Guinea-Bissau Admits It Needs Help Fighting Drug Trafficking

I almost never write about Guinea-Bissau, the West African country so often referred to as a “narco-state” – see some different perspectives on that label here, here, and here. As the epithet implies, Guinea-Bissau has become a transit point for cocaine from South America to Europe. Guinea-Bissau made headlines this year for a military coup this spring, the latest in a long line of political upheavals in the country. Despite the installation of a transitional government, drug activity has reportedly increased.

West Africa as a whole, including Sahelian countries like Senegal and Mali, has “emerged as a hub for cocaine trafficking.” Events and trends in Guinea-Bissau, then, are relevant to the entire region. That’s why a headline yesterday caught my eye: “Guinea-Bissau Asks for Help.” From the article:

“Guinea-Bissau cannot face drug trafficking by itself,” said Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, the country’s leader under a transition process negotiated after an April 12 coup.

“I call once more on the international community to come to the rescue, to stop this evil,” said Nhamadjo, in an address to mark the 38th anniversary of the country’s independence from Portugal.

The remarks, as quoted, are short on details. But it will be worth watching whether and how the transitional government and its successors attempt to translate this sentiment into concrete partnerships with outside governments and agencies. Some regional anti-drug partnerships already exist. Yet Nhamadjo’s statement is, while laudable for its honesty, disheartening: if the government freely admits it cannot control the problem,  and existing organizations have not slowed its growth, then the problem has become severe indeed.

Africa News Roundup: Protests in Nigeria and Sudan, New PM in Ethiopia, Senate Scrapped in Senegal, and More

Following protests in Egypt, Libya, and elsewhere this week, Muslims protested yesterday in Jos, Nigeria and Khartoum, Sudan against an inflammatory anti-Islamic video. The Chief Imam of Jos Central Mosque called for restraint and discouraged the turn to street protests.

Ethiopia is expected to name a new prime minister this weekend, to replace the late Meles Zenawi.

IRIN: “Kenya’s Deadly Mix of Frustration, Politics and Impunity”

Senegal’s National Assembly voted Thursday to disband the country’s Senate as a means of freeing up funds for flood relief.

Also in Senegal, a Gambian opposition group sets up shop.

Burkina Faso will hold legislative elections on December 2. The opposition (French) has written to President Blaise Compaore complaining that only 55% of voting-age citizens are registered to vote, and calling for a delay of the elections until 2013.

Leaders from the northern branch of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement were in Washington, DC this week, meeting with officials at the State Department.

What else is happening?

Floods and Politics in Senegal

VOA‘s Peter Tinti had an interesting yesterday today on flooding and politics in Senegal. The article discusses President Macky Sall’s proposal, made at the end of last month, to disband the country’s Senate in order to free up funds for flood relief. As Reuters points out, “The measure would be the second time the Senegalese Senate was abolished since its creation in 1999. Sall’s predecessor Abdoulaye Wade abolished it in 2001 to save money but later reinstituted it in 2007.” According to Seneweb (French), the National Assembly’s Laws Commission has passed measures scrapping the Senate (and the Vice Presidency as well as the Economic and Social Council). Now these measures will go to parliament. Some Senators, in an effort to ensure that they retain government employment, have sought the help of the country’s religious leaders (French).

VOA also describes some of the bottom-up aspects of flood response in the Dakar suburbs:

Some neighborhoods in the crowded, low-income suburbs outside Dakar have been underwater for weeks.
In the Guediawaye suburb, volunteers are pumping water out of a retention basin built by the government in previous years.
It has not been enough.
Young men are digging more canals to direct more water toward the basin and out of residential areas.  Some of the men are volunteers, while others say they are being paid by the mayor’s office.
Experts say many of the submerged houses in the suburbs are built on low lands and flood-prone areas.  Construction of much-needed drainage systems and other infrastructure has not kept pace with rapid urban sprawl over the past generation.
In 2009, the government launched a controversial resettlement initiative, moving thousands of families out to a newly constructed suburb outside Dakar.  But the residents who have remained in this neighborhood say more needs to be done.

VOA reports that the proposal to scrap the Senate is popular. Assuming that it goes forward, attention will then turn to how the money saved will actually be spent. The government will face choices, it seems, between strengthening infrastructure and moving residents.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that flooding and parliament have been linked in politics debates in Senegal. In 2005, Sall’s predecessor President Abdoulaye Wade caused outcry with his suggestion to delay parliamentary elections from 2006 to 2007 in order to release funds for flood relief. The elections were ultimately delayed to 2007. At the time, opposition leaders accused Wade of using the floods as a “pretext” to manipulate the electoral calendar in ways favorable to his own party. I am actually a little surprised that a similar charge has not surfaced now – namely, a charge that Sall is politicizing the floods to his own advantage. In any case, the devastation caused by floods in Senegal has several times sparked important debates about how resources are allocated at the top.

