Havana: The Scourge of Neo-liberalism in Africa & the Middle East
David González & Silvio Baró
CEAMO is a scientific, autonomous, nongovernmental association. Its creation in 1979 responded both to the impact of African and Arab traits in Cuban culture as well as to the evolution of Cuban relations with Africa and the Middle East since 1959. It gathers a multi-disciplinary staff of researchers and collaborators who undertake studies with different approaches to social sciences, particularly history, sociology, politics, international relations and economy. Its research results reach Cuban and foreign specialised institutions and the public in general through its publications and the academic performance of its members.
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In late June 2006 CEAMO, the Centre for Studies on Africa and the Middle East, organised its 11th International Seminar in cooperation with the House of Africa and the House of Arab's, in the historical centre of Old Havana. Despite some last-minute cancellations (the US blockade is making travel to Cuba increasingly difficult) some thirty Cuban experts were able to exchange views with nine foreign counterparts from six countries. Several others who were not able to attend sent their contributions by e-mail.
The three-day meeting gave continuity to an effort begun in 1987 by CEAMO in order to periodically convene colleagues from the world over to review the most pressing current issues in their areas of interest. This year the specific sub-topic of the seminar was ‘Africa and the Middle East vis-à-vis the Challenges of Neo-Liberal Policies’, that allowed participants to explore the consequences of several decades of economic as well as political neo-liberalism in Africa and more recent efforts to extend the model throughout the Arab world.
The first panel, structured around the general topic of ‘Neo-Liberal Policies, use of Natural Resources and their Consequences for Africa and the Middle East’ discussed how the present stage of neo-liberal globalisation has only deepened Africa's traditional role in the world market – gradually established since the late 15th century – by forcing it to produce what it does not consume and to consume what it does not produce. In that light, the enormous amount of economic and other mechanisms used by major world powers to de-capitalise African economies in this neo-liberal stage of capitalism was reviewed.1
Meanwhile, the ongoing escalation of oil prices (due in part to the interventionist policies of the Bush Administration in the Middle East) has in turn motivated greater US interest and aggressiveness to assure sources of supply in the Middle East and Africa was also taken into account. The reaffirmation of the Middle East as the world's major oil exporting region and the gradual rise of the African continent as a supplier of this vital resource, together with the sharp competition between old as well as new actors in the international scene for the control of its main sources were some of the aspects discussed afterwards.2Recurrent problems posed by deficient food supplies across wide parts of Africa, particularly alter the severe 2004-05 food crisis were also dealt with. The consequences of neo-liberal economic policies–particularly in terms of the limitation ofthe role of states in the design of economic policies, in the amount of financial resources at their disposal and in the modification of the nations' economic structures to favour export production to the detriment of the production of foodstuffs for the population at large – also came up at the seminar. Thus, the crucial issue of the elusive food self-sufficiency in Africa emerged through an in-depth discussion of interests and power relations that continue to hinder the formulation of policies to achieve food sustainability in many African countries.3
The discussion around the relationship between neo-liberal economic policies and food self-sufficiency offered an appropriate framework to debate the issue of the need of in-depth agrarian reforms in order to solve problems of foodstuff production to feed the population of most African countries. But a crucial problem persists: the acute antagonism that opposes neo-liberalism to the fair redistribution of means of production, land in the first place. Obstacles carefully built by neo-liberalism hinder the implementation of true agrarian reforms while at the same time neo-liberal policies render agrarian reform more urgent still; all this was illustrated through ongoing events in rural southern Africa.4
The second panel dealt more generally with ‘The Consequences of Neo-Liberal Adjustment’. It started off with an analysis of the particular case of Ghana, an African showcase of structural adjustment in the 1980s that soon became an example of failure, as exemplified in the fact that, by 2001, the country was opting for the benefits of the initiative for Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC).5 This was then followed by a discussion about the way in which repeated IMF and Work Bank failures led to the launching of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) that attempt to cope with the legitimacy crisis affecting SAPs, to recover certain international credibility for the IMF and the World Bank by putting forth social-oriented proposals and, while doing so, to strengthen the grip of neo-liberalism on sub-Saharan Africa.6
The impact of neo-liberal policies on gender issues came up next with a debate around the increasing vulnerability of women and children in general contexts of deepening poverty. Attention was called on the fact that the negative effects derived from SAPs on those particularly vulnerable sectors are causing severe and irreparable damage to the very social fabric of African societies.7The panel closed with a presentation (taking the Niger Delta as a case in point) about the way in which, by affecting the environment, predator Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are modifying the economic structure of certain regions together with the levels of employment and of incomes of the population at large, therefore causing explosive situations that run the risk of transforming into deep socio-political troubles. Because these TNCs, beyond depleting natural resources of African countries, also affect their environment, they often tend to generate additional socio-political pressures that can lead to unexpected upheavals as was the case in the region on which panel discussions focused.8
The two subsequent panels concentrated their attention on ‘Neo-liberalism and Political Changes in Africa and the Middle East’ and ‘Neo-liberalism and Resistances in Africa and the Middle East’. Here, the complex but generally ambivalent role of African elites vis-à-vis true development planning in Africa was debated at length. Discussions centred on the way in which most presentday African elites tend to promote consumers' and not development strategies, and the relationship of this fact with the failure of strategies designed for the promotion of growth in the continent.9Debates also brought out the comparable complexities of the reactions to various (including neo-liberal) modernising processes in the Middle East in which Islamist movements are most conspicuous,10as well as those motivated by the impact of neo-liberal reforms on traditional African institutions, culture and thought.11These panels also listened to extensive country-by-country overviews on Western-inspired reform projects in the Middle East12 as well as dramatic presentations about the extremely critical present-day situation in Palestine, the latter made by representatives of Palestinian political organisations.13
The fifth panel dealt with ‘European Policies Towards Africa and the Middle East’. Here, the changing nature of the European Union's cooperation policies with Africa as a consequence of new elements appeared in the international environment was extensively discussed. Two presentations centred on the changing nature of the EU's economic and cooperation policies vis-à-vis Africa: this change was viewed in the framework of what was defined as new trends of globalisation that seem to be leading to a greater convergence and systematization in the process of designing economic policies – by major world powers and international organisations – for African countries. There was a wide consensus around the idea that these trends are provoking the emergence of a new stage characterised by a deeper implementation of neo-liberal economic policies on the continent.14 These panels also debated the way in which new socio-economic projects for Africa presented as African initiatives are really exogenous and to a certain extent imposed on African countries; as the more recent strategy proposed by the Commission for Africa, none of them are poised to generate sustainable development but rather exploitation of the continent, because, in a more or less explicit way, they follow the dictates of neo-liberal economic concepts.15
The sixth panel was dedicated to ‘US and Chinese Policies for Africa and the Middle East’, and in this context an appraisal of current debates within US governing circles around Middle Eastern policy in order to further the objectives of neo-liberal globalization was presented.16 Other presentations included an analysis of the implementation of the Broader Middle East and North of Africa Initiative, contemplated as an extension of economic and political expressions of neo-liberalism designed for the Middle East. In this case, special attention was dedicated to the mostly religious-based resistance that has been provoked by economic and political reforms pursued by this initiative throughout the region.17
Finally, the growing economic and political presence of the People's Republic of China in Africa was the object of a debate the objective of which was to determine to which extent those increasing China-Africa links might hinder Western policies for the region.18
In short, presentations as well as debates allowed for a characterisation of the particular interest of the present-day juncture in Africa and the Middle East. On the one hand, imperialist powers and international organisations under their control exercise strong pressures in order to quickly extend neo-liberal concepts in the framework of globalisation.
But, on the other hand, contradictions and symptoms of crisis multiply as a result of those same policies, and therefore an attempt is made to solve the situation through partial tactical adjustments that very soon lead to new crises. Meanwhile, in spite of occasional positive macro-economic results, the explosive social situation that affects almost all countries tends to aggravate. The lack of sustainability and utter failure of neoliberal policies throughout Africa and the Middle East was well established by presentations and ensuing debates.
What is now needed are clearly defined alternatives. In the past, both regions have seen numerous blueprints, carefully drafted, that were never seriously allowed to be put to the test – a consequence of strong pressures exercised from abroad and by minority elites from within.
The Memoirs of the Seminar should be soon appearing in an English-Spanish bilingual edition published by CEAMO, Ave. 3ra, N° 1805, e/ 18 y 20, Miramar, Playa, La Habana, Cuba.
David González , Deputy Director of CEAMO; e-mail: david.ceamo@123456cee.co.cu; Silvio Baró , e-mail: silvio.ceamo@123456cee.co.cu.
The Miracle of Mogadishu1
Abdi Ismail Samatar
Life for the majority of the Somali population since the collapse of the state in 1991 and the disintegration of the country's political order has been difficult at best. After nearly two decades of warlords and faction leaders' rule Somalia leads the world in infant mortality. Further, life expectancy has declined by as much as those southern African countries devastated by the HIV/AIDs pandemic but without high HIV incidence rates. The awful conditions which have produced these deplorable vital statistics are products of the combined effects of internal and external forces. Warlords' and faction leaders' domination and an international community least concerned about the blight of the people had the consequence of disabling the local population from organising in order to create an environment conducive to reconstruction.
Over a dozen reconciliation conferences dominated by warlords were held in different locations outside the country but none produced the desired result. The most promising conference was the one organised by the neighbouring government of Djibouti in the resort town of Arta. This gathering brought together non-combatants, but the major warlords boycotted it as they were not allowed to dictate the terms of the reconciliation. Ethiopia, the main regional ally of the warlords was not happy with developments in Arta and subsequently organised an association of these warlords called SRRC. The Transitional National Government (TNG), which was formed in Arta, floundered due to the corruption and the incompetence of its leadership and challenges from Ethiopia supported warlords. This ultimately led to its demise and the convening of yet another Somali reconciliation conference organised by IGAD, held in Embagathi, Kenya, which lasted for two years. The Embagathi conference was dominated by the warlords and was fully financed by the European Union and other donors. The rational for warlords predominance in the conference was the belief among the organisers that the ‘merchants of violence’ were the real actors who should drive the process as their exclusion would derail the peace process. In addition, the IGAD managers allowed Ethiopia to gerrymander the conference in order for it to reward its clients to form the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Despite the preponderance of misgivings about the legitimacy of the process, the international community blessed the imposition of a government of warlords on the Somali people, and the population begrudgingly decided to accept the TFG as the government of the land in the hope that the warlords would act responsibly as national leaders.
Once more the people's faith was dashed as the warlords failed to agree to work together for the common good. Immediately after the formation of the government, its two leading figures went to Addis Ababa and requested the deployment of 20,000 foreign troops, including Ethiopian forces, to Somalia in order to restore stability and enable the TFG to take control of the country. This strategy was opposed by many MPs and most of the warlords based in Mogadishu. The Somali President and his Prime Minister appealed to the international community for support but received little help and the process stalled. In the midst of this stalemate, several of the major warlords in Mogadishu formed a new ‘Antiterror Alliance’ whose purpose was to capture international terrorists – fugitives they claimed were sheltered by the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu. The United States government has accused some Islamicists in Mogadishu of harbouring three fugitives who have allegedly participated in the bombing of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenya coast. For several years now the US authorities have subcontracted bounty hunting of ‘terrorists or radicals’ in Somalia to some of the warlords. The warlords exploited the American offer and a number of innocent people have been killed or snatched by the warlords over the last few years. This scheme put every major religious person at risk of being kidnapped. It seems that the snatching operations were not able to capture and deliver key suspects and consequently, in January 2006, six warlords in and around Mogadishu were urged to form a ‘Counter-terrorists Alliance’ with the hope that this association will be more effective. The warlords alleged that the alliance was financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States.
