Richard Cornwell

A NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

Introduction The document outlining the nature of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a long and exhaustive one, and it would be as well to examine the premises upon which it appears to be based. “The New Partnership for Africa’s Development is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic ...” To what extent will these statements reflect a likely future for Africa? The best starting point in attempting an answer to this question is to establish as clearly as we can where we find ourselves at present. Most of us have probably not done this accurately. Certainly, the dominant discourse in the public realm seems well wide of the mark. In the author’s view this state of affairs is the result of our unconscious or conscious acceptance of a set of assumptions so banal as to be taken as virtually self-evident, not least of which is the nature of the linkages between security, stability and development. First among these assumptions is the issue and role of globalisation and, by extension, what it implies or could imply for Africa. As important and connected to this, are other perceptions about the role of the state in providing security to African societies and the relationship of the state to its security apparatus and, finally, there is the acceptance at face value of the primary commitment of the leaders of Africa’s political class to the development of their countries and citizens.

Somalia: Distorting reality?

The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) came into being in 2004 as the result of protracted negotiations conducted under the auspices of the Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD). In many respects the TFG was the brainchild of Ethiopia, whose government had long decided that a resuscitated state in Somalia, which had been without an effective government since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991, would have to be kept weak or dependent in order to prevent it renewing its irredentist claims to the Ogaden regions of Ethiopia. The new president of the TFG was Abdullahi Yusuf, who had previously ruled the autonomous territory of Puntland, in north-east Somalia, with considerable Ethiopian military and fi nancial assistance.

First test for the African Union : Madagascar : Africa watch

There would be few who could conclude that the African Union (AU) or its predecessor covered themselves in glory during the Madagascan crisis. Indeed, the organisations consistently went out of their way to accommodate the views of the incumbent, refusing to take a strong stand on agreements reached when these were no longer expedient to Ratsiraka. By concentrating on minutiae it diverted its gaze from the bigger picture, in which electoral fraud loomed large. If final proof was wanted of this it came in the parliamentary results a year after the flawed first round of presidential elections. Ultimately the AU found itself floundering in the wake of developments, and was irrelevant to the solution of Madagascars political crisis. Other international actors eventually played a far more constructive role as they sought to engage and encourage the new government.There would be few who could conclude that the African Union (AU) or its predecessor covered themselves in glory during the Madagascan crisis. Indeed, the organisations consistently went out of their way to accommodate the views of the incumbent, refusing to take a strong stand on agreements reached when these were no longer expedient to Ratsiraka. By concentrating on minutiae it diverted its gaze from the bigger picture, in which electoral fraud loomed large. If final proof was wanted of this it came in the parliamentary results a year after the flawed first round of presidential elections. Ultimately the AU found itself floundering in the wake of developments, and was irrelevant to the solution of Madagascars political crisis. Other international actors eventually played a far more constructive role as they sought to engage and encourage the new government.

Côte d'Ivoire: Asking for it

On Christmas Eve 1999, those inhabitants of C6te d’Ivoire who were tuned into the local station Radio Nostalgie were informed by General Robert Guei, sometime chief of defence staff, that “ ... as of now, President Henri Konan Bkdik is no longer the president of the republic.” Saying that he was speaking on behalf of a group of young mutineers, Gue’i announced that they would shortly form a ‘committee of national salvation’. He added that the government, parliament, constitutional council and supreme court had been dissolved.1

TOGO: OR NOT TO GO?

Extracted from text ... AFRICA WATCH The death of President Gnassingb? Eyad?ma on 5 February 2005, after almost 38 years as Togos head of state, has ramifications far beyond the borders of this small, impoverished country. There were, of course, few of his countrymen who could remember a time that he had not dominated the national scene, and his sudden departure suggested to many, friend and foe alike, that the moment constituted either a threat to the established order or an opportunity to instigate radical change in the domestic balance of power. Yet the principal players in this political drama all faced constraints, ..

