It has become commonplace to criticize Nigeria for its electoral shortcomings, its corruption and, more recently, its leadership crisis. But focusing on these negatives, however they may be based on truth, ignores the vital role Nigeria has played on the continent over the years of African independence. It is not inaccurate to say that Nigeria has been Africa’s essential nation. This point was hit home in comments during the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation’s Nigeria Today forum on May 29.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo reminded the crowd of the interventions –militarily through peacekeepers and diplomatically – that have changed the history of Africa. Obasanjo, who was appointed Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, recalled his service among the United Nations organization in Congo in the early 1960s. Led at one point by Nigerian Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, the UN operation helped stem the tide of chaos that seemed ready to blow this giant nation apart and helped consolidate its transition to independence.
When the civil war in Angola threatened to undo the country’s independence from Portugal in the mid-1970s, it was Nigeria’s endorsement of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola government that consolidated African support and later international support for the liberation movement that held control of the capital. American and other support for the coalition of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola faded away in short order due to the broad African support for the faction the Nigerians endorsed. In the late 1980s, when a Cuban pullout from Angola was complicated by concern over a withdrawal by the South Africans from Namibia, Nigerian diplomacy was instrumental in both situations being resolved.
Nigeria played a major role in the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. At the height of the bloody civil wars in both countries, Nigerian forces took the lead in establishing order. ECOMOG’s success in Liberia creating conditions that allowed for the presidential and legislative elections in July 1977. In Sierra Leone, ECOMOG restored constitutional legitimacy by reinstating the government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in February 1998.
It should be remembered that Nigeria went further in both cases by arresting and detaining Foday Sankoh, the leader of the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone, and allowed Liberian leader Charles Taylor to be exiled in their country. Both moves were calculated to create space for a lessening of violence and a restoration of peace in these countries. Nigeria later arrested Taylor when he was determined to be in violation of the exile agreement and turned him over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, where he is on trial today.
When São Tomé and Principe President Fradique de Menezes was briefly overthrown during a visit to Nigeria in 1995, the Obasanjo government, acting in concert with other African governments, restored Menezes to power Obasanjo personally escorted him back to his capital in São Tomé and Principe.
There are countries with military power and countries with economic power and countries whose leaders have the clout to make an impact internationally. However, no other nation has combined all three as consistently as Nigeria.
In the history of the Nobel Peace Prize from 1901 to today, there are nine people of African birth or descent who have won: four South Africans (Albert Lituli, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Frederik De Klerk), three Americans (Ralph Bunche, Martin Luther King and Barack Obama), one Ghanaian (Kofi Annan) and one Kenyan (Wangari Maathai). You’ll notice that no Nigerians are on that list, even though peace could not have come to several countries in Africa without Nigerian intervention.
Again, Nigeria is often placed in a bad light for developments inside its borders or for the crimes of a relative few involving others in the international community. Nevertheless, when things get tough in Africa, who do we call?
Given Nigeria’s important role in maintaining peace and allowing for development in Africa, why do we so often stand back and watch problems develop in Nigeria and not try harder to help the continent’s bulwark to overcome its challenges. It is true that Nigerian pride often sees outside intervention as interference, but we must make them understand that our helping hand is not aimed at taking control of the levers of power, but rather an attempt to steady a friend experiencing difficulties.
The U.S. should remind its friend Nigeria of the Ibo proverb: “Emergency overtakes a champion but then it’s that same emergency that makes a true champion.” Nigeria has been at point zero of some of Africa’s most troubling crises, and has proven its value in them. Still, a champion does not have to operate without the help of friends.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
What Now for U.S. Policy on Sudan?
Now that Omar al-Bashir has been certified as the elected President of Sudan, despite having won in an election boycotted by his main rivals and tainted by alleged fraud, how will the United States government deal with a national leader under indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity? By early indications, the conciliatory strategy of Special Envoy Scott Gration will continue.
In a post-election interview with National Public Radio, Gration proved to be the master of naïve understatement: “We learned a lot. There were things that weren’t good,” he said. “There were restrictions to freedoms of assembly and freedoms of speech, and individual freedoms. And there was a bit of incompetence. All these things have to be fixed, and I believe they can.”
This is the same blue sky attitude he expressed prior to the election when he proclaimed himself sure that the government could and would run an acceptable election. We now know that the Sudan election suffered from serious problems. In the assessment by the Carter Center election team, the election “falls short of international standards.” Carter Center observers found “important flaws” that included inadequate protection of political freedoms, problems in the voter list, a range of logistical troubles on the election days, insufficient transparency in the electoral process, voter intimidation in the south and the ongoing conflict in Darfur.
A group of northern domestic election observers were even harsher in their assessment of the election. They said the entire election – from the electoral census through voter registration through the campaign and voting was deficient. This was the view of the major presidential candidates who withdrew from the election before it took place.
America’s Ambassador to the African Union, Michael Battle, said the Administration would reserve judgment on the election until discussions are held with the AU. “If you read the report from the European Union observers of the elections in Sudan, they acknowledged that the elections were not perfect, but nobody expected them to be perfect” Battle said.
This unrealistic measuring rod essentially makes light of serious problems in the Sudan elections. No election anywhere in the world is perfect, and of course no one in his right mind would expect any election to be perfect. Battle’s statement shrugs off election problems that could be a dangerous foreshadowing for the prospects of the 2011 referendum on southern Sudanese independence.
Make no mistake about it, the southerners weren’t invested heavily in voting outside their region, which is why they trumpet their heavy support in the south and played down results in the north. However, Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement leadership has been looking forward to the 2011 referendum since it was set by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. Irregularities of the kind witnessed in the national elections will not go down so easily in February. An already shaky CPA could blow apart completely if the referendum process doesn’t go more smoothly. Not perfectly, mind you, but not as ragged as the election just passed.
Meanwhile, President Bashir is looking to use his election (however questionable the circumstances) to legitimize himself and perhaps get out from under the ICC indictment. Sudan activists are pushing President Obama to take a hard line on Sudan. U.S. officials may believe the ICC indictment is leverage to be used in pressuring Bashir to cooperate with making the referendum more successful. However, the reverse may be more likely, as Bashir uses the referendum and his government’s cooperation in making it work to hold off or remove the indictment. The ICC surely will not withdraw the indictment, and the U.S. government certainly could not ask them to do so without losing credibility with other national leaders accused of crimes against humanity or some variation of that charge.
It always was likely that Bashir would win the national election because his strongest rival, the SPLM candidate, fronted a party that had its eye on a future election. His government still tried to boost his win margin and manipulated the process from start to finish. How much more will Bashir’s government try to fix an election that will deny his government billions in oil revenue and other income and divide his country’s territory? It would be dangerously naïve to believe that this next election will be a step toward better elections with so much at stake and such a poor foundation on which to build.
In a post-election interview with National Public Radio, Gration proved to be the master of naïve understatement: “We learned a lot. There were things that weren’t good,” he said. “There were restrictions to freedoms of assembly and freedoms of speech, and individual freedoms. And there was a bit of incompetence. All these things have to be fixed, and I believe they can.”
This is the same blue sky attitude he expressed prior to the election when he proclaimed himself sure that the government could and would run an acceptable election. We now know that the Sudan election suffered from serious problems. In the assessment by the Carter Center election team, the election “falls short of international standards.” Carter Center observers found “important flaws” that included inadequate protection of political freedoms, problems in the voter list, a range of logistical troubles on the election days, insufficient transparency in the electoral process, voter intimidation in the south and the ongoing conflict in Darfur.
