in turn linked to Moçambique Comercio Internacional and in Health and Beauty Center Moçambique.
Through his businesses, Guebuza has very wide links with the Mozambique establishment, and checking company listings shows that his family and business partners in turn have invested in a wide range of companies. It seems as if everyone in the establishment is eventually linked to everyone else. This vast array of business, social and family connections provide fertile ground for clientalism and influence. President Guebuza will surely come under pressure for preference and favours for business associates; ministers and officials will surely be under pressure from those who claim to be acting in the president's business interests.
A decade-long delay
Two laws have been passed with a view of guarding against the use of state assets and official posts for personal benefit. A 1990 law (law 4/90 of 26 September) introduced new norms of conduct, rights and duties for top public leaders. A 1998 law (law 7/98 of 15 June) with similar objectives covered the holders of government posts. The two laws contained some basic rules for transparency and for the declaration of personal assets.
But neither law came into effect until 2000. In Mozambique, laws are quite general and do not take effect until the government issues detailed regulations. The 1998 law was put into force by regulations in Decree 48/2000 of 5 December and the 1990 law by Decree 55/ 2000 of 27 December. Thus a law to prevent conflict of interest was passed but not put into effect for an entire decade, during which time ministers and others could establish their businesses unrestricted.
These laws prohibit the involvement of senior civil servants in remunerated activities within their spheres of responsibility, and also establish the declaration of assets and sources of income. Senior public leaders ‘must not use the influence or power conferred by their posts to obtain personal advantages, or provide or receive inappropriate favours and benefits from third parties’ (4/90 article 2d). It is obligatory for leaders ‘to declare their patrimonial assets, liabilities, current or past functions in private and public companies, indication of gross complementary income for taxation purposes, declaration of the patrimony of their spouses, and annual updates of assets’ and ‘the deliberate non presentation of the necessary declarations or their culpable inaccuracy gives rise to the application of sanctions, including dismissal’ (4/90 article 3). This law also regulates some incompatibilities, namely the exercise of remunerated activity without authorisation; being member of the board or manager of any company unless by decision or in representation of the state; and carrying out activities of a professional nature related to his or her sphere of decision for third parties, even when unremunerated. In the case of the office holder being a shareholder, board member or owner of any company, the management of the asset and its bodies must be entrusted to others.
Declaration of assets was actually only required after the regulations were published at the end of 2000 saying how this was to be done. Ministers declare their assets to the Prime Minister, who in turn declares her assets to the President. Declarations of assets are deposited with the Constitutional Council, which also deals with violations.
The law specifies that the declarations of assets are secret, and can only be seen by ‘the President of the Republic, the Assembly of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the Attorney-General of the Republic, through a written request to the Constitutional Court’. It adds: ‘The declarations are protected by the norms of legal secrecy, and their inappropriate dissemination is punishable in the terms of the law’. It does not say how monitoring will be done. But as the law stands, civil society and press – and public opinion at large – have no way to check on widespread rumours of corruption because the have no access to the declarations.
Furthermore, the laws are vague, listing various duties but does not defining their content – for instance, it speaks of the duties of loyalty and impartiality, but does not explain what they are. The conclusion is that the law is ineffective for tracking and documenting corrupt activities. This also makes the search for accountability and proof of corruption more difficult. The preliminary conclusion to be drawn is that the legislator never intended to make this law more effective by giving it more transparency.
The general framework of these democratic control mechanisms is thus precarious. For example, there are no rules on conflicts of interest that guard against opportunism on the part of membners of parliament. A study carried out by ética Moçambique in 2001 found that MPs can simultaneously have shareholdings in companies and vote for laws that benefit them. In other words, the law does not regulate conflicts of interest for MPs in relation to the private sector: they can serve other interests with no restrictions; there are no impediments or limitations on their holding positions of trust in private companies or even sitting on the boards.
Monitoring the President
Remarkably, the President of the Republic is exempt from the two conflict of interest laws; for a President, there are no rules on conflict of interest or declaration of assets. This was raised with Guebuza just before the election campaign, in a television interview on STV (12 October 2004). The journalist asked him what would guarantee that he would not use the powers of the President to benefit his companies. Guebuza's reply was peremptory: ‘The Constitution of the Republic’. He added that ‘the Constitution is what will guarantee that I do not manage my companies’.
But Mozambique's Constitution does not establish any incompatibilities between the functions of President of the Republic and businessman. Not a single line of it says that the President, having companies in almost every sector of activity, should not take decisions on matters that affect economic interests in those areas. And nothing prohibits Guebuza from having companies. In fact, the Constitution defends the right to property.
Thus there is no law to manage conflicts of interest in a case where the president is also a major businessperson. The problem can be seen with Guebuza's fishing company, Mavimbe. First, his fisheries companies are dependent on licences issued by the government. Sources in fisheries says that Mavimbe has been one of the most privileged companies in the acquisition of quotas. In the late 1990s it began to press for fishing quotes to be ‘nationalised’; big foreign-linked fishing companies such as Efripel and Pescamar had their quotas cut significantly, while Mavimbe gained additional quotas. But fishing catches in Mozambique are declining. A 2004 study by the National Fisheries Research Institute recommended that catches by industrial and semi-industrial fishing boats be cut by one-third. Will Guebuza have the courage to impose a rational and careful management of the sector which would have a direct cost to one of his businesses?
Second, Mavimbe has a large concessional loan from the government. Treasury credits for entrepreneurs linked to the Frelimo party began some years ago with the turn to the market economy. They are granted at concessional rates and through a very obscure mechanism on the basis of grants and loans to the Mozambican state for balance of payments support. Donations from Japan, USAID and Germany, and credits from the African Development Bank and the IDA (World Bank) have already been passed on to Mozambican businesses with no public tenders and no guarantees of return. Large loans have gone particularly to senior veterans of the liberation war, and many are not being repaid. In 2002 Armando Guebuza had access to a credit of US$2.5 million for the purchase of a fishing boat (which is seen as quite expensive, since normal boats with the latest equipment cost around US$500,000). Now that Guebuza has become prsident, wll Mavimbe continue to have access to these credits?
No corruption crackdown without the boss
Mozambique is a hybrid state, formally modern but in fact mired in neopatrimonial government systems. Officials and ministers are not held responsible for their actions so long as they are protected by a powerful patron. This leads to a mentality in which reciprocal relations with a patron takes precedence over the task a person is supposed to carry out and over the public good.
Transparency, integrity and concern over conflict of interest are all lacking in Mozambique. Clientalism, nepotism, influence trafficking and neopatrimonialism are deeply rooted. The public and press lack information. So corruption has vast space in which to develop. The problem is not lack of laws, but that the laws are not applied. The lack of political will to call high officials to account for conflicts of interest, combined with the decline in moral values and the get-rich-quick attitudes of the new capitalist society, means that a small political elite continues to expropriate public goods for their own benefit.
During the period before and during the election, there was much talk of petty corruption, and this has continued since Guebuza took office. But an anti-corruption strategy starts at the top. Thus the absence of rules to regulate the behaviour of a businessman-president raises major questions, and strips away any means from the anti-corruption discourse peddled by the politicians. Will Guebuza show how he manages his interests, especially in fishing, and will he give practical content to rules on integrity and conflict of interest? What will he do about concessional Treasury credits.
Will the businessman-president be able and willing to break with neopatrimonialism and move toward the modern state? Or has integrity been left behind with authoritarianism?
Marcelo Mosse is a Mozambican independent journalist, social researcher and anti-corruption activist. He is involved in the creation of a Centre for Public Integrity in Mozambique and is the coauthor of Telling the Truth in Mozambique, a biography of the assassinated editor Carlos Cardoso. This briefing is an edited version of an article first published in Savana (19 November 2004) which won the Carlos Cardoso Award for Investigative Journalism on 3 May 2005.
Nigeria: Conservation, ‘traditional’ knowledge & the commons
Caroline Ifeka & Sylvanus Abua
As analysed in former issues of ROAPE, rural Africa's resource struggles pivot on the capitalist economy's growing transformation of common property tenure into private property regimes that support the development of class relations and socio-economic inequality. Privatisation by elites in control of emerging land markets means the direct producer looses his customary entitlements and, landless, is forced to seek employment for a wage within capitalist relations of production: privatisation shrinks the commons and undermines both ‘traditional’ environmental knowledge and community forest management. However, our data show that compared to settlements close to roads and markets, villages furthest from the roads retain greater commitment to common tenure, have stronger traditional knowledge and greater resistance to privatisation of the forests. We ask whether in the latter settlements ‘traditional’ knowledge helps empower subalterns and some (sensitised) elites to resist the commodification of forest resources and to uphold community forest management for bio diversity conservation.
In this briefing we recall Gareth Hardin's (1968) classic argument that though society is composed of rational individuals attempting to maximise their own economic interests, this rationality is individualistic and exercised at the expense of other individuals – and the commons which they exploit. Previous ROAPE contributors have argued that an historic struggle for ownership and control for profit and power of resources in subcontinental Africa continues (c.f. Cliffe, 1988; Bush & Szeftel, 1991; Johnson, 2003). Currently, members of an international and African bourgeoisie comprising multinational corporation managers, officials of the nation-state, and national companies are pushing privatisation for profit of African lands, forests, inland rivers and coastal waters. Their predatory actions are resisted from time to time by an increasingly differentiated subaltern class of direct producers (miners, farmers, fisherfolk, hunter-gatherers, pastoralists) whose livelihoods – nay survival – depend on continuing access under customary tenure to a commons that in villages relatively close to access roads logging companies, farmers and traffickers in non-timber forest products are ‘mining’ to death.
Alarmed at rapid species and habitat loss, international NGOs such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK collaborated in the late 1980s with the Federal Military Government of Nigeria to enclose large tracts of forest commons for perpetual protection – i.e. zero exploitation. These lands were gazetted as National Parks, which prohibited local people from exercising their customary tenurial rights to hunt, farm and harvest products in the forest as their ancestors had done for generations. In effect, the Federal Government's Parks were a stateadministered ‘commons’ superimposed over customary lands, but one that cancelled villagers' ‘traditional’ rights of access, exploitation and management; perhaps conservationists hoped that these state ‘commons’ would provide a bulwark against market forces pushing for the privatisation of customary land rights?
Yet tropical forest degradation by illegal loggers in cahoots with community, state and federal elites extends to forests officially protected as National Parks. State elites feel free to send in their tractors and chain saw operators to fell and transport out valuable tropical hardwood for sale to eager buyers in Calabar (the capital of Cross River State) and Lagos. In addidtion, farmers and pastoralists effect annual burning of forests well inside Park boundaries for farming and grazing. Continuing destruction of high forest, river courses and endemic species habitats caused many conservationists and the DFID-supported Cross River State Community Forestry Project in the 1990s to question the effectiveness of Parks as the primary tool for biodiversity maintenance; they argued that effective conservation begins (and ends) with full community participation. However, development practitioners and national elites keen to promote tenure privatisation have criticised Nigeria's Land Use Decree (1978) which placed all land under the ‘trusteeship’ of state governors; in their view, the Decree is ‘holding back’ urban and rural ‘development’, by which they mean clearance of community and family held land for urban projects and agro-industrial plantations producing cash crops as rubber, palm oil and sugar cane which they claim (surprisingly) can ‘feed the nation’. Now bourgeois advocates of privatisation are pressing for the 1978 decree to be abolished, so an open market in land will be established everywhere; they believe all the country's lands presently exploited by rural communities as a commons under customary tenure should be ‘freed up’ (commodified) so they can be purchased for a ‘market’ price by those with the wherewithal to invest in ‘development’ which will ‘grow the economy’. Note that early in 2005, notwithstanding local concerns and some opposition, the Kwara state governor in central Nigeria ‘leased’ 16,000 hectares for 25 years of allegedly ‘empty’ common land to four Zimbabwean (white) farmers supported by 50 black Zimbabwean farm hands and 2,000 head of cattle, with which to establish large-scale dairy farming integrated with soybean, maize and rice cultivation (UNIRI, 22 March 2005).
Although Gareth Hardin argues that in situations of population growth every ‘man's’ (‘natural’) maximisation of selfinterest ensured that land held in common is degraded, we examine some instances to the contrary of successful forest commons management in the best ‘bottom up’ tradition of sustainable exploitation that benefits collectivity. These communities are furthest from roads and markets, have very small village elites without strong ties to state politicians as well as rich forest resources that are reflected in a vibrant environmental knowledge; some villages have partnerships with local NGOs such as the African Research Association and Rainforest Resource and Documentation Centre which work across Cross River State for preserving ‘traditional’ knowledge and more sustainable exploitation of the forest commons. Do these village communities epitomise Andre Gunder Frank's (‘dependency’) theory (1969) that the looser the economic ties between ‘periphery’ (settlement) and ‘metropole’ (market town, state capital), the greater the satellite's prospects – assuming a redistributive oriented government – for more sustainable forest commons management that relies on ‘traditional’ environmental knowledge, reduces income inequality and resource conflict?
In what follows we explore the role of ‘traditional’ knowledge in empowering successful community management of the forest commons. (By ‘traditional’ knowledge we mean that body of local wisdom, learning and understanding that interprets communities' collective relations with, and impact on, their forests in terms of customary law regulating spiritual relations between people and vitalising divinities.)
