South Africa

The corruption charges against Jacob Zuma either have legal merit or they do not. If the charges are baseless, they should be dropped. If there is a legal foundation to move forward, the process should play out.

This seeming truism comes to mind in light of the Friday protests by eThekwini ANC members who marched on Durban police stations demanding that the charges against Zuma be dropped and South African Communist Party (SACP) concerns that the trial will do damage to South Africa politically and financially.  There is at least some merit to the idea that a trial could have serious destabilizing effects on South African politics in the short run. But so too would dropping the charges for reasons unrelated to the legal merit of those charges and would merely replace one angry population for another.

An independent judiciary is the hallmark of any liberal democracy. As fraught as a Zuma trial might seem, far worse would be creating the impression that members of the country’s elite are above the law. The charges must go forward unless over the course of the legal process members of the judiciary decide not to pursue them any further because they doubt the legal merits of the case.

Is there hope for an abatement of political violence in Kenya’s ongoing crisis? Despite more deaths in clashes between protesters and police, allegations of banditry, and fears of ethnic cleansing, guarded optimism may be in order as international appeals coupled with Kofi Annan’a active intervention appears to have led to an agreement between President Mwai Kibaki, whose dubious victory in a highly contested election fueled the current nightmare, and the opposition and its leader Raila Odinga. (The Council on Foreign Relations has a useful background primer on Kenyan politics.)

But the emphasis should be on “guarded.” Leaders who allow violence to be unleashed oftentimes find that their ability to marshal that violence becomes limited if nonexistent. Anarchy as a method of control, so popular among Big Men, has a way of spiralling out of control. Once convinced that one group of people is an enemy and violence is the only course of redress, even the most ardent followers will be tough to convince that violence should cease if the alleged enemy is still among them. Demogoguery, cult of personality, the unleashing of terror (and not the hackneyed “tribalism” that some are so quick to attribute when things go awry in Africa) — these things tend to get away from those who choose to use them as means and methods.

The Mo Ibrahim Prize  will go to Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique who served from 1986 to 2005 and helped to end that country’s civil war and oversaw the transition to peace. The list of finalists, in addition to Chissano, included:

Benjamin William Mkapa (Tanzania)
Domitien Ndayizeye (Burundi)
Sam Nujoma (Namibia)
El-Hadj Bonfoh Abbass (Togo)
Gnassingbe Eyadema (Togo)
Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya (Mauritania)
Elson Bakili Muluzi (Malawi)
Azali Assoumani (Comoros)
Abdiqassim Salad Hassan (Somalia)
Mathieu Kerekou (Benin)
Albert Rene (Seychelles)
Henrique Rosa (Guinea-Bissau)

Chissano is not an uncontroversial choice. His son has been implicated in the death of journalist Carlos Cardoso, a progressive Mozambican journalist who was murdered in 2000, though Joaquim Chissano has never been connected to the death of the journalist who was often critical of his administration.

There is a new story about political intrigue, firings, scandal, corruption, and crime reverberating through South Africa with the issue of an arrest warrant and suspension of National Police Commissioner (and head of Interpol) Jackie Selebi. This might represent Thabo Mbeki’s stiffest political challenge yet, which is in itself saying something. 

The Mail & Guardian editorializes hopefully on the prospects of Africans developing African solutions to African problems, using the Ibrahim Index  as a springboard and less hopefully on the Salebi mess.

Meanwhile, recent data from an internal ANC audit of party membership indicates that Jacob Zuma is the front-runner for the party’s presidency. One wonders if this sort of news might not hasten Cyril Ramaphosa to leave the private sector and return to public service. Ramaphosa, who has remained steadfast that he will not run for the ANC leadership, stands as my (mild) upset candidate to emerge with the party and national presidency. 

What are the odds of reforming Nigeria’s corruption ridden oil industry? The Economist lays out the long odds.

The Boston Globe has an editorial about how scientists increasingly can trace DNA — “genetic markers” – to tell us a great deal about not only the origins but also the movement of human beings from our earliest origins in Africa to today.