A group of northern domestic election observers were even harsher in their assessment of the election. They said the entire election – from the electoral census through voter registration through the campaign and voting was deficient. This was the view of the major presidential candidates who withdrew from the election before it took place.
America’s Ambassador to the African Union, Michael Battle, said the Administration would reserve judgment on the election until discussions are held with the AU. “If you read the report from the European Union observers of the elections in Sudan, they acknowledged that the elections were not perfect, but nobody expected them to be perfect” Battle said.
This unrealistic measuring rod essentially makes light of serious problems in the Sudan elections. No election anywhere in the world is perfect, and of course no one in his right mind would expect any election to be perfect. Battle’s statement shrugs off election problems that could be a dangerous foreshadowing for the prospects of the 2011 referendum on southern Sudanese independence.
Make no mistake about it, the southerners weren’t invested heavily in voting outside their region, which is why they trumpet their heavy support in the south and played down results in the north. However, Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement leadership has been looking forward to the 2011 referendum since it was set by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. Irregularities of the kind witnessed in the national elections will not go down so easily in February. An already shaky CPA could blow apart completely if the referendum process doesn’t go more smoothly. Not perfectly, mind you, but not as ragged as the election just passed.
Meanwhile, President Bashir is looking to use his election (however questionable the circumstances) to legitimize himself and perhaps get out from under the ICC indictment. Sudan activists are pushing President Obama to take a hard line on Sudan. U.S. officials may believe the ICC indictment is leverage to be used in pressuring Bashir to cooperate with making the referendum more successful. However, the reverse may be more likely, as Bashir uses the referendum and his government’s cooperation in making it work to hold off or remove the indictment. The ICC surely will not withdraw the indictment, and the U.S. government certainly could not ask them to do so without losing credibility with other national leaders accused of crimes against humanity or some variation of that charge.
It always was likely that Bashir would win the national election because his strongest rival, the SPLM candidate, fronted a party that had its eye on a future election. His government still tried to boost his win margin and manipulated the process from start to finish. How much more will Bashir’s government try to fix an election that will deny his government billions in oil revenue and other income and divide his country’s territory? It would be dangerously naïve to believe that this next election will be a step toward better elections with so much at stake and such a poor foundation on which to build.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Slavery’s Dirty Secrets
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times last week that has begun to stir a controversy because he has dared to extend the blame for trans-Atlantic slavery to more than the Europeans who kidnapped unwilling Africans into servitude in the Americas. It is uncomfortable to examine the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade because the truths are inconvenient and terrible to contemplate. However, at a time when the African Diaspora is growing closer to the people of the continent, it is critical that we see and understand the truth.
Professor Gates stated correctly that African kingdoms, such as the Akan of Asante in what is modern-day Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern-day Angola and the Kongo of today’s two Congo nations trafficked in slaves. In fact, the economies of kingdoms such as the Yoruba of Nigeria depended on income from the slave trade, and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania built an economic system by exporting slaves from the interior.
To state these facts does not absolve the Europeans, who systematically kidnapped and exported human beings on long sea voyages many would not survive. Those who did survive were dehumanized in ways to which slaves had not been subjected in the history of slavery on Earth. Their language, culture and very names were taken from them. Families were prevented from forming or later destroyed, and punishments were devilishly inhuman.
Nevertheless, despite the effort by African government and traditional leaders to take responsibility for the part their people played in this dehumanizing system, many of us among the African Diaspora would prefer to maintain that it was all the fault of white people. To hold this position is to say to those Africans who have accepted the responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that their apologies are meaningless. That is not only disrespectful, but it prevents us from truly understanding people with whom many of us now say we want to establish kinship.
In this history of misery, let us not ignore the role Arabs played in the trans-Saharan and Red Sea legs of the international slave trade. They added to the degradation of the African people as well.
“The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic,” wrote Congolese historian Elikia M’bokolo in Le Monde in April 1998. “Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Sahara caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.”
Another reason we must be honest about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is that on this side of the ocean there were African Americans who added to the misery of their own people. The late historian John Hope Franklin once wrote that by 1860 in the city of New Orleans, more than 3,000 free Blacks – 28% of the free Black population in that city – owned slaves. Throughout slave-holding states in the South, free Blacks were slave owners, and not just those who bought slaves to gain their freedom.
Records show, for example, that William Ellison, a freed Black man in South Carolina was the state’s largest Black slave owner in 1860. After his owner had him apprenticed to learn a trade and then emancipated him, Ellison first hired slaves from local owners and then became a slave owner himself. Using the free labor of a rising number of slaves, Ellison’s cotton gin manufacturing company actually put some white competitors out of business. To make matters worse, Ellison became a slave breeder, selling male and female offspring, including his own daughter with a slave woman.
There is much blame to go around for the centuries during which Africa was drained of her people, some of whom might have become the leaders, scientists and inventors who could have allowed Africa to join the Industrial Revolution and compete on an equal basis with the rest of the world.
So who is more at fault? Is it the Arabs who started the international trade of slaves from Africa and reportedly continue that trade in a different form even today? Is it the Europeans who took the international slave trade to new lows in the New World? Is it the Africans who went out of their way to find their own kind to sell to foreigners? What about the African Americans who dehumanized their own people and used their free labor to become wealthy?
As I said earlier, there are many of us who would establish our blood and legal ties to Africa today, but how will this linkage become real if we pretend that white people alone came from the skies and made our kinsmen disappear into slavery on another continent? Someone else sold African slaves in the first place, someone else also bought African slaves and someone else also owned African slaves when they got here.
At the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008, Benin’s Ambassador to the United States, Cyrille Oguin, speaking in a forum on Diaspora-African linkages, asked this question: “How can you say you love me if you don’t know me?” By refusing to acknowledge all of the guilty in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we create a false history. That is a poor foundation on which to build family ties.
Professor Gates stated correctly that African kingdoms, such as the Akan of Asante in what is modern-day Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern-day Angola and the Kongo of today’s two Congo nations trafficked in slaves. In fact, the economies of kingdoms such as the Yoruba of Nigeria depended on income from the slave trade, and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania built an economic system by exporting slaves from the interior.
To state these facts does not absolve the Europeans, who systematically kidnapped and exported human beings on long sea voyages many would not survive. Those who did survive were dehumanized in ways to which slaves had not been subjected in the history of slavery on Earth. Their language, culture and very names were taken from them. Families were prevented from forming or later destroyed, and punishments were devilishly inhuman.
Nevertheless, despite the effort by African government and traditional leaders to take responsibility for the part their people played in this dehumanizing system, many of us among the African Diaspora would prefer to maintain that it was all the fault of white people. To hold this position is to say to those Africans who have accepted the responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that their apologies are meaningless. That is not only disrespectful, but it prevents us from truly understanding people with whom many of us now say we want to establish kinship.
In this history of misery, let us not ignore the role Arabs played in the trans-Saharan and Red Sea legs of the international slave trade. They added to the degradation of the African people as well.
“The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic,” wrote Congolese historian Elikia M’bokolo in Le Monde in April 1998. “Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Sahara caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.”
Another reason we must be honest about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is that on this side of the ocean there were African Americans who added to the misery of their own people. The late historian John Hope Franklin once wrote that by 1860 in the city of New Orleans, more than 3,000 free Blacks – 28% of the free Black population in that city – owned slaves. Throughout slave-holding states in the South, free Blacks were slave owners, and not just those who bought slaves to gain their freedom.
