Africa News blog

Breaking down the walls – Sudan’s oil transparency push

It was a just another seminar on transparency in the oil sector. Seemingly banal.

But this was being held in Khartoum, involving live debates between northern and southern Sudanese officials, a minerals watchdog and the international media, who were allowed free access to publicly grill those who administer what has for years been an incredibly opaque oil industry.

What emerged was surprisingly positive and all walked away feeling that — at least until the Jan. 9, 2011 referendum on southern independence — this was the first step towards finally unpicking all the stitches that have sewn the sector tightly shut to outsiders.

We are “PR stupid” said the newly appointed Minister for Energy from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, Lual Deng, who instigated the forum.

He said this to explain the discrepancies in oil production and oil prices uncovered by Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation, whose report “Fuelling Mistrust — the need for transparency in Sudan’s oil sector” provoked the discussion.

These discrepancies include oil prices published by the ministry of finance web site with little clarification of how they had been calculated, even citing barrels of Sudanese oil selling for as little as 15 cents a barrel.

Global Witness also found discrepancies between China’s CNPC, which dominates a Sudanese oil sector dogged by U.S. sanctions, and Sudan’s energy ministry output figures. Those figures were easily explained as the difference between gross production and net of water, gas and solids on Wednesday.

To observe or not to observe?

This is likely to be the question hotly debated in the more self-aware international observer missions covering Sudan’s elections, due to start on Sunday and marred by a wave of boycotts and claims of fraud.

Sudan’s first multi-party polls in almost quarter of a century had promised to be fiercely contested until revelations of irregularities caused boycotts by several parties.

The two largest parties and incumbent President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s only real two contenders both withdrew, saying the ruling party had fixed the polls.

As evidence of fraud continued to emerge, the use of government presses to print presidential and gubernatorial ballot papers, and voter registration books was the final straw. The boycotts have raised serious questions about the credibility of the presidential polls especially.

Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, had hoped to win legitimately, in defiance of the warrant.

This week Sudanese civil society groups asked the international observer missions from the Arab League, African Union, China, Japan and the European Union among others to leave, saying they served only to legitimize a flawed election.

They all arrived in time to observe the voting and counting, while the Sudanese activists said the major fraud began with a flawed 2008 census, demarcating the constituencies followed by the voter registration last year. 

Are you the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement?

There is a classic scene in Monty Python’s film The Life of Brian where the hero sets off in search of a secret band of insurgents. “Are you the Judean People’s Front,” he asks a group of malcontents. “The Judean People’s Front!” they reply in disgust. “We’re the People’s Front of Judea … The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f***ing Judean People’s Front … And the Judean Popular People’s Front. Splitters!”

Darfur’s more Islamic rebels will not appreciate the Judean comparison. But there has been an undeniable Pythonesque quality to recent efforts to negotiate with the splintered insurgent factions in Sudan’s strife-torn west.

Last month, Khartoum signed a ceasefire with Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Days later, JEM threatened to pull out of further peace talks saying it was furious about Khartoum’s decision to sign a similar deal with the new rebel umbrella group the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).

JEM lashed out at LJM, saying most of its constituent groups were bogus with no military strength, many of them government stooges. (The LJM’s member parties, who deny JEM’s accusations, include the United Resistance Front – URF, the Sudan Liberation Movement Mainstream – SLM-M and the Democratic Justice and Equality Movement – D-JEM, together with even more obscure bodies.)

LJM leaders lashed out at JEM, saying JEM had no right to monopolise the negotiations taking place in Qatar’s luxury hotels and conference centres.

Meanwhile the whole process was dismissed as a farce by the faction of the insurgent Sudan Liberation Army/Movement still loyal to commander Abdel Wahed Mohamed al-Nur (SLA/M – Abdel Wahed), as well as by Abdel Shafie of the rival SLA/M – Abdel Shafie.

There is a serious point to make behind the Monty Python references and the ever thickening stew of rebel acronyms.

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.

U.S. under fire over Ugandan rebel hunt

A multinational offensive aimed at wiping out Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels – and planned and equipped with U.S. support during the dying days of the Bush administration - has scattered fighters who have unleashed a wave of massacres on Congolese villages.   LRA fighters have killed nearly 900 people in reprisal attacks in northeast Congo since Ugandan troops, together with Sudanese and Congolese soldiers, launched a military operation in December against fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony, whose two-decade insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 2 million. (See Alertnet briefing for more)   Reuters reported on the U.S. involvement in December. The New York Times said recently that the Pentagon’s new Africa Command (Africom) had contributed intelligence, advice and $1 million in fuel. The Washington Post argues the operation has been so unsuccessful it amounts to little more than “throwing a rock at a hive of bees”.   Foreign Policy magazine said that the LRA, who failed to sign a planned peace deal in April, would be hard to stamp out and that the operation was putting the Pentagon’s reputation at risk.   There are sceptical voices in the blogosphere too.   “One of the first publicly acknowledged Africom operations has turned into a general debacle, resulting in the death of nearly a thousand civilians and sending untold numbers of children into sex slavery and military servitude,” Dave Donelson says on his Heart of Diamonds blog.   Writing in Uganda’s Monitor, Grace Matsiko said the offensive was proving a real test for officers of Uganda’s army (UPDF).   “Uganda should brace itself for a protracted war, should Kony and his top lieutenants continue to evade the UPDF dragnet,” the journalist wrote.   Meanwhile, aid agency MSF has accused the United Nations force in Congo, the world’s biggest, of failing to protect civilians from Ugandan rebel attacks – accusations the world body has rejected as totally unfounded. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has also accused U.N. peacekeepers of inactivity and of living alongside the LRA for three years and doing nothing about the guerrillas.   While expressing his horror at the what he called ‘catastrophic’ consequences for civilians from the offensive, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes has said the joint force still needs to see the operation through.   Should the offensive continue or is it time to halt it? If so, what should be done about the rebels? How big an impact should the conduct of this operation have for the U.S. Africa Command’s future role?

What would Obama do for Africa?

Win or not in November, U.S. Senator Barack Obama has already become a hero to Africans.

He is a household name, putting a smile on everybody’s lips and spreading pride across the continent.

Now millions of Africans hope this son of a Kenyan father can turn his nomination to the Democratic presidential candidacy into a place in the White House.

But if he wins, is Barack Obama an answer to Africa’s problems? 

Would an Obama-led USA prioritise issues of poverty, AIDS and trade in Africa? Or would bigger global conundrums like Iraq, the Middle East and the West’s response to the rise of China take precedence as before?

Here are some views from around the continent.

So what tangible benefits would a black U.S. president bring to Africa? And what does Africa have to offer Obama? Have your say.

Should Zimbabwe’s election go ahead?

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai detained twice in a week, U.S. and British diplomats forced from their cars by police, rallies banned, aid workers stopped from working, reports of violence from across the countryside. The campaign for Zimbabwe’s presidential election run-off on June 27 is being hard fought, literally.

The opposition accuses President Robert Mugabe of responsibility for violence and says 65 people have been killed. The ruling party blames Tsvangirai’s followers and says Mugabe’s Western foes and some aid agencies have been campaigning for the opposition.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s economy plumbs ever greater depths. A U.S. dollar could buy more than a billion local dollars on Thursday. But that was then.

Simba Makoni, the ruling party defector who came third in the first round vote on March 29, called this week for the presidential election run-off to be scrapped. He was certainly not the first to suggest that it might be better to abandon the election and have the rivals try to agree some sort of national unity government.

Should the election go ahead? Could it be fair? Who would win?

Have your say.