It has been widely reported that the CIA provided funds for the warlords to purchase weapons and other materials necessary for war. Members of the alliance repeated the US Government claim that foreign terrorists were hiding in Mogadishu and demanded that the Courts must hand them over or face the consequences. The Courts denied the presence of such foreign individuals in the city and subsequently the warlords commenced their attack on the Courts in February 2006. After the first engagement, the public overwhelmingly rallied behind the Courts and a bloody war ended the long tenure of the warlords and liberated the population of Mogadishu and the surrounding communities in July 2006. Subsequently, the Courts formed the Union of the Islamic Courts (UIC) to coordinate their activities.
The turning point
The defeat of the fearsome warlords and the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts to power in Mogadishu have alarmed certain circles in the west who have accused them of either being extremists or having ties with terrorists. The Courts have operated in a dozen neighbourhoods since the mid-1990s and their duties were confined to dispensing Sharia -based justice in the absence of government institutions. Residents of the communities have consistently indicated that criminal activity was significantly reduced in city areas where the Courts operated while criminals freely roamed elsewhere in Mogadishu.2
Several factors have made possible the speedy and unexpected success of the people's uprising and those of the Courts. These included the terror warlords have visited on the population over the last 16 years and resultant social and economic devastation of the region. Second, the corrupt peace process managed by IGAD and supported by international donors that imposed a divisive and fraudulent transitional government of warlords on the Somali people has alienated the public. Third, the international community that sanctioned the warlords government failed to give it the necessary support for it to become functional and this has thoroughly undermined the TFG's credibility and that of the peace process. Further, the AID mafia based in Nairobi which nurtures the hope that it will operate from their comfortable environments is deeply despised by the Somali population. Fourth, the perceived notion that the west, fed by false Ethiopian intelligence, is opposed to Islamic values and is using terrorism as a pretext to sustain the dominance of their client warlords or impose a corrupt and sectarian TFG on the population, has galvanized public support for the Courts.
Despite the relative effectiveness of the Courts in securing the neighbourhoods it seems that their ambition was limited to that role until they sized the initiative and took over the capital and the surrounding regions. The dislodgment of the warlords who were opposed to the TFG from the capital immediately situated the UICs on a national platform. The TFG leadership which has been silent, at best, about the struggle between the warlords and the Islamic Courts, began to find itself in opposition to the Courts. The turning point in their relationship was the fall of the key town in the Middle Shabelli region of Jowhar which was the seat of Mohamed Dheere, the chief ally of the Prime Minister (PM) and a major recipient of Ethiopian military support. The PM accused the Courts of looting the property belonging to the defeated warlord and some of the town residents.
Independent journalists have contradicted the PM's claims. Shortly thereafter, the President of the TFG, based in Baidoa, added to the PM's assertions and stipulated that the Courts relinquish their weapons to his sectarian militias. These accusations poisoned relations between the Courts and the TFG, and nearly foreclosed dialogue. Western governments who were reluctant to recognise the TFG prior to the emergence of the Courts panicked, to use the phrase of the former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and unconditionally supported the TFG in order to stymie the spread of the UICs to the rest of the country. Such an opportunistic and unconditional assistance for the government reinforced the dictatorial and sectarian predispositions of the leading figures on the TFG. Shortly thereafter, enough resources were made available to the leadership to pay off a majority of MPs in order to induce them to endorse the government's request for deployment of foreign troops in the country.
The Somali people have been consistently opposed to the deployment of foreign troops – that include Ethiopia in their country – and the Courts have reiterated this stance particularly now that Mogadishu has been liberated from the warlords tyranny. The West, swayed by the Ethiopian agenda, and weary of anything that smacks of an independent Islamic movement,3 are trying to intimidate the Courts in order to empower an illegitimate government of warlords. The threat to deploy foreign troop had the unintended consequences of enhancing the popularity of the Courts and their claim to national leadership while eroding whatever little legitimacy the TFG had. The TFG's credibility has already been dealt a fatal below by the fact that contingents of Ethiopian troops have entered Somali territory and occupy several regions of the country, including the President's residency in Baidoa, and the latter's opposition to the Arab League sponsored mediation talks in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.4
After liberating Mogadishu: What is next?
The Courts were thrust into the national limelight once the warlords were defeated and as the TFG's ineptitude became increasingly apparent to the population. The UICs were ill-prepared for the new role since most of their members had neither the education nor the work experiences to manage or administer national or regional institutions. Furthermore, the defeat of the warlords was so quick and unexpected that the Courts had no time to re-organise themselves and mobilise sympathetic others into a national coalition. Members of the Courts themselves were a diverse group whose only common denominators were dispensing Sharia -based justice in the neighbourhoods and opposition to foreign intervention, particularly Ethiopian and their IGAD allies. The first real challenge that faces the UICs, apart from securing the city and the region, has been how to transform their loose association into a cohesive organisation with a coherent social and political agenda that can galvanize the population. Their first attempt entailed the formation of their advisory council, the Shura, and its executive committee. The Shura consists of representatives of the various groups who collectively contributed to the ousting of the warlords. Although, the council originally had 73 members, currently it has 94 councillors. The Shura acts as a vehicle for setting broad policy ideas while the executive committee is the implementation arm of the new organisation. Although the UICs claim that these two units deal with matters internal to their association, it is apparent that they represent the victors and consequently have an agenda much broader than matters particular to the organisation. Despite the fact that the population gave critical support to the Courts during the war, the organisation determines the way forward for the region. For example, the organisation selected the team that will negotiate with the TFG in Khartoum. The team included several people who are not members of the associations – an act of inclusion that is symbolic of the willingness of the Courts to involve other citizens in dealing with the affairs of the city, region, and the nation.
The cautiously slow pace of the Courts to engage other segments of society in setting up an arrangement for governing the city and region has been troubling to some actors. There seems to be some merit in these complaints as there are no formalised channels of cooperation between the different actors. However, the critics fail to be self-reflective as there exists neither a business community nor an inclusive civil society organisation with a coherent and serious civic agenda that can provide a basis for cooperation. The dearth of organised civics was in part due to the threat of warlords violence against broad-based community associations. The warlord free environment has created an opportunity for such associations to develop and those who complain about not being invited by the Courts in their deliberations and decision-making should not only get organised but also focus on dealing with some of the challenging social problems such as cleaning the city's refuse that has been accumulating for the past 17 years. Engaging in these actions can be an excellent confidence building measure between the diverse individuals that nominally form the business and civil society groups. Such events are critical to generating trust which is an essential ingredient for building community. Until members of such nominal communities invest labour and other resources in these endeavours they will remain guests to those who have made the sacrifices to challenge the ‘merchants of violence’.
| Group | No. of Representatives | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Union of Islamic Courts | 21 |
| 2. | Youth | 9 |
| 3. | Hamar & Hamerdaye (Balad) | 4 |
| 4. | Shabeelda Hoose (Lower Shabeele) | 8 |
| 5. | Dooxada Juba | 8 |
| 6. | Shirkada Banadir | 6 |
| 7. | Raskanboni (Turki) | 4 |
| 8. | El Bur (Tawakal) | 5 |
| 9. | Nahyani Wal Munkar | 5 |
| 10. | Daynile | 4 |
| 11. | Culumada iyo Aqoonyahanka | 15 |
| 12. | Golaha Midnimada Badbaadada | 5 |
| 13. | + | 3 |
| Total | 94 |
The UIC and their associates have won the battle against the warlords, however serious challenges remain that will dwarf past encounters. The foremost of these are: a) how to mobilise a fragmented society into an inclusive movement that would defend and rebuild the city, the region, and the country; b) how to keep at bay Ethiopian aggression and its Somali clients including most senior TFG leaders and western powers who see terrorism in anything Islamic.
Mobilising the population for reconstruction is not going to be easy, but the public's confidence in the Islamic faith is a major asset that should be strategically deployed to facilitate this effort. One of the first tasks in this regard is the transformation of the identity basis of the Courts. The Courts premise was on the basis of clan identity despite the fact that they all dispense Islamic justice. Such sectarian identity orientation was necessitated by an absence of a viable civic political association in the midst of violent civil war. However, the risk imposed by the terrorist warlords bounty hunting induced an environment in which common Islamic faith brought people together. Once the warlords were defeated, more clan-based Courts have been created in new areas to secure the peace.
Now, the challenge is how to transform the clan based identity of the Courts to the neighbourhood and faith-centred operations. Attempts are being made to link Islam to common citizenship in order to surmount the divisive exploitation of genealogical identity. While some progress has been made, overcoming clanist fragmentation is a difficult long-term project. Transcending genealogical cleavages must go hand-in-hand with sustained peace, a commitment to justice and establishing an honest and transparent management of the people's business. To initiate this sojourn on a sound basis will require an urgent appeal to Somalis skilled in city administration, public management and development to offer their advice and services. An autonomous organisation should be set up immediately to manage this task. Such an orientation will have two advantages. It will demonstrate that the UICs are very serious about leading an inclusive movement, and that professionals will have the needed autonomy to initiate programmes that serve the public. A move in this direction will be the clearest manifestation of the UICs intention to establish an inclusive and accountable national order.
Meandering around Ethiopia's political and military machinations and the cruel traps of the ‘war on terror’ will require clear thought and committed leadership. When it became clear that the Islamic Courts drove the warlords out of the city President Bush's first remarks about Somalia indicated his concern that Somalia might become a bastion of Islamic radicals. The rhetoric has since cooled down a bit although key segments of the administration have endorsed the Ethiopian agenda of arming a feeble and illegitimate transitional government and sending foreign troops to protect it if necessary. The Associated Press reported that:
Ethiopia is prepared to invade neighbouring Somalia to defend the country's internationally recognised government against what appeared to be an imminent attack by an Islamic militia … We have the responsibility to defend the border and the Somali government. We will crush them, Ethiopia's Minister of Information Berhane Hailu.5
The regime in Addis Ababa's claim of the Islamic threat, not withstanding, the purpose of this incursion is to destabilise the peace brought about by the triumph of the UICs and undermine the possibility of re-emergent Somalia that is independent. Given this context, the best defence against such ill-will is to galvanize the population to defend their new freedoms and abstain from being preoccupied with petty and personal affairs that will alienate the population and create opportunities for those who want to demonize Islamic based movements and undercut Somali independence.
Another challenge facing the UICs and their associates is how to deal with the so-called Transitional Federal Government. The Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Baidoa has dealt a fatal blow to the TFG's hope of finding legitimacy with the Somali people. Even some of its supporters in parliament have declared that the TFG is an Ethiopian outfit. It would seem that the only way which the TFG can gain any level of legitimacy with the population is if the Arab League mediated Khartoum conference is reconvened and bears fruit and the UICs and the TFG are amalgamated. However, such a fusion is unlikely given the TFG leaders' commitment to ally itself with Ethiopia and the Tigray regime's intent to preemptively foil the conference as it has done with many others.6 As unworkable as it may seem, the most feasible (and peaceful) way forward is a compromise between the two entities.
The prospect for sustained peace
The uprising of the Somali population in and around Mogadishu led by the Union of the Islamic Courts has created the best chance for peace in the city and the country. There is a single and legitimate authority in the Somali capital for the first time in 16 years and freedom is in the air. The Courts have not interfered with the free press and in fact the Voice of America and the BBC programmes are rebroadcast by local private FM stations. The image of the Courts as extremists peddled by some alarmists, such as the regime in Addis Ababa, should not be taken seriously. Instead the international community should fully engage the people's revolt and its leadership in order to deepen the peace and stability that prevails. Unless the EU, USA, and the AU exert tremendous pressure on Ethiopia to let Somalis sort out their problems the prognosis for peace in the region is bleak. One of three will scenarios will transpire depending on the role the international community plays:
1) The TFG and UICs will fail to strike a compromise (in the absence of a concerted effort by the international community) and each will maintain areas under its control, leaving the country Balkanized. This situation will not be sustainable for a long time and will most likely lead to a confrontation;
2) The worst scenario seems to be already unfolding as the Ethiopian government has admitted that its troops are in Somalia (when the TFG is still denying it). Ethiopian authorities claim that they have moved into Somalia in order to preempt dangers to its national security as Eritrea, with its renegade allies such as Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), are poised to attack with the support of the UICs. This is an attempt to justify widening the conflict in order to shore up support for its Somali clients and undercut the popularly supported UICs. These Ethiopian actions have virtually killed the Khartoum negotiations with the UICs delegation leaving Khartoum for Mogadishu after waiting for the TFG team for two weeks. The UICs has asked the Somali population to be prepared to wage war against invaders and their Somali supplicants. If such misfortune transpires it could spell the beginning of a regional civil war.
