Tag Archives: Somalia

africa’s Middle class

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Elizabeth Dickinson at FP reports:

Given all this, perhaps the only thing about Africa that isn’t changing quickly is our perceptions of it. There’s an image impressed in all of our minds of a starving child, symobilizing an impoverished continent. If that was ever true, this is an excellent reminder that today, it’s at most a snapshot. Yes, there’s great human suffering and it’s not hard to find. But Africa as a whole is becoming a middle class continent.

It is hard to completely buy Dickinson’s optimism given the fact that Somalia, the DRC, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Sudan, among others are still far from being stable polities. The precarious nature of the stability in the more stable African states such as Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda e.t.c. are also cause for concern.

That said, the reality is that there are many Africas. Those who fail to internalize that fact continue to do so at their own peril. Just ask the Indians and the Chinese.

Blackwater founder linked to Somalia

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The embattled Somali transitional government is reported to be soliciting for help from a security firm that is a child of South Africa’s infamous executive outcomes and their American partner Blackwater. Executive outcomes has a checkered past, including involvement in coups and suppression of insurgencies in the more unstable parts of Africa. Blackwater came to the limelight following its casual treatment of civilian life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The transitional federal government (TGF) of Somalia should be advised that mercenaries do not make a nation. There is nothing that will stop Saracen and their backers from turning on the same government if their incentive alignment changes. The last thing the Somalis need is the creation of a mamluk culture on top of the chaos that already exists.

My position on Somalia remains that those with power – guns and the majority of the people’s (revealed) hearts and minds – should be allowed to govern, regardless of their ideological leanings. Once they’ve tasted State House and a state visit in Vienna they can then be bought off and made part of the international community. It won’t be the first time that the international community has condoned a fundamentalist regime for the sake of short-term stability. Right now the primary need in Somalia is Hobbe’s Leviathan. Period.

The TGF was a dead on arrival delivery that continues to stifle Somalia’s chances of emerging from collapse.

 

Wikileaks: interesting stuff on Kenyan-Somali relations

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The most interesting thing to come out of the wikileaks stuff, at least as far as eastern Africa is concerned, is the story on Kenya’s proposed strategy of dealing with the state collapse in neighboring Somalia. According to the leak, Kenyan security chiefs are considering the creation of an autonomous buffer region in Jubaland – the area of Somalia that borders Kenya – kind of like the ones in Somaliland and Puntland. The capital of the autonomous buffer region would be in Kismayu.

Kenya has a sizeable Muslim Somali population and is afraid of fundamentalist Islamism on its doorstep in a lawless Somalia. A stable buffer region in Jubaland would guard against radicalisation of Kenya’s Somali youth in the northeast, on top of checking the proliferation of small arms in the country.

Kenya also might be thinking long term. A divided Somalia guarantees less chances of success for a greater Somalia irredentist movement if peace ever descends upon the entire country.

Ethiopia is not a fun of the idea. The last thing Addis Ababa wants is an autonomous region that can fund Somali separatists in the Ogaden. The region would also have a demonstration effect on Ogadeni Ethiopians who for decades now have fought for real political and economic autonomy from Addis Ababa.

I don’t think this is a bad idea. At this point anything that would bring order to any region of Somalia is acceptable. I have argued before that the Union of Islamic Courts should have been allowed to establish order and then bought off with aid in exchange for a more sober interpretation and application of Sharia law. The whole debate about how bad they were for women’s rights was horse manure. The Saudis aren’t any better.

Regarding Ethiopia’s concerns, Meles and his men should not export their Ogadeni conflict just as much as they do not want Somali warlords to export their own civil war. The rebellions against Addis in Oromoland and the Ogaden are partly due to Zenawi’s stranglehold on power and the faux-ethnic federalism that currently exists in Ethiopia. More on this soon.

fixing somalia

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The Kenyan foreign minister has some ideas….

Kenya’s foreign minister said Saturday the millions being spent to fight pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia should be spent instead on helping the country become a functioning state.