Records show, for example, that William Ellison, a freed Black man in South Carolina was the state’s largest Black slave owner in 1860. After his owner had him apprenticed to learn a trade and then emancipated him, Ellison first hired slaves from local owners and then became a slave owner himself. Using the free labor of a rising number of slaves, Ellison’s cotton gin manufacturing company actually put some white competitors out of business. To make matters worse, Ellison became a slave breeder, selling male and female offspring, including his own daughter with a slave woman.
There is much blame to go around for the centuries during which Africa was drained of her people, some of whom might have become the leaders, scientists and inventors who could have allowed Africa to join the Industrial Revolution and compete on an equal basis with the rest of the world.
So who is more at fault? Is it the Arabs who started the international trade of slaves from Africa and reportedly continue that trade in a different form even today? Is it the Europeans who took the international slave trade to new lows in the New World? Is it the Africans who went out of their way to find their own kind to sell to foreigners? What about the African Americans who dehumanized their own people and used their free labor to become wealthy?
As I said earlier, there are many of us who would establish our blood and legal ties to Africa today, but how will this linkage become real if we pretend that white people alone came from the skies and made our kinsmen disappear into slavery on another continent? Someone else sold African slaves in the first place, someone else also bought African slaves and someone else also owned African slaves when they got here.
At the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008, Benin’s Ambassador to the United States, Cyrille Oguin, speaking in a forum on Diaspora-African linkages, asked this question: “How can you say you love me if you don’t know me?” By refusing to acknowledge all of the guilty in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we create a false history. That is a poor foundation on which to build family ties.
Slavery’s Dirty Secrets
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times last week that has begun to stir a controversy because he has dared to extend the blame for trans-Atlantic slavery to more than the Europeans who kidnapped unwilling Africans into servitude in the Americas. It is uncomfortable to examine the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade because the truths are inconvenient and terrible to contemplate. However, at a time when the African Diaspora is growing closer to the people of the continent, it is critical that we see and understand the truth.
Professor Gates stated correctly that African kingdoms, such as the Akan of Asante in what is modern-day Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern-day Angola and the Kongo of today’s two Congo nations trafficked in slaves. In fact, the economies of kingdoms such as the Yoruba of Nigeria depended on income from the slave trade, and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania built an economic system by exporting slaves from the interior.
To state these facts does not absolve the Europeans, who systematically kidnapped and exported human beings on long sea voyages many would not survive. Those who did survive were dehumanized in ways to which slaves had not been subjected in the history of slavery on Earth. Their language, culture and very names were taken from them. Families were prevented from forming or later destroyed, and punishments were devilishly inhuman.
Nevertheless, despite the effort by African government and traditional leaders to take responsibility for the part their people played in this dehumanizing system, many of us among the African Diaspora would prefer to maintain that it was all the fault of white people. To hold this position is to say to those Africans who have accepted the responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that their apologies are meaningless. That is not only disrespectful, but it prevents us from truly understanding people with whom many of us now say we want to establish kinship.
In this history of misery, let us not ignore the role Arabs played in the trans-Saharan and Red Sea legs of the international slave trade. They added to the degradation of the African people as well.
“The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic,” wrote Congolese historian Elikia M’bokolo in Le Monde in April 1998. “Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Sahara caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.”
Another reason we must be honest about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is that on this side of the ocean there were African Americans who added to the misery of their own people. The late historian John Hope Franklin once wrote that by 1860 in the city of New Orleans, more than 3,000 free Blacks – 28% of the free Black population in that city – owned slaves. Throughout slave-holding states in the South, free Blacks were slave owners, and not just those who bought slaves to gain their freedom.
Records show, for example, that William Ellison, a freed Black man in South Carolina was the state’s largest Black slave owner in 1860. After his owner had him apprenticed to learn a trade and then emancipated him, Ellison first hired slaves from local owners and then became a slave owner himself. Using the free labor of a rising number of slaves, Ellison’s cotton gin manufacturing company actually put some white competitors out of business. To make matters worse, Ellison became a slave breeder, selling male and female offspring, including his own daughter with a slave woman.
There is much blame to go around for the centuries during which Africa was drained of her people, some of whom might have become the leaders, scientists and inventors who could have allowed Africa to join the Industrial Revolution and compete on an equal basis with the rest of the world.
So who is more at fault? Is it the Arabs who started the international trade of slaves from Africa and reportedly continue that trade in a different form even today? Is it the Europeans who took the international slave trade to new lows in the New World? Is it the Africans who went out of their way to find their own kind to sell to foreigners? What about the African Americans who dehumanized their own people and used their free labor to become wealthy?
As I said earlier, there are many of us who would establish our blood and legal ties to Africa today, but how will this linkage become real if we pretend that white people alone came from the skies and made our kinsmen disappear into slavery on another continent? Someone else sold African slaves in the first place, someone else also bought African slaves and someone else also owned African slaves when they got here.
At the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008, Benin’s Ambassador to the United States, Cyrille Oguin, speaking in a forum on Diaspora-African linkages, asked this question: “How can you say you love me if you don’t know me?” By refusing to acknowledge all of the guilty in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we create a false history. That is a poor foundation on which to build family ties.
Professor Gates stated correctly that African kingdoms, such as the Akan of Asante in what is modern-day Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey in modern-day Benin, the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern-day Angola and the Kongo of today’s two Congo nations trafficked in slaves. In fact, the economies of kingdoms such as the Yoruba of Nigeria depended on income from the slave trade, and the Nyamwezi of Tanzania built an economic system by exporting slaves from the interior.
To state these facts does not absolve the Europeans, who systematically kidnapped and exported human beings on long sea voyages many would not survive. Those who did survive were dehumanized in ways to which slaves had not been subjected in the history of slavery on Earth. Their language, culture and very names were taken from them. Families were prevented from forming or later destroyed, and punishments were devilishly inhuman.
Nevertheless, despite the effort by African government and traditional leaders to take responsibility for the part their people played in this dehumanizing system, many of us among the African Diaspora would prefer to maintain that it was all the fault of white people. To hold this position is to say to those Africans who have accepted the responsibility for the actions of their ancestors that their apologies are meaningless. That is not only disrespectful, but it prevents us from truly understanding people with whom many of us now say we want to establish kinship.
In this history of misery, let us not ignore the role Arabs played in the trans-Saharan and Red Sea legs of the international slave trade. They added to the degradation of the African people as well.
“The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic,” wrote Congolese historian Elikia M’bokolo in Le Monde in April 1998. “Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Sahara caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean.”
Another reason we must be honest about the trans-Atlantic slave trade is that on this side of the ocean there were African Americans who added to the misery of their own people. The late historian John Hope Franklin once wrote that by 1860 in the city of New Orleans, more than 3,000 free Blacks – 28% of the free Black population in that city – owned slaves. Throughout slave-holding states in the South, free Blacks were slave owners, and not just those who bought slaves to gain their freedom.
Records show, for example, that William Ellison, a freed Black man in South Carolina was the state’s largest Black slave owner in 1860. After his owner had him apprenticed to learn a trade and then emancipated him, Ellison first hired slaves from local owners and then became a slave owner himself. Using the free labor of a rising number of slaves, Ellison’s cotton gin manufacturing company actually put some white competitors out of business. To make matters worse, Ellison became a slave breeder, selling male and female offspring, including his own daughter with a slave woman.