The Ethiopian forces and the TFG might be able to prevail in a conventional war and possibly capture the capital but the moral high ground will belong to the UICs and that will mean that the TFG will not be able to rule with any legitimacy. The confrontation will turn into a resistance war inspired by Islamism and nationalism and that will end the hopes of the TFG and could ultimately lead to the triumph of a more radical UICs agenda than is presently on the cards.
3) An agreement is reached in a rescheduled Khartoum conference between the parties and a government of national unity is formed. Such a development is only feasible if the USA and EU constrain Ethiopian influences over the TFG and the latter is instructed to enter the negotiation in good faith. If a genuine rapprochement develops it will pave the way for the TFG to move to Mogadishu and focus its attention on reconstruction. A peaceful transfer of government institutions and operations to the capital will mean that the resources that would have been wasted on deploying foreign peacekeepers will instead be invested in reconstruction.
Abdi Ismail Samatar , Department of Geography, University of Minnesota; e-mail: samat001@123456umn.edu.
Ethiopia's Oromo liberation front
Martin Plaut
My enemy's enemy is my friend
Since the end of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000, both countries have attempted to use third parties as weapons against each other, in their ongoing conflict over their disputed border. To this end each has aided and encouraged opposition movements active in the other's territory. In January 2005, sixteen Eritrean political parties met in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum to establish the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) with Ethiopian support. This included some of the oldest Eritrean parties which had been defeated by the EPLF during the civil war of the 1970s (the ELF and the ELF RC). Also included in the EDA were parties closely aligned with Ethiopia (like the Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front) and Islamist parties (the Eritrean Islamic Reform Movement).
In May 2006, Ethiopia's largest opposition party formed an alliance with four rebel groups, including the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The new Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (AFD) said its policy was to focus on peaceful struggle against the government, although its armed groups would continue to stage attacks on the authorities. Key members of the Alliance have their headquarters in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
Somalia: A Seething Cauldron
These developments come as radical Islamists have taken control of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and a large area of central Somalia, to the considerable surprise of some commentators. This is difficult to understand, since the rise of fundamentalism was noted for some time, and warning bells were sounded.1
It may be that most attention was focused on the excruciatingly slow process that led to the selection of the Transitional Federal Government in Nairobi in 2004. This was followed by the election of Abdullahi Yusuf as president in October of that year. His support was always rather thin: he did not come from the capital, and was not a member of the clan that dominates the Mogadishu area. He did, however, have Ethiopian support, and there was strong speculation that he won the presidency by paying for the privilege with money provided by Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has also provided him with at least three consignments of arms, according to a UN report. The same report names Italy, Yemen and Saudi Arabia as further sources of weaponry for the government.2
This still left Mogadishu in the hands of the warlords (some of whom were cabinet ministers, but that cut little ice.) As a result, the president established himself first in Jowhar and then in Baidoa. In the meantime, the Islamic Courts were strengthening their position inside Mogadishu, with help from Eritrea and conservative supporters in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. In May 2006 they felt strong enough to challenge the warlords who had dominated Mogadishu for years, and on 4 June, to the great relief of many residents, drove them from the city. The UN Monitoring group for Somalia has found clear evidence of Eritrea supplying weapons to the Islamic Courts. In the opinion of the UN Monitors, Eritrea has done this to counter Ethiopian support for the Transitional Govenment. The Monitors maintain that Eritrea provided arms to the Islamic Courts and the Ogaden National Liberation Front on eight different occasions between February and May 2005. Then, in November 2005 Eritrean foreign office officials arrived in Mogadishu posing as businessmen. Eritrea provided arms, ammunition and military equipment to the Islamists on an additional four occasions. This included anti-aircraft and anti-tank ammunition, as well as rocket-propelled grenades, mines and remote-controlled bombs.3 There are also suggestions that the Eritreans provided weapons to the Oromo Liberation front in Somalia – something they are accused of doing during the border war with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000.4
Ethiopia enters the Fray
On 20 July Ethiopia – which had previously sent small numbers of troops into Somalia, while training forces loyal to President Abdullahi Yusuf – dispatched a major force into the country. The BBC received reports of around 100 vehicles, some of them armoured personnel carriers, entering Somalia. The action was in response to an advance on Baidoa by the Islamic Courts, whose forces came within about 40 kilometers of the town. Around 150 of President Abdullahi Yusuf's troops defected to the Courts, further undermining his hold on power. There are reported to be around 5,000 Ethiopian troops now inside Somalia, holding a number of locations. It is reported that the airstrip at Baidoa is being widened to take larger aircraft. Ethiopia has persistently denied it has forces in the country, but a number of eye-witnesses have seen them.
It was against this background that Brigadier-General Kemal Geltu, an Oromo commanding the eighteenth Army division on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border, defected to the Oromo Liberation Front in early August 2006. The United Nations confirmed that the general, together with 150, troops crossed into Eritrea. The Oromo Liberation Front claimed he brought closer to 500 troops with him, and said that further defections were expected. This has given the OLF a considerable boost. Coming as it does after reports of sporadic clashes between the OLF and the Ethiopian armed forces, and student protests, the Oromo are exhibiting more confidence than they have for many years. It is in this context that the author interviewed a founding member of the OLF, Fido Tadessa Ebba. He is head of the head of the diplomatic division in the foreign affairs department of the Oromo Liberation Front, and in charge of its Washington office.
Plaut Let's look at the current situation. The OLF has for many years tried to launch a military campaign against the Ethiopian government. Sometimes it's gone well and sometimes it's not. And in recent years, you've had discussions about whether to lay down the armed struggle. Where is that debate now?
Ebba People, governments, international organisations raise this issue with us. The thing is we took up arms to defend ourselves. If the cause that we started was accomplished, if the oppression of our people is removed, then there's no need for arms. A year-and-a-half ago, we issued a paper, indicating that we are ready to suspend armed activities if the Ethiopian government is willing to negotiate – to talk. Meles came out and he said he's willing, but this never materialised.
Plaut When I spoke to Prime Minister Meles last year, he said that he had been prepared to talk to you, that he had sent out elders from the Oromo community to come and meet you, but he'd not received any positive reply.
Ebba I'm not aware of that. I don't think our organisation is aware of that. This is not true. We have been trying to reach him through different organisations and individuals, particularly the Norwegians. We have been in touch with them and with Meles and nothing positive has been achieved. Meles first said it was okay, but finally it was closed. This happened not only once, maybe over twelve times with Carter and a committee in the congress, the Lutheran World Federation, a group of ambassadors from Ethiopia, the Germans, so many. They just don't want to make progress.
Plaut So have you given up with that possibility?
Ebba We never give up, but you know, it's not in their culture – in the culture of Abyssinians to find a negotiated solution through dialogue. There has never been a transfer of power, political power, peacefully. So I'm personally concluding that this won't happen. And Meles knows if he allows OLF to work freely, to operate among the Oromo people, that he wouldn't have a chance to win, to be prime minister. And so he wants to hold on to power. Some governments in the West are very supportive of him. They want to keep him in power. It seems that it is easier to work with dictators than democrats.
Plaut The OLF has its headquarters now – as I understand it – in Eritrea?
Ebba Yes, the major one, but we are all over.
Plaut How do you find working in Eritrea?
Ebba Well, we have been friends with the Eritreans during their struggle for independence, so this relationship has been there for maybe over thirty, forty years.
Plaut But there was a time when the OLF was actually in the Ethiopian government back in 1991 and there was a very bitter split with the TPLF. There were also allegations that you appealed to the EPLF for help, but that the EPLF didn't assist you.
Ebba Well in '91, during the transitional government, we were in the government. But in '92 the TPLF didn't want us around. The Eritreans and others worked hard to resolve our differences, our political differences with them. At that time the Eritreans were not independent, they hadn't declared their independence. So the issue was in the hands of Meles. They couldn't fight with Meles at that stage. They couldn't disagree.
Plaut But your impression is that they tried hard to resolve the differences? Because I've heard the opposite.
Ebba They did. Issias came several times to Addis. We work together. We had meetings. He sent a high-level delegation. I thought that it was genuine.
Plaut You were there in Addis?
Ebba Yes, I was there at many of the meetings, together with Isaias, Meles and so on. They were telling us that, Meles is becoming dangerous. Eritrea was warning us really. It's my belief that Eritreans really wanted a democratic Ethiopia so that they could have a peaceful neighbour, with whom they could trade. That's what I felt. I don't think that the Eritreans really wanted to dominate anyone in the area. They are a small country – just four million people. They are against Ethiopia, with seventy-five million people. So its unimaginable that they would dominate Ethiopia.
Plaut So you then left the government and began the armed struggle against the TPLF and against Prime Minister Meles that has been going on ever since.
Ebba Yes, with the help of Eritreans and the American government, we made an agreement with the Meles group to encamp our arms. We did it. They didn't. In fact, they actually sent their army to kill our fighters in the area where they were camped. They were able to capture a lot of them and put them in prison. And, yes, the armed struggle has been going on since them. Not only an armed struggle. Our struggle is also diplomatic and political, in all aspects.
Plaut In recent months, there've been reports that the pace of the armed struggle has been increasing. But there has been a lot more clashes between the Ethiopian government armed forces and yourselves, particularly in eastern Ethiopian. How in your view is it going?
Ebba Well it's not much yet. We have a small force. We have our forces in the east and west, in the south and southeast. Still we have a small group in the centre. If conditions allow, this group could grow very fast, we are just waiting for an opportune time. It's easy to, if you have trainers and equipment, you can recruit thousands of people within a short time.
Plaut You say you have small numbers. Can you give me some idea of how many fighters you have?
Ebba I think it's very difficult … a few thousand.
Plaut Between five and ten thousand?
Ebba Maybe.
Plaut So, you say that you lack the weapons and the training. But there have been reports, particularly in the last month or so, of Eritrean planes arriving – prticularly in the Somalia capital Mogadishu – to provide you with weapons.
Ebba We are not there to receive it. We are not in Mogadishu. We are outside. We are bordering on the Ogaden, which is very far from Mogadishu. So we are not there to receive equipment. We don't know about this equipment. We don't have any relations with the Union of Islamic Courts, so this is just an allegation. We are not there, even though we have a lot of Oromo refugees in Somalia still, since the late 60's Oromo refugees are in Somalia.
Plaut But are you not receiving arms indirectly from Eritrea?
Ebba Perhaps there could be a link to provide us with arms, but our land is very far from Eritrea. Our land borders on Kenya, Somalia, but not on Eritrea. It's a long distance.
Plaut But reports indicate that the arms are coming from Assab to Mogadishu, from Mogadishu they're going in either directly to yourselves or through the ONLF, the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
Ebba No Martin. Again, we are very far from there. We wish we were close by to receive from any source, from any assistance, from people who believe in our genuine cause. We are ready if it's support without any strings attached. Any help for our cause is welcome, but at present we are not operating this with this group.
Plaut A few weeks ago, Brigadier General Kamal Geltu went across the border from Ethiopia into Eritrea with a number of troops. Had he been in contact with you before he made that decision?
Ebba We have contacts with almost all sectors of Oromo society, including in the army. We have Oromo members in the Ethiopian army who are working undercover. We've been in contact with many of them.
Plaut But were you in contact with him before he made his decision to come over the border?
Ebba I believe he knew that we are there and he has indicated, he has actually in his interview indicated that they have been looking forward to rejoining the OLF.
Plaut So did you negotiate his decision to come over to Eritrea?
Ebba We didn't negotiate, but we have been in touch and he has an obligation to come and join the OLF as an Oromo national.
Plaut So you were in touch with him before he came across the border?
