DARFUR!
Alex de Waal
The war and killing in Darfur have created an unusually horrible and complicated crisis. But the conflict is similar to other African civil wars in at least one major respect. Peace and a return to stability are possible only with a political agreement that commands the support of the key players in Darfur: the armed movements and the government. The search for a political agreement is complicated by the persistent perfidy of the government as well as the fragmentation and incapacity of the armed movements, but must be pursued nonetheless.
Khartoum's preferred option for Darfur – a military solution – is not going to work. It can inflict serious damage on the rebels and cause more displacement and suffering among civilians. The holdout rebel movements are in poor shape, and Khartoum's armed forces, with their proxies – the Janjaweed and now also the irregulars of rebel commander Minni Minawi – have been reinforced. But a Carthiginian peace would not create enough popular confidence to enable displaced people to return home, and the depth of resentment in Darfur today is such that the war would surely resume.
Over the last six months, the African Union, the United Nations, and the United States have painfully relearned an old peacemaking lesson: threats, ultimata and deadlines don't work. Throughout the Darfur peace negotiations in Abuja, advisers warned that the process of working through the issues and building confidence, especially on security issues, was highly complex and should not be rushed. The consistent rejoinder from Washington and the UN Security Council was ‘your timetable is too slow – we don't have that amount of time.’
Deadlines came and went, but when Deputy Secretary Robert Zoellick received an assurance that Khartoum would allow in UN peacekeepers following an agreement, an inflexible deadline was finally imposed: 30 April. The AU mediation team scrambled to have a text ready, and a week beforehand put a deal on the table. For the most part it was fair – as good a deal as Darfurians are likely to get. But it was a deal crafted by the mediators, not one owned by the Sudanese. Under protest, Minawi, leader of a well-armed and military proficient faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) on 5 May. The combined pressure of the assembled international community, however, was not enough to persuade Abdel Wahid al Nur, chairman of the largest SLA faction, to agree. The political distance to be bridged was small and most of Abdel Wahid's lieutenants were in favor of signing. But international disinterest in continuing negotiations, the hostile response of displaced Darfurians to a deal which they mistakenly saw as a sellout, and Abdel Wahid's own erratic leadership, meant that no deal could be concluded. Abdel Wahid's ‘no’ doomed prospects for an inclusive and workable agreement.
Khartoum knew from the outset that a deal with just Minawi would exacerbate and not end the conflict. Even as it discreetly maintained contacts with Abdel Wahid, and enticed breakaway SLA elements into the fold, the government managed to have the non-signatories expelled from the AU-chaired Ceasefire Commission and branded as outlaws – a measure that only polarized Darfur and escalated the fighting. And President Bashir went back on his commitment to allow in the UN.
As the violence worsened, the pressure was piled on Khartoum to accept a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. The AU mission is under-funded, disorganised and poorly-led. Reliant on hand-to-mouth funding, it groped from crisis to crisis, responding to events and never establishing any confidence that it could contribute to a solution. The UN could fix some of these problems, but peacekeepers alone are never a panacea. It needs a strategic vision, and that vision must be political.
From a continent away it might seem feasible for an international force to fight its way into Darfur without Khartoum's agreement, provide physical protection to all Darfur's civilians, disarm the Janjaweed, and impose a political settlement. Let's be clear: that is fantasy. It wouldn't be possible with 200,000 NATO troops, let alone 20,000 blue helmets. Speaking on 5 October, the UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, made this point very clearly.
Khartoum sees a UN force as a surrender of sovereignty, and believes it would have the mandate to apprehend individuals indicted by the International Criminal Court and fly them to the Hague. President Bashir worries about a Chapter VII peacekeeping operation with authority to use force being present in northern Sudan should conflict break out in the run up to the 2011 referendum on self determination in southern Sudan. He resents the way in which the push for UN troops has been conducted through bluster and threat, and he knows the threats are hollow. Bashir's position is stronger now than in the past because he has friendly neighbours. It was the presence of thousands of Eritrean, Ethiopian and Ugandan troops and armor in Sudan, supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Army, that forced Khartoum into making major concessions in the south. Washington's tough stand just provided diplomatic cover for this regional military pressure.
An international force, whether AMIS or a UN operation, can only protect Darfurians as part of a long-term political strategy for stabilizing Darfur. This means working as a partner with Darfurian leaders, including the commanders of the numerous local militia, and proceeding with disarmament by consent. It means obtaining the consent and cooperation of the Sudan government. Workable peacekeeping in Darfur is nine parts civilian relations and civilian policing to one part force. And it will take five to ten years. If consent and confidence is obtained, then the job could be done by a smaller force than the 7,000 AMIS troops present today, let alone the 17,000 UN troops envisioned. The Nuba Mountains Joint Military Commission sustained a precarious ceasefire in neighboring Kordofan for three years with a dozen or two unarmed monitors. The Nuba Mountains situation was on a smaller scale than the Darfur crisis, but it had the same combustible mix of a scattered rebel army, displaced camps, numerous militia, and a government with an uncertain commitment to the ceasefire.
President Bashir has called the bluff of the United States and the United Nations. He has rejected the UN force, demanded that the AU withdraw unless it is prepared to retract its own demand that its mission be handed over to the UN, and has deployed the regular army in Darfur. Is this brinkmanship or a real red line? The signals indicate the latter – but also that Khartoum recognises that while it can manage Darfur by force, it needs a political settlement if the country is to achieve stability.
The tragedy of the last six months is that the Sudan government and the non-signatory SLA groups have been very close to agreement, and that an inclusive peace deal would transform the prospects for Darfur. Khartoum's perfidy and the SLA's divided and vacillating leadership are the main culprits, but diplomacy conducted by threat and ultimatum have contributed to making the political space too narrow for a real peace agreement to be hammered out. As the fighting escalates and what little confidence was won drains away, that political agreement recedes into the indefinite future. We stand at a precipice: the prospects are for a prolonged and intractable conflict that will take many lives over many years, and which the UN won't solve even if its peacekeepers arrive. That crisis will drag down all of Sudan and unravel the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the war in the South.
The demonstrators and activists have made their point: the world cares about Darfur and the Sudan government cannot proceed in defiance of the world's conscience. But UN troops are at best a stopgap and at worst a spark for even sharper conflict. What's needed now is dialogue, focused on the long-term aim of a political settlement for Darfur. That political process must be patient, inclusive, and framed by the promise of democracy held out in the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Step one is to reconstitute the ceasefire commission with all parties represented. Step two is to re-start political negotiations, enhancing the DPA where required. Step three is to launch the promised Darfur-Darfur dialogue, including all communities, and run with sufficient patience and independence to generate real credibility. In this context, peacekeepers can do their job.
Many will condemn such a proposal as too slow, and as supping with the devil with a short spoon. But there is literally no alternative, now or in the future.
Alex de Waal is a program director at the Social Science Research Council and served as advisor to the African Union mediation on Darfur. He is co-author, with Julie Flint, of Darfur: A Short History of a Long War, Zed Books, 2006.
Editor's Note: Do you agree with these sentiments? Are we continuing to misunderstand the nature of ‘diplomacy’ in Sudan? We welcome your comments.
Leo Igwe: Interview with a Nigerian Humanist
Interviewed by Janet Bujra
What led you to become a humanist?
Like all Nigerians, I was born into the family religion – Christianity – the Catholic faith to be precise. At the age of twelve, l was sent to a Catholic seminary where I spent another twelve years of my life as a student, teacher and in training as a priest. It was in the course of my philosophical studies that I saw the ‘light’. When l started questioning and inquiring deeply and critically into the claims of my family religion, and religions in general, I discovered, to my great shock and surprise, that religions thrive on lack of evidence, on supposition, superstition, lies, myths and transcendental illusion.
And the more I inquired and sought evidence, the less religion meant and could hold for me. So I started gravitating towards the humanist life-stance. In 1994, I left the seminary. And in 1996, I went open and public with my humanist standpoint. I started the Nigerian Humanist Movement (NHM) to provide an alternative to religion and a sense of community for the non-religious. I abandoned religion for humanism because I consider most religious claims absurd, false and harmful.
I have occasionally faced personal opposition for my views – even being physically attacked by Islamic fanatics who were demonstrating in support of Shari'a in Ibadan. They have booed me at conferences where I was calling for an end to religious indoctrination in schools. I have been self employed since I went open and public with my humanist views, thus avoiding job discrimination which I am advised would be likely.
Would you describe yourself as a humanist and a secularist?
Yes, I consider myself a humanist because I regard humanity, not divinity, nature not the supernatural, as the centre point of my global outlook. I do not believe in a so-called supreme being. I think God (and all gods) the devil, demons, spirits, etc were created by human beings in their ‘own image and likeness’. Gods are imaginary entities, not objective realities. Again I do not believe in an afterlife – in Heaven or in Hell. The whole idea of a paradise in the hereafter is an illusion. This life is once and enough. And human beings must strive to make the best of this, their only opportunity.
Also, I consider myself a secularist. I think that religious beliefs and philosophical convictions should be private affairs. The public sphere should be religiously and philosophically neutral. There should be complete separation of religions and state. Hence, l am against the whole idea of using state money to fund religion – to implement Shari'a, build churches and mosques, and sponsor pilgrimages. State resources should be used to promote and defend the common good, not the religious good, human rights not religious rights, democratic state law not Shari'a law. It is only when governments are secular that they can be impartial arbiters and guarantors of the human rights and liberties of all individuals – religious and non-religious.
Can you tell us something about the humanist organisation which you set up?
The Nigerian Humanist Movement was founded in 1996 in Ibadan in South West Nigeria. This was a period of pro-democracy struggles against military rule when there was a clampdown on human rights and free speech: no humanist movement would have been allowed under the military regime. The restoration of democracy in 1999 has made a considerable difference because it has opened up the political, intellectual and human rights space without which humanism cannot thrive or flourish
NHM was formed to respond to the need for a community for non-religious people who never had a definitive organisation till then. In 1998 NHM started meeting at Nigeria's premier University in Ibadan. In 2001, NHM convened the first African Humanist conference at the University of Ibadan. In 2004, it hosted the Tai Solarin International Humanist conference at the Mayflower School in Ikenne. And in June 2005 Nigerian Humanists held a conference at the University of Benin to mark the movement's 10th anniversary. NHM has organised several seminars, workshops and lectures to promote the humanist outlook. To facilitate sociocultural reform and national rebirth it has participated in campaigns against landmines, ritual killing, child labour, female genital mutilation and Shari'a law. Currently NHM has over 200 members, and hundred of supporters, friends and associates in Nigeria and beyond. Its members are mainly educated people, young and old, some women and from a range of different ethnic backgrounds.
NHM's primary mission is to organize atheists and agnostics, and other nontheistic and non-religious people. At the same time, NHM networks with secular groups and individuals, and all those who think that religious belief or unbelief is and should be a private affair. In a deeply religious society like Nigeria, secular individuals and groups are partners in progress – and in the development and civilization of the country. So whenever NHM organises any event it extends invitations to secular groups and individuals. For instance, in 2005, NHM held a symposium at the University of Calabar on Religion and National Underdevelopment. And we had liberal religionists and secular intellectuals and scholars as speakers. And in June 2006 when NHM held a conference on Defending Secularism, many secular people and organisations were in attendance.
To realise a secular Nigeria, NHM must reach out not only to atheists and agnostics, but also to theists and religionists especially those who do not think their faith and dogmas should define or direct the public space.