There is much blame to go around for the centuries during which Africa was drained of her people, some of whom might have become the leaders, scientists and inventors who could have allowed Africa to join the Industrial Revolution and compete on an equal basis with the rest of the world.
So who is more at fault? Is it the Arabs who started the international trade of slaves from Africa and reportedly continue that trade in a different form even today? Is it the Europeans who took the international slave trade to new lows in the New World? Is it the Africans who went out of their way to find their own kind to sell to foreigners? What about the African Americans who dehumanized their own people and used their free labor to become wealthy?
As I said earlier, there are many of us who would establish our blood and legal ties to Africa today, but how will this linkage become real if we pretend that white people alone came from the skies and made our kinsmen disappear into slavery on another continent? Someone else sold African slaves in the first place, someone else also bought African slaves and someone else also owned African slaves when they got here.
At the eighth Leon H. Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, in June 2008, Benin’s Ambassador to the United States, Cyrille Oguin, speaking in a forum on Diaspora-African linkages, asked this question: “How can you say you love me if you don’t know me?” By refusing to acknowledge all of the guilty in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, we create a false history. That is a poor foundation on which to build family ties.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Sirleaf Resurrects Liberia
Liberia, a West African nation that was calm, prosperous and the envy of its neighbors for more than a century, spent the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s in turmoil. First, Sergeant Samuel Doe led a bloody 1980 coup following food price riots. The coup displaced the Americo-Liberians, the ruling minority of descendants of African-American who returned to that land in the 1800s, and unleashed ethnic hatreds. Doe’s arbitrary rule and the economic decline of the country encouraged a long civil war begun in late 1989 that eventually saw Charles Taylor take power. He led the country further into economic and social collapse, while supporting rebels bent on destruction in neighboring Sierra Leone.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lost her first race for the presidency against Taylor in 1996, but after his forced resignation in 2003, she became Africa’s first elected woman president after winning the second round of a 2005 contest.
These facts are certainly well-known, but what may be overlooked is how much progress Sirleaf has made since her election in regaining her country’s international stature. At home, schools and clinics are reopening, and agricultural production is picking up. Certainly much remains to be done in restoring water and electric power to all parts of the country. Corruption has not yet been tamed, and infrastructure is still being put in place. However, whatever the pace of reconstruction in Liberia, the once pariah of West Africa is now able to credibly reach out to the world beyond its borders and offer help and solidarity.
When Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called for the partition of Nigeria due to what he saw as irreconcilable religious cleavages, the Nigerian government reacted quickly and angrily withdrew their diplomatic representation. When Nigerian officials cited the fact that Christians and Muslims lived in peace in many Nigerian communities, Gaddafi refused to change his prescription, except to say that Nigeria be divided along ethnic lines. A major diplomatic conflict seemed to be in the making that could fracture African unity and peace. Then in stepped the Iron Lady of Liberia.
President Sirleaf intervened in the dispute and got the leaders of both countries to agree to meet to resolve their dispute. A private meeting between Libyan emissaries and Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was arranged by Sirleaf, and both sides praised her for her initiative in the matter. The Libyans lauded Sirleaf as being “elevated among Good and Great leaders of modern day Africa.”
Acting in her capacity as third Vice President of the African Union, Sirleaf was said to have conceived this effort on her own and pledged to continue until both sides had finally resolved the matter.
This is a far cry from the country that Nigeria and other member state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had to save from self-destruction and prevent from destabilizing the region. Liberia under President Sirleaf now has become a force for peace and reconciliation in Africa.
Meanwhile, this nation built with the input of free Blacks and freed slaves from America had long been a client state of this country. Liberia modeled itself after the United States, naming cities and counties after American presidents and copying the American flag among other elements of linkage. One might say the African-Americans “Westernized” indigenous Liberians to a great extent, a process accelerated by the presence of American missionaries over the years.
Still, African-Americans remained indifferent to the fate of Liberians, who are generally seen as no more akin to Americans than any other Africans. This is despite the obvious ties of so many who left this country, leaving family behind, and the fact that Liberia is among the top African nations identified as being linked to African-Americans taking the African Ancestry, Inc., DNA test. But now Liberia is reaching out to its kin in the Americas.
In a speech in Brazil, President Sirleaf, speaking before the predominantly Black University of Salvador in Bahia State, said Diaspora Africans are “an important segment” of the African family.
“The Government of Liberia is calling upon all Africans everywhere to bring their talent, their skills and their expertise to join us in our Liberian odyssey,” she said. “We want you to be a part of the rebirth of the Liberian nation, to pursue the vision of our forbearers, in creating a nation that will be a haven for all people of African descent.”
So the continent’s first Black republic is now in the process of regaining its previous stature as an international example of diplomacy and a beacon on the continent for the African Diaspora. Not bad for a country that less than a decade ago was in ruins.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf lost her first race for the presidency against Taylor in 1996, but after his forced resignation in 2003, she became Africa’s first elected woman president after winning the second round of a 2005 contest.
These facts are certainly well-known, but what may be overlooked is how much progress Sirleaf has made since her election in regaining her country’s international stature. At home, schools and clinics are reopening, and agricultural production is picking up. Certainly much remains to be done in restoring water and electric power to all parts of the country. Corruption has not yet been tamed, and infrastructure is still being put in place. However, whatever the pace of reconstruction in Liberia, the once pariah of West Africa is now able to credibly reach out to the world beyond its borders and offer help and solidarity.
When Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called for the partition of Nigeria due to what he saw as irreconcilable religious cleavages, the Nigerian government reacted quickly and angrily withdrew their diplomatic representation. When Nigerian officials cited the fact that Christians and Muslims lived in peace in many Nigerian communities, Gaddafi refused to change his prescription, except to say that Nigeria be divided along ethnic lines. A major diplomatic conflict seemed to be in the making that could fracture African unity and peace. Then in stepped the Iron Lady of Liberia.
President Sirleaf intervened in the dispute and got the leaders of both countries to agree to meet to resolve their dispute. A private meeting between Libyan emissaries and Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was arranged by Sirleaf, and both sides praised her for her initiative in the matter. The Libyans lauded Sirleaf as being “elevated among Good and Great leaders of modern day Africa.”
Acting in her capacity as third Vice President of the African Union, Sirleaf was said to have conceived this effort on her own and pledged to continue until both sides had finally resolved the matter.
This is a far cry from the country that Nigeria and other member state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had to save from self-destruction and prevent from destabilizing the region. Liberia under President Sirleaf now has become a force for peace and reconciliation in Africa.
Meanwhile, this nation built with the input of free Blacks and freed slaves from America had long been a client state of this country. Liberia modeled itself after the United States, naming cities and counties after American presidents and copying the American flag among other elements of linkage. One might say the African-Americans “Westernized” indigenous Liberians to a great extent, a process accelerated by the presence of American missionaries over the years.
Still, African-Americans remained indifferent to the fate of Liberians, who are generally seen as no more akin to Americans than any other Africans. This is despite the obvious ties of so many who left this country, leaving family behind, and the fact that Liberia is among the top African nations identified as being linked to African-Americans taking the African Ancestry, Inc., DNA test. But now Liberia is reaching out to its kin in the Americas.
In a speech in Brazil, President Sirleaf, speaking before the predominantly Black University of Salvador in Bahia State, said Diaspora Africans are “an important segment” of the African family.