Senegal: Protests in Kedougou

On Sunday, a young deaf man, KéKouta Sidibé, was arrested in Kedougou, Senegal, on charges of smoking marijuana. When he died in police custody, protests broke out the following day.

A resident of Kedougou told AFP that hundreds of angry residents had gone to the paramilitary police headquarters to demand punishment for those involved in the youth’s death.

They threw stones and police responded with teargas. About 500 people remained in front of the police offices by Monday afternoon, and businesses shut their doors fearing further violence.

The death and the protests have earned major coverage in the Senegalese press (French), and Kedougou reportedly remains tense. See a map of Kedougou here.

Senegalese human rights groups, charging the police with brutality, have called for an investigation into Sidibé’s death (French). Minister of the Interior Mbaye Ndiaye announced on Monday that an inquiry will take place (French). He conveyed the president’s condolences to the family.

In December 2008, riots broke out in Kedougou over the cost of living, displacing “scores” of people.

Two Points on Secretary Clinton’s Tour of Africa [Updated]

Yesterday United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kicked off her 2012 tour of Africa. Today she is in Senegal, where she is expected to give a speech about China that does not name China. Other scheduled stops on the tour include South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Ghana.

Press coverage of the tour has emphasized three issues: terrorism, Chinese economic influence in Africa, and democracy. Let’s leave the first of those aside for this post. I have just two brief points to make:

1. American rhetoric will not deter African countries from accepting Chinese investment. However forceful the Secretary’s speeches, however persuasive her arguments, African countries will continue to partner with China. Money will speak louder than words.
2. Democratic achievements sometimes seem firmer in the present than they do in hindsight. I too applaud Senegal’s democratic transfer of power from one leader to another. I applaud Malawi’s peaceful succession process, and Ghana’s. But each country’s trajectory is different, and today’s democrat may become tomorrow’s autocrat. Defeated Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade earned plaudits as a democrat when he came to office in 2000, only to become another leader seeking an exemption to term limits by 2012.  I am not saying that Senegal, Malawi, and Ghana are headed for autocracy, but I am saying that “democratization” often proves fragile.

What do you expect from Secretary Clinton’s visit? What significance do you see in her choice of destinations?

[UPDATE]: Find the transcript of Sec. Clinton’s remarks in Dakar here. An excerpt:

Africa needs partnership, not patronage. And we have tried to build on that challenge. And throughout my trip across Africa this week, I will be talking about what it means, about a model of sustainable partnership that adds value rather than extracts it. That’s America’s commitment to Africa.

[...]

So the links between democracy and development is a defining element of the American model of partnership. And I acknowledge that in the past our policies did not always line up with our principles. But today, we are building relationships here in West Africa and across the continent that are not transactional or transitory. They are built to last. And they’re built on a foundation of shared democratic values and respect for the universal human rights of every man and woman. We want to add value to our partners, and we want to add value to people’s lives. So the United States will stand up for democracy and universal human rights, even when it might be easier or more profitable to look the other way, to keep the resources flowing. Not every partner makes that choice, but we do and we will.

“Takfir” Can Cut Both Ways

Youssou Ndour, the Senegalese musician who now serves as the country’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, made headlines in the Senegalese press this weekend for saying (French), “I sincerely think that these people who are destroying the tombs of saints and historic sites [in northern Mali] are not Muslims.”

Statements like Ndour’s, denying membership in the Muslim community to Muslims who practice violence against other Muslims, are not rare. Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State, Northern Nigeria, has made similar remarks about the rebel sect Boko Haram:

We cannot call these people Muslims. They are transgressors, who commit heinous crimes, which are totally condemnable. Islam is and will remain a religion of peace and even the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SWA) lived peacefully with followers of other faiths. Therefore, no one can justify attacking places of worship belonging to other faiths as Islamic.

I think such statements merit reflection on two levels. First, these statements challenge us to think about who is and is not a Muslim. As an outsider, I prefer to avoid taking stances on such issues, but we should at least question our assumptions and our habits. It is odd and tragic how we sometimes rush to question the purity of someone’s Islam when they wear an amulet or put up a poster of their sheikh, but we don’t question it when they shed blood.

