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  • in South Sudan

    Donor-Driven Technical Fixes Failed South Sudan: It’s Time to Get Political

    245 Views

    While commentators argue about who or what is most at fault for South Sudan’s return to conflict, one thing is clear: the international community is not free from blame.

    By Sara Pantuliano

    The South Sudanese flag flies at independence in 2011. Photograph by Arsenie Coseac.

    What has gone wrong in South Sudan? As the country today marks the ninth anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended decades of conflict between southern insurgents and the government of Sudan and paved the way to independence, South Sudan is experiencing another wave of violence and conflict – this time within its own borders.

    Over the last few weeks we have seen what was ostensibly a political tussle for power in the world’s newest country descend into shocking violence, leaving over a thousand people dead and around 200,000 displaced. While commentators can argue about who or what is most at fault in this terrible turn of events, one fact is clear: the international community – the many regional and international players who have been supporting the transition in South Sudan − shoulders some of the responsibility.

    Contrary to narratives of progress that ignored the complexity of the country, the real picture has been far from rosy in the nine years since the signing of the CPA in 2005, and in the three years since the 2011 referendum that ushered in independence for South Sudan. Indeed, the political wrangling that has gripped the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), over the last few months, and the ferocious violence unleashed on the nation’s capital and much of the country over the last three weeks, did not come as a complete surprise to those who know South Sudan.

    Development does not equal peace

    Over the last few years, South Sudan has served as a testing ground for international engagement in so-called ‘fragile states’, an engagement which has too often followed textbook prescriptions and overlooked the political and social realities of the country, treating it instead as a technical exercise in state building.

    Many in the aid sector in South Sudan have been operating on the assumption that greater development – improved services, infrastructure, access to food – would lead to stability and lasting peace. These assumptions were fundamentally challenged in Aiding the peace: a multi-donor evaluation of support to conflict prevention and peacebuilding activities in Southern Sudan 2005-2010 which found no evidence of the assumed causal link between the provision of basic services (‘peace dividends’) and a reduction in conflict.

    This finding was controversial as it challenged the premise, upon which a great deal of assistance to southern Sudan has been based, “that the provision of socioeconomic services addresses needs, leading ultimately to the enhancement of state legitimacy and stabilisation.”

    Ignoring complexity and negativity

    As stressed already in 2009, transitioning from war to peace is not a technical exercise but a highly political process. South Sudan was born amidst ongoing political power plays, deep divisions and conflict at many levels − issues that remain unresolved.

    The international community – and particularly donor governments – had high expectations for peace in South Sudan after the signing of the CPA. Seeing the conflict between the North and South as the main threat to peace, many overlooked the deeply entrenched divisions within the South that would continue to shape relationships and the political leadership after independence in 2011.

    Concerns and warnings about the role that patronage and ethnicity play in South Sudan’s politics, as well as calls to better understand the causes of vulnerability, power relations, and drivers of instability, were largely ignored as the international community focused on less complex and more positive technical ‘fixes’. As argued in Aiding the Peace:

    “The problem lies in the conceptual vacuum around ‘statehood’, as well as unclear identification of critical conditions that lead to peace, or to conflict, or the lack of sustained attention to them. Neither the [Government of South Sudan] nor donors produced a convincing and consensual model of what Southern Sudan as a ‘state’ would look like in say, ten years. From the donors, the reticence… reflected the tendency to approach the challenge purely as a technical exercise in capacity building and service delivery.”

    Longstanding and unaddressed grievances deeply rooted in South Sudan’s turbulent history were left unhealed and have now come to the surface again. The inherently political battle for power and control of the ruling party has increasingly taken on strong ethnic connotations. In South Sudan, ethnicity is often manipulated to create enmity between groups (tribes, clans or sub-clans) for political or military advantage. The biggest problem is that the violence has created a cycle of revenge and fear, tinged with ethnic divisions,which will be extremely damaging for the future cohesion of the country. The longer the violence continues, the more difficult it will be to stop the country from sliding into all-out civil war.

    The immediate focus now is on stemming the violence. While President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President Riek Machar have reportedly committed to dialogue, no real progress has been made, and once again peace talks were stalled on the issue of political prisoners yesterday. That deadlock does not seem to have been broken today.

    On the anniversary of South Sudan’s independence referendum, Kiir and Machar must take responsibility for stopping the fighting, call for restraint and commit to holding direct talks urgently. The country cannot afford to wait for a long drawn-out political peace process. Stopping the violence immediately is the priority, alongside a serious process of reconciliation in the long-term.

    While the people and politicians of South Sudan will undoubtedly be the most significant players in determining the future of their nation, international actors will also need to reflect on how to refocus their efforts to support a peaceful transition in South Sudan. These will need to build on a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of power relations, causes of vulnerability and drivers of conflict, which must be continuously revised to be useful. Technical fixes have failed South Sudan: it’s time to put politics at the heart of the nation-building project at last.

  • in South Sudan, Uncategorized

    Experts Weekly: South Sudan in Violent Crisis

    170 Views

    A long running political struggle at the top of the ruling SPLM has degenerated into violence that risks civil war. Think Africa Press asks seven experts for analysis and what can be done.

    By James Schneider

    A more hopeful time: a woman votes in South Sudan independence referendum, January 2011. Credit: Paul Harera/Think Africa Press.

    Less than three years on from South Sudan’s historic vote for independence from Sudan, Africa’s newest state is at serious risk of descending into civil war. According to reports, over 500 people have already died in the violence this week, though experts suggest this is a significant underestimate.

    Fighting has spread from the capital Juba, and violence is now being reported in the majority of the country’s ten states with civilians seeking shelter in UN compounds. In recent hours, one UN compound in Akobo, Jonglei State, has come under attack from youths rather than military forces. Three peacekeepers and an unknown number of civilians were killed.

    To further understand the worrying situation, Think Africa Press has assembled seven experts to give their views. In the first half of this piece, we asked them to analyse the present situation; in the second, they look at what could be done and by whom to improve the situation.

    What is the relationship between Salva Kiir and Riek Machar’s political struggle and underlying Dinka-Nuer ethnic competition and unease?

    Lesley Anne Warner, Africa Analyst and blogger at Lesley on Africa:

    The current crisis in South Sudan is inherently political, but has ethnic undertones. This does not mean, however, that it can be reduced to a Dinka vs. Nuer conflict. Tensions had been building within the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) since former vice-president Riek Machar, a Nuer, announced his intention to challenge President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, as head of the party. This is important because whichever individual heads the party would be the presumptive SPLM presidential candidate in the 2015 elections.

    After Kiir sacked his cabinet, including Vice-President Machar in July, Machar continued to pursue power through political means. As someone who was an architect of the split within the SPLA in 1991 and was responsible for some of the divisive Dinka-Nuer ethnic violence of the 1990s, Machar has spent over a decade since he reconciled with the SPLM/A reforming his image so that he can be cast as a statesman and potential successor to Kiir. However, what started as a political dispute within the SPLM runs the risk of crossing the ethnic conflict line – a line that will be difficult to uncross given underlying civil war-era Dinka-Nuer tensions. The government of South Sudan has not made any overt references to ethnic conflict, and has in fact rounded up a multi-ethnic set of alleged co-conspirators comprised of former SPLM insiders. However, with Kiir referring to Machar as a “Prophet of Doom” and making references to Machar’s destabilising role in the 1990s, there is a danger that people in South Sudan may read between the lines, making what started as a political dispute metastasise into an ethnic conflict.

    Matthew LeRiche, author of ‘South Sudan: From Revolution to Independence’:

    There is undoubtedly a relationship between the political struggle and underlying ethnic competition. But as seen by the various tribal identities held by the many arrested and opposed to President Kiir, it is not the driving factor as much as the personal ambition of leaders and their immediate supporters. Genuine ideas about the future of the state and political party are also central.

    The ethnic competition we are currently seeing looks to be a tool. Ethnicity has clearly been instrumentalised by some to build forces and polarise politics into a situation they can better take advantage of. Without the polarised environment, figures such as Machar, SPLM general Peter Gadet and others would have a much more difficult time raising and directing forces.