Ebba Not directly. He was in battles with some members of his group and other Oromos in the Ethiopian army.
Plaut So he's now joined your organisation?
Ebba Yes.
Plaut Approximately how many troops did he bring with him?
Ebba Perhaps a few hundred, around five hundred or something like that.
Plaut It must be a very substantial increase then, in your overall armed ability, to have somebody at that level with those kinds of troops to come over to you?
Ebba The propaganda, the psychological effect is enormous, in the Ethiopian army, it has a most demoralising effect on the Tigrayans.
Plaut I can't remember it ever happening at that kind of level before.
Ebba Or ever happening in the country actually – a general joining a rebel group. It's very rare, if it has ever happened. But in his interview, he really indicated that they have been working hard to democratise the country, so that Oromos can play their fair share in all aspects of Ethiopian life. This is not happening. The Tigrayans are digging in, strengthening their ability to exploit more of the Omoro resources, human resources, material resources, so they decided finally that they can't continue to wait forever. So, as he said, we'll try force.
Plaut Now you've said that it's a long way from Eritrea to Oromia. So how are going to deploy him then?
Ebba Well, individuals can be deployed. We have several ways of doing that. I'm talking of a large quantity of arms.
Plaut But if you're going to move five hundred men that you say he came across the border with, that's a very large redeployment.
Ebba Five hundred?
Plaut … well that's what you said.
Ebba Yes. No. I mean removing five hundred into Oromia. It won't be a big problem, no. It won't be a big problem.
Plaut How would you do it?
Ebba There are liberation fronts with which we have formed an alliance.
Plaut Such as?
Ebba Such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front; the Ethiopian People's Patriotic Front from the north; the Beni Shangul, the Anuak.
Plaut So might you send them through Somalia then?
Ebba If the situation allows. The present situation is very risky. Ethiopians are there. It could happen, but we'll choose the best way. These people may not go in one group. We might find a way of taking these people in a small group.
Plaut Does this mark a significant transition in your armed struggle? From one level perhaps, to a different level to a more active phase? The fact that he's come over with these troops, increasing your strength, increase your ability, maybe coming with some arms as well. Will this transform the way that you are fighting?
Ebba Not at this stage, but we are expecting more.
Plaut You're expecting more recruits from the Ethiopian side?
Ebba From the Ethiopian army, not only from Omoro. From others – from the Amhara and from others. They are mistreated, so we expect more to defect. In fact, our worry is … you see, as there is a division, this mistrust in Ethiopian society based on the ethnic line, there is also this division, mistrust in the army. Disproportionately, the Tigrayans are on the top. The rest are suspected. They are not treated as equals, as Ethiopians. They are suspected. So this causing a lot of apprehension, and we are fearful that there could be a problem in the army itself. There could be fighting which would be a disaster.
Plaut A disaster?
Ebba Yes. Within the Ethiopian army … there'll be fighting against the Oromo, the Amhara, people fighting. The whole of society, it could be chaotic.
Plaut You mean it could be a civil war?
Ebba Exactly.
Plaut And this wouldn't be an opportunity for you to, perhaps, further your aims?
Ebba No. We really don't want a civil war. We want a change of government, but we don't want people to kill each other.
Plaut So how do you think a change of government will take place?
Ebba If we have more of the army on our side, if people in the Ethiopian army refuse to fight. And the security force, the police, refuse to obey orders. Student uprisings, strikes and demonstrations have been going on and on now for almost ten months. This might be intensified, particularly after the formation of this alliance.
Plaut Which alliance are you talking about?
Ebba The Alliance for Freedom and Democracy. That's bringing in the Amhara, Sidama and other ethnic groups. Actually the aim of this alliance is more than toppling the present government, it's to create harmony among society, the ethnic groups.
Plaut Almost to put back together again the ethnic differences that the TPLF brought in?
Ebba Exactly, so we have to assure the people that they can live together in peace. In particular, there are a lot of Amharas among the Omoros as settlers. And these will have been there for four, five generations. And through this alliance we are trying to solve this problem of mistrust.
Plaut The OLF has been active now since the 1970s. That's more than thirty years, maybe forty years. Do you think that you are now coming finally to a moment when your aims might be realised?
Ebba I feel so, particularly the consciousness, the level of conscience of our people. The youths which makes up almost, you know, people of age thirty alone, make up almost 70% of the population. These are the people who are being affected by what's going on. They want change. These are new people. And, yes, thirty years … but South Africa, struggled for how many years. The Palestinians did the same and finally, they see the fruit of it.
Plaut Finally, are you not embarrassed by the lack of democracy among your major allies, the Eritreans? The repression, the lack of toleration? It is now one of the most repressive states in Africa. Does this not embarrass you?
Ebba You know we have been there. The degree of human rights violations is just incomparable to what's taking place in Ethiopia. And the West is impressed with Ethiopia, with Meles. There's no comparison.
Plaut You think there's more repression in Ethiopia?
Ebba Unbelievable. This goes to the family level. There's no comparison. The Eritreans, they are very different. They have a different outlook on their lives, on their society. They want to be independent. They don't want to be influenced by others if it's not to their advantage. It appears that the West doesn't like that. That's what I feel. I have many Eritrean friends. The situation of about 3.5 to 4 million people confronting the largest army in Africa, with the huge population of Ethiopia, and at the same time, a country which the West is helping, ACTIVELY. It's very hard to blame them.
Martin Plaut , e-mail: martin.plaut@123456bt internet.com.
Eastern Sudan: Caught in a web of external interests
John Young
The frontier between eastern Sudan and Eritrea and northern Ethiopia has been the site of conflict for generations and as negotiations take place in Asmara between the National Congress Party (NCP) led Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Eastern Front rebels, with the Eritrean Government serving as mediator, this area is again becoming a focal point for external interests. Having pressed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on a reluctant NCP and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/ A) in the south, and then used that agreement as a template for the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), the international community (read the US and its allies) is anxious to resolve the conflict in the east.
The Naivasha and Abuja peace processes that produced the CPA and DPA were initiated by African states and their organisations, but in their final and crucial stages they were taken over by the US and its allies, notably Britain, and as a result the agreements share similar characteristics. They are externally driven, elitist, concerned with achieving stability at the expense of overcoming outstanding injustices, and while claiming to be comprehensive the agreements ignored the interests of key players (who are then labelled ‘spoilers’), demonstrated little concern for human rights, and gave short shift to the need for a democratic transition (Young, 2005). Moreover, these agreements are based on a misplaced belief that the conflicts could be resolved in a regional context and thus they ignored the role of the centre in generating them.
No doubt a similar approach is favoured by the US for resolving the conflict in eastern Sudan, but its capacity to dominate the peace process in the east is complicated by Eritrean resentment at the Americans' perceived support for Ethiopia in the Ethio-Eritrean border dispute. Indeed, US interest in the Horn of Africa is largely based on the ‘war on terror’ and in that light has given primacy to its relationship with Ethiopia with which it has collaborated closely in Somalia and other areas. Moreover and unlike Kenya and Nigeria, which could be counted upon to carry out the bidding of the US during the Naivasha and Abuja peace processes, Eritrea under President Isias Aferworki has aggressively pursued his country's national interests as he sees them. And for Eritrea there is a lot at stake in the eastern Sudan conflict since the area is of considerable strategic significance, as well as being at the centre of a dispute between Sudan and Eritrea, and its resolution will have important implications for the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia. As a result, there is a danger that a weak Eastern Front will not have the facility to defend its interests in a peace process that will be dominated by external powers.
Eastern Sudan conflict in context
Eastern Sudan takes in a vast swath of territory between the Red Sea and the western lowlands of Eritrea and northwestern Ethiopia in the east, north to Egypt, south to Blue Nile State, and west to the Nile River, but it has a population of less than four million. It is made up of three states, Red Sea, Kassala and Gedaref, although the latter state was removed from the region by the NCP. Probably the poorest and most underdeveloped of Sudan's regions, eastern Sudan has a polyglot of peoples of whom the Beja constitute about half, forming a large majority in the Red Sea state, but steadily declining to the south. In the recent past most Beja were pastoralists, but environmental decline, war, and misplaced government policies have forced many to leave the land and eke out an existence on the fringes of Port Sudan and other urban centres. Providing Sudan's only access to the sea, eastern Sudan also takes in crucial road and rail networks and an oil pipeline that sends the country's primary export to world markets. It also has a productive gold mine and large agricultural schemes that encouraged the migration of many destitute farm workers from Darfur and West Africa to the region, but produced little employment for the indigenous inhabitants, and by using scarce grazing land served to further undermine the pastoralist economy of the Beja.
Faced with a declining economy and little influence in the centre, the Beja National Congress (BNC) was established in 1958 to fight for development and against marginalisation in a state dominated since its inception by elites drawn from central Sudan. However, unable to use political means to achieve its ends after the National Islamic Front (NIF, the forerunner to the NCP) came to power in 1989 and destroyed the country's democratic institutions, in 1993 the Beja Congress joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Based in Asmara the NDA brought together northern opposition parties and the SPLM/A committed to toppling the Islamist government and overseeing the construction of a New Sudan of democracy and equality. But these hopes all but collapsed when the SPLM/A signed the CPA in January 2005 and entered the Government of National Unity (GNU), after which the NDA effectively ceased to exist.
The struggle of insurgents in the south, west, and east for an equitable distribution of power and resources and an end to marginalisation, NCP initiated civilisational projects, and dictatorship make clear the common origins of all these conflicts in a dysfunctional state. The threat these conflicts posed to regional security explains the leading role that the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) played in the initial stages of the southern peace process, before it was taken over by the US, Britain, and Norway. The Chadian government of Idris Deby in turn assumed an activist role in peace-making efforts in Darfur, before it too was shunted aside by the African Union, which likewise fell under American and British domination. And after long supporting the Eastern Front, Eritrea has been accepted by the NCP as the lead mediator and the host of peace talks between the GoS and the eastern rebels.
A pattern can thus be discerned: Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda strongly supported the SPLM/A, and then through the auspices of IGAD led peace making efforts between the rebels and the NCP; Chad hosted peace talks between the Darfur rebels and the GoS before later supporting the same rebels when Khartoum assisted Deby's armed opposition, and Eritrea gave strong backing to the Eastern Front and is now hosting peace negotiations between the Front and the GoS. Indeed, these examples are consistent with a longer historical tradition in the Horn of Africa whereby local conflicts foster inter-state tensions and conflicts. Cliffe has called the practice of neighbouring states supporting the enemies of their enemies ‘mutual intervention’ (Cliffe, 1999:89), but he and others have also drawn attention to the fact that these same neighbours often play leading roles in resolving the disputes. Drawing from the examples of southern Sudan and Darfur another pattern can be seen of neighbouring states and their organisations initially taking the lead in Sudan's peace processes, but then losing control to the US and its allies during the final stages. Whether this pattern will be played out in eastern Sudan remains to be seen, but it would not be a surprise.
Struggle for dominance in the East
Since the mid-nineteenth century eastern Sudan has been fought over by Italians and Egyptians who attempted to establish imperial domains in the lands between the Red Sea and the Nile before all of Sudan fell to the British in 1898. With Sudanese independence in 1956 eastern Sudan became the site of conflict between successive Sudanese and Ethiopian governments trying to incorporate the disparate peoples of their peripheries and secure their borders. The background to the contemporary situation began with the 1961 revolt of the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) against the Haile Selassie regime after the emperor overrode an international agreement protecting Eritrea's autonomy. While only nominal assistance was given by Sudanese governments to the ELF, it gained widespread support among the tribes on both sides of the international border, and in particular from the Beja. Ethiopia responded by supporting the Anyanya rebels of southern Sudan in a tit-for-tat pattern that would bedevil relations between the two countries for the next three decades. Although exacerbating one an-other's conflicts, neither Addis Ababa nor Khartoum was the cause of their neighbour's conflicts, and Haile Selassie's leading role in reaching the Addis Ababa Agreement of 1972, which ended Sudan's first civil war, made clear that problematic neighbours could nonetheless contribute to resolving local disputes; indeed, they are almost certainly necessary to ending them.
