Africa Confidential. 23 February 2001 Vol 42 Number 4
ERITREA
Winter in Asmara
For the first time in his political life, President Issayas Aferworki faces serious challenges from his
political peers. There is now a substantial group within the ruling People's Front for Democracy and
Justice that is dissatisfied with his leadership. This results mainly from the war with Ethiopia and
from stonewalling on political reform. It has been getting harder for Asmara to dismiss the growing
band of critics of Issayas as tools of Ethiopian intelligence and a spate of sackings and resignations at
the apex of the regime indicates a new degree of discontent. Outside government, critics are
increasingly strident. For now, Issayas will weather the storm: he's set to win any leadership contest
and face down any rivals this year. Yet the political climate is growing chillier and the President's
options are narrowing. A good example of these developments was the abrupt sacking last week of
the influential Minister of Local Government and former Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Ahmed Sherifo. Regarded as an unofficial vice-president, Mahmoud Sherifo is highly popular, willing to listen and to delegate. Sherifo's sacking arose from his work as head of the commission to draft a party law for the country's first elections. Issayas did not want elections but the National Assembly insisted they should be held in December 2001. The elections are almost certain to happen but the
timetable may not allow for a multi-party contest, now that Sherifo has been dismissed. In mid-December, Yemane Gebreab, the party's political boss, said he expected only independent candidates, as there 'probably' wouldn't be enough time for parties to emerge. Eritrea remains far from the multi-party democracy that the President's critics claim to favour.
ETHIOPIA
Gim-gema
Ethiopia, like Eritrea, is conducting a post-war gim-gema (reassessment), covering the decade
since the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power. When it is complete, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is expected to score an overwhelming victory in May's elections and then to reorganise the government. When the House of Representatives first met again in October, it reappointed him Premier and endorsed, temporarily, his previous government.
SUDAN
The arrest of the National Islamic Front government's founding father, Hassan el Turabi, on 21 February sent ripples of glee through Sudanese communities: the previous two times he was sent to jail, the government fell. He was arrested just before President Ja'afar Nimeiri's overthrow in 1985, ensuring his rapid release just after. Then when his NIF seized power in 1989, he was detained, enabling the NIF to consolidate its hold while pretending the coup was merely military,
under President Omer el Beshir. A decade later, he boasted: 'I ordered Omer to go to the Palace and I went off to prison'.
TANZANIA
Revolution revisited
Oh dear! The media had exaggerated reports of Zanzibar's troubles, some foreign embassies were
biased in favour of the opposition Civic United Front, foreign election observers had not spent long
enough in the country to appreciate that the recent island elections were free and fair. That was the
angry response of Tanzania's President Benjamin Mkapa, Chairman of the governing Chama cha Mapinduzi, in a recent BBC interview; he conceded, though, that recent killings in Zanzibar had soiled Tanzania's good image. Observers wonder whether the President appreciates the extent of the damage to the country's reputation for peace and stability, or the danger of continuing trouble to relations between people of different faiths. The nation has almost equal numbers of Christians and Muslims; Zanzibar is almost entirely Muslim. Neither is Mkapa rushing to help address the growing sense of grievance in Zanzibar. Zanzibar's tensions have built up since the 1995 elections, when the CCM claimed it had won by a narrow majority and the opposition refused to accept the results. There followed many allegations that the human rights of CUF members had been abused. Mkapa refused foreign offers of help in ensuring implementation of a Commonwealth-brokered agreement between the parties in Zanzibar, whose essential component was reform of the islands' electoral commission.
