I got a chilly welcome when I arrived in Nairobi this morning on a Virgin flight from London. June is perhaps the coldest month of the year here, and many wore jackets on the ground. We hit a big traffic jam on the way to my hotel, near the Israeli embassy. Wi-fi worked immediately, and the hotel’s staff were excellent — ending immediately any concerns I might have that Kenyans are back to work after the post-election troubles. They are.
My arrival coincides with Odinga’s appearance in Washington, where he is talking about his important reconciliation agenda. The Nation newspaper had a good, if brief, account of the new Prime Minister’s speech before a DC think-tank.
Let’s hope Morgan Tsvangirai has not only now realized that Robert Mugabe is merely the old worn-out front-man for the corrupt clique that runs Zimbabwe. In any case, his days of calling Mugabe a political opponent are over. Taking a lesson from Orwell, Tsvagirai, the best hope to spare Zimbabwe’s people even further distress and anguish, has started speaking truth to power, insisting that Zimbabwe’s government is essentially a “military junta.”
Even these two words are polite.
The intelligent editors at the Yale Global website has taken seriously my argument for disciplined management of rice imports by African nations — as a way of stimulating their own rice farmers to do more. Any forms of protectionism tend to be dismissed by economists and trade policy analysts — but then they don’t have to live in an African country. Africans in the real world need to defend themselves — and advance their own economic prospects — with the very same tools that people in wealthy countries use. These tools work. And employed intelligently, they will work for Africans. The blinding notion of unrestricted trade led Africans don’t a blind alley — and now they are finding their way back towards a middle road between openess and control. Stirking that balance is an endless quest — not only in agriculture but across the range of human activities.
The government of Japan, the Financial Times reported today, plans to double assistance to African governments as part of a new charm offensive aimed at winning Tokyo more international allies.
With China and India already wooing Africans, Japan’s increased attentions are no surprise. As I have written elsewhere, Asians are suddenly in love with Africa, trying to elbow aside Europeans and Americans who have long dominated discourse on how to help Africans. I call the phenomena, “the browning of Africa,” in reference to a decisive turning point in world history: once a stage for whites and blacks to play out historic psycho-economic dramas, Africa is now becoming multicultural, and Asians see the opportunity to destroy “white” hegemony over the “dark continent” through economic penetration and technical assistance. Given the sorry history of black-white relations in Africa over the centuries, the Asian insertion can only be good news, even though interest in Africa by official agencies of India, China and Japan reflects complex motives.
For decades, the Japanese have quietly run curious aid programs in sub-Saharan Africa. This past January, in Kampala, I met a young Japanese man who confessed to being an auto mechanic assigned by the Japanese government to train the Ugandan police “motor pool” on how to repair their growing fleet of automobiles.
When I asked how long Japanese taxpayers were covering his stay in Uganda, the Japanese car mechanic gleefully confessed, “One year!”
When I expressed astonishment on the length of his stay, he explained, “Toyotas are popular here.”
And about to become more so. This week Japan’s prime minister Fukuda expects to hold marathon private meetings with the governments of 45 African nations. Does he even have the auto mechanic to help him?
The arrest of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Congolese warlord and former vice-president of the DRC has been arrested on war-crimes charges. Bemba’s arrest creates a new opportunity for the UN’s International Criminal Court to demonstrate both consistency and determination in the prosecution of cases against African outlaws. As the trial of Charles Taylor is showing, convicting rogue African leaders for crimes against humanity is difficult, especially when conventional rules on evidence and testimony are followed. Bemba’s case is complicated, but his arrest at least takes him out of play. For years he has destablized electoral politics in central Africa. Some time ago, I argued he should be banned from political particpation because of his lengthy resume of violent actions. Instead, the international community allowed him to stand for president in the last Congolese national elections, which proved both to be an embarassment for the election’s sponsors (the European Union) and harmful to the Congolese (who suffered violence during the pre- and post- runoff period).
Bemba’s arrest is not a pure victory, however. His jailing represents a compromise between human-rights “purists” (who, absurdly, would probably like to arrest — on general principles — every African leader that ever picked up a gun) and pragmatic “problem solvers” around the world who would admit that Bemba is being selectively prosecuted but that imprisoning him simply carries too many utilitarian benefits to argue against. In short, Bemba’s arrest means — pace Bentham — the greatest good for the greatest number.
One of my favorite Africans died the other day. Guido Sohne, a brilliant software programmer who worked for Microsoft in Nairobi, was found dead in his living room on Monday. People discovered him when he didn’t turn up for work. Guido and I go back some years; he was a close companion when I lived in Accra in 2003. Guido was witty and sharp and always ready to debate arcane points, either about technology or development. We spent many hours together and, when my teenage son visited Accra for a summer, Guido tutored him on computer games that bewildered me.