Does the NHM have links with international or other non-Nigerian humanist organisations?
NHM is affiliated with the International Humanist and Ethical Union in London, and in the US to the Center for Inquiry Transnational, the Atheist Alliance International and Earth's Atheist Resistance to Holy Wars and Religious Devastation.
Humanism is not well established in African countries. Some African humanists are in their closets out of fear for their security. But in 2004 we inaugurated the African Humanist Alliance at the end of a regional conference in Kampala, Uganda (http://iheu.org/node/1065). The Alliance is a loose network of humanist groups and individual activists on the continent. It is still in its early stages of organisation.
Is secularism under threat in Nigeria?
Nigeria is in religious terms a pluralistic nation. In cognizance of this, Nigeria's founders, in section 10 of the nation's constitution, prohibited state religion. So, in principle, Nigeria has a secular constitution that relegates religious belief to the private domain. And that was a clear demonstration of how concerned Nigerians were about separating religion and state. There is currently a lot of concern for secularism in Nigeria. Mixing religion and state has caused a lot of trouble and confusion, anarchy, riots, destruction and bloodshed in the country. The dominant religious groups – Islam and Christianity – have been locked in a fierce battle for the political control of Nigeria. We see secularism as an antidote to religious tyranny, divisiveness, hatred, fanaticism and intolerance, and a recipe for national unity, peace, progress and development.
Currently there is every reason to fear for the future and survival of secularism in Nigeria. Despite the constitution, the secular legal structure has been under severe assault. Successive governments in Nigeria have flouted and undermined the secular character of the Nigerian state. Nigeria has more or less been running a theocracy, not a democracy.
Today, the Nigerian government uses state money to sponsor pilgrimages, and to build and maintain state churches and mosques. The Muslim majority states in the North have adopted Islam as state religion. They use state funds to implement Shari'a law, finance Shari'a courts and Shari'a police. Islamic theocrats have reduced non-Muslims in their midst to second class citizens in their own country. These theocratic incursions have not gone without resistance in Nigeria. I can see a future for secularism in Nigeria if Nigerians can checkmate religious extremists and their political cohorts and ‘fronters’.
It is obvious that neither of the dominant religions – Islam or Christianity – will ever rule in a united Nigeria. So secularism has become the only option and an imperative for the realisation of a truly united, peaceful, progressive and democratic Nigeria. I am persuaded that the structures and formalities of a secular Nigeria will eventually triumph and survive the ongoing abuse and violations by religious politicians and faith governments in the country.
Does the NHM have a political voice? Does it speak out about the influence of religion in politics?
Humanists are people of like-minds. But they do not have identical political ideas and opinions. Humanists agree and disagree on how to relate, direct or manage the political sphere and the public good. Our organisation does not endorse any political party or candidate. Humanists are free to support any party or candidate of their choice. But it is unlikely that Humanists would support any religious political party, candidate or agenda. They would not vote for any candidate in Nigeria who promises to Islamize or Christianize the country if elected. Politically, humanists are united in their opposition to mixing religion and politics and in their support for the separation of religion and state. We always use every means at our disposal to bring this stance to the attention of the government
Do you enter coalitions with believers on some issues of social concern?
My organisation cooperates with believers on issues that affect the entire society, like poverty alleviation or tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic, promoting family planning and population control, eradicating harmful traditional practices etc. Humanists seek to provide what believers miss, omit or ignore due to blind faith, dogma and superstition
Do you agree with the following comments by Nigerians?
Secularism, when not being equated with atheism, tends to be viewed, especially by radical Muslims, as a synonym for Westernism (a foreign ideology). A secularist view of life that does not contain elements of Christianity seems, in this view, to be a contradiction in terms. A position of moral equidistance from any religion is thought to be unsustainable by those who are convinced that religiosity is deeply embedded in the African ‘constitution’.
I object to the claim that secularism is synonymous to westernism. And that secularism devoid of Christian elements is a contradiction in terms. The exclusion of religion from the organisation of society is not peculiar to the western world. But it has everything to do with what any society – western or not – can do combat the undue influence of religion on public education and governance. Though secularism appears to be more pronounced in the western world, this does not make secularism synonymous with the western lifestyle Secularism is an outcome of the renaissance, enlightment and then decline in Christian religious devotion. That's why the claim that secularism must necessarily include some elements of Christianity is outrightly implausible.
Those who hold that morality without religion is untenable, and unsustainable because religion is especially deeply embedded in the African constitution are greatly mistaken. Religion prevailed in the human (not only African) constitution at the infancy of the human race. Religion did not create, or constitute the African. It is Africans (like other members of homo sapiens) that created and configured religion. Before Africans are religious – animist, Christian, Muslim – they are human beings. Humanity preceded religiosity in the African constitution. Secularism implies that morality without religion is possible, tenable and sustainable. Secular morality entails that human beings can be good without God.
The secular state concept, which recognised no state religion or belief system and thus guarantees freedom of belief, is seen as appropriate to efforts to cement cracks in Nigeria's weak federation.
I agree that the secular state concept must strengthen Nigeria's weak federation. In a multi-religious and multicultural society, it is imperative that the state remains impartial for or against any religious or non-religious group, or it loses its significance and value. One of the reasons why the Nigerian federation is so insecure is that Nigerians are not free to express their religious belief or unbelief, or to live out their religious or non-religious commitments anywhere in the country. In the Muslim majority states non-Muslims are treated as second class citizens. They may be targeted, persecuted and killed. While in the Christian-dominated South, non-Christians do not enjoy the same rights as Christians.
Nigeria is deeply divided along religious lines. And the religious division has made a true and virile federation difficult to achieve. And it is only a secular state that is religiously and philosophically neutral that can guarantee the equal right of every individual to freedom of thought, conscience and belief. True federation will continue to elude Nigeria until all Nigerians can say and sing with one voice:
Though tribe, tongue, religion or belief may differ, in humanity, dignity, equality, and fraternity we stand.
The NHM can be contacted through the following web-site: http://www.iheu.org/node/1472.
Egypt: Islamic Sisters Advance
Wendy Kristianasen
The novelist Nawal el-Saadawi declared herself a candidate for the 2005 presidential elections, not hoping or intending to win, but to symbolise the new assertiveness of Egyptian women. Others who are active Muslims are determined on greater equality in public and private life.
Change was in the air in Cairo last year. From the start of 2005 people of different backgrounds, from leftist to Islamist, took to the streets to protest against President Hosni Mubarak – in power for a quarter of a century – who was seeking a fifth term of office later that year in the September presidential elections. Kefaya! (Enough), people said, and gave that name to the Popular Movement for Change.
Egypt's passionaria, Nawal el-Saadawi, declared herself a candidate for the elections. The 73-year-old feminist, psychiatrist and award-winning novelist knew she had no chance, but her symbolic act reflected a new mood in a country where women are 53% of the population but hold only 2.5% of posts in political life. The desire for change is not confined to politics. Actively engaged Muslim women also assert their right to equality, nowhere more than in the field of religion.
Egypt's women's movement, seen as the forerunner of the Arab women's rights movement, was historically mostly secular. Hala Galal's remarkable film Women's Chitchat (Dardasha nisaa'iyya) shows the transition of Cairene women through four generations of one family. The older ones, bareheaded and decidedly modern, recall the feminist movement launched by Hoda Shaarawi in the 1920s, yet come to terms with their granddaughters and great-granddaughters now covered in their hijabs. For Cairo's women now overwhelmingly wear the hijab (more than 80% of them), not least among the trendy boutiques and cafes with European names in upwardly mobile Mohandesin or leafy, affluent Zamalek.
Not even the most secular challenge the role of religion. Dr Hoda Sophi, the only woman interviewed who did not cover her head, is an economist and specialist in gender planning at the state-run National Council for Women. She says:
‘What worries me is the stereotyping of women. It comes from traditional culture. That's the real problem, not the hijab or Islam. We're trying hard to clarify the real essence of Islam, and separate it from tradition.’
Omaima Abou Bakr is an academic and co-founder of the Women and Memory Forum, a non-governmental research centre that focuses on gender issues. As ‘a feminist with qualifications, an Arab Muslim feminist’, she is able to bridge the divide between secular and Islamist women: ‘A divide that still exists even if it has been overshadowed by the current obsession with democratisation.’
Enter the New Islam
But the greatest changes are happening among Islamist women, now touched by a gentler, more progressive ‘new Islam’. Dalia Salaheldin, 35, is a journalist at Islamonline (IOL), a pioneer Arabic/ English website started in Cairo in 1999.1 She began to cover her head at university, against her family's wishes. She is passionate about the work she does:
I'm not here just as a job; it's my life choice … IOL is trying to show the reality of Islam, which has been distorted for years. I think that tradition has obscured religion. And I blame Muslims themselves for that.
IOL's founders helped bring the new Islam to Egypt: it is a product of globalisation, the internet, video clips, satellite TV, through which its charismatic preachers, such as Amr Khaled, offer the good life, a blend of material comforts and God. The seductive accountant-turned-TV preacher appeals to women, and not just girls but their mothers.
Pop videos, beamed by satellite television, are another matter: hugely popular, they show a virtual and uncensored world of youth, sex and beauty in which women singers, such as the famous Lebanese Nancy Ajram, gyrate in a way that challenges traditional ideas of decency. Strict Islamists may frown, yet the prosperous otherness of the locations and props – western-style urban spaces, convertibles, expensive cameras, trendy clothes – appeals to the yuppies of new Islam. When the Islamic-pop idol Sami Yousef sings semi-love songs, a father or child or even Allah himself suddenly becomes the love object of the song, and rescues it from the Islamically unthinkable.
Fairer Sex Take Over
This pick‘n’mix Islam is about positive thinking and, for women, about self-confidence and empowerment. That particularly applies to religion. Women preachers are in demand: Cairo's al-Azhar University opened a special section to train them in 1999, and the ministry of religious affairs announced in April that it would select 52 trained women, out of about 800 expected candidates, and appoint them as imams, to officiate at women-only prayer meetings. (The tolerance of al-Azhar reached a limit when, on 18 March 2005 in New York, a female professor of Islamic studies, Amina Wadud, led Friday prayers before a mixed congregation.) One of the most popular women preachers in Egypt is Shirin Sathy: her Wednesday prayer meeting in the Sidiqi mosque in the prosperous suburb of Heliopolis draws a crowd of 400. The mosque is packed to capacity, the atmosphere relaxed. Middle-class women of all ages, variously dressed and scarfed, chat, pray and read their text messages. Sathy arrives, in black robe and enormous white kheima (head covering) and belts out her message, a direct appeal to the emotions, through the amplifiers. Her devotees are spellbound.
Magda Amer, 54, is a surprise when we meet at her home. Good-looking, lots of lipstick, big smile, bright red curly hair. She wasn't religiously observant in her youth. But now she teaches women's rights, Shari'a and fiqh,2 which she studied for four years at al-Azhar. She, too, preaches at the Sidiqi mosque. She takes things from popular western books, such as Men Are from Mars, Women from Venus:3
I take what's positive and Islamically suitable. I concentrate on the art of dealing with men and what happens to Egyptian women if they don't. I tell them not to ask ‘Where were you? Why are you late?’ She says she saves marriages with all this advice.
That is not all. Amer is also a biochemist, a lecturer in immunology at Ain Shams University and a homoeopath; three years ago she opened Egypt's only health food shop, in Heliopolis, selling Egyptian brown rice, wheat, barley and sesame. The shop is part of a waqf 4 and the profit goes to the mosque. It is also a place where she can unofficially treat people.