Cultural modification
Our enquiries suggest that traditional knowledge in remote forest villages of forest plants and habitats continues to adapt to new challenges, notably a shrinking natural resource base that is increasingly penetrated by the cash economy. For instance, local entrepreneurs – perhaps working for city based elites – hire village labour, largely women, on piece rates so workers in each gang compete to harvest more ‘salad’ (Gnetum africana) per day than others; villagers fear that ever more intensive harvesting is wiping out the plant. Commodification of labour and the commons is impinging on knowledge and conservation practices. Consider the following examples of cultural modification:
Ten years ago a men's secret society (Ekpe) masquerades in villages and towns in Cross River State (Nigeria) danced to the sound of drum beating played by youth. Today's secret society players rely on pop and jazz music blaring from radios. The radio is a foreign, modern technology that youth value because it puts them in touch with the outside world of innovation and modernity that they believe makes their village lifestyles seem backward and old-fashioned. Though radio sends ‘hip’ messages, currently it is modifying rather than destroying institutions that uphold the secret society as a respected, if not feared apparatus of law and order which is backed by sacred sanctions and supports sustainable exploitation, e.g. restricting access, opening and closing seasons, imposing taxes on outside users.
In tropical high forest villages on the Nigeria-Cameroon border, remote from access roads and markets but dependent for cash income on exploitation of non-timber forest products as bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis), men's secret society members (Lakumbo) are still initiated into the secret knowledge of plants, forests and gods that constitute the ‘traditional’ sacred power of the ancestors over the living. Here, old men and some youth expressed concern that conversion of some community members (generally women) to Pentecostal churches and economic ‘development’ are trivialising a secret society, whose inner circle is feared for its spiritual powers of life and death, and still largely responsible for ‘law and order’ across the thickly forested villages of this cross-border region.
Some herbalists known to us in a small north Cross River town (Obudu) are ‘modernising’ their practices. They refer to books compiled by overseas plant scientists as they collaborate with local laboratory analysts, who now carry out diagnoses for patients before administering herbal (plant) medicines in measured doses. We note that this is an example of quantification according to rational principles that are commodifying traditional knowledge. This is also an example of how researchers and scientists take out the less measurable, more qualitative elements of traditional knowledge and replace them with quantifiable procedures that enable the practitioner to sell his knowledge in discrete blocks to patients who believe that ‘scientific’ herbal medicine is more likely to lead to a cure. So traditional knowledge of forest plants used in healing many afflictions is commodified, sold freely on the market for a price, while the original (customary) owners of the knowledge receive little or no benefit.
Scientific ‘rationalism’ vs. spiritual knowledge
The political process of ‘scientisation’, which involves assessment, selection, substantiation and approval according to western scientific benchmarks, raises western science to the dominant level of reference as the measure of what counts as ‘real’ (e.g. scientific) knowledge. Once accepted by scientists, what was once ‘traditional’ tends to be subsumed in the western knowledge base and is perceived by indigenes as transferring ownership to those with scientific knowledge.
Multinational companies interested in prospecting for new plant resources and genetic material, sometimes commission ethno-botanical research into plant medicine. In cases known to us, on both sides of the Nigeria-Cameroon border, conservation agency scientists and pharmaceutical companies seek to exploit for corporate gain knowledge that indigenous peoples, mostly herbalists, have built up over many generations.
In general, multinational companies have little or no interest in the geographical areas from which their laboratory specimens have come, or in the owners of the knowledge who saved them (companies) several years of expensive hit-and-miss research. The unprivileged position that ‘traditional’ knowledge occupies is one reason why the intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples are often treated so lightly (c.f. Posey, 1990).
A technical materially oriented approach to conservation is in line with quantifiable (scientific) measurement of ‘the social good’ in terms of increasing production of commodities (e.g. goods sold in exchange for money). Thus, ‘scientific’ (rational, logical) techniques measure community progress towards conservation goals in quantifiable, measurable indicators of bio-diversity enhancement, by for example, counting annually the number of big mammals in a designated forest block or by weighing the tonnage of ‘salad’ (Gnetum africana) and bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis) harvested annually in community forests (c.f. WWF, 1990; Omoluabi, 1994; BothENDS, 2004).
Perceived corrosion of ‘traditional’ knowledge
Based on our analyses, though the indigenous perception that nature and human beings are inseparable is weakening in remote forest villages, the belief that plants and human fortunes are integrated through the pervasive activities of various spiritual powers is still potent. For example:
Anyang classify plants into ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘black’ and ‘white’ (said by informants to be similar to black and white races) by the following criteria: plant structure, leaf colour – pale green is classified as white while dark green is classified as black – and pilosity (leaf hairiness). Anyang classification further confirms that some indigenous peoples perceive humans and nature as similar in some respects and as being linked through the making of analogies as the above which inform plant categorisation. Plants with hairy leaves or high (traditional) medicinal potency are seen as males, while those with non-hairy leaves of less medicinal potency are seen as females. Flowering plants (cryptogams) and non-flowering plants (phenogams) are seen as males and females respectively, though flower-bearing plants are classified as male-female while sterile plants are male.
Some herbalists in the Anyang community of Okwa (enclaved in the Cross River National Park) told us that verbal communication with plants is possible. This is said to explain why some people believe in a secret agreement with forest trees that they will not harm any member of the community, as told to us by herbalists in another Anyang village in the Takamanda Forest Reserve (Cameroon).
On several occasions when the Cross River National Park attempted to implement its village resettlement scheme as part of government's conservation programme (1991-99), the enclaved villagers of Okwa resisted strongly, arguing that they could not abandon their spiritual birthplaces protected by sacred animals (crocodiles, pythons, hippopotami), forest sites where ancestors resurrect in animal forms and may haunt ancestral graves. Okwa people asked representatives of the World Wide Fund for Nature, then managing that section of the Park, the following (paraphrased) questions:
The WWF manager (an expatriate) answered that he would arrange for Okwa's ‘totems’ (e.g. elephants etc) to be winched up into a helicopter and flown out to their new location. Youth remained skeptical as to WWF's ‘real’ intentions.Knowledge, tenure & managing the commons
Thus, communities in our study area evinced a fragile political and cultural balance between ‘modern’ (materialist), privatising and ‘traditional’ collectivist (spiritual) orientations towards the forest commons, reflecting historical interaction between on the one hand, pre-market subsistence-based economies in which community survival is emphasised as the basis of individual life, and on the other hand, market forces which highlight individual choice, labour for cash not subsistence, and personal consumption. These conflicting value systems highlight the development of cultural heterogeneity and economic differentiation in remote forest villages, precursors perhaps of the preponderance of privatised tenure regimes and a shrinking forest commons in villages close to access roads and markets.
Tacit acceptance of private property regimes among some households in remote villages is evident in a popular preoccupation with economic development; for example, successful hunters, struggling small holder farmers and some non-timber forest product harvesters seek to strengthen market access for bush meat, ‘salad’, ‘wild honey’ and the like. Petty capitalism and materialistic perceptions of the forest as an obstacle to economic development (on account of lack of roads, electricity and health centres) are growing among a minority of (elite) households whose members engage significantly more in farming and off-farm activities as trading between village and city than in non-timber forest product exploitation (Ifeka, 1998; Abua, 2002; Development in Nigeria (DIN), 2003). These elites also claimed that land cleared for cocoa farms was their individual property (they therefore saw themselves as converting commons into private property), and they were markedly less interested than the poor majority in community customary rights to forest and sustainable use of medicinal plants ( c.f. Okoth-Owiro, 1996; Francis, 1996).
However, the poorest 60% of households (20% were female headed in some villages) valued most conservation of nontimber forest products on which they depended for their annual income (DIN, 2003). Traditional knowledge of forest plants, their multi-dimensional meanings and uses, is strongest among the poor majority including female headed households; transmission of such knowledge from one generation to the next, its use in day to day survival by exploiting non-timber forest products for subsistence and sale, reflects poor households' very real dependence on the forest for survival (c.f. Ambrose, 1994). The poor majority, especially women, are among the strongest ‘natural allies’ of conservationists (Redford, 1993), and should be targeted by NGO networks and donors as primary beneficiaries of pro-poor conservation, development and advocacy programmes so as to achieve more rapid scaling up of positive impacts that could reduce biodiversity destruction across large forest and forest-edge blocks.
Evidence from our field studies and elsewhere in Cross River state as Ekuri in the south-west, demonstrates remote communities' capacity for long term community forest management (Draper, 2004; Caldecott, 1996). Recently, the Ekuri people resisted a timber company offering them a road as bait for large-scale timber exploitation. Again, in 2004, a local advocacy NGO (Rainforest Resource and Documentation Centre, Calabar) mobilised community youth and launched a successful campaign that ‘persuaded’ the state government to call in the hammers thus stopping all logging. This was to allow the Forestry Commission to establish sustainable logging benchmarks.
Conclusion
Our data show a marked contrast in community capacity for, and commitment to, sustainable forest commons management in two types of villages. First, in villages closest to roads and markets, where socio-economic inequality and reliance on remittances like logging and conversion of the forest into farms is most marked, traditional environmental knowledge is fragmented, and community capacity for effective commons management is weakest. Second, in villages furthest from access roads where inequality and remittance dependence is less, reliance on forest resources is greater, traditional knowledge is more pervasive and village authorities managing the commons may resist capitalist interests as multinational logging, pharmaceutical companies and agro-industrial corporations clearing forest for large scale monoculture plantations (e.g. oil palm). However, the general trend is rising levels of intra- and inter-village conflict, small ‘resource wars’ and tropical forest degradation. Differences between villages in degree of dependence on forest resources as well as adherence to traditional knowledge and perceptions of conservation conform to patterns noted in early 1990s field research reports by the Department for International Development's (DFID, UK) Community Forestry Project, Cross River State (Alexander, 1994).
Though some pro-conservations believe in the state enclosing the forest commons for the latter's ‘protection’, others argue that Hardin-style degradation ‘proves’ that there can be no successful management of lands held in common. However, we gave some examples of sustainable exploitation of forests by villages remote from roads. Like Shepherd (1988) we conclude that the real tragedy of the commons comes when the penetration of market forces and growing individual greed privatises customary tenure regimes, and undermines community management capacity so unrestricted exploitation holds sway.
Caroline Ifeka (University College London) and Sylvanus Abua (African Research Association, Nigeria). Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the Leverhulme Trust (UK) for a research fellowship which inter alia enabled Sylvanus Abua to take leave from his job as Director of the African Research Association's Research, Documentation and Policy Unit in Calabar, Nigeria, and travel to the UK so he and Caroline Ifeka could carry out joint ethno-botanical archival research. Abua presented an earlier version of this paper under the title ‘The Impact of Research and Conservation Programmes on Traditional Knowledge of Forest Plants: A Comparative Approach’ to the 9th International Congress of Ethno-Biology, University of Kent, 13-17 June 2004.
Tajudeen's thursday postcard
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
The British Prime Minister's Commission for Africa Report was published amidst fanfare, even bluster and brave talks about ‘new beginnings’ and ‘great windows of opportunity.’ It never ceases to amaze me why we are supposed to settle for windows when we have a whole continent full of gates, fields and mountains of opportunities! The reaction has generally been mixed whether in Africa or globally including Britain itself. This is largely because Africa and her momentous challenges has never lacked focus but has always been shortchanged, if not surcharged when it comes to concrete action to realise the often declared good intentions – either declared by ourselves or by others to us.
As someone who has been critical of the Commission as an unnecessary project – a waste of time / energy / money that could have been put to better use and a diversion from what Africans are doing and want to do for themselves, there is not much in the report to make me lose my scepticism. It has actually triggered more questions.
In its Description and Analysis of the Problems it has nothing new to say and modestly makes no pretence at doing so. It is a good summary of what we already know. Perhaps it is in some of its recommendations that nuanced tactical, if not strategic, shifts can be discerned. I say tactical because both the analysis and the suggested solutions are essentially still within the same neo-liberal marketonly ideological hegemony of these times. It is still seeking to adjust Africa to global forces despite timid recognition in sections of the report that trade liberalisation, privatisation and donor-driven market mantra have hugely contributed to the collapse of infrastructure, societies and great deprivation in Africa. Just like we had dubious notions of ‘adjustment with a human face’ to offer palliatives for the atrocities inflicted on victims of IMF/ World Bank SAP policies in the 1980s, the Blair Commission may turn out to be offering us ‘globalisation with some human faces’.
But even here there are doubts as to the concrete action that will follow the 100 or so recommendations. I don't think anybody believes that all the recommendations will be acted upon but a number of key ones will remain the focus of action. They include an increase in Aid, Debt Cancellation, Trade Distortions that prevent Fair Trade, Corruption, Good Governance, Peace and Security and others. Out of these even fewer may emerge dominant. Aid will remain very high because it will satisfy the instant gratification of ‘wanting to do something‘ and doing it now. Yet doubling or quadrupling Aid is not the issue for as long as Africa and other poor countries are trapped in the structural iniquities of trade, commerce and financial strangulation by the richer countries. The truth also must be told that some countries in Africa – especially mineral or resource rich ones like Nigeria, DRC or Angola – do not need Aid: they need a functioning government. Indeed all of the countries will be better off with fairer trade than any volume of Aid. Aid will only strengthen the hands of the new missionaries of Western NGOs and humanitarian interventionism in Africa and their retinue of experts, consultants and fellow parasites in the professionalisation of our misery. By no means are they going to be foreigners alone.
A number of donor-friendly African NGOs and NGIs (i.e. Non Governmental Individuals) both in Africa and in the African diaspora in Britain, will get their share of the crumbs from the Master's table too. We should be seeing the grotesque jockeying for the ear of the Master that characterised the so-called consultations (really PR exercises) on the Commission's work reach a sad crescendo now that the report is out.
There will be a lot of talk about reforming the unfair international trade and financial system but when the crunch comes self interest of the richer countries may not allow any serious movement.