    The more powerful identities driving things at the moment are the layer below the aggregate tribal group and more on the lower sections and communities. There are Nuer amongst the group supporting the President and there are many Dinka with Machar. Also don’t forget the many other ethnic groups involved: Shilluk are a large community and on both sides, the Mundari are playing a key role in current fighting around Juba, as are the various smaller but no less important Equatorian groups. It is dangerous to frame this situation as fundamentally ethnic between Dinka and Nuer, especially since, as we see happening, this rhetoric can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

    Also we cannot ignore other historical animosities and grievances that desperately require reconciliation for South Sudan to move forward. This considered, the immediate conflict was/is at its core political; a competition for power between elites and the future of the SPLM and thus control of the state.

    Andrew Green, Juba-based journalist:

    It is impossible to separate the political and the ethnic at this point in South Sudan’s development. Any tensions between leaders such as Salva Kiir and Riek Machar are always going to be interpreted by some people on an ethnic level. That means that there is always going to be a risk that political disputes can spill over into ethnic conflict. It is clear that this is already starting to happen in some places. Sources in states around the country tell me that as soon as violence started in Juba, they received calls from friends and family that it was ethnically motivated. Whether true or not, that perception is extremely dangerous and could trigger fighting in tense spots around the country.

    What the regional and international community are desperately trying to do, beyond offering safety to people caught up in the fighting, is to encourage local leaders to undermine the ethnic conflict narrative. And that pressure is working; everyone from Kiir to members of the ruling party to opposition leaders have encouraged people not to engage in ethnic violence. The critical issue at this point is whether people are listening to them.

    James Copnall, BBC South Sudan Analyst and author of ‘A Poisoned Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan’s Bitter and Incomplete Divorce’:

    The trigger for the crisis was undoubtedly the political competition between Kiir and Machar, and indeed the wider splits within the SPLM. Lots of Machar’s fellow accused are not natural bedfellows, but over the last few months they united in opposition to Kiir. They come from many different ethnic groups, including Kiir’s Dinka. That said, several accounts suggest the actual fighting began because Nuer soldiers in the presidential guard were disarmed. Since then, the ethnic dimension has grown sharply. There have clearly been targeted killings of Nuer by Dinka, and vice versa. This has the potential to truly devastate the country. It also reflects wider tensions in society: every year, thousands of civilians die in inter-ethnic clashes. However ethnicity is not the only fuel for the fighting, and nor is it divorced from a political context. Many of the Nuer soldiers now in rebellion once fought for the Sudanese government, which is one of the reasons they are disliked and distrusted by Kiir’s supporters.

    What can local, regional and international actors do to calm the current situation and prevent escalation of violent competition for power in the run up to scheduled elections in 2015?

    Emma Jane Drew, Oxfam South Sudan Country Director (Acting):

    There are a number of actions that must occur simultaneously in order to calm the current situation and prevent the escalation of violence.

    Firstly, the political leadership in South Sudan must work to resolve their differences through peaceful and constructive mechanisms to bring an end to the violence that we have seen this week. Resolving current differences through peaceful mechanisms is the only way to lay the foundation for peaceful political contestation in the run up to 2015 and for national reconciliation. Equally critical at this moment is that political and military leadership regain control of all armed forces to ensure they do not continue to take matters into their own hands.

    Secondly, the emerging humanitarian needs of those affected by the latest violence must be urgently met. Tens of thousands of people are already seeking refuge at UN compounds, churches and other establishments. Their humanitarian needs are increasing daily as they remain cut off from access to food, have limited access to water, and sanitation conditions continue to worsen. This will require commitment and swift action by the government and its military to ensure that humanitarian actors have safe access to affected communities, and by local and international humanitarian distribution agencies to deliver much-needed support. In addition to the new needs arising from this conflict, all efforts should be made to ensure existing humanitarian distribution by the World Food Programme and other organisations in Jonglei and other areas of need in the north continues uninterrupted.

    Lastly, it is imperative that human rights are respected by all parties and groups involved, and that security is provided to all civilians, regardless of their communities of origin.

    Daniel Large, Assistant Professor, Central European University and Director, Sudan Open Archive:

    Any external response clearly requires a mixed strategy. South Sudan’s key neighbours must rise to the moment. Much depends on the role of Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia, under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and with African Union support, in brokering dialogue and, if possible, a political way forwards. How far this is now realistically possible with – and importantly beyond – elite SPLM protagonists remains questionable, but it is a vital start. South Sudan’s other key external partners – the US, UK and Norway together with China – should do their best to support this effort.

    Attention gravitates to high politics. What, and how much, can be done beyond Juba, in the regions and localities most affected by current violence, is also critical and cannot be overlooked. Currently, reporting that civilians are seeking shelter in six of South Sudan’s ten states, it now falls on local authorities, the UN mission in South Sudan and NGOs to do what they can to protect civilians, monitor violations and, if at all possible (and as mandated), deter violence. Right now, amidst escalating violence, the scheduled elections are a long way off. What is more apparent, unfortunately, are the limits to what has been achieved in the name of reform by more than a decades worth of long, hard South Sudanese and international efforts. If anything, however, these and recent events confirm that it is the now more overtly militarised politics at different levels within South Sudan that is the real driving force – and, ultimately, a political resolution within South Sudan is the only way to meaningfully address what is happening.

    James Copnall, BBC South Sudan Analyst and author of ‘A Poisoned Thorn in Our Hearts: Sudan and South Sudan’s Bitter and Incomplete Divorce’:

    Local groups such as the church have called for peace, regional foreign ministers have visited, and world figures like US President Barack Obama have made statements. There is a clear understanding of the dangers here. That said, events are moving so fast that these measures aren’t working. They should be redoubled. Regional mediation and international pressure did eventually end the second Sudanese civil war – but only after two decades and two million deaths. It would also help enormously if the UN peacekeeping mission in the country was much more robust, and prepared to intervene militarily, but sadly this seems unlikely.

    Akshaya Kumar, Sudan and South Sudan Policy Analyst, Enough Project:

    In a memo to the US government, my organisation, the Enough Project called for clear and visible steps to help avert a return to civil war in South Sudan. We’ve urged the immediate dispatch US Special Envoy Donald Booth to Juba to facilitate discussions among stakeholders and actively support African-led mediation efforts. The IGAD has already sent a delegation of foreign ministers to Juba. The group met with senior government officials and the political prisoners. They can now push for assurances of due process and humane treatment. The ICRC should be allowed to visit this group regularly and publicly report on the conditions of their captivity. IGAD engagement is a good first step, but local religious figures could also contribute to a political solution.

    While conflict mediation efforts proceed, it is essential to mobilise the humanitarians to protect civilians immediately. Donors should allocate emergency funds to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis across the country. We were encouraged to hear that the UN Security Council is already meeting on South Sudan on 19 December. They should use this opportunity to draft a council resolution on the crisis, condemning the recent attack on the UN mission’s compound in Akobo and directing the creation of safe havens in key locations across Sudan. While civilians are already sheltering in UN compounds in at least five of South Sudan’s ten states, many remain in churches and other vulnerable locations. Safe havens could make a significant difference on the ground, as political negotiations proceed.

    Matthew LeRiche, author of ‘South Sudan: From Revolution to Independence’:

    The UN needs to mobilise and get armoured personnel carriers on the streets with relatively robust patrols to help secure space for civilians. Communication for families and individuals who have lost touch in the chaos needs to be implemented. Public and private pressure needs to be placed on key leaders. It is critical we contribute to stalling things from going over the precipice to all out civil inter-fratricidal war. Water is in shortage and it is very hot too. The numbers of displaced is going to be massive. Humanitarian assistance needs to be a priority with the UN and others doing what they can to secure the space for it. There needs to be better information and the UN and groups such as the ICRC are the only ones with the physical and political cover to be able to get clear information out. There are few journalists and those that are there, largely independent, are under significant threat by all involved. Reliance for information of the situation should not be just on Twitter and Facebook.