Elite Circles
Besides mosques, there is a growing fashion among middle-class Cairene women for meetings at private homes in prosperous parts of town, where they gather informally to chat, eat sweetmeats, take part in prayers and listen to preachers. Invitations are by word of mouth as the meetings have no official authorisation. This elite phenomenon is taking over religion from its institutional, male-directed source of al-Azhar.
The Islamic salons or halaqat (circles) were started by the rich and pious Suzie Mazhar in the 1990s, before the era of women preachers: a male preacher was hidden behind a screen. Mazhar recruited to her circle actresses and dancers, known as the ‘repentant artists’, such as the sexy Shams al-Baroudi, ‘the temptress’, who, with others, gave up acting, donned a neqab (face veil) and started studying Islam. A step forward or back?
Women muftis (muftiyya in Arabic) are also gaining recognition. Graduates of al-Azhar, versed in the Qur'an, the hadith and the sunna,5 these women practice ijtihad6 and pronounce fatwas that solve people's problems in accordance with Shari'a, but with a real understanding of the problems of daily life. In the past four years there has been a campaign to have them officially recognised, a position still in the gift of Mubarak. As a result, women are now being appointed deans in the faculty of Islamic studies at al-Azhar. Television and the state-owned daily Al Ahram are publishing fatwas by women muftis. Islamonline has its own muftiyyas, among them Professor Suad Saleh, a dean of al-Azhar. What is available on the IOL fatwa section? In answer to a question on whether a man has the right to enforce the Islamic dress code:
Hijab is a duty Allah, the Almighty, prescribed for the Muslim woman, and she has to comply with that order and show her sincere faith in Allah … However, forcing your wife is negative. You should be patient and try to appeal to her emotions.
All acts that aim at satisfying and pleasing married couples are allowable so long as two things are avoided, anal sex and sex during menstruation. Thus, it is permissible for a husband and wife to practise cunnilingus and fellatio.
These activities are liberating for practitioners and participants – the hijab allows them increased freedom of movement. But have fundamental attitudes really changed? At IOL there seems to be a sincere wish to re-examine tradition. At the Islamic salons and mosques the repertoire and mindset so far remain the same, except that now women are in charge. But who knows where new Islam's message of empowerment will lead women next.
Wendy Kristianasen , Le Monde Diplomatique, London.
China: Africa's New Business Partner
David Seddon
Chinese investment in Africa still lags behind that from the US and Britain, but a recent World Bank study records its ‘astonishing’ growth in the four years to 2002; and more is on its way. ‘Within five years’, estimates one independent economist, ‘China could be one of the top three investors on the continent’. Two-way trade between Africa and China was some $18 billion in 2004, a nine-fold increase on 1999; and Chinese officials expect it to grow to $30 billion within two years.
Oil is the current major attraction. China became a net importer of oil for the first time in 1993. But such has been its amazing growth rate that in little more than a decade it has become dependent on imports for more than half its oil needs. By 2020, its domestic production will account for less than 30% of its oil consumption. During 2003-04, a surge in economic activity, stimulated by government policy, drove up the demand for oil in China by 25%, while domestic output rose by just over 3%. Over this period, China accounted for 30% of the incremental global demand for oil imports.
Most of the Chinese refineries, however, cannot cope with the ‘sour’ crude oils produced in the Middle East, and China prefers to import the higher-quality, ‘sweet’ oils from West Africa, putting extra price pressure on this type of oil, which is preferred by many refiners. Indeed a recent analysis in World Business, April 2006 suggests that it is likely that China's growing demand for oil will lead to rising international tension and continue to be a major determinant of oil price inflation.
But this is good news for African producers. In 2004, 45% of all China's imported oil (2.45 mbd) came from the Middle East, with 29% from Africa, 14% from Europe and the Western hemisphere, and 12 % from the Asia-Pacific region. The African share of the market looks set to increase.
China is likely to come increasingly into competition, if not into conflict, with its rivals for access to these African markets, and to the sources of production. Unlike their increasingly publicity-sensitive Western rivals, the Chinese have no qualms about making deals with oil-rich dictators, however corrupt or nasty. As World Business puts it, more diplomatically, Chinese ‘willingness to do business with ‘states of concern’ has led to disquiet in governments and oil companies around the world’.
State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, eager for secure long-term supplies, has bought 40% of a large project in Sudan. Chinese workers there recently built a 1,600 km pipeline in just 11 months. Chinese firms moved into Sudan after US investors left – the US now applies sanctions to Sudan, which it accuses of genocide. Talisman, a Canadian oil firm, also left a few years ago. But a Chinese trade spokesman said in September, of Sudan: ‘we import from every source we can get oil from’.
That includes Angola, where the Chinese government concluded a deal in March 2004 providing a soft loan of $2 billion in exchange for 10,000 barrels a day of oil. Over the last year, senior Chinese officials have toured other oil-rich countries, such as Gabon and Nigeria, developing closer relations and seeking similar arrangements.
But it is not only oil that attracts attention. In the past two years, Chinese firms have spent some $100 million in Zambia's once-decrepit copper industry. South Africa's exports to China have more than doubled in five years and increasingly they include raw materials such as coal and gold, as well as manufactures. Minerals also probably drive China's relationship with Zimbabwe. If western mining companies are eventually squeezed out, the Chinese will be well placed to move in. Already several state contacts have been struck recently with Chinese firms. Much of Zimbabwe's shrinking tobacco crop is also now sold to China. And a $200 million deal to supply fighter jets and other military goods was approved last year (2004). Zimbabwe now promotes tourism from China and regular direct flights between Beijing and Harare are now a reality.
Trade deals have been concluded with around forty African countries in all. Construction and telecommunications are among the other leading sectors – Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications company, has recently won contracts worth $400 million to service mobile phone networks in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria. Chinese contractors are said to be ready to work on a $600 million hydroelectric plant at Kafue Gorge in southern Zambia. Chinese agricultural firms are also operating in Zambia; with road construction and hotel infrastructure development attracting interest in Botswana and South Africa. Chinese firms now use factories in Africa to stitch garments that can enter the US duty-free; and Africa's imports of Chinese manufactured goods are rising fast. South African trades unions complained recently that domestic industry was being overwhelmed by cheap imports of hi-tech goods, computers, telecoms equipment and the like.
Though energy security concerns are the main reason for the high level of government involvement in this new search for African partners, other considerations – including foreign, industrial, trade and social policy – are also involved. The full impact of dealing with China is likely to be considerable, as a complete package – including oil companies, oil service companies, construction companies, manufacturers and traders, often accompanied by a Chinese labour force – is often the basis of the deal.
This combined public/private sector intervention is often associated with aid instruments provided to the host government, such as debt cancellation, low-interest loans and even grants, underpinned by the intensification of diplomatic activity and, in some cases, military cooperation. Many fear that investment in the oil sector will prove a Trojan Horse, enabling China Inc to gain a number of bridgeheads in the African sub-continent, often in regions that area sensitive in terms of global geo-politics – in West Africa, the Sahel, Sudan and the Horn of Africa, for example.
Africa's new business partner looks set to increase its share of investment, exports and imports significantly over the coming years. China certainly is already making profitable inroads in the subcontinent. One can only hope that Africa's own development potential is not simply swept aside in the process as the Asian giant reaches out for new opportunities with positively imperialist ambition.
A World of Conflict Since 9/11: The CIA Coup in Somalia
Gerard Prunier
The US intelligence service, which remains obsessed with the risk of Taliban infiltration in Somalia, inadvertently helped the Union of Islamic Courts seize power this June.
Somalia suddenly hit the headlines this spring when its capital, Mogadishu, was captured by the forces of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). After 1995 the world had mostly forgotten the country because of the failure of the United Nations' humanitarian and military efforts there in 1992-95.
Somalia has in principle had a government since October 2004: the transitional federal government (TFG). It was internationally recognised but could not sit in Mogadishu, which was still in the hands of the warlords, so it was based initially at Nairobi in Kenya and later returned to Baidoa in Somalia.
The TFG, established with difficulty after years of negotiations, was intended to fill the political gap created when civil war broke out after the fall of the dictator, Siad Barre, in 1991. Although the TFG is recognised abroad, it has never had any authority at home and is riven by personal differences between the president, Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed, the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, and the speaker of the Somali parliament, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan.
The transitional government has no armed forces at its disposal, apart from the Majertine tribal militia based in Puntland.1 After the state collapsed in 1991, the warlords, who are leaders of armed tribal bands, took over and ruled the country until this June. That a number of them were appointed to ministerial posts in the new government did not change the situation.
With the help of mooryan (street urchins), many of them on drugs, they reduced Mogadishu and whole tracts of the country to terror-stricken anarchy. Their troops, on little or no pay, financed themselves through crime: theft, kidnapping, rape, armed robbery and murder. The warlords did very well out of drugs (especially the powerful euphoric qat), piracy, cattle rustling and the mobile phone business.
In these conditions of anarchy a number of political groups with Islamic links established the first Islamic courts in 1996. They combined in 2002 to form the UIC, chaired by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. Analysis of the tribal structure, an essential feature in Somalia, shows that members of the Hawiye and Habr Gidir tribes dominate most of the courts. This will probably create problems for the Islamic movement in the future because the Hawiye, although numerous, are divided and confined to central Somalia. Prime minister Gedi is a member of this tribe.
Until a couple of months ago the UIC was a politically disparate body in which moderate Muslims rubbed shoulders with both radical supporters of al-Qaida and ordinary businessmen worrying about their contracts.
Then a major policy blunder by the United States opened the way for the UIC to seize power. The CIA saw Somalia as a potential Afghanistan. It had picked up a number of al-Qaida agents, including the Comorian, Fazul Abdallah Mohamed (who was the brains behind the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam), Yemen-born Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Sudanese Abu Talha al-Sudani, who were the joint organisers of the 2002 attacks on a Malindi hotel and on an Israeli charter aircraft off the coast of Kenya.
Early this year a US official announced that Washington was prepared to work with anyone who was willing to cooperate with it against al-Qaida. For the warlords, hungry for funds and keen to weaken the growing authority of the TFG and the UIC, this was a golden opportunity: they would do anything to prevent the restoration of order, whether Islamic or secular, which would end their extortion activities.
In February, with the help of secret CIA funds, they established the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT). In theory, the ARPCT was supposed to pursue al-Qaida terrorists. In reality, it had its sights on the UIC.2 The militant Islamists were under no illusions and struck first, on 20 February. This was the start of a period of bloody strife in Mogadishu that lasted for three and a half months until the ARPCT warlords were finally defeated on 16 June.
There were warnings voiced within the US about this strategy. David Shinn, who is a former US ambassador to Ethiopia and expert on the region, called for a broad approach, not focused exclusively on counter-terrorism, and Michael Zorick, a senior diplomat attached to the US embassy in Kenya, protested in vain against payments to the warlords, which he judged counter-productive.
In a desperate attempt to put things right, on 13 June Washington set up an ad hoc emergency body, the Somali Contact Group. Members of the group included, besides the US, the Arab League, the African Union, the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD),3 Norway, the European Union and, independently, Britain, Sweden, Italy and, oddly enough, Tanzania. But the contact group came too late, it was ill informed and it had no real decision-making powers. It looked more like an apology for previous absence than any practical instrument of policy. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the Somali conflict had taken on an international dimension: two neighbouring states, Ethiopia and Eritrea, had become involved. They were already locked in their own long-standing struggle. The war of 1998-2000 had ended in an uncertain ceasefire, Addis Ababa and Asmara found it impossible to resume normal relations, and the conflict was still pursued in complex ways.