Debt cancellation for all may become more fashionable in the discourse but Debt relief with conditionalities may turn out to be what will be achieved since the US government (which is not alone but its convenient to hide their own culpability behind Bush universally taking the flak) is not likely to support the necessary reforms that may mean it is not able to punish its enemies and reward its friends. Yet universal debt cancellation will give every country equal chance of a fresh start.
The other issue that may get more money thrown at it will be support for regional and sub-regional institutions including the African Union especially on Peace and Security Issues. This may not necessarily be due to any new commitment for lasting peace in Africa but because they are cheaper and politically less volatile for Western countries whose governments are not willing to risk the lives of their own citizens in ‘far away’ places like Africa. It is a return to praetorian functions of the African state at a multilateral level. Otherwise why is the new love and admiration for Africa's role in Peace and Security Issues not extended to include our right to self-determination in Economic Issues and how we govern ourselves?
‘The taste of pudding’ the English say, ‘is in the eating.’ Therefore it is in the national and international action that the Commission's report is able to provoke that will make critics like myself to either, (happily) eat humble pies or claim pyrrhic victory in saying ‘we told you so’.
Even on the day of the report itself the omens were, contrary to the ‘feel good about Africa’ spin of the sponsors, not all good. For a report that took the bold step of acknowledging that there was nothing African about corruption and admits that it is systemic and has both African and non-African actors and perpetrators, it was ironic that its activities were held at the British Museum – a place that has been a major beneficiary of looted historical and aesthetic assets from all over the world – especially Africa. Tony Blair could have shown some genuine remorse and willingness to really change things for the better by handing over some of these stolen treasures as a symbolic gesture that business will not continue as before.
And this for me is the core of the matter. The Commission's Report will get more buy-in if Britain leads by example instead of sermonising and lecturing the rest of the world on being good or fair towards Africa. It can race to meeting its own Millennium Development Goal target of 0.7% of GDP as a contribution to global Aid. At present it is hovering around 0.4 and hopes to reach 0.7 by 2015! So why set new targets if you cannot reach existing ones?
Should charity not begin at home by a fundamental shift in the way Africans who are already here are being treated? It should certainly take more than a photo opportunity call at Downing Street by a select elite of the Diaspora and few Seminar / Workshop grants to turn this around. Our people say if you want to give me a gift of a dress I should first look at the one you are wearing. The conditions of Africans here should be an index in measuring British commitment to Africa.
The Museum of London may be a depository of looted historical treasures but the city of London itself is a major player in the systematic looting of Africa: direct theft by companies and corrupt African leaders, money laundering, fictitious transactions, etc. Britain can show real leadership by being the first country to implement the recommendation of the report that calls for repatriation of such looted funds to the countries they were stolen from and also punishing businesses, banks and finance houses that aid and abet bribery and corruption in Africa. If Britain can do this, a course of action that it does not need the support of anybody to embark on, it can then challenge other countries to follow its good example. This leads us to the challenge of all challenges that the Report faces. It is based on the assumed influence of Britain this year as the country heading both the EU and the G8 countries. But that influence will itself depend on how credible Britain is. Thus the personal standing of Mr Tony Blair cannot be divorced from the matter. It is no secret that he suffers an enormous international credibility deficit as a result of his uncritical support for Bush who has so far given him nothing back in return. His credibility may improve if Bush could help him out on this but we cannot hold our breath. So who will listen to Prophet Blair in his new missionary activity in Africa? Even a significant proportion of the British people who had twice elected him and his party and may well do so again (there being no reasonable alternative) no longer trust him. His credibility among the Africans he now wants to save, is even less. For sometime, President Thabo Mbeki, The Renaissance Man of South Africa, was a close ideological soulmate but the relationship fell apart both over unrealistic pressures to be a poodle to Blair in Zimbabwe and disappointments over NEPAD. Nigeria's Mr Know-All, General Obasanjo, who also liked to see him as a chum, is more circumspect these days, again due to hurting knees from KNEEPAD and Western reluctance and British lack of co-operation in getting Abacha's stolen billions. To many African leaders Blair is viewed either with suspicion or incredulity or both. Many are wont to question his interest in Africa, the Messianic tone and his perceived arrogance (which is not difficult for many of them to see since they are ‘infallible’ in their countries too)! For Blair, therefore, it is not just that the prophet has no honour in his village; even outside his village not many trust him.
There are a number of spins around the Report, which I find most disingenuous and risk the backlash that overkill salesmen or women get from wary customers. One, it is constantly dropped on you that a majority of the 17 commissioners are Africans. This is supposed to confer African ownership on the Report. Do they not know that majority of the colonial officials and the Slave captors and buyers before them were Africans? Two, attention is also drawn to the fact that two serving African leaders participated in the Commission. Someone should tell Blair that signing up to good intentions has never been an issue with our leaders; action is where the challenge is. Many of them will jump at any opportunity to show a grateful nation that their Dear Leader is respected internationally and has friends in Washington, Paris or London! The same leaders signed up to AU, NEPAD and somehow manage to forget to mention that when the call came through from 10 Downing Street that Blair wants to have a word!
What is the point in agreeing on the Vision, Mission and Strategic Plan of the AU and accepting NEPAD and yet rushing to sign up to another report? It is like being invited to your own funeral. Many of these leaders will still say ‘yes’ whenever another call comes through from some other do-gooders especially from outside Africa. It is a cynical circus of mutual gratification between leaders.
Finally, this year is presented as a ‘Make or Break Year’. Does that mean that any African who wakes up on 1 January 2006 would have made it? In spite of all the apocalyptic scenarios a majority of our people will still be alive that day and going about their survival in the best way they can and I bet it will not be because of Blair's Commission.
Tajudeen28@123456yahoo.com or Thursday postcard@123456justiceafrica.org March 2005
Higher education in Africa: The Commission for Africa
Graham Furniss
In the Commission for Africa report, Our Common Interest, the headline recommendations are about trade, aid and debt. But it also puts the spotlight on Africa's crumbling universities. Whatever specific policies and development plans for Africa emerge from the report, implementation will be left to Africa's university graduates. It is they who have the task of making Africa grow and develop. It is the universities and polytechnics of Africa which will produce the pharmacists to run the pharmacies, the engineers to staff the industries and the teachers to run the schools. The last decade has seen DFID and other donors target development effort on primary education leaving to fend for itself the sector that must produce trained men and women. A better balance is now returning and attention will refocus on the tertiary sector. It is time for the UK to reassess its role in supporting higher education in Africa.
The Commission report recommends a commitment of US$500 million per year for investment in tertiary education in Africa over 10 years, but it is not simply a question of money. Engagement must be far deeper than that. The continent is littered with 3/4/5 year aid projects that ran out after the money dried up, workers gone, and the local community unable or unwilling to carry the costs. Many universities in Africa are in a dire state of disrepair. Libraries are bare, laboratories are obsolete or broken, the best teachers and researchers have looked at their salaries and their working conditions and have long since left for the private sector or abroad, class numbers are in the hundreds, younger academics cannot get beyond a Masters degree, and university administrations are in despair over their deficits and their inability to invest. On a recent visit to a number of northern Nigerian universities I was assailed by the enormity of the problem of run-down facilities and astonished at the fortitude of the staff who manage to keep things working (colleagues at Ahmadu Bello University estimated that 60-70% of the best brains had left the universities in the last decade). This rather bleak characterisation does not run for all universities by any means: Makerere in Uganda has been on the mend over the last 20 years; Ghana's Legon survives and flourishes; the impoverishment of Nigerian universities has affected Ibadan and Lagos less than others; the University of Botswana has excellent resources; and a number of francophone African universities continue to function well. Reform in South African universities has produced amalgamations on which the jury is perhaps still out. Nevertheless, flagship universities such as Cape Town and Wits are attracting more and more students and staff from across Africa. But all of these institutions need more support if they are to realise their full potential as engines of development.
So what is needed? Most African universities know perfectly well the reforms that are necessary and the investment that is required. Part of the answer is political will and part is substantial investment in infrastructure and staff. No doubt donor and national governments will tie funding to reform and they may be right to do so. Some look to the return of the brains that drained away, and incentives to bring back lost expertise into African universities will no doubt have a place. But many people have now made their lives and careers outside Africa and would not wish to return. Ironically, the loss of their professional skills would also damage the health care systems or education systems of their adopted countries. Nevertheless, organisations of expatriate Africans support their universities back home.
Ghanaian academics, for example, and Nigerian doctors working outside Africa help their countries' universities and health systems in several ways by sending money and materials and making links between institutions in Africa and their adopted countries. A number of international, mostly US, foundations – Macarthur, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie – have examined in detail the needs of a number of African universities and supported the establishment of IT systems, research infrastructure, staff training, among other things.
The Association of African Universities representing African Vice-Chancellors, and its sister organisation, the Association of Commonwealth Universities articulate the needs of African universities and the Commission Report endorses their nine-point programme entitled ‘Renewing the African University’. In great part it is likely that African universities will want to reinforce their intra-African links to strengthen cooperative relationships within, for example, the southern African region, or within the ECOWAS community (which currently has no chapter on educational cooperation). But there will be a role for the reconstruction and strengthening of North-South links, links with universities in the UK and in the EU more broadly. The close links involving the movement of staff and students between, for example, the University of London, and its constituent colleges of Ibadan and Makerere of forty years ago, have long since been dismantled. The prospect of large numbers of junior staff doing Masters and Doctoral training in UK universities was dealt a hammer blow by the hike in overseas fees combined with the devaluation of African currencies through the 1970s and 1980s. Nine thousand pounds a year in fees for a Nigerian student is two and a quarter million Naira at today's exchange rate – an impossible dream in a country where the average per capita income is less than one tenth of that sum. While the internet and e-learning mean that resources can be available to a Ghanaian academic at home as never before, nevertheless, any move to participate in the global networks of scholarship and up-to-date research will require visits to libraries and colleagues in the North, as also scholars in the North will benefit from collaboration with colleagues in African universities. In recent visits to universities in Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana and the Gambia it was made abundantly clear to me that there are urgent training needs for the new generation of staff in African universities, that must involve access to libraries, supervision, advice, participation in conferences, and incorporation into ongoing cooperative networks of like-minded scholars.
So what can we in the UK do when it comes to working out in practice what the broad policy statements mean for this university or that, this country or that, this subject or that – chemistry, medicine, engineering, linguistics, political science or any other? Clearly we must have a mechanism first for hearing what African universities are saying is needed. We also need a mechanism for coordinating a response. While universities in the UK are in intense competition with each other for overseas students there is a disincentive to collaborate. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the network of 600 Africanist academics represented in the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) and its sister organisation, the Royal African Society (RAS), it is apparent that collaboration is essential. We know that DFID funds research in the UK and in African universities linked to development projects; the British Council finances exchanges and links between UK and African universities, as does, separately, the FCO through Chevening Scholarships. We know that the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission responds to African Vice-Chan-cellors and their requests to support staff they have selected. We are aware that a number of Centres of African Studies – Edinburgh, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge, London – have small amounts of money that they make go a long way in supporting visits by African academics to UK universities, and we know that they are linked into their European equivalents through the AEGIS network of European Centres of African Studies.
A number of UK universities are looking to make more flexible their degree formats to reduce the cost of training in the UK for younger African academics. But the UK-Africa element of any programme to support the rehabilitation of African universities will need to move away from these somewhat piecemeal efforts into a more coordinated and sustained effort. The important response to the Commission for Africa consultation document from the Royal African Society drew attention to the schemes run by the Norwegian and Swedish governments as models for assistance to African universities. Members of the African Studies Association of the UK work closely with individuals and groups in their equivalent departments in African universities, they are aware of the particularities of those departments, those universities, those countries, and it is those particularities that any new effort has to take into account.
It is time for a discussion, before implementation plans get set in stone, between the institutional stake-holders, the British Council, Universities UK, the Association of Commonwealth Universities, among others, and the academics who work closely with colleagues in African universities, in the Centres of African Studies, the ASAUK/RAS, the AEGIS network, the Africa-related programmes of the Research Councils, to work out how best to respond to expressed wishes of African universities, coming from their departments, faculties and vice-chancellors, and how best to match those individual needs to provision that can be organised here in the UK and in Europe more widely.
If the outcome of our combined efforts over a ten or twenty year period were to be a real reinforcement of ‘human capital’ in Africa then their success as people will also be dependent upon all the other dimensions of successful development. The production of people with skills has to move in parallel with the provision of the tools they need to do the job. As a spanking new hospital without the right quantity and quality of staff can be a white elephant of massive proportions, so also the trained pharmacist in the town clinic needs to have the tools to do the job – an income that is sufficient to live, uninterrupted electricity to keep the vaccines safe in the fridge, clean water in the taps, and drugs to dispense that are not counterfeit chalk tablets. And pharmacy has to be a viable business in a thriving economy, and one which is not subject to the devastation of war or the debilitation of corruption. The Report of the Commission strikes a note of optimism and hope in its attitude to Africa and its prospects. The task will be to work together to make a reality out of that prospect.
Graham Furniss, President, African Studies Association, UK; SOAS/ London.
Challenges of decentralisation in Ethiopia's Somali region
Tobias Hagmann
Ethiopia's Somali Regional State or region 5 represents a vivid testimony to the fruitless attempts to establish a functional administration in a border region drawn into constant political turmoil. Ever since the Somali region was granted its own ‘autonomous’ administration in 1993, state presence has remained embryonic in urban centres and has nearly been fictional in the rural areas. By the mid-1990s the need to establish effective local government, and the impediments militating against that drive, had been recognised. Yet the past decade passed without any noteworthy devolution of resources and power to the 51 wereda (districts) of the Somali region. As a result, the performance of the Somali region's public institutions has, up to this day, been far from impressive. Major towns such as Jijiga and Gode boast schools, medical facilities, a police force, and telecommunication services, the efficiency of which is questionable at best. Outside these urban centres, service delivery for the region's estimated 3.5 million inhabitants is limited to occasional food aid distribution and random interventions by security forces.