    Western governments and those in the region need to be more diligent in policing the comments of those in their territory that might spread incendiary, radical and ethnic hatred. Many countries have laws that would allow police to reduce the level of this kind of language. There is space to pull the situation back from the brink and key leaders need to implore Kiir to manage the crisis differently.

  • in Nigeria

    Nigeria: Welcome to a Two-Party State

    109 Views

    With the defection of five governors to the opposition All Progressives Congress, is the dominance of the ruling People’s Democratic Party finally crumbling?

    By Lagun Akinloy

    Election posters in a Nigerian village near the border with Cameroon. Photograph by Carsten ten Brink.

    At the end of November, Nigeria’s political landscape experienced a seismic shift as five governors and a number of members of the House of Representatives and Senators renounced their membership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and decamped en masse to the increasingly powerful opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Citing disgruntlement with the actions of President Goodluck Jonathan and PDP chair Bamanga Tukur, the defected governors and APC released a joint announcement declaring that they had no choice but join forces “in order to rescue our fledgling democracy and the nation.”

    In response, the PDP tried to both downplay the merger, with spokesperson Olisa Metuh, remarking that “the defectors have embraced a narrow group of ethnic and religious bigots whose main intention is to unleash a state of anarchy on Nigeria. We remain unperturbed as we are now rid of detractors and distractions.”

    Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the PDP, which has dominated the political scene ever since Nigeria returned multi-party elections in 1999, is facing by far the strongest challenge to its authority in its history. Along with the absconding of five governors, the ruling party’s majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate have also been significantly cut back, and the APC is even now trying to claim that the PDP – the self-proclaimed ‘largest political party in Africa’ – is now a minority party.

    A faltering giant

    As president, Jonathan has had to contend with all manner of well-documented economic, structural and security troubles facing Nigeria, but it has probably been the infighting within his own party that has most frequently kept him up at night. And opposition to Jonathan’s leadership within the PDP began shortly after his unexpected rise to the presidency.

    One of the main cleavages in Nigeria is the division between north and south, and to resolve this, the PDP had an unwritten agreement that the presidency would alternate between a northerner and southerner, each holding office for two four-year terms. In addition, any president from the north would have a deputy from the south, and vice versa.

    In 2007, after 8 years under southerner Olusegun Obasanjo, northerner Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was elected president with Jonathan as his running mate. The PDP’s rotational system seemed to be working until in 2010, Yar’Adua died from complications arising from a protracted illness.

    Jonathan stepped up to take his seat, but many northerners in the PDP felt they had been robbed of their promised time in office. These grievances intensified when Jonathan then contested the 2011 elections and have continued to grow as the possibility of Jonathan running again in 2015 seems to be becoming increasingly likely. If he were to run and win, Nigeria will have had a southern president for 17 of its 20 years as a multi-party democracy by the time his term would end in 2019.

    However, disgruntlement within the PDP is not all related to north-south politicking. Jonathan has also been accused of running the party undemocratically to shore up his own authority and of marginalising figures he sees as potential challengers.

    This came to a head at the PDP’s national conference this September when various candidates seen as being allied to Jonathan’s rivals were disqualified in their bids to join the party’s National Working Committee. This was the last straw for many, and a group of seven governors, led by former vice-president Atiku Abubakar, stormed out of the convention and announced the formation of a rival PDP. Abubakar described the move as an attempt to “save the PDP from the antics of a few desperadoes who have no democratic temperament and are bent on hijacking the party for selfish ends.”

    Numerous PDP overtures were made to the breakaway faction to sheath their swords, including some from former president Obasanjo, but all these were rebuffed. The seven rebels governors – referred to by some as G7 – insisted that they would only return to the PDP if Jonathan sacked chairman Bamanga Tukur, who they accused of destabilising state chapters and heavy-handedness, and vowed not to run in the 2015 elections.

    Neither of these demands were forthcoming and according to Sani Bello, a fellow at the African Leadership Forum, Jonathan and Tukur only have themselves to blame for the fallout.

    “Jonathan did not expect to face such mutiny within the party ranks,” he told Think Africa Press. “He attempted to call the bluff of the governors and the move backfired. Many of those who left the PDP have ambitions of their own and simply could not achieve this with Jonathan and Tukur refusing to budge, which left them with no other option.”

    The new pretenders

    The five governors who joined the APC last month came from this group of seven. They were Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano State), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto State), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa State), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara State) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers State). Two of G7 – Babangida Aliyu (Niger State) and Sule Lamido (Jigawa State) – opted against the merger, promising instead to fight injustice in the PDP from within.

    The defection now means that the APC has 16 of Nigeria’s 36 governors, while the PDP has 18. With an eye on the 2015 elections, however, it is notable that both Lagos and Kano states – the country’s two most populous by some distance – both now fly the flag of the APC, and that if you add up voter populations in the states held by the APC as compared to those held by the PDP, the opposition party’s states account for 52% of the electorate.

    Having towered over all other political parties since 1999 and having won election after election without ever being realistically challenged, the PDP is now faced with a formidable challenger. However, the prospect facing that challenger is also unprecedented, and although the APC is made up of several seasoned political veterans, the party itself is less than a year old and numerous internal challenges remain.

    Perhaps the most important of these difficulties derives from the party’s very strength. The APC was formed in February in a merger of Nigeria’s four largest opposition groups – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) – and the party boasts numerous political heavyweights including former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu, three-time presidential candidate and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, and former government minister Nasir El-Rufai. This gives the APC a large degree of recognisability and legitimacy, but at the same time, it remains to be seen how the party will accommodate the various interests, personalities and ambitions of its leading members.

    The APC has also been painted by some as simply forming an ethnic bloc of Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba constituencies in a bid to gang up against Jonathan and his Igbo supporters. Indeed, ethnic jostling has long been an important feature of Nigeria’s political system, and group favouritism – or marginalisation – was at the root of much of the PDP’s internal strife.

    Max Siollun, author of Soldiers of Fortune: Nigerian Politics from Buhari to Babangida, however believes that seeing Nigeria’s recent developments in purely ethnic terms is overly simplistic. “We should not necessarily view the APC as a Yoruba-Hausa merger,” he says. “After all the governments in the first and second republics featured coalition governments formed by northern parties and an Igbo party led by Nnamdi Azikiwe.”

    Brave new world

    Although the tide has been turning for some time, the dramatic events of this past year have carved out a new era of Nigerian politics. What this brave new world will look like remains to be seen. The PDP is still reeling from its high-level defections, while the APC has yet to demonstrate whether its ambitions and visions extend beyond just defeating the PDP.

    Nevertheless, political analyst Raymond Eyo believes the shift in Nigeria’s political landscape can only be a good thing for democracy. “The defections will benefit the Nigerian people as it deepens democracy and will lead to the enhancement of a two-party system that is more competitive and can be more productive than the present dominant one-party rule,” he says.

    Indeed, after nearly 15 years of PDP rule and dominance in which the real decisions over presidents have been made in the party’s corridors of power rather than at the ballot box, many ordinary Nigerians are thirsty for change. Citizens are tired of scandal after scandal revealing high-level corruption, of crucial bills that could reform faltering sectors stagnating in the Senate and House of Representatives, and of political squabbling overshadowing all else in government. Nigeria’s political scene may be in turmoil, but some will be thinking that that’s exactly what was needed.

  • in Nigeria

    From Taxes to Illicit Flows: Mobilising Domestic Resources through Development Cooperation

    80 Views

    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister, argues that African countries need to build capacity to get more from their domestic resources.

    By Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

    Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Finance Minister, speaking at the United Nations. Credit: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz

    The time is right for concerted international action on domestic resource mobilisation in the developing world. Recent high performance on collecting taxes and other domestic resources in developing countries shows that if properly harnessed and managed, domestic revenue can be a very important and sustainable source of long-term finance for economic development and reducing poverty.

    Increasing income from domestic resources makes countries less dependent on aid, which can be highly unpredictable. Recently, aid volatility has been exacerbated by frequent fiscal challenges faced by many donor countries. More domestic financial flows would also make low and middle income countries less exposed to donor conditionality, allowing them to choose their own development priorities to meet their citizens’ needs. What is more, mobilising domestic resources demands good governance and prudent resource management in order to meet taxpayers’ aspirations.