However, with the collapse of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1983 the GoS and elements in Sudan resumed support of the ELF and later the Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front (EPLF), the Tigrayan Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF), and a host of smaller armed groups in Ethiopia. And this led the Derg, the successor to Haile Selassie's regime, to give enormous financial, logistical, and military support to the SPLM/A (Young, 2005b). Although relations were tense between Sudan and Ethiopia throughout the 1980s, they did not produce open war. And with the end of the Cold War and the rise to state power of the NIF, EPLF, and TPLF, there was hope for a new era of peaceful coexistence in the Horn. Indeed, the incoming Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, the TPLF led coalition that took power in 1991) forced the SPLM/A to leave its bases in western Ethiopia. Eritrea also opposed foreign adventures and endeavoured to maintain good relations with its neighbours. Furthermore, both Asmara and Addis Ababa assumed a leading role through IGAD in peacemaking efforts in Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti, but particularly to end the southern civil war.
While Ethiopia and Eritrea directed their energies to development and regional security, the NIF supported Eritrean Jihad rebels from bases in eastern Sudan and armed groups along Ethiopia's western frontier in an attempt to impose Islamist governments on its neighbours. Asmara responded by closing Sudan's embassy and hosting the NDA. And after concluding that the NIF was complicit in the June 1995 attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the streets of Addis Ababa, the EPRDF also began giving large-scale support to Sudanese opposition groups. Both Ethiopia and Eritrea concentrated on establishing a cordon sanitaire between their territories and the NIF supported groups in eastern Sudan. With the Eritrean and Ethiopian armies (together with that of Uganda) directly engaged in the fighting in Sudan, something close to a regional war took form in the mid-1990s that had the objective of overthrowing the NIF government.
But before this goal could be realised war broke out between Eritrea and Ethiopia on 6 May 1998 and both countries feared that the other would gain advantage by reconciling with the NIF. Recognising Ethiopia to be the bigger threat to its security and the likely victor in the war, the NIF reconciled with the EPRDF, while the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ, the successor to the EPLF) continued assisting the Sudanese opposition and in addition began aiding a range of Ethiopian dissident groups. Support for these latter groups was designed to pressure the EPRDF to accede to the ruling of the Border Commission that ordered Ethiopia to leave the territories it occupied in Eritrea as a result of the 1998-2000 war. The EPRDF in turn began assisting a number of anti-PFDF groups in alliance with Sudan, and later with Yeman, which was still smarting from its defeat by the Eritreans who briefly occupied its Red Sea Hanish Islands. The ties between these three countries were subsequently formalised with the establishment of the Sanaa Pact. Although officially a regional security organisation, its strong anti-PFDF orientation could not be disguised.
Just as Eritrea and Ethiopia have taken opposing stances on Sudan, they have also placed themselves in contrary positions in the on-going crisis in Somalia. With Somali irredentionism and the Islamist Al-Itihad held to pose a major security threat to Ethiopia, Addis Ababa has been a strong backer of the Somaliland government and the interim administration in Baidoa, while Eritrea in turn is supporting the Union of Islamic Courts that controls Mogadishu. In late July there were widespread reports that Ethiopia had moved troops into the country to support the besieged Baidoa government and Eritrea was sending arms to the Islamists in Mogadishu. While NCP dominated government in Sudan has been very circumspect with respect to its dealings with Somali Islamists, at least in part out of sensitivity to the concerns of Ethiopia, it has recently begun strengthening its ties with the Islamic Courts and this cannot fail to cause alarm in Addis Ababa. The crisis in Somalia thus becomes another outlet for the expression of regional tensions.
The failure to date of the international community and the PFDJ to reach a satisfactory resolution of the Ethio-Eritrean border dispute means that a return to war cannot be discounted. But a major obstacle to Eritrea launching a war against Ethiopia to regain its lost territories or defending the country in the event of an Ethiopian attack is insecurity on its western border with Sudan. And that border can only be made make safe by a comprehensive peace agreement that would undermine or displace the NCP, or an agreement between the Eastern Front and the GoS that would provide Eritrea with the necessary security. But prospects of a genuine comprehensive peace were dealt a severe blow when the SPLM/A signed the CPA and entered the Government of National Unity as a junior partner. And although Eritrea began supporting the Darfur dissidents and endeavoured to put together a broad anti-NCP alliance, this could not overcome its declining influence in Sudan or ensure the security of its western frontier. Moreover, the Eastern Front has not proved effective in either liberating more than minuscule territories along the Eritrean border or in mobilising the majority of the people of the region, and hence has not come to the negotiating table in a position to either forcefully press its own demands or those of its benefactor, Eritrea.
Eastern front and the search for allies
Formed in 2005 to unite the Beja National Congress and the Rashida Free Lions, the Eastern Front is the weakest of all the major rebel groups in Sudan and hence the most susceptible to outside influence. Indeed, after developing relations with a host of countries and political organisations in the region during its early years the Beja Congress and the Free Lions increasingly put all their eggs in the NDA basket. And when that organisation effectively collapsed, it was almost completely beholden to the Eritrean Government. Under these conditions the conflict in eastern Sudan has sometimes been overtaken by the disputes between Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia, and has reached a stage where it is almost inconceivable that the local conflict could be ended without progress towards resolving the broader regional conflict.
Aware of its weaknesses, the Eastern Front has looked to the Eritreans in the first instance for support, then to the SPLM/A and the international community led by the US (Interviews with the Eastern Front leadership, Asmara, November 2005). This search for external support speaks to the vulnerability of the organisation and also to the degree of wishful thinking it is bringing to the peace process. Eritrea has been a consistent supporter of the Eastern Front, but it cannot carry the Front to power and ultimately must give priority to its own interests, which cannot be expected to correspond completely with those of the Front. The SPLM/A also provided considerable support for the NDA and the Beja Congress and Free Lions, but this support was always based on strategic considerations that involved maintaining a northern military front to divide the GoS army. When the SPLM/A had to choose between continuing the struggle for a New Sudan, or pursuing a peace process for the south, there was little sign of angst on the part of the leadership when it decided on the latter option. The presence of the SPLM/A in the Government of National Unity initially led the Eastern Front to hope that this would serve their interests. However, even the Eastern Front leadership has noted the ineffectual performance of the SPLM/A in the GNU, its unimpressive role during the Darfur peace talks, and they suspect that its representatives in the negotiations will be dominated by the NCP (Ibid.). In any case, it can be assumed that the SPLM/A will strive for a peace agreement that fits within the terms of the CPA.
Eastern Front leaders also retains a faith in the international community, which they believe will be sympathetic to their demands, support the resulting peace agreement, and act against expected NCP cheating. None of these assumptions is valid. The international community led by the US has consistently accepted the timing of the peace processes favoured by the NCP, supported its desire to have regional based negotiations which it is better placed to dominate, ensured that the peace agreements in the south and Darfur did not result in fundamental changes at the centre, supported the NCP in ensuring that only tepid moves to democratic change were agreed upon, and most importantly made sure that no provisions of the Darfur Peace Agreement undermined the CPA. Moreover, the US has done little or nothing to stop or even seriously object to the widespread NCP cheating on the CPA. US policy in the Horn is guided by its commitment to the ‘war on terror’, endorsing a flawed peace processes and working closely with the NCP intelligence services (Los Angeles Times, 29 April 2005) when they were held to advance its interests.
Negotiations & the way forward
Although the Eastern Front opposes the CPA, its principal concerns with autonomy for eastern Sudan, greater wealth-sharing, development, and unity of the three states of the region (Ibid.) do not challenge the CPA, or the dominant position of the NCP in the state. The NCP will thus not contest the general thrust of the Eastern Front demands, but can be expected to propose an agreement along the lines of that negotiated with the SPLM/A for the Nuba Mountain and South Blue Nile, which left the government holding majority control in those regions (Protocol Between the GoS and the SPLM/A, 26 May 2004) and as a result produced considerable local disenchantment. Since any agreement that gave the Eastern Front a majority position at the local level would probably deepen dissent in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, the international community could be expected to fall in line with the NCP position. In any case, it appears highly unlikely that the NCP would agree to relinquish more authority in the strategically significant east than it did in far less important areas.
While the negotiating positions of the Eastern Front and the NCP can be anticipated with some accuracy that of Eritrea is more problematic. Eritrea has always favoured a comprehensive peace that would bring about the collapse or dismemberment of the NCP and the rise to power of groups in Khartoum sympathetic to Asmara. But the Eritrean people have paid a high price for what has proven to be a long-term strategy. In particular, they have suffered from a closed border at a time when food and commodity shortages are rife and the country's border to the south with Ethiopia is also closed and a source of considerable tension. Indeed, it appears that local level politicians most sensitive to the privations of the people, particularly those in western Eritrea, strongly favour a rapidly reached peace agreement so that tensions between the Eritrean and Sudanese governments ease, full-fledged trade resumes, and people can cross the border without fear. However, this local level interest must compete for acceptance with the commitment of the PFDJ (at least to date) to a comprehensive peace and a fundamental change in the make up of the Sudanese Government, as well as the interests of the army, which for decades has looked upon eastern Sudan as a rear base necessary for its survival, the more so now with a threatening Ethiopia on its southern border. Indeed, much as Eritrea has suffered from a closed border and tense relations with Sudan, its engagement in the eastern Sudan peace process will be strongly influenced by how it impacts on the country's security relations with Ethiopia.
Against the background of the American endorsed southern and Darfur peace agreements, both of which entailed regional focuses at the expense of a comprehensive approach, Eritrea does not have the capacity to challenge US policy and impose an inclusive peace process, or seriously undermine the authority of the NCP. As a result, the PFDJ is left with the option of either continuing to support its long-term policy, which means the peace process will go nowhere, or pursuing a process that will produce yet another regional agreement, and one which would leave the NCP in a continuing position of dominance in Khartoum.
While the NCP position in the negotiations looks decidedly stronger, it faces the problem that a peace agreement in the east must go hand-in-hand with improved relations with Eritrea and that is problematic in its own right, and in addition will upset its allies in the Sanaa Pact, and in particular Ethiopia. Having concluded that Ethiopia posed the biggest threat in the region, the NCP endeavoured to establish a strategic alliance with its eastern neighbour built around its need for security and the EPRDF's interest in acquiring support for Ethiopia's economic development. In practice this meant Sudanese exports of oil, noninterference in one another's internal affairs, and – at least implicitly – joint opposition to the regime in Asmara. Breaking the anti-PFDJ alliance would not lead to a rupture between the two countries, but it would weaken what has been a generally successful, if not warm, relationship. For its part, the EPRDF will be concerned that demilitarisation of the Sudanese-Eritrean border would free up forces that could be used in any war with Ethiopia. Thus east-west peace could increase the likelihood of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Two other complicating factors in the peace process are the roles of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) from Darfur and the US. JEM has an agreement with the Beja Congress, and in an attempt to become a national organisation has recruited in the east and began carrying out joint military operations with the Eastern Front (Khalil Ibrahim, 2 December 2006, Asmara), and by early 2006 was conducting military missions on its own. Many Eastern Front leaders are suspicious about the suspected links between JEM and the Popular National Congress of Hassan El-Turabi, but they are softening in the face of its increasing military effectiveness in the east (Eastern Front leader, 23 May 2006, Gedarif). Nonetheless, they continue to oppose the request of the Darfurian rebels to participate in the peace talks. It remains to be seen how JEM's involvement will figure in the future dispensation of the east because the Eastern Front favours a peace agreement that gives central place to local autonomy, while JEM is committed to overthrowing the NCP and achieving a nation-wide peace agreement. Whether Eritrea, which permits JEM to have an office in Asmara and carry out military operations from its territory, will continue to support this position depends on what its ultimate approach to the negotiations are, and that as yet is unclear.