Under the impulsion of international and national pressure, region 5 embarked on a troubled process of decentralisation in 2004 – a move that was preceded by the region's first ever district council elections. A number of precisely defined and related institutional and financial reforms are contained in the decentralisation of Ethiopia's regional states. Since 2002, all over the country, the zonal level administration has been abolished or curtailed; block grants allocated directly to the wereda councils have been introduced; and civil servants have been transferred from federal and regional offices to the districts. The ultimate goal of this exercise, whose implementation is ongoing, is to enable the districts to control, allocate and manage block grants on their own (Vaughan & Tronvoll, 2003). However, implementing these tasks in the context of the Somali region proves an arduous challenge. More than simply reorganising an existing bureaucracy, decentralisation in region 5 has become synonymous with an effort to expand administration into the rural areas. Hitherto, political conditions in the region have not encouraged internal state building especially in the so-called ‘insecure’ parts of the region – where the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) controls the bush and the Ethiopian national army the towns – and where the civilian administration is overshadowed and effectively run by the army (Khalif & Doornbos, 2002).
The Somali region's parliament, the State Council, functions primarily as an organ that elects and impeaches regional presidents. Since its inception it developed little ambition to actually legislate. So far the assembly neither harmonized statelaw with the widely practiced Somali customary law nor did it formulate a sensible framework for pastoral resource management. In 2002, the council adopted a revised version of the regional constitution that had been produced in a short time span. Apart from some minor changes, the document represents almost an identical replica of the federal constitution (SRS, 2002). Courts have been set up in all the districts of the region over the past ten years, yet legal personnel is very few despite the establishment of a government management institute in Jijiga. Qualified civil servants prefer to stay in the region's capital, Jijiga, where living conditions are more convenient and comfortable. As an official report openly admits, ‘in nearly all cases, the educated class prefers not to get its hands dirty by being assigned to and work in rural areas’ (IPS, 2002). Ever since the transfer of the regional capital from Gode to Jijiga (Markakis, 1996), the latter had become home to a majority of the 5,000 civil servants employed by the Somali region.
The planned shift of the control over budgetary resources from Jijiga to the districts also encounters a number of financial management problems. A recent World Bank (2003a) financial accountability assessment outlines some of the factors that limited the financial independence of local governments so far. First, the regional state is highly dependent on federal subsidies including external loans and grants. The 2002/ 2003 budget of Birr 495 million for example consisted of 7% regional revenue and 93% federal contribution. Second, budget allocation and management has always been heavily centralised and implemented through a top-down process. Each of the region's 41 sector bureaus based in the regional capital manages and executes its own budget and expenditure directly and through their respective zonal counterparts. These in turn undertake the same tasks in their respective zones and the districts that are part of it. Third, Somali region so far lacks the necessary banking services required for decentralised public finance; Jijiga, Degehabur, Qabridahar, and Gode are the only towns where the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia has a presence.
Development curtailed
The failure to decentralise became both a cause and an effect of the lack of tangible progress in infrastructure development during the past decade. This not only holds true when comparing the Somali region's record to progress achieved, during the same period, in the highlands, but region 5 also lags behind its ecologically and economically more similar neighbours: Somaliland, Puntland and southern Somalia. For instance, while the remnants of the Somali Democratic Republic enjoyed a dramatic expansion of telecommunications and internet technology since the mid-1990s, Ethiopia's Somali hinterland remains digitally disconnected with only five out of 70 towns possessing automatic telephone communication. The extension of the mobile phone network to Jijiga in mid-2004 hardly measures up to the gigantic task of providing basic communication to region 5. According to data provided by the region's Investment Office, the region's road network currently exists of 1,629 km of all weather roads and 2,844 km of dry weather roads (IPS, 2002). As a result of the expanding distribution network of the booming khat trade the off-road network is constantly growing. A number of new health clinics have been constructed and rehabilitated in recent years, some with support from international donors. However, few of them are operational, as qualified medical personnel are in short supply and most districts lack the necessary budget for recurrent costs. While the construction of health facilities involves awarding contracts, there seems to be no incentive to operate these facilities once they are built. Statistically, there is one health centre for 359,840 people and one health station for 45,549 people in region 5 (IPS, 2002). Other urgently required services such as education, animal health service delivery, access to clean water, or provision of electricity all enjoy trifling existence within the region's 300,000 square km territory.
In the past decade ambitious large-scale development projects either dissolved gradually or did not go beyond the planning phase. An example of the first is the former South-Eastern Rangeland Project (SERP) that was jointly funded by the African Development Bank and the Government of Ethiopia. Between 1989 and 1996 it implemented numerous activities and construction works improving animal health, rangeland resources, and the general infrastructure within the region. Due to its bottom-up approach and emphasis on technical solutions, SERP quickly became ‘the most prevalent government organisation in the remote areas with the most recognition by the pastoral community’ (Shank, 1996). After phasing out SERP's workforce and assets including vehicles, heavy machinery and buildings were transferred to the region's Bureau of Agriculture. Today, the project's infrastructure is in shambles and former staff and government bureaucrats have appropriated most property. The gradual dissolution of SERP is a dramatic but rather typical example of the trajectory development projects embark on in region 5. The Gode state farm and associated irrigation schemes are another case in point. Initially, all development schemes vow to improve pastoral livelihoods and agropastoral production. Ultimately, however, they almost always fuel competition among contending clan groups and often disappear in the urban-based networks of politicians and government appointed clan representatives.
The Calub and Hilala gas fields located in Shilabo district of Korahe zone represent another development opportunity with a high potential for revenue generation. An estimated four trillion cubic feet of gas and 13.6 million barrels of associated liquids had been discovered in the Calub area in 1972. After the Derg's downfall, the government and 460 private investors established the Calub Gas S.C., with a 95% and 5% stake respectively, to develop the Somali region's gas fields. Despite numerous agreements and announcements of the impending construction of refineries and pipelines, little advancement occurred on the ground. In 1999 Calub Gas S.C. signed a memorandum of understanding for prospective exploitation with the American oil company Sicor. The joint venture, Gasoil Ethiopia Project (GEP), optimistically foresaw the start of production in September 2002 (Reuters, 1999). After this announcement fears were raised of looming deals being cut at national level to the disadvantage of the region's inhabitants’ legitimate claims over its mineral resources (Khalif, 2000). However, in August 2001 the World Bank suspended its 66 million dollar loan to Calub Gas S.C. in an effort to accelerate the latter's privatisation (Addis Fortune 2001). The following year, the Calub Gas S. C. shareholders committed themselvesto a new joint venture for the construction of four refinery and petroleum extraction plants, this time with the Russian oil company Methanol (Addis Fortune, 2002). In December 2003, Ambassador Mohamoud Dirir, chairman of the Somali People's Democratic Party (SPDP) and head of the federal Ministry of Mines, announced yet another deal with the Jordanian company Si Tech International (SIL). The agreement involved a 25-year concession for SIL who promised to invest $1.5 bn. Only half a year later doubts were cast over SIL's technical know-how and financial potential after it failed to pay Dirir's ministry a bonus of one million dollars for ‘training programs’ (The Reporter, 2004). As an epilogue in the unsuccessful saga of the Calub Gas S.C., the Council of Ministers decided to liquidate the shareholder company in September 2004 and established United Petroleum S.C. as its successor. Consequently, numerous private shareholders refused to join this new company as they had lost confidence in the partnership with the government (Addis Fortune, 2004).
2004 district council elections
As a prerequisite for decentralisation, district council elections had initially been scheduled to take place in Somali Region in 2001. Due to drought and political turmoil within the region's government they were repeatedly postponed. On January 25, 2004 voters in the Somali region elected, for the first time, a council for their respective districts. Prior to that the districts' institutional set-up consisted solely of an executive organ, the district administration that was led by a chairman and a vice-chairman. Members of the zonal and the regional administrations habitually appointed, on grounds of party loyalty and/or genealogical affiliation, these wereda administrators. District elections in region 5 thus finally introduced representative institutions and limited electoral competition at district and kebele levels. On election day, the electorate of 46 districts cast their votes in 1,330 polling stations all over the Somali region. According to statistics provided by the National Election Board, a total of 978,611 voters participated in the polls (NEB, 2004). Elections were postponed after political tensions appeared in Erer, Dambel, and Jijiga districts all of which are situated in the region's northern Jijiga and Shinille zones. The official reason for suspension was ‘the imbalance in tribal set-up and obstacles in representation of clan members’ (WIC, 2004a). Unconfirmed sources reported that elections in Jijiga district had been postponed after it was discovered that supporters of the ruling SPDP had illegally received ballot papers. Problems in Dambel wereda were linked to disagreements between different lineages of the Ise (Dir) clan. The Ise clan enjoys representation in the region's highest political office since their Abdi Jibril Abubaker took over as acting head of the regional government in July 2003.
The Somali region's first elections to the regional assembly in 1992 have been perceived as a remarkable example of political pluralism (Markakis, 1994). A dozen years later, the 2004 wereda elections evoked the impression of a de facto one party state under the flagship of the SPDP. Out of a total of 3309 district councillors elected across the Somali region, 3182 belong to the SPDP (96.2%), 21 to the Western Somali Democratic Party (WSDP) (0.6%), and 106 are independent (3.2%). A tenth of all candidates elected are women. Not only did the SPDP successfully mobilise voters through its government-aided machinery, there was almost no opposition party to speak of. The WSDP's political weight proved marginal. Established in 1994, the party is chaired by Hirsi Dool and represents a platform for politicians that either disfavour the SPDP or had left their original political party. Similarly, the Somali Democratic Forces (SoDAF) that had won three parliamentary seats in the 2000 elections for the regional State Council decided to withdraw from the 2004 elections. Meanwhile the historic political organisation of region 5 and former ruling party (1991-1994), the ONLF, celebrated its 20th anniversary in the bush where it had withdrawn to after its gradual alienation from the EPRDF.
Independent monitoring of the January 2004 polls was almost insignificant and limited to Shinille zone, the most easily accessible part of the Somali region. At the invitation of the National Election Board a six-member observation team representing Western Embassies in Addis Ababa observed the board's preparations and election proceedings at five polling stations within Shinille district. The mission's verdict on the fairness of the elections was ambiguous. The observers criticized a number of unlawful practices that gave the SPDP a considerable advantage over its contenders (Flens, 2004). The Ethiopian Human Rights Council who had assigned 21 observers across Shinille zone issued a more critical report. The EHRCO concluded that candidates were nominated on the basis of their position within their respective clans and their economic status. The human rights watchdog detected disciplinary problems on the part of the voters. It also reported arrests, harassment, and intimidation of opposition candidates before – and a number of other malpractices during – election day on the part of the government (EHRCO, 2004).
The 2004 district council elections represent the latest phase in the changing relation between collective interests expressed on clan basis and the political architecture within region 5. At the beginning, Somali regional political parties were visibly clan-based and institutional politics was accordingly fragmented. Nine different political parties had participated in the June 1992 elections of the regional parliament. National and regional elections of 1995 and 2000 were both contested by three political parties and illustrated the exclusion of the ONLF from the formal political arena. However, it would be wrong to assume that inter-clan competition diminished over the past decade. Rather competition for access to public office and material resources relocated into, and is played out within, the dominant ruling party – initially the ESDL (19941998) and later on the SPDP (1998-2004) – which is the sole political organisationsanctioned by the EPRDF (Samatar, 2004). Far from being a united force, the ruling SPDP degenerated into an amalgam of centrifugal political interests in recent years and has been ridden by factional infighting. In addition, the March 2004 death of its former chairman, the highly respected Abdulmejid Hussein (Cliffe et al. 2004), deprived the party of an integrative personality respected by the federal government. In anticipation of the 2005 national elections, a new political party was established in July 2004 representing the communities settled along the Shebelle and Genale (Juba) rivers. ‘Dilwabi’, the new party, draws its main support from the minority Rer Barre (Somalised Bantu) as well as some of its neighbouring clans who share its agricultural mode of production.
An elusive goal
Upon completion of the elections, the members of the district council elected a spokesperson, a vice-spokesperson, a chairman and a vice-chairman for their wereda. The formal political conditions had thus been achieved to transfer manpower and budget from Jijiga to the district level. At this point of conjuncture, the federal government had become increasingly annoyed with what it considered as a nepotistic and irresponsible regional elite. To that end, the head of the Ministry of Federal Affairs Abay Tsehaye pressed the SPDP to quickly decentralise. This build-up of pressure on the region was also driven by international donors who identified mismanagement as the major hindrance to their interventions in the region. In particular, the World Bank, which currently implements a vast pastoral development programme in south-eastern Ethiopia, had lobbied for decentralisation in order to implement its community-based projects (World Bank, 2003b). Consequently, in July 2004 the federal government confronted Jijiga with an abrupt ultimatum; if the region were not to decide on an effective transfer of its civil servants to the districts and agree on a formula for budget allocation within one month, the federal government would suspend the regional state (WIC, 2004b).
The danger of an imminent loss of autonomy under the direction of the federal government was well understood by the region's politicians. Through June and July a flurry of activities ensued; the ruling SPDP conducted an auto-evaluation (gim gema), a series of consultations was organised by the Ministry of Federal Affairs in the region's capital and bureau heads were sent to their home areas to secure, among feuding groups, a cessation of hostilities where clan conflicts had occurred. Finally, the State Council in August 2004 decided that slightly more than half of the region's budget will, in future, be allocated directly to the newly constituted district authorities. Furthermore it assigned close to 700 civil servants who used to work in the regional offices to different positions at wereda level. There they will be in charge of elaborating and proposing interventions on behalf of the district councils who will approve and fund their proposals autonomously. In parallel, there were plans to establish at least one sub-branch of the Ethiopian Commercial Bank in all of the region's nine zones.