    In other words, if governments want people to appreciate the need to pay taxes, they must use the extra revenue on high-impact and result-oriented interventions to significantly reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment and meet other social needs.

    According to a recent African Development Bank report, tax revenue collection has improved in many African countries since the 1990s. Overall tax receipts in Africa increased from about 22% of GDP in 1990, to about 27% of GDP in 2007. However there was some variation across countries. Tax revenue in low-income African countries, for example, was still below 15% of GDP – the conventional IMF threshold for satisfactory tax performance, and a level deemed by the United Nations to be insufficient to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

    Illicit financial flows

    Some problems in developing countries are illicit financial outflows, mostly due to looting by corrupt leaders and government officials, tax base erosion and profit-shifting by multinationals, multiple tax incentives, informal activities not being included in the revenue base, and illicit domestic flows.

    Embezzlement of public funds by corrupt officials has become disturbingly pervasive, especially in mineral resource-rich countries in Africa. Also, over-dependence on aid or on abnormal profits from natural resources can make governments oblivious to their potential to raise revenue from other sources. All involved in the Global Partnership should coordinate their efforts to resolve these problems.

    Effective development co-operation can boost countries’ own revenue-raising efforts by scaling up donor assistance, as well as sharing knowledge and expertise. It can help develop existing country revenue collection institutions, support reforms and improve accountability mechanisms. It should also help to track progress on institutional and capacity developments using country frameworks. More expertise is needed for tax officials in developing countries conducting tax policy analyses and designing tax policies appropriate to local country conditions. Investing development aid in building tax systems can yield impressive returns but only limited funds have been targeted towards this sector so far.

    Country ownership

    With donor support, developing countries’ governments can invest more in building their own technical capacities, in researching international best practices and in improving their negotiation skills to help them receive maximum benefit from new natural resource contracts. Above all, development frameworks for increasing domestic resource mobilisation should be home-driven and tailored to each country’s specific needs and circumstances, in line with the Busan Partnership Agreement’s first principle of country ownership.

    Domestic resource mobilisation is one of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation’s top priorities for action at its first High-level meeting, to be held in Mexico City in April 2014. As we prepare, I call on all Global Partnership stakeholders including development co-operation providers and recipients, civil society, parliamentarians, and private businesses, to reflect on these issues. With their input, we can have fruitful dialogue to determine how the challenges of domestic resource mobilisation can be properly integrated to the post-2015 development agenda.

    It is also imperative that the meeting addresses development co-operation providers’ accountability for timely delivery on their commitments to support these efforts. I believe strongly that the Mexico meeting can better position development co-operation to address the challenges of domestic resource mobilisation in low and middle-income countries.

    This article was originally featured on the Effective Development Co-operation Blog hosted by the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation to foster constructive comment to help nations, business and organisations work better together to end poverty.

  • in Economy

    Global Tax Justice in Africa: It’s Time to Turn Words into Action

    96 Views

    Africa has incredible resource wealth, but if it is to reap the benefits, there must be a change of attitude amongst governments, corporations and the international community.

    By Caroline Kende-Robb

    Moving money in Somaliland. “Africa’s natural resource wealth rightly belongs to the continent’s citizens, but these citizens are being robbed of its benefits.” Photograph by guuleed

    Now is a good time to be optimistic about Africa. The continent’s global influence is growing after a decade of strong growth, the roots of macro-economic stability and democracy are sinking deeper across the continent, dynamic civil societies are keeping governments on their toes, and government policy is improving. Africa is increasingly being recognised today for its dynamism and creativity.

    However, Africa still faces major challenges too. A decade of highly impressive growth has not brought comparable improvements in health, education and nutrition; in many countries, the gap between rich and poor has only widened; and Africa must create jobs fast enough to keep pace with the growth of its young and growing workforce. We have seen elsewhere how frustration and anger over corruption and unresponsive governments can create dangerous social and political environments.

    To head off these pressures, the Africa Progress Panel believes that African governments must strengthen health and education systems through more efficient and equitable public spending, with a greater focus on gender disparities. African governments must also remove two major obstacles to development – the lack of infrastructure and energy.

    To this end, the wise management of Africa’s incredible natural wealth is a high priority.

    Improving transparency and governance

    By some estimates, the continent holds as much as 30% of global mineral reserves, and even higher proportions of the world’s gold, platinum, diamonds and manganese. Meanwhile, new exploration continues to reveal much larger reserves than previously known. Africa’s natural resource windfall could change the face of the continent. In Liberia alone, iron ore and petroleum could generate an extra $1.7 billion per year, equal to 148% of the country’s 2011 GDP.

    However, Africa and its partners will miss this opportunity to transform the lives of future as well as present generations if they carry on with business as usual. This danger was revealed in stark detail by the Equity in Extractives report released earlier this year by the Africa Progress Panel.

    Africa’s natural resource wealth rightly belongs to the continent’s citizens, but these citizens are being robbed of its benefits by revenue diversion, corruption, jobless growth, and rising inequality.

    In oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, for example, the economy has grown by an average of 17% a year over the last decade, meaning its GDP per capita is now higher than Poland’s. Yet three-quarters of the population still live in poverty, and child death rates are among the highest in the world.

    In our report, the Africa Progress Panel set out to examine how these problems can be resolved by African governments, multinational corporations, and the international community.

    As a starting point, African governments should adopt national strategies that set the terms on which their natural resources will be developed and link these strategies to plans for poverty reduction and inclusive growth. These strategies must identify extractive projects that can generate more jobs through linkages with the local economy. Processing natural resources before export can also bring extra value. Africa cannot build dynamic equitable growth while extractive projects operate within enclaves.

    Building on the Africa Mining Vision, a blueprint for development formulated by African nations, African governments should also adopt legislation that requires companies bidding for concessions and licenses to disclose fully their beneficial ownership. Tender and concession granting processes must be open and transparent.

    Indeed, it is crucial that African governments put transparency and accountability at the heart of their extraction policies. They must manage their citizens’ natural resources efficiently and share the revenues fairly.

    Lack of transparency comes at a price – for governments, investors and citizens – as the example of Guinea shows. In 2008, the then government stripped Rio Tinto of half its rights to mine the enormous iron ore deposits at Simandou, and sold them to another company for vastly less than what they were worth. Two years later, the company that got the rights sold 50% of them to the Brazilian company Vale for $2.5 billion at an estimated profit of over 3,000% over two years – equivalent to 2.4 times Guinea’s entire national budget in 2011.

    However, the good news is that the trend towards transparency is gaining momentum month by month. Some 14 African countries are now compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which recently announced more rigorous standards, while governments such as Ghana, Guinea and Liberia are increasingly publishing their oil, gas, and mining contracts online. Changes to the mining code in Guinea could potentially increase the country’s annual mining revenue to $3.15 billion by 2017 from an average of just $123 million.

    Corporations behave

    Improvements in state governance alone, however, will not ensure success. Multinational companies must also improve their behaviour.

    Some foreign investors have shown that it is possible to make a healthy profit while also adhering to the highest international standards of social and environmental protection, but sadly not all choose to do so.

    The Africa Progress Panel report analysed five deals, for example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All five deals were characterised by opaque business practices, with the government selling mining rights at rock-bottom prices to middlemen who then resold them for huge profits to bona fide mining companies.

    While the middlemen benefited and diverted the proceeds into shell companies in offshore tax havens, these five deals, in which national assets were seriously undervalued, cost the DRC and its citizens $1.4 billion. That’s equivalent to twice the annual health and education budgets combined – a scandal in a country that has some of the world’s worst malnutrition figures, the sixth highest child mortality rate, and over 7 million children out of school.

    In contrast, some multinationals continue to impress with their commitment to transparency. Rio Tinto, for example, publishes details about its payments to governments, together with other tax and net earnings details. Since 2007, Norway’s Statoil has also been reporting payments made to governments.