Guido was from Accra and had only moved to Nairobi late last year to join Microsoft. A passionate and principled person, Guido was well known in Africa’s small circle of programmers. Born in 1973, he attended Princeton University and returned to Ghana to work in computing. For some years he was a fixture in Busyinternet, the Accra web cafe founded by the Welch entrepreneur Mark Davies. Guido long promoted open-source software as a way of Africans gaining a stronger position in information technology, and his move to Microsoft was a large shift for him. His belief in the potential of a single smart African to change the world remains a source of hope for me and others who knew him. He was a singular person in the region and he will be missed.
An opening salvo of mine on a widening debate over how Africans — who have in recent years imported as much as $2 billion worth of rice — can raise their own production of the critical crop. With rice prices sharply higher in recent months, the question of which policies can provide more self-reliance is critical. See my poist this week on Foreign Policy’s site for the view from Uganda. Through wise government policies and shrewd investment, rice production in the country has soared.
None would begrudge the heads of African nations for their failure to criticize one another if behind closed doors they could gather the will and imagination to resolve the most flagrant leadership lapses on their vast turf. This weekend South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki described as “normal” the collapse of fair elections in Zimbabwe. Mbeki made his comment at a meeting of African leaders designed to end the electoral stalemate in Zimbabwe — and perhaps set the country on the right track. Mbeki has long spared Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s dictatorial president, the lash of public criticism. Yet why not at least lash Mugabe in private? After, Zimbabwe’s current plight — including its broken electoral process — is neither nor healthy under any definition.
Mugabe chose not to attend the meeting, a clear snub to Mbeki, whose country is the regional powerhouse in southern Africa. Imagine what praise Mbeki might have heaped on Mugabe had he merely attended the meeting!
Some of the same flair theater without pragmatism was also displayed this weekend in Kenya, where Odinga and Kibaki continue to struggle to forge a workable governing coalition (though reports of a new “compromise deal” say details were revealed today). To be sure, such coalitions are very difficult to create from the soup of intensely-rivalrous politics. Yet the continued uncertainty over the specifics of Kenya’s political settlement surely can’t help the country’s once-booming economy get back to “normal.”
Closed-door deals aren’t helping in Cameroon either, where President Paul Biya — in power since the early 1980s — seems to be winning over members of the country’s weak Parliament in a bid to permit Biya to for what he calls his “third term,” but what would actually be “only” his third term since he allowed “contested” elections. But since these are Zimbabwe-style elections, they are really not elections at all
The Economist in its new issue examines the peculiar relationship between the U.S. Department of Defense and the government of Ethiopia, whose armed forces occupy parts of Somalia at the behest of the Bush administration. Quietly, the U.S.-Ethiopia military alliance has become the most important in sub-Saharan Africa. The Economist tallies some of the relative costs and benefits of the relationship. Unasked is the question, will it endure the change of administrations in Washington? Democrats have questioned the special treatment given to Ethiopia by the Pentagon under Bush. Come January, the Democratic rhetoric may turn into action — and spell the end of the alliance with Ethiopia.
Are Robert Mugabe’s days numbered? Can he possible engineer a “dignified” exit from his role of Africa’s most decorated dictator?
The news reports this week suggest that Mugabe may finally be history. He has lost control of the Parliament, and he can’t possible win a presidential run-off against a single candidate. So say journalists and observers near the scene. I am far away, in California, a new term at Stanford starting and Zimbabwe seemingly far away. Yet Zimbabwe is one of those places where distance makes the heart grow fonder — and the mind clearer.
Once Africa’s breadbasket, Zimbabwe was the first of the “apartheid” post-colonial states to give way to a black-run government. Mugabe did well for a time as Zimbabwe’s economic steward. That is easy to forget. Since 2000, he’s been unhinged, bent on wrecking the economy by driving out both energetic white farmers and talented black professionals, merchants and even laborers. State-failure does not begin to describe Zimbabwe’s condition. Indeed, Mugabe’s ability to hold together a state that offers nothing to his people represents a new disease model in the pathologies of African governance. Even today, opponents of Mugabe act as if they can inherit a functioning state apparatus that will bounce back like a dry plant that gets proper watering.
The world will see what Zimbabwe has left after the ravages of Mugabe; the big question is how soon will the old man go? The sudden optimism regarding an imminent departure may prove misplaced. Mugabe’s henchmen may see a presidential run-off as easier to rig and another electoral campaign may serve, in their twisted minds, merely to flush more Mugabe opponents into the open.
Keep shedding tears for Zimbabweans. Their cheers and joy cannot yet be heard.