Asmara, aware that Ethiopia supported Abdullahi, did its best to obstruct the TFG's activities: Eritrea supplied the UIC with weapons at least five times, not out of ideological sympathy (since the Asmara government has been resolutely secular) but on the principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Addis Ababa supported its champion, Abdullahi, from the outset.
Both naturally deny they are involved in the conflict in any way. Any such involvement is in breach of international law, since UN Security Council resolution 733 of 23 January 1992 imposed an embargo on deliveries of arms to Somalia, described as a ‘stateless country’. The crisis spread beyond Africa: Saudi Arabia sent weapons to some warlords and the UIC, while Yemen and Egypt supplied the TFG with weaponry.
In an effort to keep going and assert its authority, the TFG played the international card for all it was worth. President Abdullahi had most to fear from his own ‘armed ministers’4 and he repeatedly called for armed intervention by Igad or the African Union, to restore peace and uphold the rule of law.
He was right in principle, but in practice no one had the resources or the political will to tackle the situation in Somalia. Except for Ethiopia, which was keen to forestall moves by Eritrea and stifle any subversive intentions the UIC might harbour.
The slightest mention of troops from Somalia's traditional enemy, Ethiopia, was enough to spark violent political battles in the TFG. Also the African Union could not really call on Addis Ababa to help provide an intervention force, since Ethiopia was both judge and party in the dispute. It feared that any Somali government other than the government of its ally, Abdullahi, might renew Somalia's irredentist claims to the Ethiopian province of Ogaden, with its 4 million Somali inhabitants, which had already been the subject of a war between the two countries in 1977-78.
Faced with the UIC, the warlords collapsed within a few days in June. They were fiercely hated for their extortion and there was a sense of relief in the capital, although ordinary people wondered what to expect from their unusual liberators, the UIC militants.
The international community, anxious to preserve the marginal prospect of a return to normality offered by the TFG, immediately called for bilateral talks between the UIC and the TFG. This afforded another opportunity for internal conflict in the TFG, with Abdullahi seeking to avoid any accommodation with his enemies,5 and the speaker of the parliament, Sheikh Adan, insisting on a dialogue. The agreement finally signed at Khartoum in Sudan on 22 June was immediately broken by both parties.
The international press had erroneously reported that Taliban infiltration was rife in Somalia. These fears were based on such token gestures by the Islamic movement as a prohibition on watching any of the World Cup matches or an official order to cut the hair of any young people who wore punk, afro or rasta hair-dos.
The UIC was transformed into a Supreme Council of Islamic Courts and its moderate chairman, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was replaced by an old militant fundamentalist, Hassan Dahir Aweys. The two camps are still in conflict and it seems unlikely that they will agree to share power. But the Islamic movement, in the full flood of its success, has not yet faced up to the worst problem that bedevils Somali society: the tribal system, which had undermined Siad Barre's ‘socialism’ and represents the major difference between Somalia and Afghanistan under the Taliban.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban enjoyed the strong support of its neighbour Pakistan and the Pashtun ethnic majority within the country. The UIC has no real friends outside the country, since Eritrea's support is opportunist, and the Hawiye are not Somalia's Pashtun. They represent barely 20% of the population and are subdivided into a number of tribes and sub-tribes. And the UIC, unlike the Taliban, is subject to many tribal and ideological influences; there is no real indication that it is completely controlled by extremists close to al-Qaida.
So a subtle diplomatic approach is likely to have more success in preventing the crisis from escalating than are the projects for armed intervention currently under discussion in the IGAD and elsewhere.
Gérard Prunier is a researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, and director of the Centre français d'études éthiopiennes, Addis Ababa. Translated from the French by Barbara Wilson. © le Monde Diplomatique
Can the Somali Crisis be Contained?
International Crisis Group
Editor's Note: Events can change rapidly in Somalia. The following extracts from an ICG Report published in August 2006 were considered to have continuing relevance as we go to press.
The Courts as Political Movement
Politically, the Islamic Courts remain an enigma. Statements about their political aims made by Chairman Sheikh Sharif in recent months have often been contradictory; the actions and declarations of some elements have been denied or denounced by others; their decision-making system is anything but transparent, and key policy decisions that will shed light on the political agenda have yet to be taken. Still, a few observations can be made with reasonable confidence. The Islamic Courts are a very loose coalition of individuals and groups whose views on political Islam span a wide spectrum. This is evident in the positions of the top two leaders. Sheikh Sherif's Islamic pedigree as a member of a traditional sufi order is far different from the Salafist worldview articulated by Hassan Dahir Aweys. But the differences in Islamist ideology within the Islamic Courts are much more complex than a crude moderate versus hardline dichotomy. Mogadishu's galaxy of Islamists includes progressives who embrace democratic values; opportunists using the Courts' power for personal advancement; socially conservative salafis whose agenda is focused on public morality (leading to the periodic efforts to close cinemas); hard-line Islamists who want an Islamic state but do not advocate political violence; and jihadis whose use of assassination as a tactic of choice has led to dozens of deaths in what amounts to a silent war in the streets of Mogadishu. Which strain emerges as dominant remains a major question mark.
But the Islamic Courts include other tension-ridden coalitions as well. One is cross-clan. They offer roughly two dozen Shari'a courts, each representing a different Mogadishu sub-clan, a shared political platform. Clan tensions and fissures are endemic and easily manipulated by spoilers; that will be a major challenge as the Islamic Courts try to stay unified.
The partnership between the Islamist leaders and Mogadishu business leaders is also uneasy. The victory over the ARPCT means that the two largest militia forces in the city are those of the Islamic Courts and the business community. Some business leaders who tactically have backed the Islamic Courts may now see them as a threat.
Finally, the Islamic Courts have brought the Islamist leadership together with an array of civic movements who share a common interest with them for improved rule of law in Mogadishu and little else. This may be the most fragile part of the coalition. Collectively, the multiple fault lines make the Courts prone to fissures, internal feuds and defections unless they can exploit – and perhaps provoke – an existential threat.
The decision to make Chairman Sheikh Sharif the visible face of the Islamic Courts is an attempt to present the movement as moderate, conciliatory and acceptable to most Somalis and external actors. But the emergence of Awey's as head of the Shura and a high profile public figure raises the troubling question of whether the Islamic Courts could be used as a Trojan horse by radicals and jihadis operating under cover of a moderate Islamist movement either unwilling or unable to restrain its most dangerous wing.
This latter concern is critical, because the leadership has gone to great lengths to portray the movement as moderate and a ‘popular uprising’ against warlordism but has been casually dismissive about credible allegations of jihadi violence and the presence of foreign al-Qaeda operatives in Mogadishu safe houses reportedly operated by some of its top figures.1 Sheikh Sherif has repeatedly portrayed these concerns as ‘propaganda’ and claimed the US has been misled by warlords exploiting the war on terror. He is correct that the ARPCT militia leaders sought to portray all Islamists as terrorists and use American counter-terrorism for parochial aims. But the question about a small number of Somali jihadis and foreign al-Qaeda suspects cannot be waved away; it is an enduring concern for the US and its allies.
There is compelling evidence of jihadi violence emanating from within at least three of the hardline Courts in Mogadishu, and the US insists that at least three foreign al-Qaeda operatives are in Mogadishu. If Sheikh Sharif is unwilling to acknowledge even the possibility of a problem, he risks being accused of complicity. If he cannot acknowledge the threat posed by radicals in his coalition, troubling questions arise about the ability of such radicals to coerce and intimidate erstwhile allies. For moderates in the Courts, the dilemma is that the jihadis' tactic of assassination, which helped eliminate their potential opposition in Mogadishu, could be used against them. This puts them in a difficult situation, especially when faced with international demands to ‘marginalise the radicals’. Concern that hardliners in the Courts are driving policy was heightened following the decision to capture Jowhar, despite earlier assurances they would not resort to force. The decision immediately thereafter to move militias up the Shabelle valley as far as Jalaalaqsi and then to orchestrate an Islamist take-over of the strategic town of Beled Weyn near the Ethiopian border seemed intended to provoke Ethiopia to send troops into Somalia.
Much has been made of Sheikh Sherif's contradictory statements. In a letter to selected states and international organisations, he committed the Islamic Courts to good relations and the democratic process: ‘We want the Somali people to decide which form of governance [they] want and [to] choose their leader for the first time in decades’.2 But in other settings rhetoric has been more radical. In a Mogadishu rally on 2 June, he called the US ‘an enemy of Islam’,3 and in another public address told supporters the fight would continue until the entire country was under the Courts' authority.4 While inconsistencies can be explained as reflecting political inexperience or need to placate both hardliners and the international community, a clearer line is needed. More importantly, rhetoric must be consistent with actions. If the Courts continue to articulate conciliatory policies while taking expansive action which provoke both the TFG and Ethiopia, they will quickly lose the benefit of the doubt. The Islamic Courts' withdrawal from talks with the TFG in response to parliament's discussions of authorising an IGAD stabilisation force (to be known as IGASOM) was predictable but unfortunate. Opposition to foreign peacekeepers has been a central part of the platform over the past year and cannot now be given up easily. The issue has worked well. It taps into xenophobic sentiments which resonate with part of the population; the Courts' core Mogadishu constituency fought against the UN force in 1993 and deeply distrusts such peacekeepers. Despite their essentially clannish composition, the Islamic Courts are the only credible movement articulating strong Somali nationalist rhetoric, conflating Islamism with pan-Somalism, seasoned with anti-Ethiopian (and occasionally anti-Christian) rhetoric. Despite rejecting the TFG, the Islamist movement has successfully portrayed itself as the main hope for state revival. And despite its diplomatic overtures to the West, the leadership frequently condemns the US, tapping into growing Somali resentment and anger. But if the Islamic Courts form a government of national unity with the TFG, these positions will need to be revised.
The Islamic Courts' greatest political success has been their ability to merge their agenda with other agendas in the Mogadishu populace. They have conflated Islamism with a strong public desire for law and order and opposition to warlordism. The romanticised view of the war which defeated the ARPCT as a popular uprising has tremendous appeal to Somalis and foreigners who want to believe that the changes in Mogadishu represent a grassroots movement. The record indicates otherwise. The battles against the ARPCT were waged by Shari'a militias, not people's defence forces. The strong support the Courts enjoy for providing security and defeating some unpopular militia leaders does not equate to a popular uprising. In fact, some hard-line Islamist leaders in Mogadishu view civil society and civic leaders as rivals to be contained and if necessary intimidated. (Section III D 2, pp. 15-16, ‘The Courts as Political Movement’).
Regional Dynamics: Spheres of Influence & Proxy War
The conflict between the TFG and the Courts is also shaping up as a proxy confrontation between regional powers and other international actors. Some of these are deliberately exploiting the situation; others are largely unwitting accessories to an internal Somali conflict.