While these developments are indicators of the willingness by the Somali region to, after all, decentralise, considerable doubt arises as to its chances for success. This is notably the case when bearing in mind the past difficulties to expand local administration in Ethiopia's Somali periphery. Additionally, the unwillingness of civil servants to dislocate to inhospitable locations, the fact that a large portion of region 5 is controlled by the antigovernment ONLF, and the lack of an apolitical bureaucracy all render decentralised institution-building an elusive goal. While the 2004 district council elections represent an important step towards more representative government at local level, accountability of elected officials vis-à-vis the population rather than the party system will be necessary to render district administrations legitimate and relevant in the eyes of the region's inhabitants.
Tobias Hagmann , Swisspeace, Bern; email: hagmann@123456swisspeace.unibe.ch
The 2004 elections in Northern Ghana
Bob Kelly
The December 2004 elections in Ghana were held under the terms of the 1992 Fourth Republic Constitution, with parliamentary and presidential polls being conducted on the same day – Tuesday 7 December. For Ghana as a whole the election was a triumph for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), with President Kuffuor receiving 52.45% of the vote as against only 44.64% for his nearest rival Professor Atta Mills. However, for the three northern regions their continued support for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the much smaller People's National Convention (PNC) confirmed their continuing divergence from political trends in most of the south. So, despite this victory for the incumbent party our focus is why the NPP failed to make significant gains in the north of the country. I argue that the explanation for this lies partly in historical disputes within the area combined with more recent socio-economic developments and ongoing tensions in relations between Accra and the north.
Recent democratic history
As Ayee (1998:35) observed ‘Ghana is one of the few countries in Africa that has had significant experiences with democratic political life’. Between 1951 and 1960 it had a functioning multiparty democratic system spanning the pre-independence period of self-rule and the early independence years. From October 1969 to January 1972 and September 1979 to December 1981 democracy was re-established between periods of military rule. In November 1992 the military dominated Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) held multiparty presidential elections to return the country to civil rule, but perceived electoral abuses led four opposition parties to challenge the outcome and boycott the parliamentary elections of December that year. As a result, it was not until 1996 when opposition parties contested both the presidential and parliamentary elections that democracy with the aura of legitimacy returned to Ghana.
Despite more robust electoral registration and monitoring procedures the 1996 elections were not entirely fair, with allegations of bribes being paid to voters in many constituencies, the use of threats and intimidation, claims of fake identification cards and so on. However, most of these claims referred to only a small number of constituencies. Of greater significance is the argument that incumbents have an advantage due to unequal access to financial resources. In the 1996 election President Rawlings used a Ghana Air Force helicopter to reach inaccessible areas and his NDC had a fleet of new campaign vehicles (Ayee, 1998:71). This led opposition figures to claim that while the 1992 experience was ‘the stolen verdict’ the 1996 one was ‘the bought election’.
In 2000, however, the same electoral regulations and essentially the same conditions existed but Kuffuor and the opposition NPP were able to win both the presidential and parliamentary elections. Although the NPP was allegedly obtaining finance from senior figures in the Nigerian government, had a wellorganised network of fund-raisers amongst the Ghanaian diaspora in Europe and North America, and was generally supported by the richer areas of the country, it was still essentially the poor relation of the NDC. The result vindicated the impartiality of the Electoral Commission and suggests that financial resources alone are insufficient to ensure electoral success in contemporary Ghana.
The 2004 election
In 2004 the electoral regulations and political conditions were essentially the same as they had been in 1996 and 2000 with the exception of NPP rather than NDC incumbency. Now it was the NPP with access to greater sources of finance and privileges of government. Despite the on-going economic hardships, the scene seemed set for an overwhelming NPP success, consolidating its support in the Akan heartlands and moving in to the NDC strongholds of the Volta Region in the east, and the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions of the north.
The NPP were able to make significant gains in the Fante areas of Central Region, despite this being the home of the NDC presidential candidate Atta-Mills. However, the pockets of NDC resistance in other areas of the south remained largely intact. In the Volta Region they captured just one seat (as against a previous zero), in the Upper West one (again compared with zero), in the Upper East two (compared with one plus a by-election gain and an Independent who crossed the floor) and in the Northern Region eight (as against three in 2000, plus two by-election gains and an Independent who crossed the floor). Even these marginal improvements in the three northern regions were not as pronounced as they might seem, because the number of seats available had increased by six since 2000. The seats won by the NPP were Wa East (Upper West Region), Navrongo and Builsa North (Upper East Region), and Yendi, Gushiegu, Saboba, Wulensi, Nalerigu, Salaga, Damongo, and Chereponi (Northern Region – see figure 2, the Constituency Map of Northern Ghana for the 2004 Elections). Moreover, in several of these seats the NPP majority was less than a thousand votes (Damongo, Wulensi, Chereponi and Builsa North).
In the North the election day passed peacefully for the most part, although there were actual and attempted physical attacks on electoral officials in three constituencies by supporters of the NPP who were frustrated at their inability to persuade the officials to falsify the votes (Zabzugu/Tatale, Tolon and Kpandai). Prior to the election day there was sporadic violence in Bawku where the longstanding chieftaincy dispute between the numerically-dominant Kusasi and the previously dominant Mamprusi was exacerbated by local resentment against the erstwhile NPP MP Hawa Yakubu, primarily for being unwilling to step aside for a younger candidate. Her house was attacked and robbed in her absence, her security guard shot and wounded, and there were a number of disturbances at polling booths. In Tamale and neighbouring areas of Dagbon there were allegedly four or five deaths, the poisoning of one party's supporters by contaminated water at the party rally, and a number of shooting incidents. Perhaps the most significant event was the death of Alhaji Mobila, a leading supporter of the Convention Peoples Party, in military custody. Initial reports suggest that he was beaten to death, having been handed over to the military by the police earlier in the day.
Explaining the result
So why did the NPP fail to capitalise in the North on the relatively massive resources at it controlled? Any observer could see the greater number of vehicles at the party's disposal and the massive campaigning effort being mounted.
The Vice President, Aliu Mahama, himself a northerner from the Yendi area, toured the regions and held many rallies. Promises were made for road improvements and the development of other social amenities. Strong candidates with significant power bases were chosen – several District Chief Executives, who had enjoyed the opportunity to develop local patronage over the previous four years, stood, as did people appointed by the President to be junior ministers in the out-going government. Yet the result essentially showed no significant advancement for the NPP in the north as a whole. Northern Ghanaian politics cannot be explained in terms of a single factor, with traditional disputes, interethnic rivalries, ideological traditions, electoral self-interest, the growth of new interest groups, and the personal appeal of particular candidates or their close supporters all playing a role. In the past the few ‘local notables’, whether traditional chiefs or educated/rich individuals, could mobilise the support of particular villages or sections, but now in every locality there are competing ‘notables’ as education and elements of a more ‘modern’ economy and society have spread. This is supported by an examination of the lists of candidates and their educational qualifications. In the Northern region, for example, most constituencies were contested by at least one graduate, with Tamale Central having as its candidates two with PhDs, one M.Phil, one B.A. and one 4-year Certificate A teacher. In the three regions combined there were ten candidates with PhDs, and numerous others with postgraduate qualifications, first degrees and diplomas. So the North now provides a highly competitive arena, with welleducated candidates using modern campaign resources in a context where traditional rivalries vie with ‘modern’ demands and aspirations for political significance. To understand the overall failure of the NPP in the area, we need to break the North down into more meaningful units and look at the interaction of different processes. These are traditional conflicts, developmental demands, personal attributes, and ideology.
Traditional conflicts
In some, the key factor remains the continuation of traditional conflicts. This was most clearly the case in the kingdom of Dagbon in the Northern Region. Here the dispute over the paramountcy between the Andani and Abudulai families has been on-going since the middle of the nineteenth century and the death of Ya Na Yakubu (Staniland, 1975). In March 2002, the paramount chief from the Andani family (Ya Na Yakubu Andani II), together with thirty supporters, was murdered in the Dagbon capital of Yendi and his body dismembered. The NPP regime has contained several leading Dagomba, all from the Abudulai family or with close links to it (Vice President, Minister of the Interior, Northern Regional Minister, Yendi District Chief Executive, National Security Adviser, Member of National Security Council). The failure of the regime to bring any of the culprits to justice angered not only the Andani family, but other less partisan individuals who saw the government as failing to act on the deep problems of Dagomba society. The scale of turn-out for NDC rallies in Tamale in November and December was indicative of the intensity of feelings, and the result throughout the mainly Dagomba constituencies was that the NDC won nine of the eleven, with only the Abudulaidominated Yendi and Gushiegu constituencies returning NPP candidates. It must be realised, however, that the paramountcy is only the pinnacle of Dagbon society and that chieftaincy disputes occur at other levels and it is the competition for chieftaincy in general that is the key motivating factor.
Bawku in the Upper East region is another area where traditional disputes remain strong. Under British rule, the Chief of Bawku was drawn from the minority Mamprusi tribe, but since independence successive regimes have been drawn into supporting and enskinning rival candidates from the Kusasi and Mamprusi. In the 2000 election most of the Mamprusi vote went to the NPP candidate in Bawku Central in the hope that a new NPP regime would overturn the ruling that had led to a Kusasi – Azoka II – being enskinned as Bawku Naba. In the event the settlement preserved the place of the Bawku Naba, leading to Mamprusi disaffection and one of them standing as an Independent candidate. This reflected the grievance of many Mamprusi that under the Kusasi chief they were losing previous privileges such as their claims to land usage. The vote the Mamprusi candidate achieved was almost exactly equal to the margin by which the sitting NPP candidate was defeated (8,574 as against 8,349). As indicated above, however, it is not a question of this traditional ethnic dispute being fought out in isolation, but rather it is a significant issue vying for importance with other issues.
Wa in the Upper West Region had the potential for a traditional dispute to impact on the election, but in practice this did not turn out to be the case. In Wa Central there has been a political vacuum in the traditional arena with the inability of competing factions to agree on a new Paramount Chief – the Wa Na, and through lack of occupancy the chief's palace is showing signs of disintegration. The NDC has been associated with the candidature of Seidu Yakubu from the Nakpasa Gate, which has been excluded from the paramountcy for a considerable time (Wilks, 1989, Dougah 1966). This presented the opportunity for the NPP Government to capitalise on the situation by opposing Seidu Yakubu and thereby gaining support from the other three gates to the paramountcy. The NPP government, however, has not done this, preferring to stand aloof from the dispute, which so far remains unresolved. The general point still stands, though, that a significant factor in the failure of the NPP in the North in the 2004 elections was its inability or unwillingness to settle or deal with traditional disputes in ways which would have enhanced its support.
Devolution & developmental demands
In Upper West Region very different factors explained the poor performance of the NPP. This was the part of the North that had gained most from the years of PNDC and then NDC rule. Firstly, the Upper West Region was created in 1983 by the PNDC with its capital at Wa. This led to the creation of more administrative jobs in Wa and was followed by significant improvements to the economic infrastructure. Roads, in particular, were vastly improved, with the major link to the South via Bamboi being tarred. In 2000 the region solidly maintained its support for the NDC, with only Sissala constituency supporting the PNC which has its roots in the PNP regime of 1979 (which had Dr Hila Limann a Sissala from the Tumu area as its presidential candidate). Popular opinion was that the new NPP regime from 2000 had done little to continue with the region's development; indeed the roadbuilding programme had been paused. Only one area had seen significant benefit – the establishment of a new district in Funsi – and it was no great surprise when it was that area (Wa East constituency) which was the only one to return an NPP candidate in 2004 (even here the majority was less than 2000 votes). In an area without deep traditional disputes, though Wa town itself is an exception to this, modern aspirations for development become more significant, and gratitude to the NDC and resentment against the NPP won out in 2004.
These two patterns of traditional disputes in Dagbon and the Kusasi/Mamprusi areas and the demand for modern developments in the Upper West are evident in combination elsewhere in the North. Traditional tribal disputes between the formerly dominant tribes – such as the Dagomba, Mamprusi and Gonja – and the ‘subservient’ tribes such as the Kusasi, Konkomba, and Lobi – still remain of potential significance as was shown by the wars of 1994 when the Konkomba and Nawuri clashed with the Dagomba, Nanumba and Gonja and in which there were officially 2000 deaths, 178,000 displaced persons, and over 300 villages destroyed (Lentz and Nugent, 2000). However, their electoral significance has been diminished by the creation of new constituency boundaries that virtually ensure the subservient groups representation in parliament – Sawla (Lobi), Chereponi (Chakosi), Bunkpurugu (B'moba), Saboba, Zabzugu/Tatali, and Kpandai (Konkomba). In the Kassena-Nankani area around Navrongo and Paga, village rivalries remain significant, as they did in the 1950s (Austin 1961). Although the Kassena and Nankani belong to different language groups, there is no evidence of precolonial tribal unity of either group, and there is much inter-marriage and crossidentity between them. While there can be the mobilisation of some support for say a Nankani candidate in the largely Kassena Chiana-Paga constituency, rivalry is more commonly felt between villages and sections of villages rather than ‘tribes’, with each feeling it is their time to have an MP or that their ‘favourite son’ should be the candidate. In 2004 Nayagnia section in Navrongo, for example, overwhelmingly voted for a local man who was the PNC candidate against those of the two major parties.