“The Government of Liberia is calling upon all Africans everywhere to bring their talent, their skills and their expertise to join us in our Liberian odyssey,” she said. “We want you to be a part of the rebirth of the Liberian nation, to pursue the vision of our forbearers, in creating a nation that will be a haven for all people of African descent.”
So the continent’s first Black republic is now in the process of regaining its previous stature as an international example of diplomacy and a beacon on the continent for the African Diaspora. Not bad for a country that less than a decade ago was in ruins.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Addressing Violence in Eastern Congo
Following a civil war that resulted in the overthrow of notorious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, the Democratic Republic of Congo experienced another war beginning in 1998 that some called “Africa’s World War” because of the involvement of troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, Chad and Zimbabwe. Although a peace agreement in 2003 resulted in the withdrawal of most foreign troops from neighboring countries, violence continues in eastern Congo even as most Congolese have seen relative peace come to their areas.
The driving forces behind the entry of neighboring countries have been rebel groups launching attacks from Congolese territory and the presence of valuable minerals such as diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and zinc that foreign interests covet. More recently, though it is columbite-tantalite (also known as coltan), tin and tungsten, which along with gold are the vital elements of popular electronic devices such as iPods, laptops and cell phones. Their availability in the largely lawless eastern region of DRC has empowered warlords to continue their plunder despite the presence of what at one time was the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world at 20,000 troops.
UN peacekeepers have failed to stem the violence that plagues DRC. According to an extensive Harvard Humanitarian Initiative study in DRC, 60% of rape victims surveyed were gang raped by armed men with more than half such assaults taking place in the family home and often in the presence of the victim’s husband and children. Even more shocking was the finding that rapes by civilians have increased from less than one percent in 2004 to 38% by 2008. This indicates a lawlessness that the UN peacekeepers were supposed to prevent.
Only days ago, fighting between the “Enyélé” rebel group and the Congolese army in northwestern DRC resulted in 18 deaths and the displacement of people from Mbandaka, the area’s largest city. In addition to the violence, people hoarding goods there in anticipation of widening conflict have doubled or tripled prices for necessities. A report commissioned by the UN itself has said that the peacekeepers have done nothing to quell the violence rippling through the country.
DRC President Joseph Kabila has said he wants the UN peacekeepers out by the end of June, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has endorsed a pullout, although not that soon. The first contingent of UN peacekeepers is set to begin withdrawal by the end of June. Of course, if the violence persists and expands, the withdrawal could be put on hold.
Here in the United States, the Enough Campaign has been encouraging the private sector companies that use the conflict materials from DRC to be more discerning about the origin of their purchases to cut down on the revenue to rebels and militias. They are now pushing legislation introduced by Congressmen Jim McDermott and Frank Wolf (the Conflict Minerals Trade Act – H.R. 4128) that would create an audit system indentifying conflict minerals and the mines from which they come. The bill would verify the chain of custody of these minerals and verify information provided by suppliers through investigators in the DRC and other countries involved in processing and selling these materials.
Unfortunately, the bill, which was introduced last November 19th has gone nowhere since its referral to three House committees that same day: Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means and Armed Services. Referral to such disparate committees usually means a bill has little chance of moving absent cooperation among committee leaders. The legislation has the benefit of two influential Republicans – Wolf and Congressman Ed Royce, but in today’s poisoned Congressional environment, even they might not be enough to garner significant Republic support. Even if they did, there is no companion bill in the Senate and little if any indication of Senate interest. The last senator to successfully push a DRC bill was Barack Obama in 2006.
More than five million people have died in conflict in DRC since 1998, and an estimated 45,000 people are believed to die each month from violence or the resulting humanitarian crisis. The Kabila government has restored law and order to much of the country, but it is not likely that Congolese troops alone can restore and maintain order in a country the size of Western Europe that borders nine neighbors.
DRC is a case of the international community failing to live up to its task of protecting the people its peacekeepers were sent to save. When and if the UN peacekeepers leave, DRC could be plunged back into war. Its natural blessings have become its greatest curse. The world’s insatiable appetite for the very minerals fueling this conflict will require measures presented in the Conflict Minerals Trade Act. If you can’t stem demand, which you won’t in this case, then you must control supply.
The lives and social order of millions of Congolese depends on some movement being made on their behalf – soon.
The driving forces behind the entry of neighboring countries have been rebel groups launching attacks from Congolese territory and the presence of valuable minerals such as diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt and zinc that foreign interests covet. More recently, though it is columbite-tantalite (also known as coltan), tin and tungsten, which along with gold are the vital elements of popular electronic devices such as iPods, laptops and cell phones. Their availability in the largely lawless eastern region of DRC has empowered warlords to continue their plunder despite the presence of what at one time was the largest United Nations peacekeeping force in the world at 20,000 troops.
UN peacekeepers have failed to stem the violence that plagues DRC. According to an extensive Harvard Humanitarian Initiative study in DRC, 60% of rape victims surveyed were gang raped by armed men with more than half such assaults taking place in the family home and often in the presence of the victim’s husband and children. Even more shocking was the finding that rapes by civilians have increased from less than one percent in 2004 to 38% by 2008. This indicates a lawlessness that the UN peacekeepers were supposed to prevent.
Only days ago, fighting between the “Enyélé” rebel group and the Congolese army in northwestern DRC resulted in 18 deaths and the displacement of people from Mbandaka, the area’s largest city. In addition to the violence, people hoarding goods there in anticipation of widening conflict have doubled or tripled prices for necessities. A report commissioned by the UN itself has said that the peacekeepers have done nothing to quell the violence rippling through the country.
DRC President Joseph Kabila has said he wants the UN peacekeepers out by the end of June, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has endorsed a pullout, although not that soon. The first contingent of UN peacekeepers is set to begin withdrawal by the end of June. Of course, if the violence persists and expands, the withdrawal could be put on hold.
Here in the United States, the Enough Campaign has been encouraging the private sector companies that use the conflict materials from DRC to be more discerning about the origin of their purchases to cut down on the revenue to rebels and militias. They are now pushing legislation introduced by Congressmen Jim McDermott and Frank Wolf (the Conflict Minerals Trade Act – H.R. 4128) that would create an audit system indentifying conflict minerals and the mines from which they come. The bill would verify the chain of custody of these minerals and verify information provided by suppliers through investigators in the DRC and other countries involved in processing and selling these materials.
Unfortunately, the bill, which was introduced last November 19th has gone nowhere since its referral to three House committees that same day: Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means and Armed Services. Referral to such disparate committees usually means a bill has little chance of moving absent cooperation among committee leaders. The legislation has the benefit of two influential Republicans – Wolf and Congressman Ed Royce, but in today’s poisoned Congressional environment, even they might not be enough to garner significant Republic support. Even if they did, there is no companion bill in the Senate and little if any indication of Senate interest. The last senator to successfully push a DRC bill was Barack Obama in 2006.
More than five million people have died in conflict in DRC since 1998, and an estimated 45,000 people are believed to die each month from violence or the resulting humanitarian crisis. The Kabila government has restored law and order to much of the country, but it is not likely that Congolese troops alone can restore and maintain order in a country the size of Western Europe that borders nine neighbors.