    Other multinationals and commodity traders need to join them in doing what is right without waiting for governments to pass laws. Enlightened firms realise that transparent corporate governance builds reputations, reduces political risk, and may ultimately win more extractive contracts too.

    Changing global laws

    African civil society groups have a critical role to play in keeping politicians and companies honest. They must demand that commercial arrangements between their countries and multinational corporations be fair and mutually beneficial.

    But the international community must also step up and make a difference; we must recognise that bad behaviour by government officials and businesses is made possible by our global legal frameworks. Global legal and tax rules allow companies to declare their profits in countries with lower tax rates, denying African governments and peoples of much-needed revenue.

    As Kofi Annan, Chair of the Africa Progress Panel, has repeatedly said, tax avoidance may be legal but its extremes have become immoral, unconscionable, and unacceptable. Tax avoidance may once have been seen as an acceptable and standard business practice, but it now costs Africa more than it receives in either international aid or direct foreign investment.

    Trade mispricing, a technique to lower tax payments, costs Africa an estimated $38 billion per year, more than the $33 billion in foreign direct investment or $30 billion in official development assistance it receives.

    The international community must develop a credible and effective multilateral response. And for this to happen, attitudes will have to change.

    Fortunately, there is plenty of evidence that this change has begun. This year’s G8 summit focused on promoting global fairness through trade, transparency, and tax compliance. Both the G8 and G20 summits saw extraordinary developments, paving the way for the automatic exchange of information across tax jurisdictions, for example. G8 and G20 governments have also promised decisive action to clamp down on shell companies.

    Meanwhile, more and more governments are developing robust legislation to boost transparency in the extractives sector. Six of the eight G8 countries have said they will join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

    The UK and the European Union are additionally re-examining legislation on money laundering and transparent company ownership. Company registration must be public, easily accessible and open to all, and these registries must also extend to trusts. We must shut down loopholes wherever we can and wherever they are.

    The British government’s pressure on its overseas territories and Crown dependencies is encouraging. The US government should likewise investigate how states, such as Delaware, facilitate tax injustice.

    A time for action

    We have cause to be optimistic – but we should temper this optimism with vigilance and caution.

    First, we must ensure that the movement to combat evasion takes into account the real constraints facing Africa. Of course, the rich OECD countries should share information, but African tax authorities may also need financial and technical support to build the necessary capacity so that they too can access this critical information.

    Second, we need a critical mass of G8 and G20 countries willing to legislate for full public disclosure of beneficial ownership by companies registered in offshore havens.

    Third, we need to turn words into action. One of the world’s largest global service industries – tax consultancy – brings some of the world’s sharpest accountancy minds to bear on the question of how to evade taxation. In response, governments have adopted some excellent principles over the past six months for tackling global tax challenges. Governments and global civil society must now go to the next stage and turn these principles into that elusive goal – achieving tax justice.

    This article was based on a speech given by Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General and chair of the Africa Progress Panel, at Geneva’s Graduate Institute on 26 September.

  • in Economy

    Forced Labour is about Politics and Economics as much as Crime

    142 Views

    The battle against exploitative labour should be part of a moral and political struggle over the kind of society we want to live in.

    By Neil Howard

    Shadow economy: exploitation is not just about physical coercion, but political and economic contexts. Photograph by Festival de Cine Africano.

    It is commonly asserted that forced labour, along with trafficking and slavery, represents ‘the underside of globalisation’. In this understanding, abstract economic forces structure the globe, and their negative side effects include an increase both in the poverty that breeds vulnerability and in the predatory criminal practices that thrive on it.

    Politicians and activists thus routinely call for governments to ‘get tough’ on criminals in order to root out those who exploit the weak. The recent high-profile release of the Walk Free Foundation’s, celebratory-endorsed Global Slavery Index is paradigmatic in this regard. The Index is a naming-and-shaming exercise designed to encourage governments to ‘assess’ and ‘improve’ their response to modern slavery.

    The problem with this approach is that it totally fails to address the political-economic underpinnings of all exploitative labour. Indeed, it treats exploitative labour – whether in the form of trafficking, slavery or simple ‘forced labour’ – entirely a-politically and as a problem of criminality that can be overcome by developing sufficient governmental will to effectively fund competent police forces.

    This can be seen even in the workings of the UN body that fights hardest to protect the world’s workers – the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO uses ‘forced labour’ as a blanket term that encompasses trafficking and slavery and can be boiled down to all work that is coerced out of a worker and for which he/she has not offered him/herself voluntarily.

    Yet in setting the boundaries for what does or does not constitute a coercive breach of this voluntary self-offering, the ILO states that, while both employers and governments can be guilty, neither are “accountable for all external constraints or indirect coercion existing in practice: for example, the need to work in order to earn one’s living” [emphasis added].

    It is worth pausing for a moment to take stock of what this means. It means that the generalised ‘need to earn one’s living’ is established somehow as a natural state of affairs, absent of any ‘act of the authorities’. This in turn means that coercion can only exist legally as an individualised phenomenon of which only an individual criminal employer or a rogue state can be guilty.

    The trouble with this position is that it narrates out of the equation the very political, structural fact that the ‘need to earn one’s living’, along with the conditions in which one does so, is itself always and everywhere the result of acts of the authorities. As the legal scholar, Robert Steinfeld, explains:

    “Economic compulsion is an artefact of law, not of nature. [Although] market forces are supposed…to operate impersonally and indirectly…to exert pressure only in the way that nature exerts pressure (if you do not work you starve)…economic coercion always has its source in a set of legal rights, privileges, and powers that place one person in a position to force another person to choose between labour and some more disagreeable alternative.”

    Robert Lee Hale made this same point starkly when arguing on behalf of the American poor in 1923:

    “[The worker] must eat. Yet while there is no law against eating in the abstract, there is a law which forbids him to eat any of the food which actually exists in the community – and that is the law of private property… Unless the non-owner [of property] can produce his own food, the law compels him to starve if he has not wages, and compels him to go without wages unless he obeys the behests of some employer.”

    To place this observation in contemporary terms, what it implies is that when a poor African woman faces the choice between starvation or exploitative labour, her ‘choice’ to opt for exploitative labour represents no real choice at all. Rather, it is the non-choice of a lesser evil that has been forced upon her by prevailing national and international legal regimes which structurally condition her vulnerability. They do this by legally sanctioning her lack of entitlement to land, labour rights, financial support, childcare, food or other necessary social protection.

    Exploitative labour of this kind is therefore the indirect political responsibility of clearly identifiable actors making real-world decisions.

    Seen in this way, the fight against forced labour should not be a celebrity battle against abstract economic forces or the bogeymen criminals who are able to capitalise on them. It must be a political, moral and practical struggle over the kinds of societies we wish to live in, over which kinds of coercive pressures we consider legitimate and illegitimate in labour relations, and thus over which kinds of social protections are provided.

    The questions we must ask, therefore, are fundamental. Do we wish to live in a world where some are left unprotected against the brute force of economic compulsion? Or do we want a world where wealth is sufficiently well distributed for people to be free from taking the least bad jobs available? Do we want a world where 300 people control as much of the world’s wealth as 3 billion? Where individual criminals are targeted, while those who create the conditions for poverty go free? Or would we like a fairer political-economic future that tackles the political root cause of exploitation?

    For too long, these questions have remained unasked, and where they have been, they have been derided as ‘radical’ or ‘idealistic’. But it is time for that to change. Because forced labour, like all labour exploitation, is fundamentally a political phenomenon.

  • in Central African Republic

    Rebels, Anti-Rebels and Refugees in the Central African Republic

    291 Views

    As Séléka rebels clash with anti-balaka forces and the dire humanitarian situation worsens, international intervention may be the only solution.

    By Tendai Marima

    Men with guns in north-east Central African Republic. Photograph by Pierre Holtz/OCHA.

    Huddled in churchyard grounds or scattered across the country’s thick bush and forests, 395,000 civilians are believed to be seeking refuge from the escalating conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR).

    The latest fighting is largely between the Séléka rebels – the group that deposed President François Bozizé and replaced him with Michel Djotodia back in March – and forces known as the anti-balaka.