SOUTH AFRICA
Not so slick
A probe into a secret oil trading deal costing the country millions of dollars is threatening some powerful interests
A probe into a secret trading oil trading deal costing the country millions of dollars is threatening
some powerful interests In what is becoming a test-case for President Thabo Mbeki's government's ability to investigate corruption allegations, an international oil trading company faces claims that it connived with its business partners in South Africa to bribe local civil servants in a secret deal that lost the country more than US$3 million. Trafigura, a London-based oil and metals trading company, is embroiled in the first major kick-back scandal to hit South Africa since 1994. The company's joint-venture operation in South Africa, High Beam Trading International, is at the centre of an
investigation into the alleged payment of $60,000 in cash to officials at the state oil company, the
Central Energy Fund, in exchange for a lucrative oil trading contract. Trafigura robustly denies wrongdoing and senior executive Graham Sharpe insists the South African contract is 'still valid'. South African state oil officials signed the deal with Trafigura and High Beam last May. The contract was signed without the knowledge of the Ministry of Minerals and Energy which by law should have sanctioned it and was sealed without an open tender. It effectively gave Trafigura/High Beam control over South Africa's strategic oil stock. The two companies stood to make US$20 million on the deal over fifteen months, investigators said. Yet Trafigura and High Beam Trading International insist that the deal did not break any existing rules. Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has fired the board of the Strategic Fuel Fund for its conduct of the deal.
Mlambo-Ngcuka has repudiated the Trafigura contract and referred the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions. She is also determined to recoup the state companies' losses in the deal. High Beam's offices were raided last week by investigators attached to the office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka.
SOUTH AFRICA
Wrong number, again
South Africa's hopes of reviving the sale of nearly 10 billion Rand (US$1.4 bn.) of G6 artillery pieces to Saudi Arabia seem to have been scuppered by the 16 February bombardment of Iraq by the United States and Britain. Saudi officials are putting the deal on hold again, saying that their military and trading relations with the USA (which has bases in Saudi) must take precedence over the South African sale. Negotiations for the G6 deal started in 1996 and were suspended in 1998 after Saudi officials blamed repayments to the USA for the Gulf War for a cash squeeze on the kingdom's arms budget. By then, Saudi officials and middlemen had received over R100 million in sweeteners from South Africa. News of the scuppered deal came just before President Thabo Mbeki's 17-19 February state visit to Saudi Arabia. Although the state South African Broadcasting Corporation insisted the trip which included discussions with King Fahd and the de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdelaziz was a success, SA-Saudi relations are now weighted
heavily in favour of Riyadh. Both countries were involved in mediation over Libyan officials accused
of the Lockerbie bombing. Last week, Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe Casaburri awarded South Africa's third cellular telephone licence to the Saudi and US-backed Cell C consortium in a move seen as paving the way for Mbeki's trade negotiations.
CONGO-KINSHASA (DRC)
Hope springs eternal
Just when there are glimmerings of hope for an end to the war, there are new questions about Western commitment to backing African peace-brokering in the region. Hopes rest firstly on Congo's new President, Joseph Kabila, whose willingness to move negotiations forward prompted regional leaders to resuscitate the Lusaka peace plan at talks in the Zambian capital last week. Secondly, there is the readiness of the political and military leaders of the main countries involved in
the war especially Angola, Rwanda and Uganda to talk through the problems face-to-face. From the powerful five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, UN Assistant Secretary General Jean-Marie Guihenno sent a discouraging message just before the 15-16 February Lusaka summit. The original UN peacekeeping plan proposed 550 observers and 5,000
armed soldiers to protect them. Yet inside the country some Congolese compare the new mood in the country to the momentum that brought the young men from the east of the country right into Kinshasa and swept away the wreckage of Mobutu Sese Seko's regime. Now the civilians are moving to sweep away the wreckage of Laurent Kabila's regime. Kabila Junior has the people
behind him, if only he can get rid of his father's political legacy
AFRICA
/UK: Peace budget
Britain's Labour government, whose proclaimed ethical foreign policy has been under fire since the
Sandline affair in Sierra Leone (AC Vol 39 No 5), wants to show it takes Africa seriously. Officials in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and in the Department for International Development (DfID) say that wars have become the major block to Africa's economic development. They have pushed for more coordinated British efforts, now dispersed across several ministries and agencies. On 26 March with the Defence Ministry, they will launch their Africa Conflict Prevention Fund in London at a top-level seminar.