Lastly, while the formal role of the US and its allies in the eastern Sudan peace process remains in doubt, its significance to the outcome cannot be overestimated. Having concluded that the Horn of Africa is an area where its security interests are at stake, it played the leading role in both the southern and Darfur peace agreements, and it is inconceivable that it would be prepared to see any elements of these agreements be undermined by developments in the east. Moreover, because of the strategic significance of eastern Sudan, any changes brought about by the peace process could have a marked effect on broader issues of regional security and that would ring alarm bells in Washington.
Conclusion
Despite the lack of attention by the international community, the conflict in eastern Sudan is potentially of greater significance to regional security than those in the south and Darfur. Moreover, because the Eastern Front is weaker and more beholden to external supporters and interests than rebel groups elsewhere in Sudan, it will be under even greater pressure to reach an agreement that meets their needs, rather than those of its largely destitute supporters. Although Eritrea's interest and leading role in the peace process suggests a level of local engagement that was not seen in the peace processes in the south and Darfur, the concerns of the US can nonetheless be expected to figure prominently in the outcome. And unfortunately, as the US has repeatedly made clear, its primary interest is the ‘war on terror’ and not a sustainable comprehensive peace, and even less the realisation of a democratic Sudan.
Moreover, the experience of the south and Darfur suggests that any agreement in the east is unlikely to address the manifold injustices of the people, and even less, uneven development and the exploitive centre-periphery relations that produced these injustices. Indeed, the misery of the people of Eastern Sudan, even more than that of the south or Darfur, is less the product of overt violence, than the cumulative effect of years of neglect and marginalisation. As a result, an agreement on wealth and power-sharing arrangements will not in and of itself produce sustainable peace or end the largely structural inequities that produced the conflict in the first place.
John Young is a Research Associate at the Institute of Governance Studies at Simon Fraser University. He lives in Khartoum and his main interests are peace and security in the Horn of Africa. He can be reached at johnr_young@123456hotmail.com.
Interviews
Eastern Front leaders. Asmara, November, 2005.
Eastern Front leaders. Gedarif, 23 May 2006.
Khalil Ibrahim, Chairman of the Justice and Equality Movement, Asmara, 2 December 2005.
Military bases, construction contracts & Hydrocarbons in North Africa
Jeremy Keenan
Since publishing Mustafa Barth's article on US military basing in Algeria three years ago,1 ROAPE has published a series of articles and briefings on US involvement in North Africa. These have focused primarily on the launch in 2003 of a ‘Saharan-Sahelian’ front in the US's global ‘War on Terror’ and the implications of this ‘war’ for the peoples of the region.2 These articles have revealed that this front has been largely fabricated by US and Algerian military intelligence services, with the main building blocks being disinformation, obfuscation and dissemblement. It has therefore been difficult to ascertain the truth about such things as military bases and installations, troop deployments, related construction contracts, etc. The situation has not been helped by the fact that America's pursuance of the so-called ‘War on Terror’ throughout much of Africa has been closely associated with the accelerated exploitation of the continent's oil and gas resources by corporations which are rarely paragons of virtue.
However, in the last few months, an increasing amount of light has been shed on some of these questions, notably the location and nature of US military bases in the Sahara, the role of the US company Halliburton in their construction and the state of oil exploration and production in both Algeria and Mauritania.
The Tamanrasset base
There have been several references over the last few years to the construction of an American military base (or bases) in southern Algeria.3 Media reports about such a base stem from around May-July 2003 when the US let it be known that it was pushing for permanent military bases in North Africa, notably Algeria.4 In fact, the construction of what we now know to be the main US military base in southern Algeria, alongside Tamanrasset's Aguenar airport, 12 kms NW of Tamanrasset, the administrative capital of Algeria's extreme south, commenced in 2000-01. At that time the billboard attached to the base's perimeter fence proclaimed it to be a NASA project, leading local people to believe that it was part of the US space programme. Questioned about US bases and troops in Algeria in 2003, Algeria's Foreign Affairs Minister at that time, Abdelaziz Belkhadem (currently Prime Minister), fearful that reports of a US military presence would cause domestic problems, was quick to point out that his country's policy had always been to deny a foreign military presence on its territory. The US also went to great lengths to explain that its new concept of basing rights in Africa was designed to overcome such potential friction with host nations by moving towards the concept of ‘lilypads’ in a ‘family of bases’ across Africa.
These were outlined by EUCOM's Supreme Allied Commander, General Jim Jones,5 who explained that basing rights in such sensitive countries as Algeria would not involve a major or permanent military presence, but rather highly flexible facilitative arrangements which would enable the US military to deploy quickly, as and when required, into the sort of ‘forward operating bases’ envisaged in EUCOM's new strategy. Such facilities would involve the provision of equipment to pre-positioned platforms overseen by a small American maintenance and logistics staff under some sort of joint command and control arrangement with the host country. The impression given by General Jones at that time was that the Algerian military would provide the fighting personnel with the US providing the maintenance and logistics staff. However, that vision belongs to the halcyon days of 2003 when US President Bush and his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, overly confident in US military capabilities and their vision of a new world order, were quick to proclaim victory in Iraq.
Things have since changed, both in Iraq and in terms of General Jones's ‘lilypads’, which is one of the reasons why both the US and Algeria have continued to deny the existence of a US military base in southern Algeria. At least one Algerian newspaper, with particularly close links to Algeria's secret military intelligence service, even tried to lay a false scent away from Tamanrasset by stating that the US was constructing a military surveillance base at Iherir, 500 kms as the crow flies to the NE of Tamanrasset and close to the Libyan frontier. Detailed reconnaissance of the Iherir region revealed no traces of any such base or US presence.
Thanks to the continuous flow of reports from construction workers in the base and other local residents, we can now (re)confirm that America's proposed military base in southern Algeria is, in fact, the same project that was disingenuously labelled as a NASA project. The dimensions of the base make it sound more like a ‘reed-bed’ than a ‘lily-pad’. Encircled by a high plastered wall with sentry pill-boxes at 100-200 metre intervals, the base's circumference is estimated by the workers as being around 10 kilometres. Its runway is estimated by the workers as approaching 4 kms. While this will be capable of taking America's largest military aircraft, it should be pointed out that the airport's altitude is over 4,000 feet above sea level. By early 2005, at least 5 hangar-like buildings had been constructed. Since then, further construction by the Canadian subcontractor RSW-SCATT6 has, according to the construction workers, added lodgings for 2,000 personnel as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. This work is now more or less complete. The workers also confirmed that some 400 US troops (along with their dogs) were flown into the base in early 2006.
The precise status of these troops is not entirely clear. Senior personnel in both the US State Department and the Ministry of Defence (Pentagon) are adamant that the US does not have troops based at Tamanrasset.7 On the other hand, numerous local residents, including senior members of the airport police, air control, workers within the base and local businessmen are equally adamant that they have seen them there. US Special Forces have been in the region since 2002 and rumours of some 400 US troops being stationed at or near Tamanrasset have been widespread for at least two years. Because of the base's secrecy, it has not been possible for me to gain access to it. However, the multiple sources mentioned above have all confirmed that they saw in the order of 400 US troops within the base at dates which they place between end-January and mid-March 2006, with the general consensus being the early part of February. They were all also under the impression, gained from Tamanrasset air control, that they had been flown in over a two day period from Europe, and almost certainly from Germany, and that all or most of them later deployed across the border to northern Mali.
The US ‘War on Terror’, especially in its Sahara-Sahelian front, which paralleled the invasion of Iraq, has been based almost entirely on disinformation, with the result that US government statements regarding basing agreements, military deployments and related matters have little credibility. In this particular instance, however, I have the strong impression that those personnel within both the US State Department and Pentagon with whom I discussed the Tamanrasset basing genuinely believe that the US has no troops based there. I believe this is a slightly more sinister version of the ‘left-hand-right-hand’ tendency prevalent in most bureaucracies. In the US, much of the intelligence and conduct of the ‘War on Terror’ has been managed through new offices and command structures established within the Pentagon by a network of ‘neocons’ who effectively took over many of the more sensitive branches of the US government in the wake of George W. Bush's advent to the White House. One of their aims was to keep other branches of government who might be expected to check their activities, including desks within both the State and Defense Departments, ‘out of the loop’. The key military-intelligence chain of command in this operation, particularly the management of ‘intelligence disinformation’8 and the responsibility for certain key Special Operations ran directly through the Donald Rumsfeld–Paul Wolfowitz–Douglas Feith hierarchy, numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz and Feith both left the DOD under clouds: Wolfowitz was appointed in 2005 to head up the World Bank while Feith, reportedly described by US Army General Tommy Franks as the ‘fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth’,9 resigned from his position as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on 8 August 2005.
At the centre of the Zionist cabal which infiltrated and took over many of the higher echelons of US government following the Bush election take-over, Feith is currently under investigation by both the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In March 2006, the news organisation Rawstory reported that Pat Roberts, the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was not allowing a complete investigation of Feith and his role at the Pentagon's controversial Office of Special Plans. ‘One former intelligence official suggested that part of the reason for deferring the Feith inquiry was its sensitivity. A Feith investigation might unravel a bigger can of worms, the source said.’10 Part of that can of worms is the disinformation used to fabricate what became known as the ‘second front’ in the ‘War on Terror’ across the Sahara-Sahel and the role of US Special Forces (including the Tamanrasset base) in its pursuance.11
Construction problems & the Cheney-Halliburton connection
Construction of the Tamanrasset base has been beset by a number of difficulties. Completion of the runway has been delayed by the necessity to blast and remove extensive amounts of harder-than-expected granite, while RSWSCATT has also had to build a number of dams and ‘bridges’ (presumably culverts) to protect both the runaway and the lodgings from flood water. Neither of these problems would have arisen had the main contractor undertaken a proper survey of the site. This would have revealed the granite structures and the fact that the site was in a shallow valley (oued ), the Oued Aguenar, and subject to flooding. In fact, a few words with any number of locals might have saved the proverbial taxpayer (which ones?) a few million dollars. In addition, there was insufficient water on site for the crushing, cement and other plant. This problem was resolved by sinking a deep well into the Oued Otoul, some 10-15 kms to the north, and pumping water from there to the Base. Not surprisingly, this lowered the oued's water table and dried up the wells of the local residents whose main livelihood was horticulture. Such ‘collateral damage’ is certainly not good for the ‘hearts and minds’ stuff, about which US foreign military policy has long made much ado, and hardly in keeping with General Jim Jones's ‘family of bases’ philosophy.
However, such problems should not be blamed on either EUCOM or the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, but rather the main contractor, Brown & Root Condor (BRC), a company which is currently under investigation on the direct orders of Algeria's president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika.12
BRC was formed in 1994, just as Algeria's ‘dirty war’ was turning very dirty indeed and few western countries or companies were prepared to do business in the country. However, one person prepared to take advantage of this ‘market opportunity’ was Dick Cheney, President of the Halliburton Company and future Vice-President of the United States. BRC is a joint enterprise registered in Algeria between Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, and Condor Engineering Spa, an Algerian company owned by the Algerian national oil company, Sonatrach. Its social capital at that time was reported as being 368 million Dinars (US$8 million), of which Halliburton held 49% and Sonatrach 51%.
On one side of the Halliburton-Sonatrach relationship was Dick Cheney, who had close contacts with senior members of the Algerian government and military and who became the main architect of the US-Algerian relationship in the Bush-Cheney era. His counterpart in the BRC deal was to be Chekib Khelil. Although an Algerian citizen and currently domiciled in Algeria, his wife and sons are American citizens. He himself received a PhD in petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University and lived for almost 20 years in Washington, reportedly as a close friend of Dick Cheney, and where he worked for the World Bank before becoming Head of OPEC. In 1999 he returned to Algeria as Bouteflika's Minister of Energy and Mines and to become by far the most important and respected person in Algeria's very substantial hydrocarbons industry.
BRC's website, perhaps not surprisingly, makes no mention of the Tamanrasset base, especially as Algeria cannot admit to the basing of foreign troops on its soil.