Is South Africa indifferent to the Darfur crisis? Pambazuka News believes so. There is little question that the country ought to be doing more to address the situation. Also at PN, Rotimi Sankore presents a rather sophisticated cri de couer about the Zimbabwe situation in which, ultimately, Robert Mugabe’s endless reign of power is the crucial problem.

Mo Ibrahim, who boldly and controversially is offering a prize to reward good governance in Africa, has released his Ibrahim Index, with the help of Africa specialist Robert Rotberg, ranking African nations based on a host of criteria, including safety and security; rule of law, transparency, and corruption; participation and human rights; sustainable economic opportunity; and human development. Here are the top ten, in order, starting with the country that currently ranks first: Mauritius, Seychelles, Botswana, Cape Verde, South Africa, Gabon, Namibia, Ghana, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe.  The bottom ten will surprise no one (except perhaps inasmuch as Zimbabwe is not on this list, ranking a somewhat pedestrian 31st overall, which is a sad testament to the state of African leadership south of the Sahara), as starting from the worst of the worst they are: Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Angola, Central African Republic, Burundi, and Sierra Leone. (See more here.)

If’s a busy news cycle right now in Southern Africa. here are a number of stories that caught my eye in today’s chock-full Mail & Guardian and elsewhere:

As the thirteith anniversary of the murder of Steven Bantu Biko at the hands of the security forces approaches different South Africans remember Biko’s life and death differently.

the Zimbabwe crisis continues unabated. The economic calamity has opened the door for corruption. Some maintain hopes  that South African-brokered talked will lead to a resolution of the political elements of the country’s conflicts, but it seems that  this may not be the time for whistling past the graveyard.

Meanwhile, transformation isn’t always easy. Members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) are up in arms over the Tshwane metropolitan council’s reported ban on white businesses. If the allegations are accurate, the DA would certainly seem to have a case that they will bring before the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile in a  pronouncement that is likely to be equally tendentious, the Black Management Forum  (BMF)  has argued that white women should be removed from the list of groups previously disadvantaged ”in terms of . . . employment equity legislation.” It is a bit hard for white women who benefitted in every imaginable way from apartheid suddenly stepping forward to claim their lots alongside the black South Africans on whose backs the Apartheid system built white privilege.

Finally, the M&G’s longtime rugby columnist Andrew Capostagno has a nifty piece on how this Rugby World Cup represents a “big chance” for the Springboks. He concludes his historically astute article by arguing that if the Boks achieve their considerable promise and “Win this one” South Africans “can forget, for a long, glorious moment, about politics.”

It seems that Nigerians are rather dissatisfied with their political system and their leaders. Nigeria in so many ways has the potential to be to West Africa what South Africa is to the southern part of the continent. But too many years of chaos and misrule have pretty much assured that Nigeria will be a long time in fulfilling its promise.

So what do I wake up to this morning, just a few hours after yesterday’s cynical post about Zimbabwe? A report in the Mail & Guardian that Robert Mugabe is nearing a deal that will “end a political crisis in his country.”Naturally, if an agreement, which will largely involve the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)  and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF, is pending that is a good thing. And if it is true, as the M&G story indicates, that the potential truce is the result of Thabo Mbeki’s work as SADC’s chosen broker, all the better.

But let’s not get carried away. Mugabe has spoken of conciliation in the past only to continue on his chosen path whenever he felt it necessary to do so. Mugabe can afford to display largesse. By and large he has won. Giving some concessions to an opposition he has effectively broken is a far cry from Zimbabwe’s crisis being over.

After all, also in this morning’s papers came news that Mugabe’s government is threatening to arrest white farmers resisting evictions from new land targeted for black farmers. Land reform in the former settler colonies of Africa is a vexatious issue. Africans have every right to look for reform policies that will allow blacks, and especially farmers, to secure land on which to work and live. But those policies need to be coherent and, as much as possible, fair and without the threat of violence and coercion. Mugabe’s land reform policies were so long a chimera that only appeared periodically as a threat against white farmers whenever Mugabe felt the need to mobilize his base that when he finally began to enact slapdash policies, they proved to be capricious and chaotic. Whatever the necessity of land reform in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s policies have proven disastrous and have fueled the economic collapse that has characterized most of the last decade.