Adding that

“Piracy is not born at sea. It’s born on land. And if you are able to patrol and protect your coastline, it’s unlikely that pirates will find a way to the high seas to cause the menace,” Wetangula said. “Instead, what are we seeing? 52 warships patroling … the waters of the Indian Ocean, but piracy is still going on.”

I say it is about time we exorcised the ghosts of black hawk down and meaningfully intervened in Somalia. Such an intervention should be realistic enough to allow al-Shabab those who can monopolize violence to control Mogadishu and surrounding areas in the short term before attempts are made to rebuild a functioning Somali state.

h/t Cyn

al-shabaab may be linked to kampala blasts

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UPDATE: The daily nation reports that Somalia’s insurgent group al-Shabab has claimed the bombings that killed dozens in Kampala yesterday. The Atlantic’s Max Fisher offers an interesting analysis of the bombings.

Blasts in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, killed at least 64, the BBC reports. According to the report Ugandan security forces suspect that the bomb attacks may have been carried out by Somali insurgent groups. Ugandan troops are the backbone of the 5000 strong African Union contingent propping up the hapless transitional government of Somalia. The main rebel group in Somalia, the islamist al-Shabab, has previously threatened to attack Uganda in connection with its military presence in Somalia.

These attacks may be the beginning of a new security problem in the wider east African region. Since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991 the Somali’s have largely kept their violence within their borders, the only regional effect being the proliferation of light arms and the recent surge in piracy off the Somali coast. But that will change now that internationally-linked groups like al-Shabab are willing to export violence beyond the Somali borders. It might be time for unconventional approaches to the Somalia problem.

Uganda is scheduled to host a high profile African Union summit next week and security must be an even bigger concern for the Ugandan government in light of these attacks.

three cheers to gettleman and his ilk

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I am on record as being very critical of Jeffrey Gettleman, the New York Times bureau chief for eastern Africa. His sensational reporting from the region has oftentimes painted a one dimensional picture of events and portrayed east Africans as irrational and passive beings at the mercy of fate, and their sadistic rulers. That said, Mr. Gettleman and others who share in his bravery remain the only sources of somewhat credible news reports from  crazy places such as Somalia and eastern DR Congo. Listening to him on Fresh Air today reminded me that even though I may not agree with his presentation style, Mr. Gettleman is doing a brave job of reminding the world of the many evils that still define some people’s lived reality.

The DRC is 50 today

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The Democratic Republic of Congo is 50 years old. The last 50 years (after they killed Lumumba) have been absolutely disastrous for this vast country in the middle of the Continent; Independence merely replaced the brutality, cruelty and pillage of King Leopold’s men (King Albert II attended the independence day “festivities”) with the brutality and kleptocracy of Mobutu. All I can say is that I hope the future holds a less punishing existence for the country’s 63 million plus.

Congratulations to Congolese people the world over for their enduring spirit. Kofi Olomide, the prolific Congolese soukous musician, sums it up in a quote from Samba: “This is hell’s system. The fire is raging but we don’t get burned.”

The other Continental disaster, Somalia, also turned 50 on Wednesday. No cause for celebration there either.

failed states index

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Foreign Policy, in its July/August issue has 2010’s failed states index. The Continent has 12 of the top 20 worst performers on this index, with Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe and the DRC being in the top five respectively. Kenya is 13th on this index, performing worse than Niger, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, among other basket cases. The substantive meaning of the rankings aside (I’d rather be in Kenya than in Sierra Leone on any day), the index is a grim reminder of how badly governed the Continent is. The best ranked mainland African state is Ghana, at number 54. Mauritius leads the Continent at number 30, out of 177.

Also in the FP issue is an exposé of Bozize’s Central African Republic. I used to think that he was doing a relatively good job. Turns out he is full of bucket-loads of horse manure:

“Bozizé has fared no better than his predecessors, ruling a territory the size of Texas with a GDP significantly smaller than that of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.”