Ethiopia
The single most important foreign actor in Somali affairs, Ethiopia, is the TFG's patron and principal advocate in the international community. It has legitimate security interests in Somalia and has in the past intervened constructively to support reconciliation and state-building, notably in Somaliland and Puntland. But its current engagement has been deeply divisive and has undermined its own security objectives. Ethiopia considers the Islamic Courts to have been infiltrated by al-Itihaad, and a potential entry point to the region for al-Qaeda. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi explained in a recent press conference:
… the Islamic Courts Union is not a homogeneous entity. Our beef is with Al-Itihaad, the internationally recognised terrorist organisation. It so happens that at the moment the new leadership of the Union of the Courts is dominated by this particular group. Indeed, the chairman of the new council that they have established is a certain colonel who also happens to be the head of Al-Itihaad. Now, the threat posed to Ethiopia by the dominance of the Islamic Courts by Al-Itihaad is obvious. Many of you would remember that Al-Itihaad had been involved in terrorist outrages here in our capital.
Despite official denials, persistent and credible reports, confirmed by diplomats and UN sources, continue from much of south-western Somalia concerning the presence of Ethiopian forces.6 For now, the deployments appear to be intended to protect the TFG base in Baidoa and to establish a buffer zone between Dolo, on the Kenyan border, and Galdogob in central Somalia. Military and diplomatic observers in Nairobi, however, believe Ethiopia is preparing to carry out a short, sharp strike deep into southern Somalia if it deems the Courts a sufficient threat.7 Ethiopia's security concerns relate not only to the Courts' Islamist character but also to Eritrea's role as their backer. During their 1998-2000 border war, Ethiopia and Eritrea opened a second front in Somalia by proxy, each backing client factions. Since the TFG's inception in 2004, Ethiopia has provided military materiel and training, while Eritrea has more recently begun to assist the Courts. If the TFG and the Islamic Courts fight, Addis Ababa and Asmara will again sponsor rival proxies.
Ethiopia is deeply unpopular with many Somalis, who believe it fears the reemergence of a strong, united Somalia and so seeks to perpetuate instability and division. Ethiopian support of the TFG has already sapped the interim government of credibility in the eyes of many, who consider its leadership to be more responsive to foreign priorities than their own. Leading parliamentarians in Baidoa express deep disquiet over the presence of Ethiopian forces around the town.8 As Crisis Group has warned, the prospect of Ethiopian military intervention would rally a broad cross section of Somalis and serve as a foil against which hard liners within the Courts could mobilise for defensive jihad.9 Jihadi propaganda already seems crafted to portray Somalia as part of a cosmic conflict between Muslims and infidels and to engage the support of foreign jihadis.
Eritrea
Eritrea's involvement over the past decade has been intermittent, driven almost entirely by desire to frustrate Ethiopian ambitions. During the 1998-2000 border war, it provided arms, training and transport for Ethiopian Oromo insurgents operating from Somalia, as well as their Somali allies – Hussein Aideed's militia. After the war, support diminished, although Asmara maintained relations with the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and other Ethiopian rebel groups. ONLF fighters routinely transited Somalia and obtained weapons from Somalia's arms markets. Eritrea has been passive in IGAD, allowing Ethiopia and Kenya to drive the Somali agenda.
Over the past year, however, Eritrea appears to have dramatically augmented its engagement. UN monitors allege that between May 2005 and May 2006, it delivered at least ten arms shipments to Somalia, mainly to leaders aligned with the Islamic Courts (including Aweys and Indha'adde) and to the ONLF. Two unidentified aircraft that landed at Mogadishu's international airport in the last week of July 2006 were reportedly carrying arms for the Courts from Eritrea. An editorial on the Eritrean ministry of information website denounced the Ethiopian ‘invasion’ and called for the withdrawal of its forces.10 ‘The Somali Issue: In Demand of a Quick Remedy!’, 26 July 2006, at http://www.shabait.com/staging/publish/article_005277.html.
Acronyms
ARPCT: Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (US backed counter-terror coalition defeated in Mogadishu in June 2006 by the Union of Islamic Courts);
IGAD: Intergovernmental Authority on Development;
ISCG: International Somalia Contact Group;
TFG: Transitional Federal Government;
TFI: Transitional Federal Institutions.
The reawakening of Asmara's interest comes at a time when demarcation of the Ethio-Eritrean border has stalled and tensions are high, as both sides prepare for a reduction of the UN peacekeeping forces along the frontier.
Arab League
The Arab League had been mostly peripheral in Somalia since formation of the TFG but has also re-emerged as a major player. Yemen took the lead in brokering the January 2006 Sana'a talks that temporarily healed the rift between the TFG president and parliament speaker. Sudan, as the Arab League chair, has also stepped forward to broker negotiations between the TFG and the Courts. Although the international community has broadly welcomed this initiative, some observers believe Khartoum is fronting for Egypt, which has historically competed with Ethiopia for influence over the Somali peninsula. In July 2006, TFG Prime Minister Geedi lashed out at Egypt, Libya and Iran, accusing them of supporting ‘terrorists’ in Somalia. [Section IV B pp.19-20. Regional Dynamics: Spheres of Influence and Proxy War].
Conclusion: Toward a Negotiated Settlement
The prospects for a peaceful resolution of the present crisis are poor. The positions of the TFG and the Islamic Courts remain far apart, and it will be difficult for them to find middle ground, let alone share power. Every effort must be made, however, to reverse the slide toward war. Initiatives are needed to jump-start direct talks between the TFG, the Islamic Courts and other important Mogadishu-based groups, with the aim of producing a government of national unity. Representatives of both the TFG and the Islamic Courts must come under sustained pressure from citizens and international actors alike. As a first step, the TFG and the Islamic Courts should be urged to send signals to one another aimed at reducing hostilities and gradually building confidence. For the TFG, this could include a statement acknowledging that foreign peacekeepers should not be introduced in current circumstances. For the Islamic Courts, it could mean a moratorium on establishing courts where they do not yet exist.
Ethiopia and Eritrea should be pressed to cease their military involvement and refrain from inflammatory behaviour or rhetoric that could complicate the search for solutions. Donors should refrain from giving assistance to either side which could be construed as strengthening its military capacity and should also develop contingency plans for the full range of possible scenarios.
Diplomatic leadership in the search for a settlement must be augmented in response to the growing internationalisation of the crisis. How to operationalise that principle, however, presents real problems.
IGAD is too narrow a forum and too internally conflicted to provide the kind of direction needed. While Ethiopia and Kenya continue to tout the legitimacy of the TFIs and the need for an IGAD military intervention, Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan have all indicated a preference for engagement with the Courts and have expressed doubts about the wisdom of dispatching a regional military force to Somalia. Likewise, the African Union has lent its support to IGAD's deployment plans, and is therefore no longer seen as an honest broker by the Courts.
The Arab League currently has the diplomatic lead, having hosted the first round of talks in Khartoum and secured agreement in principle from both the TFG and the Courts to return for a second round. Sudan's success in this regard is commendable and deserves international support. But an Arab League initiative excludes, virtually by definition, certain key actors, including most of the IGAD countries and particularly Ethiopia. Some within the TFG (and Addis Ababa) suspect the Arab League of being overly sympathetic to the Courts.
The ISCG cannot take over leadership. It provides a forum for primarily the main Western countries engaged in Somalia to contribute, helping in particular to place US engagement in Somali more firmly within a multilateral context, and relegates to observer status those international organisations most closely involved diplomatically and politically. It should, however, become more involved, including by working more in country, not merely in New York. The US in particular needs to signal intention to become more active by appointing a senior diplomat and giving him appropriate negotiating authority.
In order to succeed, international diplomacy must accommodate and, within realistic limits, unite these disparate interests and forces – especially Ethiopia, Egypt, the EU and the US – behind a coherent mediation initiative. The truth of the matter is that there is no clearly appropriate single institution much less country with the necessary standing, credibility and acceptability to both parties – the TFG and the Islamic Courts – to take on this task. (Section VI pp. 24-25 first seven paragraphs only of Conclusion: Towards a Negotiated Settlement.)
Liberation Theology in Nigeria?
Sylvester Odion-Akhaine
Editor's Note: Liberation Theology is a social campaigning phenomenon that originated in Latin America in the 1970s. Parallels in the political histories and contemporary socioeconomic status of Brazil and Nigeria raise the question of whether there has been any discussion within Christian circles in Nigeria of this radical perspective and its political implications. The following extracts from a paper by Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, delivered at a seminar at Benson Idahosa University in Nigeria in May 2006, is evidence of such a debate. It usefully summarises the theoretical roots of the Liberation Theology movement, while concluding with some examples from Nigeria illustrating the response that has been received from politicians to protests by individual clerics in the recent past.
The Nigerian Context
Let us observe that Nigeria's political economy is in no fundamental way different from that of Latin American countries – authoritarianism, a backward economy and a vast army of the poor and exploited. These are common features of peripheral social formations in the global capitalist context. Nigeria is a primary commodity producer and exporter and a receiver of capital goods and other sundry finished products, and services from the West and the newly industrializing countries of South East Asia. In this sense we are incorporated into the global political economy.
Perspectives on Liberation Theology
Although the foundational roots of liberation theology can be attributed to Jesus Christ as can be glimpsed from the synoptic gospels, its articulation as a concept, an ideology and popularisation may be attributed to Latin American clerics and scholars such as Gustavo Gutierrez, Bishop Borge, Camillos Torres and the martyred, El-Salvadoran Bishop Romero. It is a preoccupation with the human species and its world beyond theology as wisdom and rational knowledge. It demonstrates transcendence over otherworldly spiritual engagement estranged from worldly perturbation as well as mere intellectual discipline in which reason converges with faith. It is a progression, not a repudiation of spirituality and rational knowledge, to critical reflection on the internal logic of human transformation (Gutierrez, 1974:9).
The progression reached its zenith in marxism with its historical materialism, that is, its preoccupation with the role of social forces in societal transformation. Thus, liberation theology represents a shift from orthodoxy to ortho-praxis, i.e., unity of revelation and transformational actions in the real world of men and women. Therefore, in the words of Gutierrez, ‘Theology as a critical reflection on historical praxis is liberating theology, a theology of the liberating transformation of the history of mankind and also therefore that part of ecclesia – which openly confesses Christ. This is a theology which does not stop with reflecting on the world, but rather tries to be part of the process through which the world is transformed. It is a theology which is open – in the protest against trampled human dignity, in the struggle against the plunder of vast majority of the people, in liberating love, and in the building of a new, just, and fraternal society – to the gift of the kingdom of God’ (Guiterrez, 1974:15). Essentially, it is about engendering social justice and respect for human dignity through resistance to exploitation and oppression in society.
It is to be noted that liberation theology is by no means marxism despite the inspiration it derives from marxist philosophy. Marxism does not share in the unity between the word and action; rather it is concerned with the objective world, the revolutionary unity of the oppressed class for the creation of paradise on earth is of greater moment than the unity of their opinion on paradise in heaven above. It sees the struggle for liberation from economic slavery also as a means of extirpating (as Lenin put it) ‘the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind’. In the precise words of Marx, ‘religion as the opium of the people’ the abolition of which will end ‘the illusory happiness of men, is a demand for their real happiness. The call to abandon their illusions about their condition is call to abandon a condition which requires illusions’. Theoretically therefore, liberation theology remains a dialogue between theology and the social science endeavour.