COTE D'IVOIRE
Dialogue de sourds
Prime Minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan told journalists he was happy with his talks in Brussels on 15 February. The European Union would continue the political dialogue and would support Abidjan's efforts at national reconciliation; Côte d'Ivoire would ask for funds for the forthcoming municipal elections, and to reorganise the army and the police. 'In three months, we shall be restarting economic cooperation', the Premier said. Apparently not according to Brussels: 'No
decision has been taken about reopening financial cooperation', the European Commission flatly stated.
SOMALIA
Population: 9.1 million
GNP: $879 million
Debt: $2635 million
President Abdikassim Salat Hassan will win support from the United Nations and from Arab states. However he will fail to face down Somalia's warlords and to consolidate power in Mogadishu.
Vol 41 Number 17 - 01 September 2000
Possible president
Is there a new president in Somalia? Not quite. But Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, who took the oath of office on 20 August, is the nearest thing Somalia has had to a recognised president since the fall of Mohamed Siad Barré in 1991. Abdulkassim was elected by the Transitional National Assembly, meeting since May at Arta in Djibouti (where some 2000 Somalis had gathered), and urged on by President Ismail Omar Guelleh. After much horse-trading among the 20 candidates and supporters, Abdulkassim won a third round of voting, 145 to 92, to beat his main rival Abdullahi Ahmed Addow. After winning the vote, President Abdulkassim flew into Mogadishu on 30 August and drove through the streets, guarded a by a lengthy convoy of technicals (pick-up trucks armed with machine guns and mortars) and greeted by tens of thousands of supporters.
Vol 41 Number 13 - 23 June 2000
/Djibouti: Time to talk
The Somali National Peace Conference in Djibouti finished six weeks of initial consultations and moved on last week to phase two. Hundreds of participants finally chose enough acceptable delegates to fill clan quotas. Phase two will deal with a constitution and structures of government, the status of Mogadishu, the issue of property looted over the past decade of conflict and, perhaps of most interest to those attending, choosing a parliament and a government.
Vol 41 Number 7 - 31 March 2000
Warlords at the gate
More questions face Djibouti's proposed Somalia peace conference: nearly all Somalia's main political organisations have now come out against the gathering, scheduled for 20 April. The latest opponent is Puntland, in the north-east, whose government formally withdrew its support on 23 March. Puntland and its allies in the Ethiopian-backed Somali Peace Alliance are annoyed that Djibouti is trying to pick the delegates without their advice, while accepting the views of exiles. Puntland claims Djibouti wants to create new political and clan groups which undermine the existing administrations.
Vol 41 Number 6 - 17 March 2000
Hope from the North
Somalis have high hopes of the peace conference scheduled for 20 April to 5 May. It is very much a Djibouti government initiative: it is to be held in the country and the proposals to be discussed were launched by President Ismail Omar Guelleh at the UN General Assembly last September. Yet why should Somalis hope for more from Ismail Omar's scheme than from any of the other peace plans that have failed over the past decade? Firstly, because there have been some changes for the better over the past year. A de facto peace reigns through most of Somalia, now divided into three: Somalia (the southern state where most of the fighting took place), Somaliland (the northern region which claims independence and has escaped the worst of the chaos) and Puntland (the most recent 'state', in the north-east). Secondly, the plan focuses on civil society - including elders, professionals and business people - rather than militia leaders. This makes more sense now because the militias' power is greatly reduced. Most militias guarding facilities such as ports are controlled by business. Thirdly, if the plan works and Somalia becomes a real state again, there are plenty of benefits to hope for: some resurrection of social services such as health and education and aid from the European Union, World Bank and Gulf states. And lastly, Somalis fear the prospect of another failure and a return to widespread faction fighting and chaos. Meanwhile, Islamist organisations are also taking advantage of the relative calm, steadily and quietly building up their structures.
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