DRC is a case of the international community failing to live up to its task of protecting the people its peacekeepers were sent to save. When and if the UN peacekeepers leave, DRC could be plunged back into war. Its natural blessings have become its greatest curse. The world’s insatiable appetite for the very minerals fueling this conflict will require measures presented in the Conflict Minerals Trade Act. If you can’t stem demand, which you won’t in this case, then you must control supply.
The lives and social order of millions of Congolese depends on some movement being made on their behalf – soon.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Will Foreign Aid Reform Help Africa?
In September 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Foreign Assistance Act, which established the U.S. Agency for International Development and set the framework for American foreign aid globally. Since its creation, the foundation of America’s foreign assistance has articulated 140 goals and 400 specific directives based on its precepts, but no clear or coordinated methods for their implementation. As a result, it has been acknowledged that aid to Africa has had little success, and in fact, Africa has fallen behind in its development when compared to its status in the 1960s.
An effort is underway in Congress, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staff, to revise the nation’s mechanism for delivering foreign aid such that it sets clear and achievable goals, designs a delivery process that makes sense and produces measurable results. To achieve this worthy ambition, I would suggest the following for African assistance.
Poverty in Africa is the cancer that eats away at progress in all areas. Poor voters find that a bag of meal to feed a hungry family outweighs a vote for a government they never see in a system they can’t follow. Bureaucracies fail when workers must use time at which they are expected to be at their jobs in search of pay their regular jobs don’t provide or other needs that cannot be met after work hours. Democracy and governance cannot thrive in the face of persistent, widespread poverty.
Police and military officials, who also are husbands and fathers, resort to bribery when their pay is insufficient or non-existent. Crime seems a more efficient means of earning a living for anyone when jobs are scarce and becomes easier to accept when one starts small. Conflict over dwindling resources is at its root based on poverty, even when it appears to be ethnic or religious in nature. Rule of law is not possible when people cannot meet the needs of their families by working within the established order.
Professionals – be they scientists, health care workers or college professors – will not remain in a failing system if earning a living becomes so difficult it prevents one from practicing one’s hard-earned craft effectively. Consequently, professionals have been pouring out of African countries at an alarming rate, creating a brain drain that only further retards development. This vicious cycle defies efforts to jump-start African development and must be addressed if any foreign aid can achieve even modest goals.
To make U.S. foreign aid to Africa finally work, the U.S. government must work with and not on behalf of African governments in designing development programs that will work, taking into account the regional impact of what is designed. We cannot expect African governments to feel beholden to a plan they had no part in creating. Help is only valuable if it meets the real need as perceived by those requiring help. Moreover, the development plans must use the Millennium Challenge Account model of creating an ongoing public-private partnership among African governments, business sectors and civil societies to ensure broad cooperation and accountability.
Direct funding of projects through implementing organizations would help bypass bureaucracies that might slow down or frustrate the effectiveness of development programs because of officials who either don’t understand the goals or who want to siphon off easy money. The African Diaspora, whether the recent one having left Africa on their own or the historic one taken involuntarily centuries ago, must be engaged in the effort to rebuild African societies.
Actually, most African countries don’t even fully utilize the skills and experiences of women and young people who remain within their borders. No society can maximize its success if its female and youth populations are not fully integrated into the decision-making process. How much innovation would we see in America, Europe and elsewhere in the developed world if our women and young people were ignored or unable to contribute to the greater society?
In our future efforts to deliver timely, effective foreign aid that meets our intention to do good for Africans, we must adhere to five principles: 1) consultation with Africa and its people must be at the heart of whatever we try to do to make development aid applicable to the true situation at hand; 2) wealth creation will build strong and enduring societies that can resist corruption, avoid conflict and overcome unexpected crises; 3) public-private partnerships that meaningfully include women and youth are critical to achieving sustainable success that benefits all of society, while maintaining transparency; 4) very little, if anything, that enhances development in one African country will not affect development efforts in neighboring countries, so regional strategies for development are not only wise, but also unavoidable, and 5) the African Diaspora is a powerful tool for reversing the negative impact of Africa’s brain drain and leveraging citizen-driven foreign aid efforts that will multiply the impact of any government foreign assistance.
The current effort to revise and streamline America’s foreign assistance process is laudable. Chairman Berman seems steadfast in his determination to make meaningful, positive change in our currently complex foreign assistance formula; Africa Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne and Ranking Member Chris Smith have demonstrated their commitment to African development. We must hope that all means of achieving our country’s goals will be on the table and fully explored before final decisions on aid mechanisms are approved. To achieve this, those of us who care about Africa and its people must present our best case to those considering changes to the Foreign Assistance Act. Complaining later when we’ve done nothing in the present is a waste of everyone’s time.
But let us recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If we are to avoid continued failure for the sake of Africa and its people, we must make the most of the opportunity before us.
An effort is underway in Congress, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and his staff, to revise the nation’s mechanism for delivering foreign aid such that it sets clear and achievable goals, designs a delivery process that makes sense and produces measurable results. To achieve this worthy ambition, I would suggest the following for African assistance.
Poverty in Africa is the cancer that eats away at progress in all areas. Poor voters find that a bag of meal to feed a hungry family outweighs a vote for a government they never see in a system they can’t follow. Bureaucracies fail when workers must use time at which they are expected to be at their jobs in search of pay their regular jobs don’t provide or other needs that cannot be met after work hours. Democracy and governance cannot thrive in the face of persistent, widespread poverty.
Police and military officials, who also are husbands and fathers, resort to bribery when their pay is insufficient or non-existent. Crime seems a more efficient means of earning a living for anyone when jobs are scarce and becomes easier to accept when one starts small. Conflict over dwindling resources is at its root based on poverty, even when it appears to be ethnic or religious in nature. Rule of law is not possible when people cannot meet the needs of their families by working within the established order.
Professionals – be they scientists, health care workers or college professors – will not remain in a failing system if earning a living becomes so difficult it prevents one from practicing one’s hard-earned craft effectively. Consequently, professionals have been pouring out of African countries at an alarming rate, creating a brain drain that only further retards development. This vicious cycle defies efforts to jump-start African development and must be addressed if any foreign aid can achieve even modest goals.
To make U.S. foreign aid to Africa finally work, the U.S. government must work with and not on behalf of African governments in designing development programs that will work, taking into account the regional impact of what is designed. We cannot expect African governments to feel beholden to a plan they had no part in creating. Help is only valuable if it meets the real need as perceived by those requiring help. Moreover, the development plans must use the Millennium Challenge Account model of creating an ongoing public-private partnership among African governments, business sectors and civil societies to ensure broad cooperation and accountability.
Direct funding of projects through implementing organizations would help bypass bureaucracies that might slow down or frustrate the effectiveness of development programs because of officials who either don’t understand the goals or who want to siphon off easy money. The African Diaspora, whether the recent one having left Africa on their own or the historic one taken involuntarily centuries ago, must be engaged in the effort to rebuild African societies.
Actually, most African countries don’t even fully utilize the skills and experiences of women and young people who remain within their borders. No society can maximize its success if its female and youth populations are not fully integrated into the decision-making process. How much innovation would we see in America, Europe and elsewhere in the developed world if our women and young people were ignored or unable to contribute to the greater society?