Nigeria and Camerron: Diplomacy in the Delta

On 14 August this year, Nigerian troops in the disputed territory of Bakassi formally handed control of the area to representatives of the government of Cameroon. The Nigerians are due to complete the withdrawal of their 3,000-strong garrison by the middle of November 2006, though the islands of Atabong and Akwabana in the west of Bakassi will remain under Nigerian administration for two more years.

THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: From fiction to fact?

Extracted from text ... The Global and All-Inclusive Agreement on the Transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), signed by the Congolese parties on 17 December 2002, outlined a transitional process to culminate in national elections to be held two years after the inauguration of the Transitional Government in June 2003. The agreement also stipulated that the transition could be extended for two six-month periods if technical preparations for elections were delayed. The Transitional Governmental has encountered significant difficulties in the past two years. Nonetheless, the basic objectives of the peace agreement - such as the drafting of a constitution, the elaboration ..

Peace in Sudan: Who Will Pay the Price of Principle?

representatives of the Government of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed the final piece of a framework agreement on a settlement to a civil conflict that had cost the country more than 2 million lives since it began in 1983, there was a distinct wariness in the public response. To some extent this was because this outcome had been so long in coming, and so often delayed, that there were fewer illusions about the work still to be done in filling in the framework’s details. At best there would be a pre-interim period of six months, to be followed by an interim period of six years before the essence of the Accord was put to the test, and southerners allowed to choose between continued inclusion in a federal Sudan or secession as an independent state. There was another reason, too. It was beginning to dawn on most observers that the Naivasha achievement, however hard-won, had ignored several pertinent issues which remained unresolved and either actually or potentially deadly to the Sudanese people. The most prominent reminder of this could be summed up in the name of a region of the country: Darfur. Two years ago there were few people not intimately concerned with Sudanese affairs who could have pointed out France-sized Darfur on the map. That is no longer the case, now that media attention has been focussed on events there, encapsulated in the description “the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today.” Other terms have also been used to awaken the interest and anger of a susceptible public, sometimes in the hope that this might provoke intervention from national governments or international bodies. Such words as “scorched earth”, “genocide” and its modern euphemism “ethnic cleansing” were commonly invoked, often to paradoxical effect as the diplomatic community deflected its energies into debates about whether the particular instances of mass murder, rape and arson in Darfur were accurately, or even legally, defined by such expressions. Not surprisingly, the resulting arguments generated rather more heat than light, and did little to succour the victims of the atrocities they reflected. The latest, and worst, “Darfurian Troubles” began in February 2003, when the Darfur Liberation Front, which soon renamed itself the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), launched a series of attacks against government positions, announcing that it was fighting to end the region’s marginalisation and neglect by the authorities in Khartoum. In so doing the SLA claimed to be following the example of other regional insurrections, most notably that of the SPLN/A, whose efforts over the past twenty years finally had attracted sufficient international attention and support to induce the Sudanese government to the negotiating table in Kenya, where a peace deal was still being crafted, section by section. The SLA was concerned that the international community PEACE IN SUDAN Who will pay the price of principle?

The mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Problems and prospects

It would not seem too cynical to suggest that one of the principal driving forces behind the international community’s concern about, and commitment to, a successful outcome to the process of political consolidation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was its interest in securing the formation of a legitimate government that could act as a signatory to mining contracts. The previous situation, in which the authorities in Kinshasa and the various rebel groups exercising de facto sovereignty over much of the mineral-rich territory of the east, might have provided an environment conducive to the looting of resources but not to long-term investment in this African treasure house.

Benin: Under New Management

Extracted from text ... African Security Review 15.1 Institute for Security Studies Benin: Under new management Richard Cornwell* In the middle of the 1970s there were few observers who would have predicted that Benin would come to provide Africa with examples of peaceful political transition. Benins ethno-regionally fractured polity traditionally has pitched the south-east, south-west and north of the country into a bitter rivalry for national political power. Throughout the 1960s the army had frequently intervened to break the political deadlock created by civilian administrations, and in 1972 Mathieu K?r?kou seized power and then sought to broaden his appeal to the militant student ..