Africa News blog

Lessons for coup makers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Madagascar: forest pharmacy under threat

Africa back to the old ways?

The overthrow of Madagascar’s leader may have had nothing to do with events elsewhere in Africa, but after four violent changes of power within eight months the question is bound to arise as to whether the continent is returning to old ways.

Three years without coups between 2005 and last year had appeared to some, including foreign investors, to have indicated a fundamental change from the first turbulent decades after independence. This spate of violent overthrows could now be another reason for investors to tread more warily again, particularly as Africa feels the impact of the global financial crisis.

“Although I don’t think these instances of instability in Africa are related to each other or part of a pattern, I think there’s no doubt external constituents and businesspeople around the world will assume there is a pattern,” said Tom Cargill, Africa Programme Coordinator at London thinktank Chatham House.

The fact that coup makers have succeeded without being forced to step down or even face major censure could also embolden those who might be tempted to take power in bigger countries, where falling growth is encouraging disaffection.

“Look at … other African countries, so-called pivotal states: Nigeria is in a terrible state, so is Egypt, so is Kenya, all these so-called big countries,” said Hussein Solomon, a political science professor at the University of Pretoria.

Although there can be a tendency to group very diverse African states together, the picture is far from uniform – Ghana’s presidential election two months ago was one of Africa’s closest, but avoided major violence, reassuring investors despite an acute fiscal crisis.

But social pressures are growing across Africa as a result of the world economic crisis.

Madagascar: a slow-motion coup

It seems Madagascar’s slow-motion coup has at last come to a head with the removal of President Marc Ravalomanana, announced almost casually in a text message from one of his aides.

The change has been a long time coming — the first outbreaks of violence were in January — and it’s all rather different from what many would regard as the traditional African coup d’etat.

Over the years that has developed into a familiar formula — the dawn announcement from a little-known colonel on national radio, the setting up of a military council to restore order after the sins of the previous regime, and the vague promise of a return to democracy in due course. The ousted leader may well have been out of the country at the time. The new boys move quickly to consolidate power.

In its final stages, the Madagascar version has been a little slower. Troops announced that they had deployed tanks but initially did not show them on the streets. Soldiers stormed the presidential palace, but the president was not at home. The central bank was seized, but the colonel in command of that operation then announced he had no more orders for the time being.

There is a sense that this is the elite fighting amongst itself for control of an island rich in natural resources and it took a while for the opposition leader, Andry Rajoelina, to gather the support he needed, particularly from the military.

But although the timeline has seemed relaxed, some 135 people have died along the way. Even if the elephants fight slowly, the ants still get crushed.

Madagascar: How bad can it get?

How bad can things get in Madagascar? Dissident soldiers said they had deployed tanks in the capital on Friday and the president urged the population to repel the mutineers.

In a worst case scenario, tanks in Antananarivo could lead to battles between the police and the presidential guard — who remain loyal to President Marc Ravalomanana — against mutinous troops and members of the military police.

The mutineers insist they have no plans to attack the presidential palace, that they are not taking orders from opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, and that they are only responding to public calls to restore law and order.

Rumours have been rife in the city all week that Ravalomanana might call in hundreds of mercenaries, perhaps from South Africa, to defend him now that parts of the armed forces no longer listen to him. The mutineers said they had deployed tanks specifically to “intercept” any private mercenary forces that tried to enter the capital.

If that happened, fighting could break out and civilians would almost certainly be caught in the crossfire. The U.S. Embassy is encouraging its diplomats and citizens to leave while they can.

If the public ignore the president’s call to confront the dissident troops, and the mutineers stick to their pledge not to attack his palace and topple him at gunpoint, the stand-off is likely to continue. A crisis in 2002 over disputed election results rumbled on for eight months. The United Nations, African Union and others have been pushing for a resumption of face-to-face talks between the two men, but as the crisis deepens that prospect is receding.

Meanwhile, The crisis has already hammered Madagascar’s previously booming $390 million-a-year tourism sector. Tour operators say a stand-off will lead to the entire year being a write-off, and any escalation of the violence could hit visitor arrivals for years to come.

Storm in Madagascar

In the relative political calm of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar has long been a centre of turbulence.