Nevertheless, liberation theology sprouted from the authoritarian complex in Latin America. To be sure, the contradictory dynamics of bureaucratic authoritarianism and later right wing dictatorship that were anchored in the modernisation paradigm in that subcontinent, engendered rural poverty, and the consequence was the emergence of popular movements seeking the transformation of oppressive economic structures. Its nature being repressive and impoverishing, it was a wake up call for the Catholic priests. Provoked by the intensity of repression and poverty among the Latinos, they took concrete steps to resist the repressive status quo. On the part of the church, there was a commitment to social mission, and thus evolved ecclesial communities involved in social dialogue with the poor, constantly reflecting on the dialectics of faith and poverty, the gospel and social justice. Theology in this context is a fundamental reflection with praxis (Gutierrez, 1974:11) As we have observed elsewhere, in the real world of men and women, religion has really been a veritable tool for fighting oppression (Odion-Akhaine, 2005:12). By its preoccupation with oppression and as a member of what Herbert Blumer (1974:60) has called ‘collective enterprise to establish a new order of life,’ religion or the church becomes a social movement.
It is important to note that though Christian communities in Nigeria are under the umbrella of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a great deal of difference exists between the Pentecostal (an extreme form of Protestantism) and Catholic in speaking truth to power. In our humble opinion, the Pentecostalists are less forthcoming and more obsessed with miracle-induced prosperity than interrogation of the structures of society that create condition of poverty. In ways that lend credence to the point being made, Rev. Father Kukah (1998:232-233) observed that instead of a critical examination of the contradiction of military rule (and perhaps civilian misrule) Nigerians blame themselves for their woes. As an audience for emergency preachers, they are being told the cause of their problems is that the nation has sinned. For forgiveness, we must do penance, sin no more and turn to God. Indeed, ‘Pentecostal Christianity has become a popular option in a failed economy.’ He further noted its counterproductive essence to the evolution of a politically-conscious civil society by the maneuvering of the message of salvation – ‘if God is going to do it for me, why should I do something for myself?’ Pentecostalism viewed in this light belongs to global Christendom, i.e., spiritual neocolonialism, an extension of Western Christianity; while liberation theology by its sheer deviation from orthodoxy belongs to World Christendom, being part of the total Christian heritage (Ranger, 2002:265).
Nevertheless, as a result of the active engagement with political events the Church drew vitriolic reactions from the wielders of secular authorities. Under General Babangida regime, Ukaegbu was accused of being a cultist in order to sully his integrity. While under General Abacha's regime, military administrators engaged with the church to cast aspersion on the holy temple of God. It would be recalled that Army Colonel Ogar, who was military administrator of Kwara State under General Abacha's junta, warned Catholic clerics ‘to stop paying lip service by annoying Christ’ and also to stop quoting the bible to suit their purpose, due to their criticism of Abacha's self-transmutation scheme. In 1996, General Useni also took a swipe at religious leaders. He told them not to condemn what God had not condemned but that they should focus on leading their flocks on the path of righteousness, patriotism and obedience to constituted authorities. During the same period, in Akure, Navy Commander Onyerugbulem also tongue-lashed Rev. Father Patrick Eyinla of Mary the Queen Catholic Parish for not eulogizing Abacha's son who died in a plane crash. The brazenness of the military administrator forced the priest out of the pulpit. Under the prevailing civilian administration of retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, the president himself has labelled men of God prophets of doom for throwing prophetic barbs at his administration. Pastor Bakare of the Latter Rain Assembly was even arrested over his unrelenting criticisms of the Obasanjo administration.
Turning the Sahel on its Head: the ‘Truth’ Behind the Headlines
Jeremy Keenan
The Sahel has received more than its usually fairly small share of the world's news coverage over the last few months. Three ‘news stories’ in particular have made the headlines: the Tuareg ‘rebellion’ at Kidal in Mali on 23 May 2006; the hostage-taking of Italian tourists around the Niger-Chad border area on 21 August and a gun battle between Malian Tuareg rebels and GSPC (Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat) ‘terrorists’ in northern Mali on 27 September. Some reports claim this battle to have been a fight between GSPC factions for control of the GSPC in the Sahara, following the reported capture and incarceration of the alleged GSPC leader, El Para, in June 2005.1
The reporting of these stories, by normally reliable agencies such as Reuters, BBC, AFP, etc., has merely reinforced the impression that the Sahel has become an increasingly dangerous ‘terrorist’ zone. That is because the most politically significant story of the last few months, namely that the region has in fact remained relatively calm both during and since the Kidal ‘rebellion’ of 23 May,2 in spite of considerable provocation of the local Tuareg by the US-supported governments of the region, has received no mention at all. Contrary to the impression given by the above-mentioned and other news agencies that the Sahel has become an increasingly dangerous and lawless ‘terrorist zone’, there have in fact been no GSPC or other ‘terrorist’ actions against foreign troops, installations or interests, or civilian populations, save for the above-mentioned kidnap of Italian tourists, during this period, or for that matter, and with the exception of a few local bandit (i.e. criminal, not ‘terrorist’) activities, at any other time. Indeed, the actual strength and perhaps even the presence of the GSPC in the Sahara-Sahel regions is highly questionable, bearing in mind that the original GSPC leader in the Sahel, El Para, was an agent of Algeria's counter-terrorist organisation, the Direction des Renseignements et de la Sécurité (DRS) and that much reported GSPC activity in the Sahara has been fabricated by the DRS and grossly overhyped by US agencies.3 If there have been such incidents, our ongoing research and monitoring of the region indicates that they are unknown to the responsible local Tuareg leadership across the whole of northern Mali and Niger as well as southern Algeria and that, like the continuous reports of the deaths and subsequent re-emergence of certain ‘terrorists’ (such as Mokhtar ben Mokhtar and El Para, to name the two best known) they belong to the realm of the ‘phantasmatic’.4
So, what does lie behind these three stories? And why is the ‘official truth’ almost always the exact opposite of ‘reality’? The answer, as previous articles in ROAPE and elsewhere have explained,5 is because the launch of a ‘second’ or Saharan front in the ‘war on terror’ in 2002/03 has been fabricated largely by US-Algerian military intelligence interests. The events mentioned above, and which are explained in this Briefing, can only be understood within that context. Like most reported ‘terrorist’ incidents and activity in the Sahara-Sahel region since early 2003, they are part of the disinformation propagated very successfully by US and Algerian intelligence services.6
What has been going on in the Sahel in the last few months? I will pick up the ‘story’ of the Sahel from the penultimate issue of ROAPE, which went to press a day or so after the Tuareg ‘rebellion’ at Kidal in Mali on 23 May.7 In that Briefing, written as news of the uprising was coming through, I questioned whether the rebels were incited, as Algeria immediately claimed, by Libya's growing presence in northern Mali and the recent pronouncements of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi about a ‘Great Sahara’ state.
The Qadhafi Factor
To understand the forces at play and underlying the Kidal revolt of 23 May, we need to understand something of Libya's current interest in the Sahel. For much of his 36 years in power, Qadhafi has dabbled in Sahelian affairs, with the outcome, as in the case of his humiliating expulsion from Chad in 1987, usually ending in spectacular failure.
Qadhafi's latest sortie into the Sahel is perhaps best understood in terms of the competing sub-imperialisms between Algeria and Libya, which have been exacerbated by the new US alliance with Algeria and the more or less simultaneous readmission of Libya into the world system.
Qadhafi's designs on the Sahel began to take shape in April 2005 when he addressed a delegation of Libyan and Malian Tuareg at the Libyan town of Oubari in the Fezzan. The thrust of his speech was that Libya regarded itself as the protector of the Tuareg; that Libya had been their ancestral home before they spread out into what is now Algeria, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso and was therefore their ‘base and support’, and that they therefore constituted what could be construed as ‘an extension of Libya’.
The speech was a warning shot to the Algerians and their new ally, America, signalling that Libya was not going to stand by and let its more powerful neighbour establish a sub-imperial hegemony over the region – especially the Sahel – without competition. Qadhafi's concern for the Tuareg was not therefore entirely altruistic. On the contrary, he was aware that the US-Algerian fabrication of a new front in the ‘War on Terror’ across the Sahara-Sahel had caused loss of livelihood to many Tuareg, exacerbated their marginalisation and aroused anti-government sentiment across much of the region. Acting as ‘godfather’ to the Tuareg, as one local journalist described it, would enable him to further Libyan interests across the region.
However, little attention seems to have been paid to either Qadhafi's Oubari speech or his intervention a couple of months later in helping to negotiate an amnesty for the former Tuareg rebels of Aïr who had been provoked by the Niger government into taking up arms the previous year and capturing a handful of US-trained Niger soldiers. Further meetings between Qadhafi and Tuareg leaders took place in Libya on July 15 and 31 (2005) at which it was strongly rumoured that Qadhafi was planning to expand his armed forces to create employment for some 3,000 Tuareg and other Saharan peoples. There were also reports of numerous offers of Libyan development aid for projects in both Niger and Mali.
The reaction of most Sahelian Tuareg to Qadhafi's overtures was threefold. First, there was considerable and genuine gratitude for his intervention on their behalf in negotiating the amnesty from the Niger government. Second, and as might be expected, Tuareg were not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Third, there was wariness about becoming overly reliant and dependent on Qadhafi's largesse. Tuareg leaders have been keeping themselves very attuned as to how Qadhafi's neighbours and the world powers react to his interventions in the Sahel.
Qadhafi's various pronouncements during 2005 and early 2006 suggested that he was planning the creation of something ranging from a ‘Great Saharan State’ stretching from Senegal to the borders of Iraq and incorporating the desert populations of Tuareg, Arabs, Toubous, Songhai and Bambara, as well as the peoples of the Nile Valley, Sinai, Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula, to something far more tangible and potentially threatening to Algeria and the Sahelian states concerned in the form of a Libyan-backed Tuareg federation that would extend across northern Mali and northern Niger, southern Mauritania, northern Burkina Faso and, of course, southern Algeria.
Algeria was quick to realise that such an entity would provide Libya with a zone of influence (and some control) that would encircle Algeria's south and enable it to challenge and compete with Algeria's own sub-imperial incursions into the Sahel and sub-Sahelian Africa.
The final straw for Algeria was the launch of Qadhafi's ‘Great Saharan’ project at the larger-than-usual celebration of the Mawlid – the anniversary of the prophet Mohammed – on the night of 10 April 2006 at the symbolic and theatrically chosen venue of Timbuktu.
The event, which was initiated and partly financed by Qadhafi, who himself led the prayers, was attended by the Presidents of Mali, the host country, Senegal, Niger, Mauritania and Sierra Leone, along with many former Tuareg rebel leaders, traditional chiefs, other dignitaries and some 30,000 Malians.
The focal point of the occasion was Qadhafi's launch of his idea for a ‘Greater Saharan’ state, in which he envisaged a day when the Tuareg of Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Algeria would form a federation with Libya as its base. Taken to its logical conclusion, such a ‘state’ would necessitate the breakaway of much of northern Mali and northern Niger, parts of Mauritania and as evidenced by Algeria's reactions – alarge part of southern Algeria.
The question, which most foreign delegates and analysts were asking themselves, was how much of Qadhafi's Timbuktu pronouncements should be taken seriously. Or, could they be written off as what many commentators ridiculed as the blustering, delusion and crazy dream of empire by ‘the muddleheaded colonel’?