And don’t miss out on Ayittey’s ranking of the world’s worst dictators. Our good friend Rob is second only to the crazy guy who runs North Korea.

Lastly, I must say something about my favorite punching bag Idriss Deby’s Chad. Idriss Deby is a study in ineffectual leadership and is on the list of Africa’s many ‘wasted dictatorships.’ In 2006 he successfully conned his way out of the World Bank brokered plan to use revenue from the Chad-Cameroon pipeline to reduce poverty among his country’s extremely impoverished 10.3 million souls. He now uses most of Chad’s oil revenue to fund his poorly-run security forces that remain vulnerable to any rebel group that can land its hands on a technical. But with over 1.5 billion barrels in reserves and a world thirsty for oil, it appears that this Zaghawa “warrior” is here to stay, his incompetence notwithstanding.

The HDI numbers tell it all. The literacy rate in Chad is at a dismal 25%. Life expectancy stands at 48 years. 80% of Chadian’s live on less than a dollar a day. The growth rate of the economy, -1% last year, -0.2% in 2008 and 0.6% in 2007, cannot keep up with the population growth rate of more than 2% (despite a rather high infant mortality rate of 97 deaths/1000 live births) – which means that Chadians’ living standards will continue to decline into the foreseeable future.  The bulk of Chadians (more than 80%) make do with subsistence agriculture. Oil, cotton, cattle and gum arabic are the country’s main export commodities.

sources: FP and The CIA World Factbook

everyone is under the law

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It is kind of nice to be reminded that in a democracy nobody should be above the law. The pictures of sitting members of parliament, one of them an assistant minister, arraigned in court on charges of incitement are definitely refreshing.

In other news, a reminder that parts of the Continent still have the sort of CRAZINESS that ought to drive even the most mild tempered of us mad. And of course it is hard to talk about civil conflict without mentioning the land of Mobutu.

as if somalis did not have enough problems….

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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is implicated in a leaked report that suggests that corrupt officials have been diverting food aid intended for displaced Somali refugees. It is feared that al-Shabab (the Islamist insurgency group that is fighting against Somalia’s transitional government and its international backers) is benefiting from the diversion of food aid.

Diversion of food aid for other ends is not new in this region of the Continent. In the 1980s when the Ethiopian government under tin pot dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was fighting Eritrean and Meles Zenawi-led rebels, both sides of the conflict diverted food aid and used it to purchase weapons, with disastrous consequences. The CIA seems to have forgotten about this particular case. The agency is a key nemesis of al-Shabab in Somalia.

africa’s endless conflicts

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The New York Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman has a thought-provoking piece in Foreign Policy. I don’t particularly buy his doomsday analysis (most of the Continent will definitely not head the Somalia way) but his characterization of the modern day African rebel movement is spot on. The typical rebel leader on the Continent is nothing but a roving bandit with huge amounts of ideology deficit.

required reading for africa’s ruling elite

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The discourse on Africa in the West (and elsewhere) is laden with a lot of offensive stuff. And the offensive stuff is not restricted to plebes in the streets or newspaper articles written by ill-informed correspondents. Even more informed people still lapse into the default way of conceptualizing Africa. It is not uncommon to hear prejudicial and condescending comments about the Continent and its people in academic seminars and workshops.

Reading through Foreign Policy (FP) I found a piece that despite its tone and subliminal cues, should be required reading for Africa’s ruling elite. The article is offensive (may be innocently so) in the sense that the editors of FP thought it worthwhile to publish an article that seeks to tell the world that Africa is not a reincarnation of England circa 1200 A.D. The reason I suggest this as required reading is that sometimes I wonder if the ruling classes in some of the states on the Continent ever pose to think of the consequences of their actions in the wider setting of the globe. How do images from eastern Congo, Darfur, Somalia and other such places contribute to the definition of the Continent and its peoples?