    After Séléka’s overthrow of Bozizé earlier this year, the group looted and attacked many communities. Thousands fled their homes and the humanitarian crisis deepened.

    At the same time, a motley crew of local self-defence militias and anti-Séléka armed groups – which have come to be known collectively as the anti-balaka – emerged. In retaliation to Séléka’s rampages, these local vigilante peasants – armed with machetes, rifles and other weapons – waged an armed resistance in the north.

    This has only led CAR’s insecurity to escalate and the humanitarian situation in the country to worsen. Meanwhile the transitional government in Bangui continues to seem powerless to act.

    The anti-balaka vs the Séléka

    The name ‘anti-balaka’ – which means anti-sword or anti-machete in the local languages of Mandja and Sango – is often used to describe self-defence units set up by communities to fight against bandits, cattle-raiders, rebels and poachers.

    During CAR’s 2004-2007 bush war, for example, the anti-balaka were local vigilante groups who rose up in resistance to the abuses of CAR’s main rebel formation, the Armée Populaire pour la Restauration de la Démocratie (APRD). Militias – including the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour la Rassemblement (UFDR), a collective of dissident groups led by the current transitional president and then rebel leader Michel Djotodia – launched a major offensive in the north, seizing key towns but also committing atrocities including summary executions, abductions and forcible recruitment of child soldiers.

    Since the launch of the Séléka’s insurgency in December 2012, the northwest has again been besieged with persistent raids, kidnappings and killings. This has led numerous militias made up of former soldiers, some breakaway Séléka rebels, and certain groups of Christian vigilante farmers to combine their disparate units against a common and largely Muslim enemy. Today’s anti-balaka also includes the Association of Central African Farmers (ACP), an anti-Séléka peasant movement, as well as the Front for the Return to the Constitutional Order in Central Africa (FROCCA). FROCCA is a militia made up of ex-army officers loyal to the former president as well as local vigilantes fed up with the Séléka’s continued violence; the group was formed in Paris this August by Bozizé.

    Despite having these Bozizé elements behind it, the scope and size of the anti-balaka movement is still largely regional, and its armed attacks group are not yet fully co-ordinated or capacitated to challenge the Séléka in full-blown combat. The northwest of CAR – the home of Bozizé’s traditional roots and ex-members of the Presidential Guard, the core of Bozizé’s fighting force – remains the hotspot for violence between the anti-balaka and the Séléka, with the most vivid and bloody battles occurring in Bossangoa, Bouca and Bouar where scores have been killed in the violence.

    A rocket and rife assault on the market town of Bouar on 26 October, for example, left at least 40 dead. Destitute and fearful, 5,000 refugees crammed into a Catholic Church compound. Although the joint regional peacekeepers – the Central African Multinational Force (FOMAC) and the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) – have regained control of Bouar, simmering tensions on Friday resulted in the Séléka burning two villages nearby, heightening fears of further revenge attacks.

    Another factor often cited in the violence is the issue of religion, with the conflict sometimes framed as pitching the largely Muslim Séléka rebels against the predominantly Christian anti-balaka forces. But while religious tension is an important factor in some instances of violence, this framing is simplistic. For instance, along with Muslims from CAR and abroad, the Séléka also includes many non-religious rebels, other bandits and opportunists who have joined in the looting and vandalism since March. And while the rebels have committed some religiously-motivated atrocities against Christians, they are also driven by non-religious motivations and have attacked Muslim communities on occasion.

    Intervention needed

    As the Séléka has terrorised populations across the north-west and CAR as a whole, the Djotodia-led government in Bangui has lacked the capacity to discipline the former rebels or deploy a sizeable, equipped force to deal with the lawlessness.

    The government’s inability to contain the Séléka as well as anti-balaka forces reveals a deep crisis of governance and points to Djotodia’s lack of authority as the president and as the Séléka’s former leader. Djotodia’s attempts to disarm and reintegrate the militants have seen little co-operation from the rebels themselves, with demobilisation operations in Bangui often resulting into flare-ups between rebels or attacks on pro-Bozizé districts. Lacking a clear national plan, disarming and reintegrating a Séléka force of at least 20,000, which includes bandits and foreign mercenaries, has been an almost impossible task for the overwhelmed government. In September, Djotodia officially disbanded the Séléka, but the dissidents did not disarm and dissolve as ordered, but continued to run riot.

    Although government officials insist they need military support rather than further foreign intervention, CAR’s small national army is too weak and poorly equipped to fight the Séléka, whose execution of government soldiers in and around Bangui has been well-documented. Historically, CAR has relied on international support through civil wars and coups, and without the support of stronger, better-equipped foreign forces, there is little hope of restoring order.

    To help, France plans to increase its troop presence from 400 to 700-750 by year end, but has made clear that it “will not play the world’s police” and that it does not want to get entangled in another military intervention. Instead, the French have increased calls for African states to provide personnel for an African-led mission. In July, the UN approved a force of 3,652 personnel to boost and transform the current regional peacekeepers into the International Support Mission in the Central African Republic (MISCA), but hampered by financial and logistical problems, MISCA is unlikely to be operational before 2014.

    But while this international assistance is an encouraging sign, CAR’s crisis could require a more urgent and well-funded intervention and, critically, regional facilitation of talks between all conflicting parties. Almost half a million people have been made homeless by the fighting in CAR, UN officials warn of the risk of genocide and anarchy if the conflict continues, and CAR’s transitional government seems unable to protect its own people. As one of the planet’s poorest and most fragile states teeters on the brink of war, it’s critical the world responds faster and more robustly to the crisis faced by 4.5 million Central Africans.

  • in Ethiopia

    Aiding and Abetting: UK and US Complicity in Ethiopia’s Mass Displacement

    132 Views

    In the face of evidence, the UK and US continue to deny systematic human rights abuses are occurring in the Lower Omo as thousands are displaced for an irrigation scheme.

    By David Turton

    Members of the Nyangatom, one of the communities affected by the project, loading donkeys by the river. Photograph by William Davison.

    The US-based think tank, the Oakland Institute, recently accused the UK and US governments of aiding and abetting the eviction of thousands of people from their land in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley.

    The accusation was not new – it had been made before by Survival International and Human Rights Watch amongst others. What was new about this report was that it made use of transcripts of interviews conducted by officials from the UK Department for International Development (DfID) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), during a field visit to the lower Omo in January 2012.

    The interviews were recorded by the report’s author, Will Hurd, who accompanied the officials and acted as their interpreter. The recordings contain vivid first-hand accounts of the abuses suffered by local people at the hands of the government, the police and the army.

    Hurd, an American human rights activist who speaks one of the local languages, decided to release the recordings to journalists when both agencies claimed publicly, months after their visit, that they had found no evidence of the ‘systematic’ abuse of human rights. Having spent 40 years working as an anthropologist in the area myself, I am confident of the accuracy and authenticity of the report and of the interviews on which it is based.

    The abuses being carried out by the Ethiopian government in the Lower Omo are incontrovertible. Thousands of agro-pastoralists are being evicted by government fiat and without compensation from their most valuable agricultural land along the banks of the Omo in order to make way for large-scale commercial irrigation schemes. By far the largest of these schemes is being set up by the state-owned Ethiopian Sugar Corporation. The evictions are being accompanied by a resettlement or ‘villagisation’ programme which, although described by administrators as ‘voluntary’, is forced in the sense that those affected have no reasonable alternative but to comply.

    This is a glaring example of how not to do river-basin development. No impact assessments, feasibility studies or resettlement plans have been published. No plans have been announced for compensation, benefit sharing or livelihood reconstruction. And no attempt has been made to give the affected people a genuine say in decision making. In short, the project appears to have been conceived as a quasi-military operation, with the police and army acting as an occupying force amongst a recalcitrant and ‘backward’ civilian population. Not surprisingly in these circumstances, there have been reports of beatings, arrests and sexual violence by military personnel.