By early 2006, Qadhafi's overtures to the Tuareg were being noted by the governments of the region, France and the US with increasing concern. The prospect of disaffected ex-rebel Tuareg joining up in some sort of Qadhafi-inspired and – financed Libyan foreign legion, and perhaps returning home with Libyan citizenship, was not a comforting prospect.8 Then, in February 2006, Libya opened a consulate in the remote northern Malian town of Kidal. The stated aim was to support economic development and thereby combat insecurity in the north of Mali. However, the establishment of a Libyan consulate in this politically and strategically sensitive Tuareg stronghold was guaranteed to raise the suspicions of neighbouring states, especially Algeria, which has long regarded the northern zones of Mali and Niger, with whom it shares common borders, as part of its and not Libya's immediate sphere of influence.9 Apart from historical-ethnic reasons, the northern frontier zones of both Niger and Mali are very much within Algeria's domain of security activities. Not only has Algeria regarded both regions as zones of hot pursuit, but they are the key security zones in America's Pan-Sahel and Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiatives (PSI & TSCTI).
Although formally denied, the US has established military bases in northern Mali and is behind the construction of Algeria's huge new military base at Tamanrasset. The US is also reported to have a GIS satellite located above the triangle formed by Mali's three northern towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal., thus enabling it to monitor the sensitive Saharan border zones that are now heavily infiltrated by Algeria's own secret counter-intelligence services. Not surprisingly, neither the US nor Algeria wants Libyan agents poking their noses into what has become the focal region of their highly suspect security operations in the Sahara. So, while the establishment of a Libyan consulate in Kidal, as far as Algiers was concerned, was red rag to a bull, Qadhafi's announcement of his ‘Great Sahara’ project at Timbuktu was the final straw.
Libya's meddling in the Western Sahara, Mauritania and now Mali, has been described by some Algerian journalists as placing a ‘belt’ around the country. However, it is in its own extreme south that Algeria feels most threatened by Qadhafi's ‘Great Sahara’ project. Although Algeria's Tuareg population do not number much more than 30-40,000, their traditional territory covers some 20% of Algeria's national territory. Thus, although the Algerian government has nothing to fear from its Tuareg population in a numerical sense, it has never fully comprehended the nature – socially, politically and ethnically – of its ‘Great South’.
Indeed, a series of provocative and repressive actions by the Algerian government against its Tuareg population over the last few years, largely, it seems, to impress its new US allies, and culminating in the July 2005 Tamanrasset riots, has resulted in a fairly ‘pro-Algerian’ outlook by most Algerian Tuareg becoming much more equivocal in the last few years. One reason for this is the US presence and the loss of livelihood caused by the US-Algerian fabrication of a Saharan front in the ‘war on terror’.
Qadhafi is aware of both these and other strands of resentment amongst the various Tuareg populations towards both national and external forces, as well as the precarious and marginalised position of the Tuareg in Mali, Niger and Algeria. His pronouncement on a Grand Saharan state, or at least a Tuareg federation, could not have been better timed to cause maximum ructions in the Algerian government.
In Algeria's popular media, as also in Niger, Qadhafi received a blast of opprobrious ridicule, while at a more formal level, his ‘Great Sahara’ plan was castigated on TV by Algeria's Prime Minister, Ahmed Ouyahia. On the diplomatic front, there was a flurry of activity on the Algiers-Niamey and Algiers-Bamako and Algiers-Nouakchott axes as Algiers shored up relations with Niger, Mali and Mauritania, while at the same time advising Libya to take a more considered and respectful attitude towards such a strategic neighbour.
However, we now have very good reason to believe that Algeria saw the solution to its ‘Libya problem’ in engineering a rebellion of the Tuareg around Kidal on the premise that such a rebellion would almost certainly be widely perceived as having been incited by Qadhafi's Timbuktu pronouncements. Hard evidence of Algeria's involvement in the rebellion will probably never be forthcoming. However, having been able to discuss the Kidal rebellion and its aftermath with key Tuareg leaders in Mali, Niger and Algeria, it is apparent that many, if not most, Tuareg, and certainly their key leaders, believe that this was the case. This goes some way to explaining much about the nature of the actual rebellion itself, such as why the rebels withdrew from Kidal and Menaka after only a few hours, thus avoiding military engagements with the Malian army, why only a handful (4-6) people were killed, why the Malian army was restrained from launching an assault on the rebel positions in the mountains of Tighar Ghar, some 120 kms north of Kidal, and why the Algerian government put itself forward with such alacrity to act as the peacemaker. More significantly, it explains the major question of why the rebellion received absolutely no support from any other Tuareg in Mali and, perhaps more significantly, in Niger. This was not because the Tuareg did not have grievances against their governments in all three countries (Algeria, Mali and Niger). In fact, and for a complex combination of reasons, anti-government feelings and causes of grievance were probably higher at this time than at any time since the rebellions of the 1990s.
A rebellion by the Algerian Tuareg, especially the Kel Ahaggar (centred on Tamanrasset), was never likely, largely because of the degree of infiltration by the intelligence services and the co-option of what is left of the Kel Ahaggar leadership. Also, southern Algeria is very heavily garrisoned by several thousand relatively well equipped troops, along with some 400 US ‘Special Forces’ which are known to be in the region, although this is denied by both Algeria and the Pentagon. Algerian Tuareg know that any rebellion would be crushed easily with heavy loss of life. Such a strategy is simply not on the cards. In both Mali and Niger, however, the situation is very different.
Grievances against both governments were far greater than in Algeria, the Tuareg are massively more numerous in both countries (est. 1 million in Niger and 800,000 in Mali) than in Algeria, and the defence forces of both countries, especially Niger, bear no comparison with those of Algeria. Indeed, the Niger Tuareg had already severely embarrassed Niger's frail army some 18 months earlier in the Aïr Mountains. However, the main reason why other Tuareg in Mali and Niger did not join the Kidal rebels was because their leaders knew that the Kidal rebel leader, Iyad ag Agali, had close associations with Algeria's secret military intelligence service (the DRS) and was almost certainly being ‘used’ by the Algerians for the purpose outlined above. Consequently, rather than supporting him in such a rebellion, they isolated him. That is why the rebellion was effectively over within 24 hours and why it did not spread.
To reinforce the above point, it should be pointed out that Iyad ag Agali's relationship with Algeria's security services goes back to at least the time when the DRS arranged for the second group of hostages taken capture in Algeria in 2003 to be taken to that part of Mali. One reason for choosing that area was because Iyad ag Agali could ‘clear’ it and effectively manage the negotiations. Although recognised as the traditional chief in that area and still respected for his leadership of the 1990s rebellion of Malian Tuareg, most other prominent Tuareg leaders, especially those of the more numerous Niger Tuareg, who have the potential to seriously destabilise the entire region, now keep him out of the political loop because of his known association with Algeria's DRS.
One reason why the peace agreement brokered by the Algerian government and effectively agreed by both the Mali government and the Tuareg has not yet been signed is because at least one, and possibly more, of Iyad's followers are known to be unhappy with his relationship with the Algerians and the way in which the Algerians have conducted the negotiations. For example, some of the Niger Tuareg's political leaders have been denied visas by the Algerian government to attend the peace talks being held in Algiers. This is almost certainly because the leaders concerned know of the Algerian involvement in the Kidal rebellion and have played a major part in ensuring that the rebellion did not spread. If this sounds a little odd, it is because the Algerian authorities have been actively promoting unrest throughout the region in order to impress on their US allies the extent of ‘putative’ terrorism in the region and also to justify their own expanded military presence in the region. Indeed, many Algerian Tuareg believe that the long-term design of the Algerian authorities is to turn the extreme south of the country, and its border zones, into an exclusive ‘military region’. Whether they are right is something that only time will tell. In short, the Kidal rebellion was very different from how it appeared and was reported in the media.
Why Were Italian Tourists Taken Hostage in Chad-Niger?
I will return to Mali shortly. But first, let me quickly explain what lay behind the capture of 23 tourists, comprising 21 Italians, 1 German and 1 Brazilian, who were seized at gun point on 21 August 2006 in the region to the north of Lake Chad. Nearly all press reports stated that the incident took place in south-east Niger, but close to Chad; 21 of the tourists were released on the first day with two being held hostage. All reports, including those from the released tourists, state that their attackers belonged to the FARS (Front des forces armées révolutionnaires du Sahara), a former Toubou rebel group of NE Niger.
The 21 released tourists soon made their way back to Europe via Djanet and across Algeria to Tunis. The two Italians held hostage were finally released on 13 October. Before media interest in the story dwindled, press reports tended to take two lines. One was to focus on the comical and child-like dispute that broke out between the Niger and Italian governments over the handling of the ‘crisis’. The other was to follow the Algerian line, which, as might be expected, was to point out how dangerous it is to travel in the Sahara, especially the Sahel, as (to quote former US EUCOM commanders) it is ‘swarming’ with terrorists, etc.
The spat between the Niger and Italian governments was farcical. The hostages, who were at first allowed to use their mobile phones, persuaded the Italian authorities to post their captors' statement on the internet. The gist of it was to accuse the Niger government of not being democratic and of having no security. In addition they demanded the release of one of their leaders from gaol and an explanation for the mysterious death of their former leader, Chakaï Barkaï, in 2001. Many analysts would regard the hostage-takers' statement as an entirely accurate description of Niger, which is why the Niger government took such exception to it and refused to have anything more to do with the incident! The Italian response was equally childish. The Niger government added further to the spat by accusing the Italians of entering the country on false visas, which appears not to have been the case but on which there is still no absolute clarity.
In the meantime, journalists and the usual crop of ‘terrorist analysts’ wrote a lot of rather muddled copy about the FARS and their intentions, with many of them, including the BBC, demonstrating their grasp of the situation by muddling Toubou with Tuareg.
What none of these reports mentioned was something far more serious. Shortly after the hold-up, we were able to make indirect contact with both the FARS and members of what is becoming loosely known in Chad as the ‘New Resistance Group’. This later ‘group’ comprises a number of groups and organisations in Chad, many of which have little in common than their opposition to President Déby, but which are nevertheless becoming increasingly more organised around a growing sense and awareness of political opposition and purpose. The information they provided was that the tourists had indeed been held up by Toubous, but in Chad, not Niger. However, those that took the tourists captive were not members of the FARS but members of a group belonging to Chad's ‘New Resistance Group’. Their purpose for attacking the tourists was because they thought they were French; their intention being to take French hostages in retaliation for the French military support which saved Déby's regime in April, and also as a warning to other French interests, such as oil companies, that might be thinking of coming in to the country or in other ways supporting Déby.
There were two reasons for letting the main party of tourists go free. The first was because they realised they were Italians, not French. The second was because the group acted on its own initiative without discussing the plan with their ‘central organisation’ leadership. When the latter heard what had happened, they ordered the group to free the tourists and hand over the two Italian tour organisers who had offered themselves as hostage to the nearby FARS Toubou, thus shifting the blame from themselves to the Toubou of Niger who they thought might be able to use the opportunity to draw their marginalised situation to global attention (and perhaps even earn some ransom money in the process). Also, the leadership did not want to give Déby the opportunity of labeling them as ‘terrorists’ and playing into the hands of the US Administration, which has been trying to label all forms of banditry and rebellion in the Sahel as ‘terrorism’. It is perhaps a little ironic that this is one of the few incidents in the Sahel in the last few years which has had absolutely nothing to do with the Americans.
The two freed Italians, Claudio Chiodi and Ivano de Capitani, have now been able to confirm what the FARS told us,11 namely that their original captors were initially intending to capture French tourists because of France's support for the Déby regime in Chad.