Now another political crisis is brewing as the opposition accuses President Marc Ravalomanana of abuse of power and threatening democracy. Tens of thousands of opposition protesters demonstrated in Antananarivo on Wednesday, two days after an earlier rally descended into violence that left nearly 40 people dead.

The bodies of most the victims were found in a burned out clothing store. The authorities said they were looters who got trapped.

Ravalomanana and opposition leader Andry Rajoelina are very different characters.

The president is a self made millionaire. In his early twenties, he started selling yoghurt off the back of a bicycle. Today, at 59, he is a dairy tycoon with extensive business interests.

Rajoelina is 34 years old and nicknamed TGV, after the French high speed train, for his rapid-fire manner.

He is incensed that the authorities closed down his private TV station after it broadcast an interview with the former president, Didier Ratsiraka. Since he was elected mayor of the capital – a position Ravalomanana once held – Rajoelina has been one of the most vocal critics of the presidency.

Selling Africa by the pound

The announcement by a U.S. investor that he has a deal to lease a swathe of South Sudan for farmland has again focused attention on foreigners trying to snap up African agricultural land.

A few months ago, South Korea’s Daweoo Logistics said it had secured rights to plant corn and palm oil in an even bigger patch of Madagascar – although local authorities said the deal was not done yet. Investors from Asia and the Gulf are looking elsewhere in Africa too.

Investor interest in farmland – not only in Africa – grew sharply after food prices shot to record highs last year. Although commodity prices have fallen since, there is still anticipation of long term demand growth once the world emerges from its current economic troubles.

Philippe Heilberg, chairman and CEO of New York-based investment firm Jarch Capital, told Reuters he saw ripe opportunity for decades in south Sudan’s Mayom county. The deal covers land nearly twice the size of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Land is being leased from General Paulino Matip Nhial, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) – the armed wing of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in semi-autonomous South Sudan. Jarch Management is also buying an interest in a local company from Matip’s son.

But should Africa be handing out its land to foreign investors and will the local people and countries involved be the ones to benefit?

This commentary in the Financial Times made comparisons with the colonial grab for Africa’s resources and points out the damaging legacy that remains.

Should we really care about the Chagossians?

Should we really care that Britain’s House of Lords upheld a British government appeal on Wednesday, blocking the return of hundreds of Chagossians to their Indian Ocean homes?The decision by the House of Lords ends a years-long battle to secure the Chagos Islanders the right to return to their archipelago, from where they were forcibly removed in the 1960s and ’70s to make way for an American airbase on Diego Garcia.

By a ruling of 3-2, the lords backed a British government appeal that argued that allowing the islanders to return could have a detrimental effect on defence and international security. It’s a tough decision and an agonizing result for the Chagos islanders. They continue to suffer appalling injustice because of the British government, who booted them out of the Chagos islands – also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – to make way for a US military base.

But now the estimated 5,000 Chagossians are mostly scattered between Mauritius, Seychelles, and Britain. And the younger generations (many of whom are half Chagossian) don’t seem so keen to return. One expert has said that about 1,000 Chagossians could return to two of Chago’s six atolls, making a living from coconuts, fishing and ecotourism. But others say this outline plan has grossly underestimated the costs and practical difficulties. Should we, in fact, breathe a sigh of relief at the House of Lords’ decision?

Small islands like those in the Chagos Archipelago tend to have an incredibly rich variety of plants and animals, often found nowhere else. Scientists and sailors visiting the islands describe a near paradise of coral reefs teeming with fish. And examples from elsewhere in the Indian Ocean – Mauritius, Madagascar, Reunion, Comoros, and the Seychelles – show just how badly human populations can damage the environment.

The Chagos Archipelago, for example, has the largest coral atoll in the world, 10 so-called Important Bird Areas, ideal nesting conditions for two turtle species, and – according to tests in 1996 and 2006 – some of the world’s cleanest waters too. And while a 1998 rise in water temperatures killed as much as 95 percent of coral in some areas, Chagos’ reefs grew back probably because there is so little human activity, scientists say. The nearby Maldives were not so lucky.

A sense of justice tells us that Chagossians should be allowed to return. But if these islands truly are on the frontline in the battle against extinctions and if such clean and isolated regions are truly a rarity, then should we really be upset by the block on Chagossians’ return to their homeland?