In our future efforts to deliver timely, effective foreign aid that meets our intention to do good for Africans, we must adhere to five principles: 1) consultation with Africa and its people must be at the heart of whatever we try to do to make development aid applicable to the true situation at hand; 2) wealth creation will build strong and enduring societies that can resist corruption, avoid conflict and overcome unexpected crises; 3) public-private partnerships that meaningfully include women and youth are critical to achieving sustainable success that benefits all of society, while maintaining transparency; 4) very little, if anything, that enhances development in one African country will not affect development efforts in neighboring countries, so regional strategies for development are not only wise, but also unavoidable, and 5) the African Diaspora is a powerful tool for reversing the negative impact of Africa’s brain drain and leveraging citizen-driven foreign aid efforts that will multiply the impact of any government foreign assistance.
The current effort to revise and streamline America’s foreign assistance process is laudable. Chairman Berman seems steadfast in his determination to make meaningful, positive change in our currently complex foreign assistance formula; Africa Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne and Ranking Member Chris Smith have demonstrated their commitment to African development. We must hope that all means of achieving our country’s goals will be on the table and fully explored before final decisions on aid mechanisms are approved. To achieve this, those of us who care about Africa and its people must present our best case to those considering changes to the Foreign Assistance Act. Complaining later when we’ve done nothing in the present is a waste of everyone’s time.
But let us recall that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If we are to avoid continued failure for the sake of Africa and its people, we must make the most of the opportunity before us.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Sudan's Elections Going Awry
Of all the nearly two dozen African elections this year, none is more important in its implications for U.S. policy toward Africa than the one this coming weekend in Sudan in which a national president, a southern president, governors, national and local assembly representatives will be chosen. Unfortunately, these elections have been going in the wrong direction since their inception, and the United States and other members of the international community have abetted a skewed process that is likely to anoint an accused mass murderer as the legitimate leader of this East African giant.
The Carter Center, not known for its rigorous criticism of flawed elections around the world, is the lead organization observing the Sudan elections. Even they stated that the “possibility of a genuinely open, inclusive and secure campaign environment” had been undermined by the government’s actions. Human Rights Watch said both the ruling National Congress Party and the Government of Southern Sudan have put in jeopardy the fairness and credibility of the elections by limiting freedom of expression and assembly, while intimidating journalists and providing unequal access to the media. The International Crisis Group calls the Sudan electoral process “fundamentally flawed” and considers the elections rigged.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir two weeks ago threatened to dismember observers, according to one report, but he has since eased his tone in recent days and has offered observers total access to polling places across the country. Why the change in tone? Apparently, Bashir smells victory and wants it as untainted as possible. After all, why spoil your coronation when everything is going your way in an election you need to legitimize yourself?
A few days ago, all the leading presidential contenders withdrew from the election. Yasir Arman, the candidate of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and the strongest challenger to Bashir, pulled out after internal party struggles over contesting a troubled election when southern Sudanese leadership is really focusing on next year’s referendum on independence for the South. Although Arman cited election irregularities as his reason for dropping out, he apparently also was increasingly seen as a traitor in his native northern Sudan for running as the presidential candidate of the leading party of the largely Christian South.
Arman was quickly followed in his withdrawal by other leading presidential candidates, including Sadiq al-Mahdi of the Umma Party, Ibrahim Nagud of the Communist Party and Hatem al-Sir of the Democratic Unionist Party. There are now only five candidates running against Bashir, and they are all from small parties with little chance of gaining significant percentages of the vote. Consequently, talk of a runoff election has faded. Some, like Arman’s party, will contest races at other levels of government, but some are withdrawing from the elections altogether.
The Umma Party had particularly attempted to obtain an election postponement in order to correct flaws in the process, but they received little support from the international community. Haile Menkerios, the head of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), as recently as late last month continued to call for Sudan elections to be carried out on time and emphasized that any decision to delay the elections should be made by the Sudan government and the election officers it has appointed. Needless to say, their decision was to go forward with the elections regardless of the problems that exist.
While a U.S. State Department spokesman acknowledged that Sudan opposition leaders have “legitimate concerns” about the election process, General Scott Gration, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, has been much more accepting of the electoral process. He said he expects credible elections despite the longstanding criticism of the process and the withdrawal of the major presidential candidates. “They (electoral commission members) have given me confidence that the elections will start on time, and they would be as free and fair as possible,” Gration said in Khartoum.
As I have stated in an earlier blog, when an election is rigged in advance, there is no need for election-day manipulation. It is clear that Sudan’s election process is out of kilter, and the withdrawal of candidates is an indication that the opposition understands that the game is fixed. Therefore, allowing a dishonest government to set the terms in advance is negligent at best and predicting an acceptable election is ludicrous.
In 2008, the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir, among others, for alleged human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. We called their actions genocide. Now we are aiding and abetting Bashir in becoming elected as his country’s president in a race we know is flawed. How will our government and others subsequently say they don’t accept his presidency as legitimate when we are helping him to achieve it?
The Carter Center, not known for its rigorous criticism of flawed elections around the world, is the lead organization observing the Sudan elections. Even they stated that the “possibility of a genuinely open, inclusive and secure campaign environment” had been undermined by the government’s actions. Human Rights Watch said both the ruling National Congress Party and the Government of Southern Sudan have put in jeopardy the fairness and credibility of the elections by limiting freedom of expression and assembly, while intimidating journalists and providing unequal access to the media. The International Crisis Group calls the Sudan electoral process “fundamentally flawed” and considers the elections rigged.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir two weeks ago threatened to dismember observers, according to one report, but he has since eased his tone in recent days and has offered observers total access to polling places across the country. Why the change in tone? Apparently, Bashir smells victory and wants it as untainted as possible. After all, why spoil your coronation when everything is going your way in an election you need to legitimize yourself?
A few days ago, all the leading presidential contenders withdrew from the election. Yasir Arman, the candidate of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and the strongest challenger to Bashir, pulled out after internal party struggles over contesting a troubled election when southern Sudanese leadership is really focusing on next year’s referendum on independence for the South. Although Arman cited election irregularities as his reason for dropping out, he apparently also was increasingly seen as a traitor in his native northern Sudan for running as the presidential candidate of the leading party of the largely Christian South.
Arman was quickly followed in his withdrawal by other leading presidential candidates, including Sadiq al-Mahdi of the Umma Party, Ibrahim Nagud of the Communist Party and Hatem al-Sir of the Democratic Unionist Party. There are now only five candidates running against Bashir, and they are all from small parties with little chance of gaining significant percentages of the vote. Consequently, talk of a runoff election has faded. Some, like Arman’s party, will contest races at other levels of government, but some are withdrawing from the elections altogether.
The Umma Party had particularly attempted to obtain an election postponement in order to correct flaws in the process, but they received little support from the international community. Haile Menkerios, the head of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), as recently as late last month continued to call for Sudan elections to be carried out on time and emphasized that any decision to delay the elections should be made by the Sudan government and the election officers it has appointed. Needless to say, their decision was to go forward with the elections regardless of the problems that exist.
While a U.S. State Department spokesman acknowledged that Sudan opposition leaders have “legitimate concerns” about the election process, General Scott Gration, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, has been much more accepting of the electoral process. He said he expects credible elections despite the longstanding criticism of the process and the withdrawal of the major presidential candidates. “They (electoral commission members) have given me confidence that the elections will start on time, and they would be as free and fair as possible,” Gration said in Khartoum.
As I have stated in an earlier blog, when an election is rigged in advance, there is no need for election-day manipulation. It is clear that Sudan’s election process is out of kilter, and the withdrawal of candidates is an indication that the opposition understands that the game is fixed. Therefore, allowing a dishonest government to set the terms in advance is negligent at best and predicting an acceptable election is ludicrous.