Furthermore, whatever the good news coming from Thabo Mbeki’s political mediation, most Zimbabweans are little concerned with politics-qua-politics right now. And so while the M&G  carried that good news forward, it also reminds us that fundamentally, Zimbabwe is an authoritarian state. A new report from the Human Rights Forum argues that torture, assault, unlawful detention and other violations of human rights are increasing apace. 

The HRF report indicates that much of the source for this human rights crisis stems from the political instability, and so perhaps the deal that Mbeki hath wrought will help to stabilize the political situation and in so doing alleviate the human suffering across the country.  Any positive progress is a cause for at least tempered optimism. And if Mbeki’s work really is bearing fruit, it will once again prove the essential role that South Africa must play in the region. But success in Zimbabwe is more than likely going to come in small, incremental, and sometimes barely discernible steps. And even as the country takes those steps, there will be steps backward as well. Indeed, as long as Mugabe is in charge, the question as to whether the shifts in momentum take the country forward or in reverse might be impossible to differentiate.

Economic development in Africa can be a daunting concept. Countries with little infrastructural foundation are difficult to penetrate, and one of the key dilemmas comes with where to start. Food security, political instability, military conflict and crime, economic chaos — these problems can make building roads and bridges and phone networks nearly impossible to conceive, never mind to execute.

Perhaps the best way to develop larger infrastucture is to start small. At least this is the argument of Ethan Zuckerman, a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (and a former college classmate of your faithful scribe), in The Boston Globe. He discusses the case of Democratic Republic of the Congo entrepreneur Alieu Conteh, who founded the cellular telephone company that became Vodacom Congo:

His success is an example of a new strategy for building infrastructure in Africa that might revolutionize the continent. Called “incremental infrastructure,” the idea is to build essential facilities — telephone networks, power grids, roads — in small pieces using private investment, instead of relying on large, centrally planned, government-run projects. . . .

The infrastructure challenges most African nations face are enormous. Just to meet sub-Saharan Africa’s current power demands, for example, could cost $70 billion in new power plants — even more if African nations begin using power to process minerals locally instead of exporting them to China, North America, and Europe. But the success of entrepreneurs like Alieu Conteh suggests that African infrastructure is a big problem that demands a small solution.

We need to be wary of panaceas, of course. Big solutions and small solutions are necessary throughout Africa, but Zuckerman makes an important case inasmuch as executed properly, small solutions can become big ones, and by growing organically can help provide the development Africa most needs.

Privation connected to poverty and vulnerability to climate change is wreaking havoc throughout the continent. Lesotho continues to suffer from drought-fueled food shortages. The droughts have also affected Swaziland and South Africa. The economic crisis in Swaziland has led to increased sex trafficking among children as well as women. Informal settlements in Namibia are embody hell on earth. Climate change is leading to an increase in malaria cases in Kenya.

 The news of the increased UN-African Union peacekeeping presence has raised hopes of humanitarian relief for the people of Darfur. Sudan claims that it will support the troop presence. We;ll see how long Khartoum’s conciliatory attitude lasts. Some Sudanese, meanwhile, are looking to South Africa for a blueprint for peace.

At Foreign Policy Stephan Faris worries that the boomlet that parts of Africa appear to be enjoying might be chimerical, with oil fueling another manifestation of the resource curse. The Council for Foreign Relations explores the process of ”hunting for elusive peace.” Despite these real concerns, there also is real progress on parts of the continent, as Kofi Annan argues in the Mail & Guardian.

At The New Republic Eliza Griswold analyzes the Somalia crisis as “the other failed invasion,” which is problematic inasmuch as viewing Africa through the prism of Iraq manages to be both too Western-centric while at the same time allowing Iraq to disproportionately warp our views of other issues.

In order to address the mindboggling inflation rate in Zimbabwe (is it really possible that it could reach 100,000% by the end of the year?) the government has issued  a Z$200,000 note worth $1 US. Meanwhile, add water shortages to the daily sufferings of the people of Zim.