GSPC Gunfight in Northen Mali
The third Sahelian news story on which I should comment concerns the reported gunfight between Malian Tuareg rebels, belonging to Iyad ag Agali's Kidal rebels, now calling themselves ‘The Democratic Alliance for Change’, and GSPC (Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat) ‘terrorists’ in northern Mali on 27 September.12
A spokesman for the Alliance, Eglasse ag Idar, told Reuters in Dakar by telephone on 1 October that there had been a gun battle between Tuareg fighters of the Democratic Alliance for Change and militants of the GSPC terrorists some 400 kms north-west of Kidal and that at least one GSPC had been killed and possibly others injured.13 Most press reports increased the number of dead terrorists to either 3 or 4, describing them variously as three chiefs who had replaced El Para as head of the GSPC in the Sahara,14 or as ‘the new GSPC chief for the Sahara’, giving rise to widespread speculation that Mokhtar ben Mokhtar had once again been eliminated. (This would be the seventh time!!).
Most press reports, especially in Algeria and Mali, have put a particular spin on the incident.15 This has been to give the impression, fostered by the Alliance's own ‘blog’, that Iyad ag Agali's ‘Democratic Alliance for Change’ has thrown itself actively into ‘the international war on terror’.16 Ag Idar told Reuters that ‘Our Democratic Alliance handles security in the region and we chase out those who are not from there, that's the position we've taken to control the zone.’17 These are precisely the sort of statement that we might expect to come from Iyad ag Agali and his Democratic Alliance, given his close association with Algeria's DRS. It is also just what the US wants to hear. However, it is not quite what my own network of informants in the region have reported.
Their version of events is substantially the same, but within a rather different context. It is that there was a gunfight between a number of Malian Tuareg belonging to the Democratic Alliance and a group of smugglers/traffickers who may or may not have been members of the GSPC. One Tuareg and one supposed GSPC were killed and a second GSPC was wounded. However, the circumstances were not quite as described above. My informants have insisted that the incident was an accident and not a question of the Alliance joining in the ‘war on terror’ or ‘chasing people out of their region’. Rather, the two groups bumped into each other by accident, not knowing the other group was in the vicinity. The Tuareg presumed the other group to be of hostile intent; they, in turn, presumably assumed the Tuareg were an army patrol that would attack them.
However, the most interesting information is that the Tuareg group actually believe that the group they ran into was that of Mokhtar ben Mokhtar, or at least someone claiming to be Mokhtar ben Mokhtar. The dead ‘terrorist’ was identified (as in the press) as a ‘GSPC chief’ known as ‘Abdelhamid’, ‘Abohola’ and a number of other aliases.18 What gives possible credence to this actually being an encounter with Mokhtar ben Mokhtar (who has been reported killed on 6 previous occasions!) is that it apparently took place in daylight. This is possibly significant in that most trabendistes (traffickers, smugglers) prefer to travel at night. And it is then when most such ‘accidents’, which are commonplace, occur. Mokhtar, however, having the right sort of vehicles, arms, experience and knowledge of the region, including the knowledge that military patrols were not in that vicinity, might well have chanced travelling in daylight. My informants are convinced that it was Mokhtar who was wounded and that he headed into Mauritania, where he is known to have had domestic support facilities for several years.
All three of these ‘news stories’ gives us a glimpse of the complexity of the Sahelian situation and that almost nothing is quite as it appears. Whether the ‘original’ Mokhtar ben Mokhtar is still alive and was indeed the person involved in this ‘accident’ will probably never be known. However, having been on his tracks when he was alive and well, in the years before the US launched its ‘war on terror’ in the Sahara-Sahel, there is a certain sentiment in knowing that he might still be alive. However, whether he really is a member of the GSPC, or merely one of the two great ‘phantoms’ (the other being El Para) that support Algeria's panoply of disinformation is debatable.
The term GSPC, like ‘terrorist’, has now come to be used for almost anyone in the Sahara-Sahel (and the rest of the Maghreb, for that matter) who operates ‘outside of the law’. With the ‘war on terror’ having destroyed the Sahara's tourism industry and forced hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of young men into the various trafficking businesses in search of alternative livelihoods, the number of ‘terrorists’ has consequently risen enormously! Indeed, when we talk about the trans-Saharan trafficking businesses, we are talking about a $billion industry, with a whole raft of state official having a finger in the pie somewhere along the line. The whole notion of ‘terrorism’ in the Sahara-Sahel has become a political absurdity. As my informants stress, there is no ‘real’ GSPC terrorism, in the conventional sense of the term, in the Sahara-Sahel. In spite of more than three years of the US-Algerian ‘war on terror’ across this vast region of Africa, there have still been no ‘terrorist’ attacks on foreign troops, individuals or interests, or on civilian populations.
Jeremy Keenan , e-mail: jeremykeenan @hotmail.com
Samora Machel, 1986-2006
Phyllis Johnson
President Samora's death on 19 October 1986 cast a long shadow over southern Africa at a time when the region was locked in combat with the apartheid system of racial oppression in South Africa. Suddenly, overnight, the inspirational energy that he generated was gone, replaced by a sense of shock and deprivation. Deprived not only of President Samora's person and leadership, but that of others who had accompanied him to the Front Line States meeting in northern Zambia.
These included Fernando Honwana, an influential advisor and activist in the president's office; Muradali Mamadhussein, the president's press secretary and communications advisor; Ambassador Lobo, Mozambique's articulate representative at the United Nations in New York; Aquino de Braganza (and one of ROAPE's earliest editors), revered historian from the Centre for African Studies at Eduardo Mondlane University; the official photographer, Maquinesse, and others.
Travelling south-east, their plane passed safely through the Curla beacon from Zimbabwe into South Africa, and was gone. First reports said the plane was missing. Another report said there was wreckage of a plane in South Africa near the Mozambican border. It was not difficult to put the two reports together, but impossible to believe the result.
Samora Moises Machel had walked large on the southern African stage since the 1960s. Taking up the leadership of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) from the first president, Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane, who was assassinated by Portuguese security agents in 1969, and leading the liberation struggle from the battlefront, Samora Machel defeated Portuguese colonialism (which saw Mozambique as an ‘overseas territory’) to became the first President of Mozambique at independence on 25 June 1975.
A few months later, in March 1976, he closed Mozambique's 1,200-km border with Rhodesia, in line with United Nations sanctions, and cut off the lucrative transport of goods from the interior to his country's railways and ports.
Frelimo was already accommodating the liberation fighters from Zimbabwe in its bases in the liberated zones of Mozambique since 1972, especially in Tete province where they had ready access to the border crossing. The firm and active support from President Samora, Frelimo and Mozambique continued until Rhodesia again become Zimbabwe at independence on 18 April 1980. That support included the provision of rear bases and camps in Mozambique, and providing materials including those from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee, which was based in Tanzania. When the war in Rhodesia escalated to the extent of several rounds of negotiations, Mozambican officials were present on the sidelines. At the Lancaster House talks in London in 1979, Mozambique played an active role in encouraging a settlement.
President Samora did this because he knew that the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) would win the proposed transitional elections, and he believed the British government would deliver on their commitment on the land issue, to provide significant resources for purchase and resettlement. This belief is at the root of the firm support of Mozambique and Tanzania for the Zimbabwe land issue. They were at Lancaster House, they were part of the decision to settle, and they believed that resources would be forthcoming.
President Samora was eloquent and outspoken on the subject of liberation in southern Africa (he called Ian Smith a tabaqueiro, a tobacco seller), and especially against apartheid in South Africa. Having won Mozambique, he believed that anything was possible, including a victory over apartheid in South Africa. His high profile stance against colonialism and white minority rule, however, made him a threat to those in power in South Africa.
October 1986 was at the height of new activity by the African National Congress (ANC) in the townships of South Africa, with cadres moving in and out of Mozambique; and at the height of Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) activities in Mozambique, moving in from Kamuzu Banda's Malawi.
Renamo, formed and trained at Odzi in Rhodesia, near the Mozambique border, was moved, complete with weapons, supplies and training officers, to South Africa during the transition to Zimbabwe's independence and continued its activities from new bases at Phalaborwa. The then South African president, P.W. Botha, was often called the ‘great crocodile’ but he may not have been aware that Samora Machel was experienced at dealing with crocodiles.
Born on 29 September 1933 in the village of Chilembene, in what is now Chokwe district of Gaza province, Samora herded cattle like the other young boys. But one day, according to a story told by his cousin Paulo and quoted in Iain Christie's biography, Machel of Mozambique, he lost a calf that was attacked by a crocodile. When he found the calf with its leg in the crocodile's mouth, he ‘jumped into the river, shouting and screaming and hitting the water with his stick.’ Fortunately, says the author, ‘the crocodile did not call his bluff, but let go of the calf and made off down the river.’ He rescued the terrified calf, treated its wounds with medicinal herbs, and returned home in triumph, to be praised for his courage.
Later, in a political encounter with the ‘great crocodile’, President Samora signed a high-profile agreement with South African president Botha at Nkomati in 1984, which in typical fashion he made into a theatrical occasion, and drew praise from the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, for his courage. He had predicted in May 1979 that she would win the British election, and (to the astonishment of his Cabinet colleagues) that there would be ‘a settlement in Rhodesia by the end of the year’. He drew on historical references to explain his prediction: US president Richard Nixon and China; and French president Charles de Gaulle and Algeria.
So, President Samora Machel and others died in the plane crash after dedicating their lives to liberation, Namibia continued on to independence in 1990, and the apartheid system was officially ended and majority rule came to South Africa in 1994. Despite official inquiries in Mozambique, South Africa and the Soviet Union (the countries of ownership of the plane, venue of the crash, and nationality of the pilots), the full details have not yet emerged. Even now, 20 years later, the full evidence is not available.
But there is an echo across the Mozambique-South Africa border, where both presidents Armando Emilio Guebuza and Thabo Mbeki have pledged to ‘leave no stone unturned’ until they find out what happened on 19 October 1986.
And at Mbuzini, where the plane crashed, you can hear the echo, whispering through the 35 vertical steel pillars of the monument designed by Mozambique's leading architect, José Forjaz.
SANF is produced by the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC), which has monitored regional developments since 1985. Email sanf@sardc.net; www.sardc.net
Conference
Leeds University Centre for African Studies and Review of African Political Economy
The State, Mining & Development in Africa
13-14 September 2007
This conference brings together pressure groups and academics to explore three key themes: what lessons have been learnt from the resource curse days of the 70s, 80s and 90s; what opportunities for resource led growth have emerged in the 21st century; and what resistance exists within the continent to the continued politics of dispossession and primitive accumulation that has characterised much resource extraction? The focus of the meeting will be analysis of case studies from Ghana, Sudan, Zambia and South Africa. This will not exclude other country cases or comparative contributions.
More detailed issues relate to what opportunities exist for the state in Africa to benefit from the promotion of mining and resource led development? Has Africa's incorporation into the world economy created conditions within which African states can benefit or not from increased interest by MNCs in the continents resources? To what extent are local dominant classes and political elites in Africa continuing to benefit from resource led growth while labouring classes of peasants and workers remain or become poorer from state involvement with mining companies? What resistance has there been in Africa to the new rush for the continent's resources? Here focus can lie with organised labour, trade unions and political parties and it can also lie with the need to explore micro, village and household consequences for communities that border, for example, open cast mining. To what extent is small-scale or artisanal mining a competitor with large-scale national or international mining operations? Analysis here may focus too on the role of women-headed households. This remains a still under-researched yet increasingly evident phenomenon, especially where mining is a dominant feature of employment as men migrate to work and women remain in rural areas sustaining their families and communities.
Abstracts by 31 January 2007 to Saeed Talajooy: african-studies@leeds.ac.uk