jua kali will not take us where we want to go

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Informal businesses provide employment for millions of Kenyans. Kiosks (both big and of the mama mboga variety), the mitumba business, matatus and even peasant agriculture are what keeps the average Kenyan going. Because of governance issues – like corruption and poor laws – the formal sector of the Kenyan economy has consistently failed to provide enough jobs for the ever growing population. That said, I believe that the jua kali (informal) sector will not take Kenya where it wants to go. Economic History teaches us that scale has merits. It provides the resources for R&D, lowers operational costs and generates revenue for the government because it is hard to hide profits from the taxman like is commonplace in Kenya’s jua kali sector. Plus if we have scale we can export surplus production to places all over the Continent thus creating even more Kenyan jobs – why should we cede these markets to the Chinese, Indians and other “Dubai” traders?

That is why I think that Jaindi Kisero has a point with regard to Kenya’s matatu-dominated transport sector. It is time Nairobi, if not all major cities and towns, had decent public transportation unlike the chaotic and thuggish matatu industry. The matatu industry has given rise to a matatu culture that has taken vulgarity and criminality to a new level – the epitome of which is the dreaded Mungiki sect. Because of this, most reasonable people would concur that “formalizing” public transportation and the matatu industry would go a long way in reducing crime and bringing some sanity to Kenyan roads. Now if only there was a place where we could purchase political will and secretly feed it to Kenyan politicians.

And in other news, Somalis in the southern part of the country will be forced to go hungry after al-Shabab kicked out the WFP. About 900,000 people will be affected by the WFP decision. 2.8 million Somalis are dependent on food relief. The WFP decided to close shop in the face of several demands from al-Shabab (the demands were not all bad, I should add. One of them was that the WFP should not import food during the harvest season in order to promote local agriculture. These al-Shabab types know something about the demerits of food aid in Africa, it seems). Somalia has not had a functional government since the fall of Siad Barre in the early 1990s. Sometimes I wonder whether instead of the US paying the Ethiopians to invade Somalia it might have been better to have the Islamic Courts Union run the country. Well, at least for some time before incentivizing their being less predatory and misogynistic. Most politicians the world over have a price. Especially once they have tasted real power.

Lastly, Somalia is not all gloomy. If you are daring enough you can make money in the land of the al-Shabab, without being involved in piracy.

keeping them honest, Aid Watch style

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For those into famines and famine politics, here’s one for you…

And more of the same

And here is more news on Ethiopia’s second insurgency waged by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The Oromo Liberation Front in the southern parts of the country is the other major thorn in Addis Ababa’s flesh. For a man into military victories and invasion of other states I must say I am disappointed in how Zenawi has handled both so far.

where is Nkunda?

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Laurent Nkunda remains imprisoned in Rwanda – at least as far as a google search can tell. This even as his minions – or have they taken over already, given the fractious nature of rebel movements on the Continent? – who have been integrated into the Congolese army issued a warning that they are going to resume fighting if Kinshasa does not control its “indisciplined” soldiers.

I keep thinking that the arrest of Nkunda might have done what taking out the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia did – it spawned a variety of splinter rebel groups each with its own litany of grievances, which continue bargaining with them even harder.

This may be counter-intuitive, but in the fight against rebel movements may be the protagonists – in this case Kinshasa, Kigali and other concerned parties – might find it more useful to strengthen the stronger movements and use them to take out the weaker ones with the guarantee that once they do this they will be given better terms at the negotiating table. This approach would eliminate “security dilemma” concerns since the governments would be supplying the strong rebel group with arms.

There are of course a ton of commitment problems that arise out of this approach. For one the government would not want the rebel group to get too strong. How to guarantee this is not very clear. Secondly, it would be hard to get guarantees from governments that they will not take out the rebel movement militarily in a more conventional attack after the latter take out the splinter groups who thrive on asymmetric warfare. May be a guarantee of integration afterwards? A cabinet job?

– if you think this is nuts, look at Iraq and possibly Afghanistan.