Second, and closely related to the preceding point, we are reminded that talk of excommunication can cut both ways. Even as the media sometimes presents Boko Haram and Mali’s Ansar al Din as some kind of ultra-Muslims, some other Muslims feel that these groups have forfeited their claims to the faith entirely. One must be careful with terminology, of course: I do not consider Ndour and Gaidam’s statements equivalent to formal declarations of takfir (excommunication). But when analysts use “takfiri” as a synonym for “jihadi” or “terrorist,” they risk implying that such groups are the only ones willing to be exclusivist, and they risk sacrificing historical and contextual depth. Over time, Muslims of many different theological and ideological stripes have been willing to deny the Islam of their rivals – even the Sufis who are so often assumed to be only targets of excommunication, never its proponents.

What is your reaction to Ndour’s statement? What effects do you think it might have on audiences in Senegal and Mali?

Africa News Roundup: Traore Returns to Mali, Constituent Assembly Meets in Somalia, Senegal Boosts Electricity, and More

Mali’s interim President Dioncounda Traore returned home yesterday from France, after a two-month recuperation.

In Somalia, the National Constituent Assembly “began a marathon-nine-day meeting on Wednesday to debate on a provisional constitution, before final ratification by a national referendum.” This is a critical step in the transition process, though it comes behind schedule.

AP on evictions in the Makoko area of Lagos, Nigeria:

Makoko is a sprawling community of bamboo homes and shacks built out of driftwood, close to the University of Lagos campus and visible to daily traffic that plies the Third Mainland Bridge, the link from the mainland to the city’s islands. Those living in Makoko subsist largely as fishermen and workers in nearby saw mills, cutting up water-logged timber that’s floated into the city daily. Some work jobs outside of the slum as gate guards and in other industries, though most live almost entirely within its watery boundaries.

The people of Makoko have created their own life independent from the state, with its own schools and clinics, however ill-equipped. Commerce goes on in its creek alleyways as women sell sizzling dishes and goods from canoes. Others sell videos and telephone airtime cards from the shacks just above the waterline, where a maze of wooden planks connects the homes.

Senegal has received an $85 million loan to help boost electricity.

The Guardian: “Burkina Faso’s School for Shepherds Thrives”

Kenyan presidential candidates Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, even if one of them is elected in March 2013, would still have to stand trial at the International Criminal Court, where they face charges of fomenting post-electoral violence in 2007-2008.

After a strike that cost twelve production days, work has resumed at First Quantum’s Guelb Moghrein mine.

What else is going on?

Africa News Roundup: Meles on Sick Leave, Anniversary of Somalia’s Famine, Protests in Mauritania, and More

The New York Times has a photo essay on skateboarding in Uganda.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi takes a leave of absence after his recent hospitalization.

The Nigerian government has lifted a state of emergency in Borno and other states, but violence by Boko Haram continues.

In other Nigeria news, “government revenue increased 32 percent to 763.6 billion naira ($92.7 billion) in June from the previous month, boosted by company and oil taxes.”

The BBC and the United Nations mark the one year anniversary of Somalia’s famine.

Anti-regime demonstrations continued this week in Mauritania.

What will President Macky Sall do?

The International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Senegal to prosecute the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, who has lived comfortably for two decades in Senegal despite indictments in connection with political killings, torture and a host of other brutalities.

As Sudan and South Sudan negotiate in Ethiopia, the South accuses the north of bombing one of its villages.

Three Europeans kidnapped in Tindouf, Algeria last October were freed (in Mali) this week. The government of Burkina Faso helped negotiate their release.

What else is happening?

Senegal: President Sall Seeks Peace in the Casamance

In February, as former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade fought (unsuccessfully) for a third time, the conflict in Senegal’s southern Casamance region seemed to be stagnant, or even to be getting worse. Reuters reported an uptick in violence in the run-up to the presidential elections, despite Wade’s renewed efforts at peacemaking. Both Wade and his predecessor President Abdou Diouf had grappled with the conflict, which began in 1982 – and whose political roots extend back to the time of Senegal’s first President Leopold Senghor. Rebels in the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) want the Casamance to secede from Senegal. Peace initiatives have repeatedly failed. The latest round of fighting began in 2009.

IRIN reported in February that the rebels seemed to be losing support among Casamance residents, but added that “separatists operating in the north, with a base across the border in Gambia [which lies between northern Senegal and the Casamance], are increasingly ‘radicalizing’ under their leader Salif Sadio.” IRIN said that at least five MFDC factions were present in the Casamance. Divisions inside the movement have grown since the death of its leader Augustin Diamacoune Senghor in 2007.