    We know from 50 years of academic research on ‘development-forced displacement and resettlement’ as well as from countless reports by NGOs and development agencies that, if the project continues in this way, it will have a devastating impact on the economic, physical, psychological and social wellbeing of the displaced population. To use an expression from Michael Cernea, formerly the World Bank’s Senior Adviser on Social Policy and Resettlement, river-basin development in the lower Omo looks like its becoming yet another “disgracing stain on development itself.”

    Aiding and abetting

    Ethiopia receives $3.5 billion a year from international donors, which amounts to approximately half its annual budget. In March 2011, it was announced that the UK would be giving $2 billion in development aid to Ethiopia over the following four years, making Ethiopia the biggest single recipient of British aid money. The UK is also the biggest state contributor to the World Bank’s ‘Promoting Basic Services’ (PBS) programme for Ethiopia. PBS funds provide budget support for local government expenditure on education, health, agricultural extension and road construction. Since resettlement in the Lower Omo is the responsibility of the local administration, it would be stretching credulity beyond reasonable bounds to believe DfID’s claim that no UK money is being used to finance this activity.

    Over the past two years I have tried to alert both the Ethiopian government and DfID to what I believe is a disaster in the making. The Ethiopian officials I have spoken to simply denied that there was any basis for my concerns. I have learnt that critics of Ethiopian government policies are liable to be treated either as ‘enemies’ of Ethiopia or as well meaning friends in need of remedial education. DfID staff were interested in what I had to say but the official line is that the British Government takes a ‘robust stand’ on human rights and, ‘where it has concerns’ it raises them ‘at the very highest level’ – to which the only answer, if you’ve had to stand by and watch your fields and grain stores flattened by a sugar corporation bulldozer, is ‘Yeah, right’.

    Whatever is going on behind closed doors, public statements made by British officials about allegations of human rights abuses in the lower Omo have been consistently supportive of the Ethiopian government. On 5 November 2012, the Minister for International Development, Justine Greening, announced in reply to a question in Parliament that DfID had not been able to “substantiate” the allegations made to it during its visit to the lower Omo in January that year. She promised that another visit to the area would be made “to examine these further.”

    Another visit was indeed made, by DfID and USAID staff, a week after the Minister’s reply. But no report of this visit has been released despite a Freedom of Information request from Survival International. Meanwhile, Sir Malcolm Bruce, Chairman of the International Development Committee of the UK’s House of Commons, repeated the Minister’s line on a visit to Addis Ababa in March 2013. Speaking to a local newspaper, he said “we cannot make decisions based on allegations….what we have now is mostly allegations, many of which the government has already addressed”.

    A robust stand with Ethiopia

    On this showing, DfID’s proud boast that it takes a ‘robust stand’ on human rights looks like empty rhetoric – cynical, politically expedient and morally bankrupt. Nor would one have to be a great cynic oneself to at least wonder whether the allegations made to DfID and USAID staff by lower Omo residents in January 2012 would have seen the light of day if they had not been tape-recorded and published by Will Hurd.

    It needs to be stressed that the allegations were not principally about rapes, arrests and beatings. These have certainly occurred, but they may or may not have been part of a systematic campaign of intimidation. What is undeniable is the forced, large-scale, ongoing and systematic eviction of whole communities from their land by their own government, without consultation and without compensation. And it is clear from the interview transcripts, published along with the Oakland Institute report, that this was the most deeply felt, vehemently expressed and frequently repeated allegation of human rights abuse made to DfID and USAID staff during their January 2012 field visit. Any “further examination” of this allegation, if indeed it is necessary, should not take long to complete.

    The British government is helping to sustain, with its financial, moral and political support, a project which, if it continues without change, will lead to the needless suffering of thousands of people. This is not a technical problem. We know very well what practical steps should be taken, now, to prevent or at least mitigate the worst consequences of the project. But the UK’s politicians are not only “turning a blind eye” to the problem, as the Oakland Institute’s report puts it, but repeatedly denying it exists. We must conclude that they will only have second thoughts about this policy if they come to doubt its political expediency. Or, as a colleague of mine once put it, more colourfully, if it “comes back to bite them in the bum”.

  • in Tunisia

    Tunisia: Uncovering Ansar al-Sharia

    137 Views

    An original founder of the banned Salafi organisation reveals its true origins, the extent of its links with al-Nahda, and what lies “behind the curtain.”

    By Aaron Y. Zelin

    View of the Kasbah in Sousse, Tunisia. Photograph by yovanson.

    The public rise of Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) – the radical Islamist group recently listed as a terrorist organisation by the Tunisian government – first began two and a half years ago, and online.

    On 27 April, 2011, a blog titled the al-Qayrawan Media Foundation (QMF) was created, and two days later a corresponding Facebook page was established. Then, on 15 May, another Facebook page under the name Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia was launched, coinciding with the announcement that a conference would be convened in Tunis on 21 May.

    This is the public story of AST’s emergence, and since 2011, the group’s visibility has grown significantly; the group has courted controversy through its protests against blasphemy, been accused of involvement in political violence, and been banned by the state. Yet the organisation remains poorly understood, not least with regards to its real origins, the story of which stretches several years further back than 2011, runs much deeper into Tunisian politics than has otherwise been disclosed, and has up to now stayed largely concealed.

    Prison plans

    In late August 2013 and early September 2013, I had the opportunity to meet one of the individuals (who will remain anonymous) present at the actual founding of AST. The event took place in 2006 in a Tunisian prison.

    According to the source, when Hamadi Jebali – a senior member of the Islamist organisation al-Nahda who went on to become Prime Minister (2011-2013) – was released from jail in February 2006, some more radical Islamists believed they too could be leaving prison soon. They began planning for their mission once on the outside, and though the group did not have a name for it at the time, 20 Islamists, including AST’s future leader, Abu Iyadh al-Tunisi, agreed to create a new organisation.

    The group’s release in fact took longer than expected, and it was only in March 2011, following the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, that they were pardoned and set free. Once outside, the group organised, gathering in Abu Iyadh’s house, and began implementing the plans they had been working on for the previous five years. AST started outreach efforts in Tunis, Sousse, Sidi Bouzid, al-Qayrawan, and Bizerte as well as making contact with the Salafi cleric Shaykh al-Khatib al-Idrissi.

    Although there is more public distance between al-Idrissi and AST currently, when AST first began, al-Idrissi promoted its existence and early activities via his official Facebook page and was loosely affiliated with AST’s original media outlet QMF. Al-Idrissi is one of, if not the most, influential Salafi clerics in Tunisia. In 1985, he went to Saudi Arabia and formally trained with some of the most important Salafi clerics of the modern era including ‘Abd al-‘Aziz bin ‘Abd Allah bin Baz. AST’s early outreach to al-Idrissi highlights the fact it wanted strong backing from the ‘ulama – the class of Muslim legal scholars – to legitimise its cause.

    Since spring 2012, al-Idrissi has been less public in his support for AST, and around a similar time, AST established a new media outlet named al-Bayyariq Media Foundation. It appears that al-Idrissi’s the current relationship with AST is more as an unaffiliated outside spiritual guide and that Abu Iyadh is the main link between AST and al-Idrissi.

    Friends in high places

    In addition to these early efforts, AST also had meetings and communications with al-Nahda, now Tunisia’s biggest political party, including with its leader Rachid Ghannouchi. According the founding member of AST I spoke with, relations between the Salafis and al-Nahda went back to the time that members of each group were in prison together. They reportedly passed letters to one another and were in close communication, though good relations may have been kept for cynical purposes. For example, a letter from Ali Larayedh, Tunisia’s current Prime Minister, to Nur al-Din Ganduz, another senior al-Nahda figure, allegedly explained that the Salafis were beneficial to al-Nahda because they make them look better and more moderate in comparison.

    Following the overthrow of Ben Ali and the release of the prisoners, dialogue between factions within al-Nahda and AST continued. The individual I spoke with said that in 2011 he personally attended two meetings at Ghannouchi’s home in el-Menzah, just north of Tunis. In these meetings, Ghannouchi allegedly told Abu Iyadh to encourage the youth of AST to join the national army to infiltrate it, and to get another group of youth do the same with the National Guard.