However, the company's activities did not go entirely unnoticed by President Bouteflika who, in March (2006), ordered an investigation into its dealings, especially those relating to Algeria's public sector, notably the Ministry of Defence (including the country's security and intelligence services), for whom BRC built a number of facilities, and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, for whom BRC built (amongst other things) a new Ministry building. The investigators handed their report to the President on 23 July 2006. According to sources close to the presidential office, it confirms the rumours that BRC was being given public contracts, especially by the Ministries of Defence and Energy, at inflated prices and without recourse to public tender, as required by Algerian law. Having received such contracts, seemingly illegally, BRC then simply subcontracted the work out to other companies making what appears to have been a substantial profit in the process. What seems to have angered Bouteflika is that 21 of the 26 subcontracted companies noted in the investigator's report were Algerian. It is presumed that these companies might have won the contracts themselves and at a lower price had they been allowed to tender for them. The latest indications are that the President has forwarded the dossier to the Justice Department.
It is not yet clear whether the report contains any findings on BRC's extraordinary failure to undertake a proper survey of the site on which it built the Tamanrasset Base, which has led to huge completion delays and cost overruns. Nor is it clear at this stage whether it is the Pentagon or the Algerian government that is picking up the tab for the Tamanrasset debacle. That in itself could prove a little tricky if both parties continue to deny its existence! From a strictly semantic and legalistic perspective, the Tamanrasset Base is ‘Algerian property’, being built by BRC for the Algerian Ministry of Defence. However that may be, it offers no further clarity on either who is paying for it or the conditions under which is it being made available to the Americans.
According to the workers in the Tamanrasset base, two further such bases are to be built. One is to be a ‘supply base’ located at Reganne (in the Adrar wilaya ), 800 kms NW of Tamanrasset. The other is apparently to be located on the Haut Plateau at Bou Saada, 200 kms SE of Algiers. The choice of Reganne, if true, is surprising in that it is one of the hottest places in the Sahara: in 1964 the French foreign legion was evacuated because of the extreme heat. Perhaps US troops are tougher and will fare better. However, it is perhaps significant that the wali (governor/préfet ) who had overseen the building of the Tamanrasset base, M. Jari Messaoud, was transferred to the Adrar wilaya in the latter part of 2005.
Irrespective of whether the BRC investigation results in prosecutions, its public exposé of Halliburton is extremely embarrassing to the US administration. Not only does it once again finger the rather messy Cheney-Halliburton-Pentagon-public contracts syndrome, but on this occasion it also concerns a base whose existence has been repeatedly denied, and in a region where the US administration's launch of a new front in the ‘War on Terror’ has been based almost entirely on disinformation that would appear to have been disseminated, at least until its closure, by the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and which is now under investigation. It would appear that America's southern Algerian base is as much about straightforward corruption and dissemblement as military strategy.
Questions about Algeria's oil production
One question being asked in Algiers political circles is whether there is a link between the President's strong line over BRC and the almost synchronous approval by Algeria's Cabinet of a bill that would effectively reverse the hydrocarbons legislation of 2005 by giving the state-run company Sonatrach a more central role and introducing a windfall tax on international oil companies. The most obvious link between the two is Chekib Khelil, Algeria's powerful and hitherto much respected Minister of Energy and Mines.
The proposed windfall tax, is seen as a step towards resource nationalism along the same lines as adopted by Russia and South American countries. Emboldened by high oil prices, producer countries are angling for a greater share of their resource wealth. Indeed, the prime exponent of this trend, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, visited Algeria, along with other oil producing countries in the region, earlier this year. Rather than admit to such opportunism, Algeria has couched its proposal in political rhetoric, arguing that the proposed tax is designed to leave some reserves for future generations. Slowing foreign investment by the imposition of such a fiscal disincentive will help the conservation of the country's reserves.
Such altruism seems incongruous for a regime that is so endemically corrupt. Indeed, discussions with a number of analysts and oil producers in Algeria, France, the Gulf and the USA in early August suggest that this political rhetoric may be designed to mask both a political as well as a ‘technical’ problem.
The political problem is associated with President Bouteflika's attempt to amend the country's constitution. His four main proposal's are: to extend the term of presidency from 5 to 7 years; to end the two-term limit; to create a new position of vice-president; and to exonerate anyone in power from prosecution. While jokes abound as to what he has learned from Messrs Chirac and Berlusconi in Europe and any number of African presidents, Bouteflika's amendments are likely to have negative implications for the democratisation of his country. While his amendments may appear to be shifting power from a military to a civil executive presidency, they are a further move away from any democratic opening up of the country. This has not gone unnoticed by the populace at large. One way of strengthening his share of the up-coming referendum vote on the constitution amendments is to ensure the support of the country's relative powerful trade union movement, which was strongly opposed to the previous year's ‘hydrocarbons law’ that began the break-up and privatisation of the state's national oil company, Sonatrach. The effective reversion of this law could thus give Bouteflika the trade union vote in the referendum. This is clearly a political blow and loss of face to Chekib Khelil who was responsible for engineering last year's hydrocarbons law.
The technical reason is to do with Algeria's oil production. Although this was expected to peak around 2010, many analysts are inclined to believe that it may have already plateaued.13 While this may not do too much damage to Algeria's standing and influence as a significant ‘secondtier’ oil producer, much of the blame for it will be laid at Chekib Khelil's door for having failed to secure the technical expertise for field optimization and also for not securing certain foreign markets.
While there has been some talk of the ‘three strikes and you're out principle’ amongst foreign analysts, it is hardly likely that Chekib Khelil has reached such a point. Not only is there no obvious replacement for him, but his standing in the international oil community is considerable and his removal from office could be extremely damaging to Algeria's credibility and standing in the international market. However, it may well be that Bouteflika's decision to go public on the BRC investigation is a warning shot across his bow.
Oil production problems in Mauritania
Neither does the oil output situation in Mauritania look quite as rosy as it did earlier in the year. Mauritania joined the fast-growing club of African oil-producers in February 2006 when the first oil was pumped from its off-shore Chinguetti field. The Australian company Woodside Petroleum,14 the field's developer and operator, initially estimated the field's reserves at 135-150 million barrels,15 with daily output forecast at 75,000 bpd (barrels per day) for 8-9 years. However, since pumping commenced, output has fallen consistently. By May, daily average output was down to 41,000 bpd. By July it had fallen to 37,000 bpd, while August figures suggest it has fallen even further to 27,000 bpd. In July, Marquarie Equities downgraded the reserves to an estimated 85 million barrels, while Woodside has itself reduced the value of the field's reserves by a billion dollars.
Measuring oil fields and predicting their behaviour is neither easy nor an exact science. However, questions might well be asked as to how Woodside got its forecast so disastrously wrong. According to one of North Africa's largest producers, only one exploration well was drilled, which struck it lucky! Since then, Woodside's ‘luck’ in North Africa seems to have run out. In 2005 the Americans called in the Australian government to reign in Woodside's questionable activities in Iraq. This led to questions being raised about their Libyan operations, while earlier this year they had to pay a US$100 million in what was referred to as a ‘bonus payment’ to the Mauritanian government as an out of court settlement following (as yet unproven) allegations that the company had bribed the country's former oil Minister. They also had to renegotiate their contracts with the government. The Australian Federal Police are reported to have opened an investigation into the allegation of Woodside's corrupt practices. Woodside is not the first, and it will certainly not be the last oil company to chance its arm once too often. However, the possible repercussions for Mauritania and its economy, especially at a time when it is in such a delicate stage of democratic transition, could be serious.
It is still far too early to make serious predictions, but there are already a number of signs suggesting that the frenetic pace of oil exploration across much of the rest of the Sahel, notably in Mali, Niger and Chad, not to mention Darfur, quite apart from the massive social and economic dislocations usually associated with such activity, could result in equally disappointing and damaging outcomes.
Jeremy Keenan is Teaching Fellow at the Dept. of Archaeology & Anthropology at Bristol University, UK; e-mail: jeremy keenan@123456hotmail.com
EU support to family farming: Swazi Sugar-Sector reform
Paul Goodison
EU sugar-sector reform looks set to give a big boost to family farming in the sugar sector in Swaziland, with some 36% of the Swazi sugar industry being taken over by family farming. Unfortunately the ‘family farm’ benefiting is not one of the 5,000 Swazi smallholder sugar farmers, brought together in a growing number of farmers associations, but the family of George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods (ABF), which owns 55% of the company's shares. ABF is at this moment in takeover talks with Illovo, which controls 36% of sugar production in Swaziland, 100% in Malawi, 95% in Zambia, 45% in Tanzania and 22% in Mozambique.
Currently Swazi family farmers are struggling to survive in the face of a 21% decline in the sucrose price since 2002. This has been driven by a 37% decline in local currency earnings on sugar sales to the EU market, as a result of the devaluation of the euro against the South African rand. These smallholder sugar farmers are facing growing levels of indebtedness, an indebtedness which will become terminal with EU sugar-sector reform reducing prices by a further 36%, unless immediate remedial actions are taken.
Proposals have been put forward to the EU for financial support for a restructuring of smallholder loans, which would seek to return the smallholder sugar sector to financial solvency. However the bureaucratic delays inherent in EU aid administration are likely to mean that these funds will come too late (if at all) to save the family-farming sugar sector in Swaziland.
Meanwhile the Weston family looks set to snap up Illovo's nearly 2 million tonnes of annual sugar production, at a cost of around 200 euros per tonne. This contrasts with a price of 720 euros per tonne if British Sugar (ABF's sugar subsidiary) wishes to buy the right to additional quotas under the reformed EU regime. Clearly taking over Illovo is a much more profitable prospect, particularly with duty-free access for least-developed-country sugar exports to the EU from 2009 onwards. Of course this take over of Illovo will be financed from ABF's own resources largely as a result of the super-profits earned by British Sugar under the previous EU sugar regime, which, according to Oxfam UK, saw average rates of return of around 20% compared to around 6% for ABF as a whole.
There seems little doubt that the Weston family will get hold of over a third of the Swazi sugar industry before Swazi smallholder farmers see any support from the EU. But never mind: if Swazi smallholder farmers are driven out of the sugar industry and existing planned smallholder schemes on the Lower Usuthu river prove non-viable, this will not be the end of family farming in Swaziland. After all the Weston family could always graciously step in to take up the use of the newly irrigated lands under the LUSIP scheme, turning this multi-million-dollar scheme into the single largest family farm in Africa!
US-SACU FTA working group
Equitable trade & Southern Africa: A cookie cutter approach will cost lives & Livelihoods
The United States-Southern Africa Customs Union free trade agreement (US-SACU FTA) negotiations began in June 2003 to create the first US free trade area with Africa. The Southern Africa Customs Union, which originated in 1889, is one of the oldest formal trading blocks and includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. As organizations that have worked for many decades in Southern Africa and in the US on issues that concern this region, we share goals of a more just, sustainable and prosperous human society in the region. In this spirit, we raise serious concerns related to the negotiations of the US-SACU FTA and offer recommendations that are essential to a more just trade relationship between the United States and the nations of Southern Africa.
Although the negotiations continue to start and stall and the text remains a total secret, based on the experience and precedent of other US FTAs, it is not difficult to anticipate how the US-SACU FTA will unfold. Looking at the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), US-Chile FTA, and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) models helps us anticipate what will be included. After twelve years, the accumulated evidence surrounding NAFTA demonstrates that any agreement crafted along the lines of that accord would have potentially adverse environmental, economic and human consequences for many people in the United States and Southern Africa.
Democratic participation & transparency
US-SACU governments should take active steps to facilitate direct and meaningful engagement from civil society in negotiating the proposed US-SACU FTA. The exclusion of both US and SACU workers, women, indigenous, ethnic populations, and others whose community will be affected by the FTA is unacceptable.
Although South Africa has established The National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) to serve as a mechanism for civil society to discuss social and economic policy concerns with government, broad participation and full transparency between all parties remains a hurdle.