In 2008, the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir, among others, for alleged human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. We called their actions genocide. Now we are aiding and abetting Bashir in becoming elected as his country’s president in a race we know is flawed. How will our government and others subsequently say they don’t accept his presidency as legitimate when we are helping him to achieve it?
Monday, April 5, 2010
African Electoral Conundrum
Now that Togo has held its election this year, there are 21 more African elections to come in 2010. Some of them have critical importance for U.S. policy formulation, such as the ones in Sudan, Ethiopia, Cote d’Ivoire and Madagascar. However, it has become clear that American policy is skewed by policies on electoral assistance that too often are a day late and a dollar short.
Recently, Almami Cyllah of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and I testified before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on overall American policy toward Africa, and he made the point (with which I concurred) that we too often intervene too late in the electoral process to make a positive difference in African countries. Cyllah reminded legislators of the long-complained about charge that decisions about U.S. election assistance – whether it is training for election commissions or observers or election observations – is often made so close to the balloting that it is not as effective as it should be.
Back in the 1990s, I worked on African elections under the African Regional Electoral Assistance Fund program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From the beginning of that program in 1992, it was clear that those making decisions in Washington were ambivalent about whether any intervention could help. Certainly, there were those who set the bar for African electoral systems quite low. So when those of us working on proposals requesting funding for everything from election observer training to election observations, decisions were delayed almost until the last moment. I was set to leave for Guinea for a multi-level democracy program for the first time on a Saturday . I didn’t get final approval until Friday at 4:58pm.
The point I made to the subcommittee on this was that there was always ambivalence about what to do about political parties. Guinea had 44 registered parties, and my USAID handlers insisted that I train each party – even though most consisted of a couple of people who had filled out paperwork. In the end, there were only 18 parties at most who showed up for training at any of the five locations. Several years later, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute managed sophisticated programs in Mozambique and South Africa that provided for all-parties training as well as individual teams for the major parties. It is the lack of development of political parties that lies behind the continued overwhelming success of ruling parties in Equatorial Guinea, Botswana, Namibia and other countries, and this trend will continue until the situation is properly addressed.
Still, the U.S. government continues to provide electoral assistance too late to prevent pre-election manipulations. It is in the months leading up to elections during which political parties and candidates are disqualified. Long before election day, districts are established that unfairly favor ruling parties and disadvantage the political opposition. If governments can rig elections by committing what we call “wholesale fraud” through creating an unfair electoral environment, then they don’t need to commit the “retail fraud” on election day by stealing and replacing ballots, miscounting ballots and intimidating voters. African civil society groups and Africa voters already smell a bad election long before it is held. When we fail to recognize unfair pre-election conditions and then complain when an election destined to go bad does so, they look on us as either naïve or part of the fraud.
In countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, U.S. national interests have trumped the impulse to take serious action to punish cheating governments. In some cases, such as South Africa in 1994, we overlooked serious deficiencies because it was important to encourage the peaceful transition to majority rule and even opposition parties accepted the system’s shortcomings to enable the elections to go forward.
However, after the troubled 2005 elections in Ethiopia, the Bush Administration did everything it could to prevent Congressional sanctions brought on not only by vote counting irregularities, but also the election violence by government security forces. It seems Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia and the still-unresolved border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea were considered too critical to endanger by taking action against Ethiopia no matter how egregious the violations of human rights were.
In Kenya and Zimbabwe, we pushed Governments of National Unity when tainted elections seemed to cheat opposition parties out of earned victories. This is only a surface solution, though, because forcing mixed governments don’t work when neither party has an incentive to help the other achieve success. They remain competitors, not allies. At best, such solutions are remedial remedies for problems that should have been addressed long before the first ballot was cast.
Before this next round of elections in Africa, the powers-that-be in our foreign policy apparatus need to think ahead in terms of helping in a timely way to make those elections it can more effective and considering what can be done in the aftermath of a failed election to make the situation in that country significantly and genuinely better.
Elections shape the future of countries. We cannot afford to miss these opportunities to make African futures more hopeful.
Recently, Almami Cyllah of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and I testified before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on overall American policy toward Africa, and he made the point (with which I concurred) that we too often intervene too late in the electoral process to make a positive difference in African countries. Cyllah reminded legislators of the long-complained about charge that decisions about U.S. election assistance – whether it is training for election commissions or observers or election observations – is often made so close to the balloting that it is not as effective as it should be.
Back in the 1990s, I worked on African elections under the African Regional Electoral Assistance Fund program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From the beginning of that program in 1992, it was clear that those making decisions in Washington were ambivalent about whether any intervention could help. Certainly, there were those who set the bar for African electoral systems quite low. So when those of us working on proposals requesting funding for everything from election observer training to election observations, decisions were delayed almost until the last moment. I was set to leave for Guinea for a multi-level democracy program for the first time on a Saturday . I didn’t get final approval until Friday at 4:58pm.
The point I made to the subcommittee on this was that there was always ambivalence about what to do about political parties. Guinea had 44 registered parties, and my USAID handlers insisted that I train each party – even though most consisted of a couple of people who had filled out paperwork. In the end, there were only 18 parties at most who showed up for training at any of the five locations. Several years later, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute managed sophisticated programs in Mozambique and South Africa that provided for all-parties training as well as individual teams for the major parties. It is the lack of development of political parties that lies behind the continued overwhelming success of ruling parties in Equatorial Guinea, Botswana, Namibia and other countries, and this trend will continue until the situation is properly addressed.
Still, the U.S. government continues to provide electoral assistance too late to prevent pre-election manipulations. It is in the months leading up to elections during which political parties and candidates are disqualified. Long before election day, districts are established that unfairly favor ruling parties and disadvantage the political opposition. If governments can rig elections by committing what we call “wholesale fraud” through creating an unfair electoral environment, then they don’t need to commit the “retail fraud” on election day by stealing and replacing ballots, miscounting ballots and intimidating voters. African civil society groups and Africa voters already smell a bad election long before it is held. When we fail to recognize unfair pre-election conditions and then complain when an election destined to go bad does so, they look on us as either naïve or part of the fraud.
In countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia, U.S. national interests have trumped the impulse to take serious action to punish cheating governments. In some cases, such as South Africa in 1994, we overlooked serious deficiencies because it was important to encourage the peaceful transition to majority rule and even opposition parties accepted the system’s shortcomings to enable the elections to go forward.
However, after the troubled 2005 elections in Ethiopia, the Bush Administration did everything it could to prevent Congressional sanctions brought on not only by vote counting irregularities, but also the election violence by government security forces. It seems Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia and the still-unresolved border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea were considered too critical to endanger by taking action against Ethiopia no matter how egregious the violations of human rights were.
In Kenya and Zimbabwe, we pushed Governments of National Unity when tainted elections seemed to cheat opposition parties out of earned victories. This is only a surface solution, though, because forcing mixed governments don’t work when neither party has an incentive to help the other achieve success. They remain competitors, not allies. At best, such solutions are remedial remedies for problems that should have been addressed long before the first ballot was cast.
Before this next round of elections in Africa, the powers-that-be in our foreign policy apparatus need to think ahead in terms of helping in a timely way to make those elections it can more effective and considering what can be done in the aftermath of a failed election to make the situation in that country significantly and genuinely better.
Elections shape the future of countries. We cannot afford to miss these opportunities to make African futures more hopeful.
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