    This claim is less surprising when one bears in mind the leaked video that surfaced in October 2012 in which Ghannouchi provides strategic advice to the Salafis. In one part of the video, the al-Nahda leader warns, “the Army is in their [the secularists] hands. We cannot guarantee the police and the army.” It is possible Ghannouchi did not want to risk his own cadres, but saw a back door to controlling elements within the security apparatus by using the Salafis and the zeal of their youth members.

    This relationship between al-Nahda and AST has since soured, and the al-Nahda-led government designated AST as a terrorist organisation on 27 August, 2013.

    Brothers and arms

    In the two and a half years since AST emerged in Tunisian politics, the organisation has been involved in a serious campaign for hearts and minds publicly. Yet it is also believed to have been involved in more nefarious and concealed activities, though these have been difficult to confirm. The founding member of AST, however, provided some insights these shadier aspects of the group and suggested he quit the group in AST because of “what was behind the curtain.”

    He confirmed that AST has a military wing, thus contradicting one of Abu Iyadh’s famous statements that Tunisia is a land of da’wah (meaning preaching or invitation) and not jihad, and his claim that AST does not have or obtain weapons. The individual also noted that the relationship of AST with Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) and Ansar al-Sharia in Egypt (ASE) is like a “spider web,” explaining that they all know one another – presumably referring to the groups’ respective leaders. Further, the source said certain members of AST, ASL, and ASE travelled together to Gaza and northern Sinai in 2012. He did not say that they went for military training – though it should not necessarily be ruled out considering Tunisians have reportedly trained in Libya with ASL – but rather to meet Palestinian Salafis who advised them on issues related to administration, organisation, and management.

    When analysing semi-clandestine Salafi organisations, one needs to bear in mind what one knows for sure and what one doesn’t, especially as the latter category often overshadows the former. And there are still many questions to answer regarding AST, such as its relationship with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its role in recent violence in Tunisia. However, as AST continues to be important in Tunisia despite its official ban, hopefully filling in some previously concealed gaps regarding its history, its relations and its strategies will help us understand the mysterious group a little better.

  • in South Africa

    Why Are Political Killings Increasing in South Africa?

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    Research suggests that politically-related assassinations are on the rise. And experts say that at the heart of the trend lie ANC policies.

    By James Bullock

    Poverty is one of the structural causes of politically motivated killings in South Africa. Credit: DFID

    On 26 June in Durban, Nkululeko Gwala, was walking home after watching a Confederations Cup match at his local shebeen when he was shot 12 times, his body hurriedly searched and then left in the road where he had fallen. Gwala was a member of the shack-dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), and only five hours earlier, had been labelled a “troublemaker” by regional African National Congress (ANC) leader, Sibongiseni Dhlomo.

    Shortly before his assassination, Gwala had allegedly uncovered evidence that ANC councillor Mzimuni Ngiba was illegally renting out properties that had been built for the poor and was collecting the income to line his own pockets. Gwala was reportedly due to hold a press conference two days after he was gunned down.

    Gwala’s death is no doubt shocking, but perhaps even more shocking and tragic is the fact it is only one of the latest in a long line of political assassinations in South Africa. The country has witnessed several spates of politically-motivated murders over the past decades, and some estimates suggest that the problem could now be intensifying. According to researcher David Bruce, for example, the province of KwaZulu-Natal alone has experienced around 100 political killings over the past decade; but of these, 50% occurred in 2011 and 2012.

    It’s lonely at the top

    The problem of political killings is complex and multi-faceted, but a number of researchers see the key issue as the link between money and power in South Africa. According to Professor Jane Duncan at Rhodes University, ANC rule has led to a ‘fusing’ of political and economic spheres which means holding a government position is increasingly the surest route to a reliable income. This, she suggests, raises the stakes significantly for those in power and contributes to an environment in which assassinations are more likely.

    “Many if not most members of the ANC elite do not have an independent source of wealth creation other than the state”, she says. “If they lose access to the state, they lose everything – this is why the struggle for state tenders has become deadly”.

    Indeed, despite repeated vows from politicians to boost employment, reduce poverty and prevent crime, South Africa is facing rising unemployment, huge inequality, and a recent economic slow down. And while Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies since Apartheid have been meant to redress systemic inequalities, a small number of well-connected individuals have benefited, as the majority of South Africans remain poor.

    “In terms of a fundamental restructuring of the economy, black economic empowerment (BEE) has not succeeded”, explains Gareth Newham of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). “The South African stock exchange is predominantly white, senior executive are still mainly white and male, and the system is still dominated by a small politically-connected elite.”

    This political-economic structure puts a lot of power in the hands of a few and opens up the opportunity for significant fraud and corruption. To take just one example, Newham points to ANC chairwoman Baleka Mbete who is currently being investigated for bribery after it was claimed she accepted $2.4million from the mining firm Gold Fields over the granting of a licence. Mbete allegedly threatened to scuttle a lucrative deal regarding the South Deep mine unless she received some kind of extra payment.

    According to Duncan, this has all contributed to a dangerous political and economic system in which the ANC has become “a vehicle for get-rick-quick schemes”. More people are entering the party to gain access to state resources rather than because they have a real commitment to social transformation, she says, and as promised solutions to poverty and unemployment fail to materialise, the importance of the struggle for political influence increases. Furthermore, with the potential wealth available to those in positions of power clear to see, competition can also turn ugly.

    “Until the ANC takes a decision to decouple politics from economic empowerment, political killings are likely to intensify”, she says.

    Lack of action, lack of will

    However, despite the worsening and worrying situation, it seems that relatively little is being done to combat the issue. When it comes to political killings, Bruce says, “There is no real evidence of sustained interest from any single group whether it’s politicians, the police or prosecution service – or research groups or the media for that matter”.

    Duncan, however, primarily points the finger at the government and claims its response has been significantly lacking. One reason behind this, she suggests, is South Africa’s semi-federal political system which allows regional politicians to get away with things more easily.

    “Provinces have been allowed to become the fiefdoms of political elites as this tier of government is relatively insulated from the political pressures experienced by national government”, she says. “The provinces have evolved into well-resourced power bases for politicians with limited accountability, turning them into institutions where corruption can fester.”

    Former investigative journalist Mandy de Waal, who used to write for Daily Maverick, concurs with this view, adding that increasing government ownership of media also contributes to this trend.

    “There is a strong focus in the press on national issues not urban issues. This – and the fascination with celebrity politics – means people who are murdered for political ends are not really part of the national consciousness. Celebrity politics diverts our national attention away from theses killings, for questioning and trying to get to the bottom if why they are happening.”

    Another crucial dynamic underlying the relative inaction on political killings simply comes down to those heading the police and security departments. According to Newham, the police service has grown by 70,000 since 2004 and received a 22% increase in budget, but the number of cases finalised has declined by 10%.

    He puts this down to the fact that ANC appointments are driven in large part by systems of patronage, which can lead to both a lack of competence and a lack of will to tackle political killings.

    “The police cannot become more effective because the national commission of police was a political appointment and has no police experience”, he says. “The system for a professional ethos has collapsed and lower level officials are excluded because they aren’t politically-aligned.” This kind of ‘uneven policing’ contributes to an environment in which impunity thrives.

    Furthermore, having politically-connected individuals in charge of policing can sometimes mean politics comes into decisions of which crimes are prioritised and which are not. “If people are not seen as a part of the ruling factions and they are killed, there is little chance of an investigation”, says Newham.

    A worsening situation

    Underlying South Africa’s growing problem of political killings then are complex structures made up of interweaving alliances, economic interests and a culture of impunity. By some measures South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, and when political power and economic power are so closely tied, the cost of falling out of the elite is very high, and the policing and justice systems are ineffectual and selective, a dangerous stage is set.

    There is no simple and easy solution, but the continued lack of attention or recognition from authorities in addressing the problem is worrying. And until there are concerted efforts to alleviate the issues underlying political violence, more like Gwala will die and more cases will remain unsolved.

    Correction note 21/10/13: Mandy de Waal’s title and quote were updated shortly after publication.

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