The US and other SACU countries do not have such formal structures. US and SACU governments and trade officials must bridge the gap between the formal negotiating process and civil society by formally establishing a mechanism allowing affected sectors in all countries direct influence in negotiations. Further, US-SACU negotiations have not made available draft texts, proposals, timelines or agendas for the established channels of civil society to have an informed debate. It is essential that US-SACU FTA negotiations extend, beyond the business sector, the appropriate mechanisms for democratic participation.
Worker rights
The US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (2000) was the first trade agreement that contained an enforceable commitment to respect the International Labor Organization (ILO) core labor standards, as well as enforce domestic labor laws, in the core of the agreement that were subject to the same dispute settlement as the commercial provisions. Since that time, every FTA negotiated has dramatically weakened the Jordan provisions, by making only one commitment in the labor chapter subject to dispute settlement or enforcement (to enforce own laws), and setting up a parallel and inferior dispute settlement mechanism. In this model, the only worker rights requirement is that countries should effectively enforce their own labor laws. Although provisions in CAFTA show an attempt to use fines as an enforcement mechanism, they will likely be ineffective because penalties are levied on governments of the countries where the violations occur, not the companies that violate.
With corporations' increased ability to relocate in search of lower labor costs, a ‘race to the bottom’ has ensued. This trend is disproportionately felt by low-skilled labor that are forced to compete for jobs. Communities are also forced to compete for investment by requiring less of employers. The global race to the bottom has been a significant factor in the stagnation of job quality in the US and the spread of sweatshop labor in Southern Africa. With no existing social provisions in the SACU mandate and the lack of resources for enforcement of member country labor laws, the USSACU FTA is likely to perpetuate rather than help this problem.
Lesotho saw an increase in jobs under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, but many of these jobs had people working under sweatshop conditions, including coercion. With the demise of the global Multi Fiber Agreement and its quota system, investment became more volatile with factories closing literally overnight and managers leaving the country without fulfilling their obligations to pay employees. Those that did not leave use the threat of doing so as a way to gain leverage over workers, thereby preventing them from organizing or joining unions. With little job security and low wages many women in Lesotho paid for food through sexual favors leading to increased HIV/AIDS infection rates.
Small farmers in the United States & Southern Africa
In Southern Africa, where about 70% of the population lives in rural areas and suffers the greatest poverty levels, the impact of a trade agreement which does not address all farmers, especially poor ones, will lead to increase inequalities. In the region, the average per capita dietary energy supplies have declined over the past 15 years, to 2,160 calories per day against a requirement of 2,700; endemic drought turns chronic hunger into serious malnutrition, for the young and the weak (e.g. people living with HIV/AIDS). Impoverished and small-scale farmers (often female heads of households) produce primarily for local and national markets and simply cannot compete with large agribusinesses on the national or world markets. Regional food security relies most on access by rural women to productive resources, such as land, credit, farm inputs and market infrastructures.
Any trade agreement on agriculture must recognize national food sovereignty by guaranteeing governmental authority to pursue tariffs and subsidies that safeguard food security, increase food crop diversification and protect the environment. The United States government must prevent private and public dumping of US grains in the region that adversely affects small scale farmers. Such farmers are unable to compete against imported agricultural goods sold below their own production costs or indeed, below the cost of agribusiness production in the US
Current US domestic farm policy, despite subsidies of billions of taxpayer dollars, is destructive of small and medium producers as well as the environment, and therefore, if exported via trade agreements, this agro-system could become harmful to other regions. Free trade agreements are inappropriate instruments to provide sustainable rural development and entitlement to food, either in the US or in Southern Africa.
The US-SACU FTA must contribute to rural development strategies, in the US and Southern Africa, that promote subsistence and small-scale farms, dedicated to enhance food sovereignty and environmental sustainability. Countries should be able to enact legislation that protects products with special economic, social or cultural importance, such as corn and beans, from trade liberalization.
Intellectual property rights
The SACU agreement must not promote the monopolized control over nature, science and technology by global corporations. Instead, the fundamental right of governments to safeguard traditional knowledge, protect public health, and expand access to essential medicines must be upheld.
Access to medicines
The SACU countries have the highest rates of HIV in the world and AIDS, as well as other treatable diseases, threaten to devastate the societies and economies of the region. Any trade treaty must not diminish Southern African countries' rights to secure the production, import, export and provision of affordable medicines to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other public health problems. The 2001 WTO Doha Declaration, to which the US and SACU countries are signatories, explicitly reaffirms governments' rights to ‘protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.’ The United States must not pursue provisions, known as ‘TRIPS plus,’ that would undermine countries' rights to act in the interest of public health. These TRIPS plus provisions include restricting compulsory licensing or preventing access to test data by governments and potential generic manufacturers.
Traditional knowledge
The Africa Union has long opposed patents on life and therefore, no trade agreement should require private intellectual property rights over bio-resources (seeds, plants, animals). In Southern Africa, the Africa Model Legislation provides legal alternatives for protecting breeders' rights, while fully honoring farmers' rights over seeds. Private intellectual property rights over bio-resources rewards transnational corporations, not small scale farmers growing food crops from saved seeds.
Southern African governments must be allowed to enact restrictions on genetically-modified organisms that they deem necessary to sustain regional crop varieties. Any US-Southern African trade agreement must recognize governments' authority to determine and implement publicly legislated safety standards for imported food products and not require abrogation of other international treaties, such as the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol. Under this Protocol, member governments cannot be required to permit entrance of food or agricultural products whether as food aid or commodities – treated with specific forms of technology that are of public concern, such as genetically modified organisms and irradiated foods.
In the US-SACU FTA, small agricultural producers' rights should take precedence over Intellectual Property Rights where agricultural genetic resources are concerned. Additionally, the US-SACU FTA should not interfere with a country's ability to live up to the commitment it made in ratifying the Cartagena Protocol and its parent Convention on Biological Diversity.
Investment & capital flows
Any trade agreement should preserve government authority to regulate foreign investment in order to achieve national sustainable development policies. Governments should be able to protect public interest laws from suits and establish performance requirements in order to support an emerging productive sector or meet community development plans. This includes using government contracts to promote gender equality, social justice and respect for human rights. Equally, governments should be able to impose capital controls to protect their economies and citizens from destructive flows of speculative investment.
Despite the need to offset the economic legacy of colonialism, conflict and apartheid, participating countries could lose the right to enforce their affirmative action policies. This includes programs like South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment initiative that asks companies doing business in the country to grant equity ownership to black business partners and appoint black executives to company boards.
The rights established under international human, labor and environmental agreements and conventions should take precedence over investor rights. The Investor-State clause in NAFTA, the US-Chile FTA and CAFTA grants foreign investors the right to sue governments for compensation over public-interest laws that could undermine their potential profits. Alarmingly, 42 cases have been filed thus far by corporate interests and investors under NAFTA's ‘Chapter 11’ investor provision, many against local environmental, public health and safety laws. With only 11 of the 42 cases finalized, some $35 million in taxpayer funds have been granted to five corporations that have succeeded with their claims. Investment disputes between countries should be resolved in an accountable and transparent manner, and with the participation of all affected parties.
Essential services
Essential services are services that help meet peoples' human rights to food, education, health and basic utilities like water and electricity. Fundamentally, services are not tradable commodities and access to basic necessities must not be subject to the negotiated rules of free trade. As such, they should not be included in FTA negotiations.
At a minimum, essential services must be exempt from the ‘national treatment’ standards, which mandate foreign service providers be treated at least as well as domestic providers. Unlike in CAFTA and the US-Peru FTA, it is also essential that a blanket ‘negative list’ approach to service sector liberalization, which would apply to all services not specifically excluded by the state party, be rejected.
Previous liberalization and commodification of essential services in Southern Africa has been deeply contentious and led to increased prices, stratification of service levels by wealth, and inability of governments to effectively and proactively protect health and safety of people through these services.
Conclusion
In 2002 when the US Trade Representative notified Congress that the Administration intended to initiate free trade negotiations with Sub-Saharan nations, the claim was that this FTA would ‘bring new hope and prosperity to Southern Africa,’ and ‘further drive regional growth and development.’ By excluding the principles laid out in this statement, the resulting FTA will fail to provide sustainable development. Unfortunately, indications are that current US-SACU negotiations will model other FTAs (such as the CAFTA and the US-Chile FTA) that ignore these principles. This is a matter of grave concern to all who seek equitable and just trade relationships between the US and the nations of Southern Africa.
The elements and standards in this statement are essential to a trade agreement that could foster a more just, sustainable and prosperous human society, and US-SACU FTA negotiations must be evaluated on the basis of their inclusion. To summarize, these include:
1) Negotiations should not to move further without direct involvement from the affected communities and civil society groups in both the United States and SACU countries. We call for access to draft texts as they develop so that an informed public discussion can shape the outcome of negotiations.
2) The US-SACU FTA should provide the space for participating countries to create policies that retain and create jobs that respect International Labor Organization labor standards.
3) The US-SACU FTA must contribute to rural development strategies, in the US and Southern Africa, that promote subsistence and small-scale farms, dedicated to enhance food sovereignty and environmental sustainability. Countries should be able to enact legislation that protects products with special economic, social or cultural importance, such as corn and beans, from trade liberalization.
4) Given the concerns around intellectual property and access to necessary medicines especially in this vulnerable region of the world, the US should take Intellectual Property provisions out of the current negotiations.
5) In the US-SACU FTA, small agricultural producers' rights should take precedence over individual property rights where agricultural genetic resources are concerned. Additionally, the US-SACU FTA should not interfere with a country's ability to live up to the commitment it made in ratifying the Cartagena protocol and its parent Convention on Biological Diversity.
6) The US-SACU FTA should preserve government authority to regulate foreign investment, avoid prohibiting performance requirements, and have no investor-state clause.
7) Fundamentally, the rights of governments to decide which, where, when or whether to open services to foreign providers must be upheld. All services essential to the people and development needs should be excluded form the USSACU FTA.
This Statement is endorsed by the USSACU FTA Working Group Members.
Contact: Jessica Walker Beaumont at jwalkerbeaumont@123456afsc.org or 215. 241.7277; March 2006.
Books received
Never be silent: publishing & imperialism in Kenya, 1884-1963 by Shiraz Durrani; published by Vita Books, London; £20.
Islam: Between Globalization & Counterterrorism by Ali A. Mazrui; published by James Currey, Oxford.
Unsustainable: A primer for Global Environmental & Social Justice by Patrick Hossay; published by ZED Books, London; £17.95.
The State of the State: Institutional Transformation, Capacity & Political Change in South Africa by Louis A. Picard; published by Wits University Press, South Africa.
Towards a New Map of Africa by Ben Wisner, Camilla Toulmin & Rutendo Chitiga; published by Earthscan, London.
Lusotopie: Médias, pouvoir et identités, Dossier introduit par Luis Carlos Patrauquim; published by Karthala, Paris.
Challenging Nature: Local Knowledge, Agroscience, & Food Security in Tanga Region, Tanzania by Philip W. Porter; published by University of Chicago Press, US; $55.
Global Forces & State Restructuring: Dynamics of State Formation & Collapse by Martin Doornbos; published by Macmillan, London; £45.
Major Power & Peacekeeping: Perspectives, Priorities & the Challenges of Military Intervention by Rachel E. Utley (ed.); published by Ashgate, London; £50.
The Troublemaker – Michael Scott – & His Lonely Struggle Against Injustice by Anne Yates & Lewis Chester; Foreward by Desmond Tutu; published by Aurum Press, London; £14.99.
The Sun by Night by Benjamin Kwakye; published by AWP, New Jersey. Winner of the 20th Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2006.
Globalization, Neo-Conservative Policies & Democratic Alternatives: Essays in Honour of John Loxley by A.Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Robert Chernomas & Ardeshir Sepehri (eds.); published by Arbeiter Ring Publishing, Manitoba, Canada.
US Foreign Policy & the Horn of Africa by Peter Woodward; published by Ashgate, London; £50.
Legacies of Power: Leadership Change & Former Presidents in African Politics by Roger Southall & Henning Melber (eds.); published by HSRC Press, SA & Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala.