Africa

During the 1970s plane hijackings became a somewhat regularly recurrent phenomenon. In a post-9/11 world, however, such instances have become rare to the point of anachronism. Tuesday’s hijacking of a Khartoum-bound plane from the town of Nyala in southern Darfur thus provided a bizarre twist to events in that troubled area. Hijackers attempted to divert the plane to Cairo, but when Egypt refused to allow the plane to land it headed to southern Libya near the Sudanese border. At first the hijackers refused to negotiate with anyone, but finally surrendered after releasing hostages. 

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s head of state and, let’s not mince words, war criminal, is leaving Sudan for the first time since his indictment for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. He is visiting Turkey, which does not recognize the ICC, to attend a summit of African leaders. Too many African states have been unwilling to condemn the leadership in Khartoum for its many sins, and one fears that Bashir’s attendance at this conference will only provide legitimacy for his government.

At The New Republic Richard Just has a long and important review essay on the Darfur crisis. He uses ten books to explore western inaction in the face of what he argues might be the most well-covered ongoing genocide in history. The West is not alone in its inaction, of course. African leaders could have done more all along. The Chinese are knee-deep in complicity. And the brunt of the blame goes to the murderous regime in Khartoum. Nonetheless, those with the power to act have failed to act and no one can deny knowing what has been happening.

This week The Washington Post “Book World” profiles Africanist Alex de Waal, who contributes a piece in Book World’s “The Writing Life” feature. De Waal is best known for his work on the Sudan and the Darfur crisis. I met de Waal at this year’s Sudan Studies Association meeting. He has a fierce intellect and an unquestionable commitment to his work.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has met to deal with the situation in Zimbabwe and has made clear that the region’s leaders want to see the results of the election that was held more than two weeks ago. Spokesmen nonetheless insist that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe, which, while absurd in light of the fact that Zimbabwe has been in crisis for a decade, more or less, probably reflects a desire to tamp down current tensions.  Thabo Mbeki, who met with Mugabe this weekend, which is certain to fuel lots of speculation in South Africa, has seconded the “no crisis” line, which almost certainly means that this issue was broached behind closed doors and SADC members agreed to adhere to a party line.  

In related news, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that Africans, especially SADC, must resolve the Zimbabwe situation. This is probably smart diplomacy. Brown certainly is rooting for Mugabe to go, but he also knows that anything he says to that effect will only fuel Mugabe’s wrath and will allow him to strike the anti-imperialist pose that is such a key tool in his kit.

Meanwhile in a twist that reveals that the Movement for Democratic Change remains committed to its chosen course of insisting that it won the election outright, and thus will not participate in a run-off, plans to mount a court challenge to the recount that the Zimbabwe Election Commission has ordered. The MDC believes that the recount merely will provide the pretext for Mugabe’s people to fix the vote count, the original totals of which still have not been announced, which does raise some questions about the recount.

Finally, Foreign Policy, optimistic that Mugabe might be on his way out, has compiled a list of other dictators around the globe whose time might soon be up. Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir also, rightly, makes the cut.   

At The Washington Realist Nikolas Gvosdev makes a salient point about how the Western powers have a tendency to blame China for the instability in the Sudan (and to a lesser extent places such as Zimbabwe) and then use China’s (admittedly noxious) behaviors as a cover for their own inaction.

I do not always agree with J. Peter Pham, but there is little doubting his intelligence, knowledge, ability, and devotion to Africa-related issues. He is also one of the most significant voices among those who look at Africa from the vantage point of American policies and interests. He has a roundup of Africa-related issues at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (full disclosure: I have been a fellow with FDD and still have a relationship with the organzation) via Family Security Matters. Included is news and commentary on Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, the Sahel, and Nigeria.

It almost certainly comes as a shock to absolutely no one that Robert Mugabe has acted in bad faith and announced unilaterally (even as he has been in the midst of negotiations with the factions of the Movement for Democratic Change) that elections will be held on March 2. Now the MDC is scrambling to figure out what to do. Their options are circumscribed: The opposition can choose to boycott the elections, guaranteeing another Mugabe victory, which the wily tyrant will depict as a mandate, or to participate in elections that are pretty certain to be a sham, in which Mugabe secures victory, thus claiming a mandate. This frustrating hobson’s choice encapsulates the frustration of politics in Robert Mugabe’s brutocracy.

Stephanie Hanson, news editor for the Council on Foreign Relations, recently interviewed Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC’s most visible leader. Tsvangirai gives thoughtful answers to questions on a host of issues, though at time the hopelessness of the opposition’s plight seems almost tangible in his words. He expressed his wish for the world’s response to the situation in Zimbabwe:  “The elections that are forthcoming in Zimbabwe must be raised to the same level like Darfur. There must be an international outcry.” But what has the west’s supposed outcry (which frankly seems rather muted and is by any measure ineffectual) accomplished in Darfur? About as much as it has in Zimbabwe.

Tyrants only know one language, and that is the universal lingua franca of power. Power does not have to mean force, though force is never far from power. Until Mugabe is forced to change, to relent, or to cede control, he will do none of those things. The same can be said for Omar al-Bashir and the thugs he empowers in Darfur. Hand wringing is not enough. It never is.

It’s always proven remarkably easy for the West to make promises to Africa. It has been in the area of following through on those promises where the outside world has so often fallen short. Thabo Mbeki has identified the crises in Sudan as an area in which promises have been made, and at least to this point, have gone unfulfilled:

A majority of the countries who undertook to assist Sudan financially in implementing the African country’s peace agreement have not fulfilled their pledges, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.

Briefing the media at Tuynhuys in Cape Town following a meeting with his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Bashir, Mbeki said that despite the international donor community having pledged to assist with equipment and other resources required to help the Sudanese government resolve its political crisis, many of the countries still had not yet delivered.

“Various countries around the world have not yet responded,” he said.

He said making the resources available to the Sudanese government was a critical element for the resolution of the crisis, and that the South African government would do everything in its power to ensure that countries fulfilled their pledges.

“We need to bring everybody on board,” Mbeki said.

South Africa is often caught in a difficult situation in its role as a continental leader. But Mbeki is right: when the world does not follow through on its promises, especially in a crisis situation such as that in both Darfur, and increasingly in the once-again rumbling south of Sudan, it almost guarantees that chaos will continue to reign.

The UN recently called for a rare summit on Africa and predictably, promises were made, agendas were set, ideas proposed. While it is good to see Africa on the global agenda in such a visible way, many Africans are rightly skeptical:

“Africa’s agenda will increasingly be defined by the African Union,” said AU chairman Alpha Oumar Konare. “We hope to move beyond words, to move beyond promises because too many promises have already been made to Africa.”

One does, however, wonder if Konare is not whistling past the graveyard. Naturally Africans should set their agenda. But so far, the AU, for example, has shown little capacity for effectiveness in Sudan. So far, SADC has proved loath to intervene in Zimbabwe. Perhaps it is still right that Africa choose to address and not to address these issues. But it seems that if the world wants to help, Africans ought to welcome that help, as long as African leaders make clear that they set the agenda and they provide the leadership and they create the structures in which Europeans, Americans and others might operate. In other words, African solutions for African problems, but with whatever help the West is willing to provide in a subordinate capacity.

Western involvement does not have to mean neocolonialism, though as Thabo Mbeki argued before the General Assembly yesterday, the very structure of that organization does favor rich nations over poor ones. Mbeki further asserted that even with their augmented status, developed nations are failing the developing world.  Perhaps the west is listening (now look who is whistling past the graveyard!) and can come to the conclusion that western help under African control might pave a new road for African relations with Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.