Africa News blog

Washington and Sudan’s elections: When interests collide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Should Africa scuttle Copenhagen deal?

Africa has known for a long time that it’s not going to get everything it wants from the Copenhagen climate talks. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who is representing the continent in Denmark, has been managing expectations by saying so for more than six months now.

But that realism is tempered by increasingly tough words from a man who has already said European emissions may have caused his country’s infamous 1984 famine.

Meles arrives in Copenhagen today having threatened to enlist the help of China and India to “scuttle” any deal he’s not satisfied with.

“If Copenhagen is going to be about an agreement that simply rides roughshod over Africa, then we will try to scuttle it, and I think we have reasonable assurance we can scuttle it if our concerns are not addressed,” Meles told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Friday.

“We may need allies in order for us to be heard,” he continued. “Allies that have the capacity to mess the environment, and therefore allies who could not be ignored. If we can get the commitment of these countries not to sign an agreement unless Africa signs an agreement, then I assume we’ll be taken more seriously. In a recent phone conversation I had with the prime minister of China, I was assured of that support for Africa.”

Meles said he had “indications” India would support the world’s poorest continent, too.

Africa threatening the deal with China and India is interesting.

Is the new U.S. policy on Sudan the dawn of a new era of engagement with Khartoum?

from Global News Journal:

Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

U.S. President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said Obama had been awarded the prize for his calls to reduce the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons and work towards restarting the stalled Middle East peace process.

The committee praised Obama for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

The laureate wins a gold medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish crowns (1.4 million dollars or 878,000 pounds).

Obama was one of a record 205 nominees for this year's prize and the decision has come as a surprise to many. Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, had been tipped as one of the favourites.

Despite his ambitious international agenda, Obama is yet to make a significant breakthrough in the Middle East or effectively deal with the threat of Iran's nuclear programme and his country is currently fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Has Obama done enough to justify winning the Nobel Peace Prize? If not, who do you think should have won?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Obama Africa’s saviour?

Africa is rich in natural resources like oil, gold, diamonds, platinum and yet millions of African people live in abject poverty. The global economic and climate crisis have made life even harder.

At the recent G8 meeting in Italy, African leaders and members of civil society voiced concerns over the promises made in previous G8 meetings of aid and assistance that have yet to materialise.

from The Great Debate UK:

Squandered oil wealth, an African tragedy

-Arvind Ganesan is the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country of about half a million people on the west coast of Africa, but is the fourth-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

Most of the investment in the country’s multi-billion dollar oil industry comes from the United States. ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon are all there. Right now, the U.S. imports up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Equatorial Guinea, or about a quarter of the country’s oil production.

Oil money gives the country the means to be a model for development and human rights. The economy is nearly 130 times as big as it was when oil was discovered in 1995. But as a report released by Human Rights Watch today details, the government has squandered or stolen much of the money at the expense of its people.

It is a sad contrast, since the country has a per capita income comparable to Spain’s or Italy’s and development indicators more like Afghanistan’s. For just one sad example, infant and child mortality actually has increased -- from an already-dismal 103 deaths per thousand in 1990 to 124 per thousand in 2007. Similarly, under-5 mortality rates increased from 170 per thousand in 1990 to 206 per thousand in 2007.

The president and his family are doing just fine, though. They lead lavish lifestyles while most people live in crushing poverty.

A series of corruption scandals involving government officials and their families will give you some idea of how bad it is.

Is Obama Snubbing Kenya on Africa trip?

President Barack Obama’s choice of Ghana for his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office has stirred debate in his father’s homeland Kenya.

Some Kenyans believe Obama ought to have come “home” first. Others, especially among critics of President Mwai Kibaki’s government, say he has deliberately shunned the country to show U.S. disapproval of rampant corruption and nepotism in political circles here.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who comes from the Luo ethnic group like Obama’s father, said it was wrong to read too much into Obama’s itinerary, given that neither was he visiting other influential nations in the region like South Africa and Nigeria.

“Ghana is symbolic. It was the first African country to gain independence from Britain in 1957. Ghana is very advanced in its transition to democratic form of governance. So it is perfectly logical,” he told Reuters.

“If Obama were to come to Kenya as the first country in Africa, it would send some very wrong signals that he is coming here merely because of some organic relationship that he has with this country. So in fact it is good.”

Obama has been to Kenya several times, most recently as a senator in mid-2006. In a speech then, he took a strong line against corruption, which has plagued East Africa’s largest economy for decades. “If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and promote their common welfare – then all else is lost. That is why the struggle of corruption is one of the great struggles of our time,” he said.

That speech drew a sharp response from the government. Spokesman Alfred Mutua called Obama a young man who was “very poorly informed” and chided him for “lecturing” Kenyans. When Obama took power, however, the Kibaki government was so happy it announced a national holiday in his honour. The U.S. leader is wildly popular among all sectors of Kenyan society.

Why was Edwin Dyer killed?

Edwin Dyer was among a group of Western tourists kidnapped on the Niger-Mali border after attending a festival of Tuareg culture in late January.

Four months later the Briton was killed by al Qaeda’s North African wing, which had been demanding the release of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian Islamist being held in Britain.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said Dyer’s death was “a tiny portion of what innocent Muslims taste every day at the hands of the Crusader and Jewish coalition”.

Although Dyer was killed on May 31, news of his death was not released until June 3, a day before President Barack Obama gave a speech in Cairo intended to mend fences with the Muslim world.

Analysts suggested that AQIM may have intended Dyer’s death as a message to the American president.

Or was the reason more prosaic?

Last month, Algerian media said AQIM was demanding 10 million euros ($14 million) for Dyer and a Swiss national the group was also holding.

Western Sahara poser for UN

Morocco serves as the backdrop for such Hollywood blockbusters as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Body of Lies. The country’s breathtaking landscapes and gritty urban neighbourhoods are the perfect setting for Hollywood’s imagination.

Unbeknown to most filmgoers, however, is that Morocco is embroiled in one of Africa’s oldest conflicts – the dispute over Western Sahara. This month the UN Security Council is expected to take up the dispute once more, providing US President Barack Obama with an opportunity to assert genuine leadership in resolving this conflict. But there’s no sign that the new administration is paying adequate attention.

The story of Western Sahara would make quite a movie. There was high diplomatic intrigue when Moroccan troops occupied the territory, after Spain abandoned its long-time colony as Generalissimo Franco lay dying in 1975. The subsequent war between Morocco and the Algerian-supported Polisario Front, which sought Western Saharan independence, furnished plenty of action sequences in the desert. There is also the real human tragedy of the Western Saharan refugees, who have languished in exile for more than three decades.

In 1991, the Security Council created the UN mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO, whose mandate has been ritually reauthorized ever since. MINURSO’s original task was to organise a referendum in Western Sahara in which the residents would vote up or down on self-determination. Morocco, on the other hand, lobbied that tens of thousands of Moroccans be counted, a demand that Polisario resisted. 

Morocco’s latest stance is that Rabat share power in Western Sahara with indigenous groups. An autonomy proposal Morocco advanced in 2007 is in fact a credible starting point for negotiations aimed at a power sharing agreement. But Polisario will not discuss power sharing until Morocco recommits to a referendum on self-determination.

It has long been assumed in Western capitals that the Western Sahara question will be resolved through power sharing, but such a solution cannot simply be imposed. Only a negotiated settlement can bring about comprehensive peace.