Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from 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.
from Africa News blog:
France and Africa. New relationship?
Before Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in 2007, he made clear he wanted to break with France’s old way of doing business in Africa – a cosy blend of post-colonial corruption and patronage known as “Françafrique” that suited a fair few African dictators and the French establishment alike.
He has made the same point during his past visits to the continent.
“The old pattern of relations between France and Africa is no longer understood by new generations of Africans, or for that matter by public opinion in France. We need to change the pattern of relations between France and Africa if we want to look at the future together,” Sarkozy said in South Africa early last year.
This week he is back in Africa for a visit on which France’s business interests play a very prominent role.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sarkozy called on the country to work with former foes Rwanda and Uganda in a partnership based on exploiting the region’s natural riches.
Another stop was in neighbouring Congo Republic to see President Denis Sassou Nguesso, an old friend of France who seized power in the oil-producing state in 1979, lost it in a 1992 election and then returned five years later via a civil war. In the past, Congo Republic symbolised as much as anywhere the old style of diplomacy.
After the Congos, the schedule takes Sarkozy to Niger, a particularly important country for nuclear power dependent France because of the uranium mining interests of French state-controlled nuclear energy group Areva. It is building a huge new mine in Niger, where the government is fighting Tuareg rebels who demand more of the region’s wealth.
France is one of the greatest democratic country in the world, but it is always implausible to see how uncivilised international relations it nurtured and sustained with its african partners. One does not need to search for scientific statistics to conclude that the only countries in Africa with high political, economical and social instability are either French colonised or French speaking.
Long before he set out for his latest trip to Africa, demonstrations were held in France and elsewhere about the new vision of President Sarkozy over “Democratic” Republic of Congo. His plan to have Rwanda and Uganda to exploit Congolese natural resources as a way to pacify the region bears germs of conflict for generations to come. The contrast is that France is in silent protectionism when it is shutting down car plants in Eastern Europe to boost jobs creation at home while America and Britain are spending to starve off banking financial crisis. If anything, France years of support to our dictators have left African with a bitter taste of its malicious development aid.
It shows that if you are “strategic” enough (either because of Al qaeda or oil, other natural resources, competition with China), you may get away with it even with questionable elections. Aziz removed a democratically-elected president, held elections which he won and was quickly recognised as the president of Mauritania by the AU and then the EU, and the USA. Would it have been the case without the threat of Al qaeda? The lesson is that not only you need elections, but for them to be quickly accepted, you need something bigger and Aziz played the right card from the beginning (fight against terrorism).