After coming to power this spring, new Senegalese President Macky Sall stated his intention, as Wade did when he came to power in 2000, of making peace with rebels in the Casamance. In late June, Sall stated, “We are ready to open talks with the fighters and actors involved in the peace process, religious leaders and men and women of good will…I extend a hand to Salif Sadio, Cesar Atoute Badiatte and the men of Ousmane Niantang Diatta,” the major factional leaders.

All three of these commanders have responded more or less favorably to Sall’s overture. In early July, Sadio expressed willingness to negotiate with the government under certain conditions:

Sadio said he wants Senegal’s government to agree to “sincere dialogue, to sit down with the MFDC on neutral ground, so outside of Africa” under “the mediation of the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio.”

The Sant’Egidio Community was founded in Rome in 1968 and got involved in sponsoring peace negotiations in the 1980s when it found that its humanitarian action in Mozambique would be largely useless without peace.

This week, Badiate also evinced interest in negotiations. Badiate outlined similar conditions to Sadio’s, including a desire for mediation by Sant’Egidio, but Badiate also mentioned that he wants the MFDC to resolve its own internal divisions before entering into negotiations with the Senegalese government. To Badiate, it seemed to make a difference that a new president is in power; he referred to Wade’s having “trampled” on the situation in the Casamance.

Diatta’s faction, RFI recently reported (French), also favors negotiations, although the movement demands that the government drop an arrest warrant against its secretary general.

I cannot predict the changes of success for this peace initiative, but it certainly bodes well for Sall that these rebel commanders have been willing to listen. To succeed, however, talks will probably have to address the key drivers of the conflict, including what Reuters calls a “low level ‘war economy’ which benefits combatants on both sides and centers on illegal logging, the cashew nut industry and illegal cannabis growing and smuggling.” Reuters also reports allegations of Gambian President Yaya Jammeh’s support for the MFDC, a factor that could further complicate matters. The solution, then, may require political subtlety and economic transformation.

Africa Blog Roundup: Dakar Fashion Week, South Sudan, Dual Citizenship, Lagos, Djibouti, and More

PEN’s statement on the sentencing of Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega.

Also from Ethiopia, reports of clashes between police and Muslim protesters (some background here).

Africa Is A Country on the cultural politics of representing Africa in fashion (and how Dakar Fashion Week breaks the mold):

As designers continue to release fantasy collections inspired by their latest trip to exotic, mystical and faraway lands (Michael Kors, Giorgio Armani) and fashion editorials feature white models amidst backgrounds of hyper-sexualized dark bodies in seemingly equally dark continents (Daria Werbowy for Interview Magazine), it is clear that for the fashion world, Africa represents a sort of otherness. That otherness, and especially the sexuality of the other, is marketed as flavor and spice, something new, sexually raw and stimulating. Whether depicted in high-fashion advertisements or on the runway, racial difference becomes both at once threateningly pleasurable and seductively dangerous, positioning it at the intersection of most intimate obsessions with desire and death.

Lesley Anne Warner on Washington and Africa policy:

On one hand, DC is a highly intellectual, international city brimming with opportunity and access. On the other hand, it can be very insular and one can easily fall into the trap of assuming all knowledge can be found in DC or its immediate vicinity. It’s the latter that irks me.

On top of having writer’s block, I’ve also had a very introspective week – which is why I was reminded of this Beltway dichotomy at an Africa event I recently attended. The speaker was addressing a pretty controversial topic, but was very politic in their remarks and when it came to Q&A. Their remarks did not spark a heated debate, which should have been the case given the subject matter. Instead, it sounded like a pitch for maintaining the status quo of U.S. engagement in Africa – regardless of the inherent idiosyncrasies of our approach (security at the expense of democracy, for example), or any potential areas for improvement.

Amb. David Shinn flags two items from the US Institute of Peace on the trajectory of South Sudan.

Dr. Kim Yi Dionne on “Diaspora, Development, and Dual Citizenship”:

Last month, Malawi President Joyce Banda traveled to the UK and US to participate in international summits related to aid and development. During President Banda’s visit to the US, she spoke at a specially convened meeting of the Malawi Washington Association (MWA), an organization of the Malawian diaspora in the US.

There has been a lot of chatter recently about harnessing African diasporas to develop their home countries, and the MWA is no exception. The MWA discussion (at least as seen on the email listserv) focuses on the need for Malawi to offer dual citizenship.

Amb. John Campbell on Lagos, taxation, and success.

Reflections on Djibouti from an American soldier.

Don’t forget, if you are in DC, do come to discuss these topics (including the relationship between DC and Africa!) at Science Club on Tuesday.