Personal appeal
The 2004 election certainly showed that government patronage was insufficient to make major gains. District Chief Executives, who are party nominees, alongside Regional and Junior Ministerships provided alternative sources of influence for the NPP to make electoral inroads, but the success of this strategy was limited. The Government managed to hold onto its recruited formerly Independent MP and appointed junior minister in Salaga, but lost in the same circumstances in Garu-Tempane, and its junior ministerial candidates in Bolgatanga and Lawra only managed third place and a distant second respectively. The creation of a new district in Wa East helped the NPP to win there, but it failed to make any impact by the same policy in Talensi in the Upper East. Individual personalities showed that they, rather than government resources, could have an impact in some places, with the Independent J.Y.Labik winning in Bunkpurugu, and David Apasera and John Ndebugre winning for the small PNC in Bolgatanga and Zebilla respectively.
Ideology
The effect of ideology is difficult to assess given that the manifestos and policies of the two main parties are not very different. Every party now also claims to carry the mantle of Kwame Nkrumah, even though the NPP is clearly seen by most Ghanaians as the direct descendant of Danquah's United Gold Coast Convention and Busia's Progress Party. However, its recruitment of Convention Peoples Party and PNC politicians into the government after 2000 in an attempt to isolate the NDC from other opposition groups has given some limited credibility to their ‘Nkrumahist’ claim. In the North the PNC most directly claimed the Nkrumah legacy, with the CPP having very little influence outside some pockets in Dagbon and neighbouring areas. In 2004 the CPP parliamentary candidate in Mion managed to attract over 4,500 votes but this meant only a distant third place, and there was not even a CPP candidate in Saboba. Some individuals and families do keep the ideological traditions alive. For example, the Tedam family in Paga and the Karbo family in Lawra have maintained strong support for the Danquah/Busia tradition whatever the regime of the day.
In general, ideological differences remain limited in their overt expression in the North. Socially, however, the ideological divide remains of some significance even if actual policies are fairly generic. The NPP is seen as the party of the intellectual and business elite and the chiefs in the South, while the NDC has inherited much of the support of marginal elites, lower professionals and urban workers. As the inheritor of the radical years of the PNDC, the NDC carries the support of the new groups brought into active politics in the 1980s when the previous political elite was temporarily eclipsed. There is also a long-standing in-built reluctance of many Northerners from some of the poorest and most deprived areas of the country to support the NPP with its perceived base in the wealthy Ashanti Region, with some former migrants to the South having memories of discrimination and prejudice against them. The NPP's apparent policy of selecting highly educated candidates did not always promote an easy relationship with ‘ordinary’ people. In Bolgatanga, for example, Dr Agambila, a highly articulate appointed junior minister in the out-going government could only come a distant third to the more populist NDC and PNC candidates.
It is interesting though that the conscious attempt by the NPP to recruit support from the Konkomba along the Togo border, who are amongst the poorest and least educated people of the North, has led to electoral success, with victories in Wulensi and Saboba. This is balanced by the success of the NDC in obtaining and retaining considerable support from the formerly dominant Nanumba chiefs in the area. The message here is that local groups have successfully manipulated political parties to represent their interests, even when these appear to go against the parties' own ideology, social affiliations and traditions.
Some new patterns of cleavage are emerging in the North. The rural/urban division is not new, with the NDC rural vote remaining particularly strong in 2000 while in Navrongo town the NPP seems to have done particularly well. The towns in the North, however, seem to be becoming ‘anti-government’, voting against the NDC in 2000 and against the NPP in 2004 – Bolgatanga, Bawku, and to some extent Tamale being the obvious examples. There is also some evidence of the youth and women's votes becoming significant. The latter could partly account for the success of the NDC candidate in Lambussie and the NPP candidate in Builsa North who had both nurtured contacts with women's groups. Lentz has suggested that in relation to the Upper West, youth and development groups now have a significant voice in political leadership, with chiefs having ‘… to come to terms with (these) new actors should they wish protect their influence’ (Lentz, 2002:270). Similar comments have been voiced with reference to the Kassena-Nankani and Kusasi areas. Certainly several candidates told me of their greater concern over obtaining support from the youth and women than with getting the chiefs on board.
Finally, there is the issue of ‘northernness’. Under British rule the Northern Territories were kept administratively distinct from the Gold Coast and Ashanti. There was a refusal to invest in economic infrastructure, with Governor Clifford going so far as to recommend the virtual abandonment of the north to concentrate development on the ‘… high potential areas of the Colony and Ashanti’ (Wraith, 1967). The educational system was consciously limited to provide education for the sons of chiefs and sufficient educated manpower to run the local administration (Bening, 1990). The result was that at the time of party politics the few educated northerners feared domination by new ‘black’ colonisers. Educated Northerners still retain some legacy of these fears, but was not a significant factor in the 2004 election. The failure of Dr Mahama and the PNC in the north and the NDC in the south would suggest that the best hope for the North to produce a successful a presidential candidate in 2008 would be for a northerner to succeed President Kuffuor as the NPP candidate. It would then be a real test of the significance of feelings of common ‘northern-ness’ to see if such a candidature could over-ride the traditional, social and political grievances that have led the north to reject the NPP in the last three elections.
Bob Kelly , The Open University, UK.
Uncle Sam is watching YOU
Paul Marks
Whenever you surf the web, send emails or download music, an unseen force is at work in the background, making sure you connect to the sites, inboxes and databases you want. The name of this brooding presence? The US government.
Some 35 years after the US military invented the internet, the US Department of Commerce retains overall control of the master computers that direct traffic to and from every web and email address on the planet.
But a group convened by the UN on 18 July 2005 to thrash out the future of the net is calling for an end to US domination of the net, proposing that instead a multinational forum of governments, companies and civilian organisations is created to run it.
The UN's Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) says US control hinders many developments that might improve it. These range from efforts to give the developing world more affordable net access to coming up with globally agreed and enforceable measures to boost net privacy and fight cybercrime.
US control also means that any changes to the way the net works, including the addition of new domain names such as .mobi for cellphone-accessed sites, have to be agreed by the US, whatever experts in the rest of the world think. The flipside is that the US could make changes without the agreement of the rest of the world.
In a report issued in Geneva in Switzerland on 14 July, the WGIG seeks to overcome US hegemony. ‘The internet should be run multilaterally, transparently and democratically. And it must involve all stakeholders,’ says Markus Kummer, a Swiss diplomat who is executive coordinator of the WGIG.
So why is the internet's overarching technology run by the US?
The reason is that the net was developed there in the late 1960s by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in a bid to create a communications medium that would still work if a Soviet nuclear strike took out whole chunks of the network. This medium would send data from node to node in self-addressed ‘packets’ that could take any route they liked around the network, avoiding any damaged parts.
Today the internet has 13 vast computers dotted around the world that translate text-based email and web addresses into numerical internet protocol (IP) node addresses that computers understand. In effect a massive look-up table, the 13 computers are collectively known as the Domain Name System (DNS). But the DNS master computer, called the master root server, is based in the US and is ultimately controlled by the Department of Commerce. Because the data it contains is propagated to all the other DNS servers around the world, access to the master root server file is a political hot potato.
Currently, only the US can make changes to that master file. And that has some WGIG members very worried indeed. ‘It's about who has ultimate authority,’ says Kummer.
In theory, the US could decide to delete a country from the master root server. Some people expect this to happen one day, even though the US has never abused its position in that way.
Even Kummer admits that ICANN does a good job on achieving international consensus, at least regarding changes to the DNS. ‘ICANN scores quite highly on involving all stakeholders. Anyone can go to a meeting, take the microphone and give a view,’ he says. The problem? It's an ad hoc process. And with the internet now a critical global resource, some governments, particularly in developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, want a forum where vast swathes of internet policy – from cybercrime to spam to privacy protection – can be both discussed and acted on.
Only then, they say, can vital non-DNS issues such as the high cost of net connections to many developing countries be made fairer. Right now, the WGIG report notes, internet service providers based in countries that are remote from the internet backbone links – the large ‘fat pipes’ connecting continents – must pay the full cost of connecting to these networks. This can be prohibitively expensive for developing nations and there is no ‘appropriate and effective global internet governance mechanism to resolve it’.
The WGIG put forward a number of options for change, all of which include enhancing the roles of ICANN and the GAC or the formation of a new allembracing internet policy body that would be in charge of ICANN instead of the US. The WGIG's proposals will now go to the vote at the International Telecommunication Union's World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia this November. Whatever the WGIG decides, it will have a tough time changing the US government's opinion. Only last month, US assistant secretary of commerce Michael Gallagher reasserted America's claim to the heart of the net.
The US is committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely impact the effective and efficient operation of the DNS and will therefore maintain its historic role in authorising changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file.
© New Scientist, 30 July 2005.
US hostility to the international criminal court knows no bounds
Robin Cook
A commitment to an international criminal court was one of the changes for the better in foreign policy as a result of Labour's victory. Under the Conservatives, Britain had been a backmarker in negotiations to set up such a court. After the change of regime, Britain was propelled into the front rank of countries supporting an international system to bring to justice those guilty of crimes against humanity.
We mobilised support from other nations, and provided financial help for smaller, poorer states to send a delegation to the Rome conference at which the final package was put to the vote. It was approved with the support of 120 nations and the opposition of only half a dozen. That is as close as you get to consensus in the international community, even if the US was on the losing side.
The international criminal court ends the impunity of dictators who could kill thousands but not be held to account because they controlled their domestic courts. At the time I welcomed its creation as putting the Pol Pots of the future on notice that they would be brought to justice for crimes against their own citizens.
The gravest, most grotesque crimes against humanity since the international criminal court was set up are to be found in Darfur. The UN commission of inquiry has provided a compelling account of the harrowing brutality with which Sudanese forces are pursuing a strategy of ethnic cleansing, and concluded that the victims are “living a nightmare of violence and abuse”. That nightmare has included men being dragged over the ground behind camels by a noose around their necks, women being kept naked in rape camps and girls as young as eight being violated.
The recommendations of the UN commission, though, have caused greater consternation in Washington than in Sudan. This is because its sensible conclusion is that the breaches of humanitarian law in Darfur should be referred to the institution specifically set up for such cases – the international criminal court.
For the past four years, the Bush administration has pursued a relentless pogrom against the court. Hostility to it has come to occupy a totemic role in its belief that US freedom of action must never be constrained by international jurisdiction. As a state department official expressed to a visiting European: ‘No US citizen is going to be tried by a Belgian’, which raises doubts as to whether the Bush administration actually knows in which European country The Hague is located.
Now Condoleezza Rice has been using her contacts in Europe to lobby privately for the Darfur atrocities to be referred anywhere but the international criminal court. Apparently she has suggested that Darfur could be brought under the remit of the existing UN tribunal for the genocide in Rwanda. This is desperation. The only common feature between Darfur and Rwanda is that they are both in Africa. It is also irresponsible. The Rwanda tribunal is still struggling under an impossible workload and is in no position to provide an expeditious remedy to Darfur's continuing violence.
Alternatively, she has mooted that the UN could set up an entirely new tribunal, especially for Darfur. But it would take at least a year before any tribunal starting from scratch would have the staff, premises and procedures to get down to work. In the meantime, while the UN tried to accommodate the ideological antipathy of the Bush administration to the international criminal court, another 100,000 people would have been killed in Darfur. One of the six reasons cited by the UN commission for recommending the international criminal court was precisely that it could be activated immediately, without any delay.
Now ministers tell us they are looking for a way forward, but that will only be possible through agreement in the security council – in other words, with the US. But do they really believe that the Bush administration would have the gall to cast a US veto to block Darfur being committed to the international criminal court? Where would that leave all the warm mood music on freedom and justice with which George Bush punctuated his inaugural speech only last month [January 2005]? Come to that, where would it leave the impassioned pleas of Tony Blair for the world to address the plight of Africa as a scar on our conscience?
A US veto would be as embarrassing to Blair as it would be shaming to Bush. But just as embarrassing would be for Britain once again to be seen doing the rounds and trying to persuade the rest of the world to accept the Bush position and not to push the issue to a vote. The only way out with dignity is for Blair to call in some of the many debts that Bush owes him. This is the time when a candid friend should tell Bush to put the urgent need of the people of Darfur for justice before his own dogmatic hostility to the international criminal court.
First published in The Guardian, 11 February 2005. Robin Cook, MP, died on 6 August 2005.
The Ethiopian election of 2005: A bombshell & turning point?1
Abdi Ismail Samatar
Ethiopia's parliamentary election in May 2005 was a spectacular event in the country's political annals as the opposition2 captured nearly 50% of parliamentary seats.3 Two competing interpretations aimed at assessing the significance of the results have emerged. One scenario posits that international pressure has finally forced the regime to relax some of its controls on the political process and permit democratic expression of views. An amalgam of ethnicist opposition forces, many international institutions that supported and monitored the election, and others have endorsed this proposition. A second submission asserts that the political strategy TPLFdominated regime pursued, which allowed different ethnic communities to govern themselves within the context of the federal constitution, is slowly but steadily maturing. This, most recent election, they allege, has vindicated the government's efforts during the past decade. Hence, the Ethiopian Prime Minister's declaration that he ‘is proud to have introduced democracy to Ethiopia.’ Both theses contain important elements of truth, however, they fail to grasp the event's significance for the future in the context of the country's oppressive and sectarian political history.
