Africa Blog Roundup: Museveni and Libya, Kenya and the ICC, Nigeria’s Elections, and More

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni writes in Foreign Policy against Western intervention in Libya. An excerpt:

I am totally allergic to foreign, political, and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries. If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world, because we have had the greatest dosages of that: the slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc. But all those foreign-imposed phenomena have been disastrous. It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up, partly because we are rejecting external meddling.

A number of bloggers have written reactions, including Chris Blattman (“One point on which we agree: if external support provides rebels with a speedy victory, expect a disordered and disunited regime to take Qaddafi’s place”) and Rosebell Kagumire (“While many in Uganda and Africa will jump to agree with the president, I see him as part of the meddling he [is] talking about”).

Speaking of Libya, check out Alex de Waal’s “The Vortex in Southern Libya and the Threat to Africa.”

Baobab updates us on the controversy between Kenya and the International Criminal Court: “Baobab would argue that the future of humanitarian law and of the ICC as an effective supranational body depends on the Kenyan case.”

A few writers comment on the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire: Andrew Harding offers his take here, and Loomnie flags a piece by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

West Africa Rising, a new feature at Christian Science Monitor, asks, “Can Oil and Transparency Mix?”

Maggie Fick looks at foreign investments – and the potential issues with these – in South Sudan.

Amb. John Campbell says that he will be listening to the European Union’s monitoring mission to Nigeria for a straight take on the upcoming elections there.

What are you reading today?

4 thoughts on “Africa Blog Roundup: Museveni and Libya, Kenya and the ICC, Nigeria’s Elections, and More

  1. There’s always criticism if the world* doesn’t act and always criticism if the world does act. Why can’t people make up their minds?
    As for a ‘disordered and disunited regime’ taking Qaddafi’s place, I have to ask how that is at all different from was already there? I’ll admit that there’s at least some chance of massacres occurring between various groups but ultimately I don’t think the geopolitical situation will really change.

    *Or at when the West does and does not act.

    • I think one reason there is so much debate about intervention is that there isn’t a clear doctrine that says when the West should and shouldn’t intervene. Situations vary widely and in the heat of the moment people take all kinds of positions, some of them self-contradictory.

      You may be right that Libya’s geopolitical situation won’t change. I guess we’ll have to see. Sounds like the rebels are making progress again.

      • I suspect you’re right on that but I note that ironically even though a good number of developing states are eager to remind Western powers about Western genocides, torture, coups and massacres they’re considerably less eager to consider asking Western states to stop current genocides, torture, coups and massacres.
        Of course I can’t complain too much, if they pressed us to help we’d suddenly have to live up to commitments to stop genocide in places like Sudan.

        (Note that I’m not actually advocating widespread interventions, I’m far too cynical for that).

  2. Pingback: President Museveni - Remember When YOU Were a Rebel? | Wild Thoughts from Uganda

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