We, therefore, propose an alternative explication that recognizes the outcome as an important milestone towards a democratic political order, but which underscores how the confluence of disagreeable but opportunistic opposition forces could possibly lead to a political cul de sac. These contradictory forces derive from the legacy of the assimilationist ethnic politics of the Amhara-dominated regimes and those induced by the Tigray-led government since 1992. How the conflicting agendas of the various political-ethnic groups are recast in the new electoral context shall determine whether 2005 marks: (a) Ethiopia's emergence as a democratic and civic polity; (b) as another attempt by the regime to hold on to power through illegitimate gimmicks; (c) as a way for chauvinist opposition to re-impose the dead order; (d) other sectarian elites to further fragment the social fabric. All three latter courses will invariably prolong current violence and instigate a new civil war that might lead to the break up of the country into ‘ethnic’ fiefdoms.
We tender that this electoral opening is an opportunity to embark on the difficult task of re-building the political fabric of the country and caution that chauvinist elements of the opposition intend to reverse the course of history by erasing ‘ethnic politics’ in Ethiopia through the re-imposition of an Amhara/Christian identity. Such an attempt will trigger a new wave of violence as communities will resist their re-colonisation. Further, other elements in the opposition dream of creating their ethnic Bantustans in which the ‘natives’ are free from Abysinian dominance and will return to their original state. This illusion, even if it transpires, will merely relocate the conflicts within groups as we have already witnessed in Ethiopia since 1992. The vital question which this briefing will explore is how might the election results be turned into an opportunity to initiate a civic and democratic beginning for Ethiopia? The rest of the essay is divided into three parts. Part one briefly identifies two contrasting political reconstruction strategies in Africa that have similar objectives (democracy/justice), at least in appearance, but different means of achieving them. A key factor that distinguishes the two strategies is the way in which they treat cultural and political identity. Part two is a short summary of how the promise of 1991 in Ethiopia turned into a dead end. Finally, the conclusion assesses the prospect of transforming the 2005 election into an opportunity to embark on a civic journey.
Contrasting political strategies: ethnic vs. civic
In the 1990s in Africa two sharply contrasting models of state-society relations and the role of ethnicity in national affairs have emerged: namely ethnic and civic. The first is what we call the ethnic road to political reconstruction. This approach deems ethnicity as the overriding form of identity among the population that can not be ignored in public affairs. Proponents argue that ethnicity has been a central factor in public life, usually since a particular ethnic group colonised the state and subjugated other communities. In such circumstance, the dominant group denied the importance of the ethnic factor and castigated dissident communities for being sectarian. Prime Minister Zenawi articulated this position and noted that Africa's ethnic reality could be ignored at our peril.
… [P]eople in Africa feel that they can wish away ethnic difference. Experience in Rwanda has taught us this is not the case. Experience in Liberia has taught us that this is not the case. What we are trying to do in Ethiopia is to recognize that ethnic differences are part of life in Africa, and try to deal with them in a rational manner. Rather than hide the fact that we have ethnic difference, we are saying people should express it freely. That, I think, pre-empts the type of implosion we've had in Rwanda. 4
The civic road to reconstruction differentiates between two types of ethnic identities. First, there exists a non-state centric tradition based on shared values that are not legally defined. An alternative to such identity is one sanctioned by the state and which is therefore enforceable. Recognising these two identity forms create the opportunity to overcome the dilemma posed by the Ethiopian Prime Minister. Thus, to acknowledge the first form of ethnicity does not necessarily mean to endorse the second.5 Distinguishing these identity variants is necessary but insufficient to understand how old cultural traditions became political instruments of the state. To grasp the origins and nature of cultural identity's metamorphosis one needs to re-examine colonial state formation in Africa.
… colonial powers were the first fundamentalists of the modern period. They were the first to advance and put into practice two propositions: one, that every colonized group has an original and pure tradition, whether religious or ethnic; and two, that every colonized group must be made to return to that original condition, and that return must be enforced by law. Put together, these two propositions constitute the basic platform of every religious or ethnic fundamentalism in the postcolonial world. 6
Divergent historical experiences shaped recent developments in South Africa and Ethiopia. Two qualities of the liberation and resistance movements in the two nations brought about different political outcomes. First, the political leadership in South Africa that made the termination of the old regime possible did not come from a single ethnic group or region and had wide public support across the country. In contrast, the core members of the Ethiopian leadership lacked legitimate representatives from non-Tigray regions and therefore could not claim popular support in most parts of the nation. Second, the military wing dominated the Ethiopian movement and determined the political outcome of postwar transformation. TPLF military became the national defence force and consequently enforced the party's political agenda rather than provide the basis for political consensus.8
On the contrary, South Africa's defence force which failed to defeat the liberation movement remained intact. The compromise between the leaders of the apartheid regime and the liberation movement confirmed the military's neutrality in the political process. Consequently, the ANC led national unity government embarked on a gradual process of military reform and reintegration in order to insure the integrity of the force. Further, the split between the new political leadership and the old military made it improbable for the post-apartheid regime to use the defence force to intimidate other parties to accept its political agenda. A critical analysis of the genesis of political ethnicity and the reform agencies involved is essential in order to figure out effective ways of terminating the legacy of ‘divide and rule.’
Ethiopia & the ethnic road
In the early 1990s Ethiopia embarked on a seemingly novel political project that divided the country into nine ‘ethnic provinces’. The presumed rational for this political strategy was to overcome the imposition of Amhara culture and language on Oromos, Somalis, Afars, the people of the southern region, etc., and the denial of their cultural heritage through state control. The challenge of post-1991 was how to undo past subjugations without reifying cultural differences through politics.9
Before exploring what became of the challenge, it is imperative to know why TPLF choose the ethnic road? Three crucial objective conditions which TPLF faced necessitated its strategic choice. First, TPLF needed to gain some degree of legitimacy for the new regime with non- Tigray populations. Establishing ethnic provinces seemed the most visible route to accomplish this goal since it dovetailed with the party's ethnic orientation. Second, the party's leadership appreciated the depth of injustice visited on non-Amhara populations. Consequently, it was predisposed to experiment with a political system that could have immediate resonance with various ethnic groups, but which could also focus attention away from the centre during those crucial early days of the transition. Finally and most significantly, TPLF came to power through the barrel of the gun and like all such organisations desired to maintain itself in power at whatever cost. Senior party strategists considered the establishment of ethnic regions as a vehicle to engage ethnic leaders in ways that would reduce their challenge to TPLF dominance at the national level.
The interplay between these three factors circumscribed the dynamics of the ethnic political order and its resourcefulness to respond to local and national imperatives. It is worth remembering that ethnic federalism was meant to restore cultural dignity to local communities and grant them greater autonomy to mind their affairs, such as electing their regional and federal representatives. If steady progress has been made on these two vital arenas one could legitimately argue that the ethnic instrument might lead to a civic outcome. Enough evidence has accumulated over the past fourteen years to gauge how much progress has been made and the prospects for future development.
Re-drawing the administrative regions of Ethiopia along ethnic lines had some immediate and apparent benefits for communities who were previously marginalised, demonised, or whose existence was denied. The declaration of Oromo, Somali and others regions finally put an end to decades of suppression and denial of these communities' rights. For instances, former Amhara regimes deprived Oromos, who are the largest language group in the country, of the right to express themselves in their mother tongue. These regimes went the extra mile to systematically destroy cultural traditions of the Oromos and many other communities in order to naturalise their vision of Amharanised Ethiopia. Ethiopia's development since 1991 was a dagger at the heart of this chauvinist ethnic project.10 One of the major benefits of the new order was the establishment of script for many languages and their use as medium of instruction in regional primary schools. This single act has liberated various communities from Amhara cultural tyranny and has enabled children from non-Amhara regions to gain confidence and relish their heritage for the first time in recent history. It also demystified cultural basis of political domination. Recognising this type of cultural diversity was a vital step in disconnecting political ethnicity from cultural identity and was therefore an essential step towards the creation of civic order. However the success of the cultural element of the new dispensation has been blemished by federal authorities who dictate the type of official history taught in schools and sectarian regionalists who distort history to legitimate their ethnic political project. In spite of these shortcomings, most reforms in the cultural/educational field have been relatively successful despite the limitations noted above.
The political reform programme has been the Achilles heel of the new order. Vital elements of federal dispensation were presumably established to allow regional communities manage their local affairs, and have the freedom to elect their leaders and hold them accountable. Local autonomy and democracy was intended to erase the legacy of ethnic-based political privileges to the extent that the constitution sanctions a region's right to secede from the federation. Given these new constitutionally endorsed rights, two issues deeply worried TPLF leadership. First, they were concerned about some regions opting for independence given their deep sense of alienation from the centre. Second, they assumed that if regional elections were free and fair, particularly in Oromia,11 an opposition party might come to power which could easily challenge TPLF dominance. The combination of TPLF's need to support the restoration of human rights of grieved communities and maintain itself in power dictated its policies in the regions. Driven by this compulsion, it created a liberation organisation for other groups, the socalled PDOs, even before it captured Addis Ababa. The first ominous sign of TPLF's modus operandi was the expulsion of Oromo Liberation Front from the transition.12
TPLF's instrumentalist political agenda and practice contradicted the rhetoric of liberation and regional development. The PDOs which the Tigray party spawned won provincial elections in 1992 and dominated federal parliament ever since. Two subsequent elections reconfirmed a new pattern of supremacy in which TPLF held all organs of political and military power. Such manufacture of puppet parties beholden to federal authorities and pseudo-elections doubly undermined regional autonomy from the centre and accountability of leaders to their communities. TPLF's practice to unseat and appoint any regional authority at will has completely alienated the public from the system of governance, and has turned local authorities into sycophants who serve their masters and themselves.13 The dominant federal party's obsession with retaining power in spite of its narrow popular base has deprived the country of an opportunity to gain a civic footing, and has unnecessarily heightened ethnic political identity.
Ethiopia's pretentious ethnic democracy could not be sustained for long without the heavy hand of the security forces. The international community's pressure on the regime to open up the political process finally had the desired effect of relaxing political controls, mainly in urban areas. A significant proportion of the estranged public took advantage of the opportunity to vent its displeasure by voting against TPLF and the most recent ethnic hierarchy, and for an opposition led by chauvinists who are wedded to the old oppressive order.
A last chance for a civic coalition
High voter turnout and the results of the election clearly demonstrate that a significant proportion of the population is dissatisfied with the policies and practices of the regime. Some elements of the opposition who have campaigned on hideously sectarian platforms have misconstrued the outcome as an endorsement for their agenda which is to undo the federation and reinvent the former empire. Progressive groups' interpretation of the election results is at variances with the above and point out that most of the public voted not to undo the progress of the past decade, but to punish TPLF, and underscore the need to shift course and return to the spirit of the early 1990s. Although the TPLF dominated coalition seem to have ‘won’ a majority of seats in parliament, many of the MPs are PDO members who lack legitimacy and therefore do not have the strength to serve the people they contend to represent. Therefore, continued alliance of TPLF and PDOs can only reinforce the cynicism that has sapped the confidence of the positive spirit which the regionalization of the administration motivated.
Since neither the prolongation of the present condition nor a return to Amhara dominated Ethiopia is desirable or feasible, what options might exist to turn the regime's crisis into a national opportunity, and how could that be realised? The first declaration to make is that elements of the opposition who campaigned on exclusivist platforms can not inspire confidence among the majority of the population. Thus, only progressive members, including many regional nationalist, of the opposition have a fleeting opportunity to lead the civic movement no matter what political arrangement is made to resolve election results. The first step in such an endeavour is to convene regional civic conferences wherein communities can articulate their thoughts about the way forward for the Ethiopian federation and select their civic leaders. Subsequently, leaders from all regions can organize to form the national civic forum which will synthesize contributions from the regions into a national document. The proposed forum differs from the national conference which TPLF convened in 1991 as communities will have greater freedom to set the agenda and select their representatives without external intervention. One goalpost that ought to guide the new civic alliance is: regional autonomy within a civic federation.
The progressive opposition has an advantage over others in instigating the movement, since it has not been tainted by the old practices of divide and rule. However, it does not have a monopoly on exploring the civic road, and the challenge is how to build a representative civic fabric. TPLF, by contrast, has been damaged by its strategy of political manipulation and coercion, and the outcome of the election has taught it a sobering political lesson; that is, it could not expects its humiliated partners to come to its rescue at the hour of its need. In spite the of recent turn of events many of those who voted for the opposition are weary of the chauvinists' return to power and might entertain a new contract with the government. This could mean some of the credit TPLF had with communities could possibly be salvaged. In order for the Party to regain some degree of trust with non-Tigray communities, individual leaders and the party must be ready to take the real risk of losing power. The first step in its rehabilitation is to candidly admit its past misdeeds, publicly commit itself to a new dispensation in which the security forces will not interfere with the political process, and consequently create an independent body to which the military and police forces are accountable. Further, it will have to acquiesce to new freedoms in which communities openly debate their affairs and elect their representatives without constraint. Only such a radical scheme from its Orwellian ‘all animals are created equal but some are more equal than others’ has a chance to restore some degree of credibility to the party and inspire the public.
Given the variety of ways of orchestrating a democratic future, here are four real possibilities in Ethiopia. First, the governing party can bury its head in the sand and continue to intimidate the public in order to hang on to power. Such a strategy is destined to fail. The only way a coalition with TPLF can have a life span longer than the next five years in a democratically inclined Ethiopia is to undertake a transparent and serious analysis of the ethnic formula and why the voters rejected the party that liberated the country from a fascist dictatorship. Such re-assessment must be qualitatively different from past gimgemes in which certain groups had the privilege to scrutinize the ‘wrong-doings’ of underprivileged groups. Endorsing this approach does not guarantee TPLF's continued dominance but it will give the country the chance to build on the progressive contributions made in the early 1990s and transcend political ethnicity. Second, the chauvinist opposition could aim to seize power using massive street demonstration in Addis Ababa in order to reinvent Amhara dominance over three-quarters of the national population who are non-Amhara. This strategy will also lead to a dead-end. Third, the progressive elements of the opposition from various regions have an occasion to embark on the creation of a national civic movement which is respectful of cultural differences among the population, but that does not ossify it into state-sanctioned political identity. Establishing such a movement will require incredible dedication and good faith, an uncommon feature of Ethiopian politics. One of the key challenges for such a movement is how to build trust among a new generation of leaders that are genuinely representative. Creating such a movement is the most exigent route but could also be the most promising avenue to a civic future. Finally, a combination of circumstances driven by current political pressures might lead to a calamitous end. A cunning but dishonest TPLF remains dominant, an opposition that is driven by the tribal haughtiness or lust for power, and a disorganised public alienated from national politics could usher the end of Ethiopia as one country. This is the nature of the crossroads which the 2005 election signifies: reject ethnic chauvinism, respect cultural differences, and nurture a just civic federation, or perish.
Abdi Ismail Samatar , University of Minnesota.
Who calls the shots? How government-corporate collusion drives arms exports
The official reasons for arms export support
The UK government continues to offer a programme of political and financial support to UK-based arms exporting companies at levels disproportionate to those received by civil industry. Those questioning this support are directed towards the wider gains that are said to accrue from involvement in the international arms market, i.e. economic, strategic, and peace and security benefits. Yet these rationales lack credibility to such an extent that other explanations are required.
The real reasons behind arms export support
There are a number of alternative explanations for the government's support of arms exports. These range from the existence of unstated foreign policy goals or the government's susceptibility to company lobbying on jobs, to the less tangible influence of Tony Blair's military bent. Many of the explanations are useful and may provide part of the picture, but analysis of a potentially key rationale has so far been lacking: the influence and political power of arms companies within government. This rationale dovetails with the others indicated above but also provides perhaps the single most significant reason why, against ethical concerns and economic reason, the government continues to promote UK weaponry around the world. This report considers how the military industry has retained and developed this political influence despite the end of the Cold War and the arrival of a government touting an ‘ethical’ foreign policy.
The revolving door
The close customer/client relationship between UK-based arms exporters and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is incomparable across government. No other industry has attracted such a large number of high ranking departmental staff while at the same time offering many of its own employees to the MoD via secondment. The institutional boundaries between the two bodies are so blurred that the existence of any real separation has been questioned.
A web of advisory bodies
These boundaries are further eroded by overwhelming industry representation within an extensive network of UK and European-based bodies advising government on military policy. This network is not only more extensive than those advising high-level government on nonmilitary areas of policy, but is continuously growing under the Labour government, raising urgent questions about transparency, accountability and favourable access to ministers.
Use of lobbying companies
The industry's profile within the domestic decision-making arena is raised further by military industry's use of lobbying companies whose purpose is to distort the advocacy playing field in the interests of their clients. UK lobbying companies cannot but benefit when a number of their employees, including those representing UK-based arms-producing companies, used to be government advisors or work for the Labour Party.
Influential Labour Peers
Though they are relatively few, a number of Labour Peers have links to armsproducing companies. They have enjoyed influential government jobs and/ or have links to some of the highest echelons of the Labour government.
The arms industry has contributed largely undisclosed amounts of cash to the Labour Party and to one of its major projects, the Millennium Dome, at a time when both have faced financial crisis.
Provision of public services
Areas previously considered core government-run sectors are now being considered candidates for, or are already being run as, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). The arms-producing companies have been eager to participate and the MoD is now at the forefront of military PPPs. The integration of companies into core government activities provides them with increased political influence. Also, because of the potential political fallout, the government is extremely unlikely to let any such activities fail, further motivating it to pursue corporate-friendly policies.
Conclusion
Each individual relationship between the government and arms companies might not in itself be considered objectionable or evidence of improper behaviour. However, the range of possibilities for influence provided to arms companies and the extent to which they have been taken up lead to a cumulative impact that is not appropriate to democratic decision-making. The picture that emerges is one where the government and military industry are so deeply interconnected and their interests so tied up with each other that whole areas of public policy-making have come to reflect corporate wish-lists.
Attempts to reduce arms exports or the subsidies associated with them will fail as long as arms companies are allowed the influence they currently have over the UK government. Given the lack of political will (and the obvious influential opposition to any emergence of such will) it falls to public opinion to persuade the government that they are responsible to the electorate rather than the arms industry. ♦
| Major Military Spenders in 2004 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Country | Spending in $bns | Spending per capita | World Share |
| 1 | US | 455.3 | 1,533 | 47% |
| 2 | UK | 47.4 | 798 | 5% |
| 3 | France | 46.2 | 764 | 5% |
| 4 | Japan | 42.4 | 332 | 4% |
| 5 | China | [35.4] | [27] | [4%] |
| 6 | Germany | 33.9 | 411 | 3% |
| 7 | Italy | 27.8 | 484 | 3% |
| 8 | Russia | [19.4] | [136] | [2%] |
| 13 | Canada | 10.6 | 336 | 1% |
| 15 | Australia | 10.1 | 507 | 0 to 1% |
| Source: SIPRI Yearbook, 2005, OUP; numbers in brackets [] are estimates. |
Defence systems & equipment international: Lifeblood of the arms trade
Ian Prichard & James O'Nions
The DSEi Arms Fair 2005 will be held from 13 to 16 September in London. The world's military has been promised that it will be 30% bigger than last time, and that ‘products and services related to Homeland Security, anti-terrorism, access control, and personal security’ will be on display as well as the usual rockets, tanks and machine guns.
DSEi: Who runs it?
Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEi) is organised by Spearhead Exhibitions ‘in association with’ the Ministry of Defence. It is a formal relationship that exists for no other arms exhibition in the UK and, when it comes to promoting arms sales, it's a winning combination. First and foremost, arms companies want to meet buyers and that's what Spearhead and the MoD provide. As DSEi's 2005 brochure states, it delivers: ‘Well-organised, top level international delegations; UK ministers and senior staff involved in UK defence procurement; Senior international visitors and military influencers’ In 2003 (like most major arms fairs, DSEi is twoyearly), the 973 companies from 28 countries enjoyed the ‘customer-rich environment’ provided by 20,000 visitors from 65 countries. In 2005, it is likely that more companies will enjoy an even ‘richer’ environment.
Taxpayers' money
DSEi is heavily subsidised by the government. Direct costs alone were estimated to be £400,000 in 2003 and we cannot guess the indirect costs of the huge government support and involvement. The policing of the event was an even greater cost. Immediately after the event the government estimated police costs of around £1.7 million, saying that the final cost remained to be established. When it was established several months later, the cost to taxpayers had reached over £4 million.
Closed & opaque
Spearhead is now owned by Reed Elsevier plc, the massive publishing group. Its Reed Exhibitions business organises six ‘aerospace and defence’ trade fairs including Latin America Aero & Defence, Taipei Aerospace and Defence Technology Exhibition and of course DSEi. When asked at their AGM about the ethics of organising arms fairs, the Chairman astonishingly said it was ok as long as ‘we don't deal ourselves in these kind of things, I suppose’. When pressed again over Spearhead and DSEi, the board claimed that they were providing ‘an open and transparent process’. This is a difficult claim to assess given that, as Reed Elsevier states, ‘It is not open to members of the public.’ You might have thought that several million pounds of taxpayers' money would buy the general public a few tickets!
| Receiving & Supplying of Major Conventional Weapons, 2000-2004 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS SUPPLIERS | AS RECEIVERS | |||
| Country | Rank | worth in $mn | Rank | worth in $mn |
| US | 2 | 25,930 | 12 | 1,760 |
| UK | 5 | 4,450 | 4 | 3,395 |
| France | 3 | 6,358 | 60 | 204 |
| Japan | not listed | 23 | 975 | |
| China | 8 | 1,436 | 1 | 11,677 |
| Germany | 4 | 4,878 | 33 | 575 |
| Italy | 11 | 1,252 | 16 | 1,594 |
| Russia | 1 | 26,925 | not listed | |
| Canada | 7 | 1,692 | 14 | 1,675 |
| Australia | 23 | 165 | 9 | 2,177 |
| NZ | 54 | 3 | 59 | 204 |
| Source: SIPRI Yearbook, 2005, OUP |
The defence of DSEi
There is nothing redeemable about the arms fair. Even DSEi and supporting organisations such as the Defence Manufacturers Association (DMA) are at a loss to know how to defend it in public. Their responses to criticisms have sunk to the desperate level of suggesting that it isn't an arms fair! However, the DSEi 2005 brochure is clear on the situation. It states that ‘DSEi provides a platform for the whole of the defence and military aerospace community …’ and ‘fulfils an important role within the selling process for defence companies’. Then, of course, there are the arms companies.
The sellers
As of 17 June, there were 927 exhibitors confirmed for DSEi 2005. They include Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms company and manufacturer of fighter aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, etc etc. Lockheed is joined by other massive US arms producers such as Raytheon (missiles), Northrop Grumman (radar and missile systems, warships, space systems) and General Dynamics (armoured vehicles, tanks, nuclear submarines). Then there are the major European arms companies: BAE Systems (fighter aircraft, warships, torpedoes, missiles, tanks), Thales (naval systems, avionics), EADS (fighter aircraft, missiles, helicopters) and Finmeccanica (helicopters, missiles). These companies will all have enormous stands at DSEi and will dominate the exhibition as whole. However, there is plenty of competition for specific weaponry. There will be at least 15 cluster bomb producers present. We don't know if individual companies will be actively marketting their cluster munitions at DSEi, but they have in the past and there will be nothing to stop them this year. In terms of small arms and its ammunition, BAE Systems and General Dynamics are joined by a plethora of companies including Arsenal Co of Bulgaria, Glock and Steyr Mannlicher of Austria, FN Herstall of Belgium, Heckler & Koch, Rheinmetall DeTec and J.P Sauer & Sohn of Germany, Alliant Techsystems of the US, Diemaco of Canada, Giat Industries of France, Nammo of Norway, Helston Gunsmiths of the UK and Pakistan Ordnance Factories.
Official invitations
Official delegations from other countries attend DSEi at the invitation of either the Ministry of Defence or Spearhead. In 2003 there were 79 official delegations from 56 countries. On more than one occasion controversial invitees appear to have been avoided by the MoD, only for Spearhead to invite them anyway, saying that they are staying within the government's guidelines. In reality, of course, the two work hand in glove over DSEi.
Israel is one example. Whilst the government are still happy to allow arms exports to Israel despite the 38 year occupation of Palestinian territories, judged illegal under international law, and well documented and serious human rights abuses including collective punishments and extra judicial killings, it appears it has not always wanted to be seen to actually invite the country to DSEi. In both 2001 and 2003 Spearhead did the job for them. Of course, given the presence of numerous Israeli arms companies as exhibitors at DSEi, the absence of an official delegation would be rather incongruous. Of course, the UK government often isn't that circumspect about who it invites anyway. Colombia was invited in 2003, a country whose military not only have documented links with the right-wing paramilitaries who murder hundreds of trade unionists, human rights advocates and rural workers each year, but who have also carried out some of these killings themselves; 2003 also saw the Ministry of Defence invite delegations from both India and Pakistan, despite them having been on the brink of war with each other just the year before. Pakistan also was and remains a military dictatorship.
Arming Africa
Between them, the MoD and Spearhead officially invited 15 African countries over the past three DSEi exhibitions. These included Tanzania and Angola, whose very low Human Development Index ratings indicate that they are two of the poorest countries in the world. Encouraging these countries to spend money on arms hardly helps them pull themselves out of poverty, nor helps stop the continent's many armed conflicts. Even the supposedly middle income African countries who have attended DSEi, such as South Africa and Botswana, receive millions of pounds of overseas aid from the UK, and have nowhere near the resources they need to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic currently ravaging the continent.
A number of the African countries invited also have serious human rights problems. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office website says that in Algeria there have been ‘numerous documented allegations of human rights abuses by the security forces and statearmed militias, including the enforced disappearances of at least 4,000 people, abductions, torture and extra-judicial killings,’ whilst in Nigeria the FCO says that ‘the Army has committed serious abuses of human rights.’ Yet the MoD invited both these countries to DSEi in 2003. The official invitation lists were not available as CAATnews went to press, but there is no reason to think that these countries and others with poor human rights records won't be invited again in 2005.
The international arms fair circuit
DSEi is just one, albeit one of the biggest, of a series of military exhibitions that take place around the world. They represent ‘a key event for the total supply chain’ as Spearhead put it about DSEi. Other major arms fairs include Eurosatory and the Paris Air Show, both in Paris, IDEX in the United Arab Emirates and Defendory in Greece. Outside Europe, South Africa's Africa Aerospace and Defence exhibition and Brazil's Latin America Aero and Defence are also significant.
Like DSEi, some of these fairs started out as primarily national expositions to boost a particular country's arms industry. Though this function still exists, in an internationalised industry, arms fairs have increasingly become big business ventures in their own right, organised by corporations like Reed Elsevier. Similarly, the Defence Export Services Organisation's role isn't limited to DSEi; in 2004 alone it spent over £1 million attending thirteen international arms fairs, promoting UK arms exports from Malaysia to Chile to Jordan.
In a very real sense, then, these fairs are the international arms trade. They are where negotiations are conducted, collaborations planned and purchases considered. They are a key part of the machinery which keeps this abhorrent industry running, and DSEi is more significant than most. That's why CAAT will be urging all those who care about social justice, human rights and peace to join the opposition to DSEi this autumn in whatever way they can. ♦