Across the divide: analysis & anecdote from Africa

How to Write about Congo

2011-07-23T10:28:00.007-04:00

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. The Collapse of Congo and the Great War of Africa, Jason K. Stearns (Public Affairs: 380pp, 2011)

How best to make sense of Congo’s enduring crisis, a tale of daunting political complexity and extraordinary cruelty? Many writers have tried, for no other African country captivates the western literary imagination as much as Congo. This fascination long precedes Joseph Conrad, who indelibly described King Leopold’s Congo Free State over a century ago. But faithful subjects do not good art make, and most western writing on Congo is unreadable or, at best, unbearable.

The sheer complexity of Congo’s dramatic history is one contributing factor behind all the dreadful writing. Many an author sacrifices compelling narrative for rigorous scholarship, resulting in a turgid swamp of acronyms for all the armed groups, the Security Council Resolutions and the doomed peace deals. Epic chronicles like Africa’s World War (Gérard Prunier) may be valuable to scholars but are so microscopically detailed as to be opaque to non-specialists.

Adventure writing, the other main genre of Congo literature, is equally abundant and can carry a plot, but the stories glorify the exploits of the author and ignore the Congolese. “Watch me as I commune with gentle pygmies, wrestle crocodiles on the great Congo River, escape beheading by a throng of stoned child soldiers”— setting the bar for unbearable reading. Common to both schools is the absence of Congolese voice; for both, Congo is a neutral, muted stage for the author’s performance (scholarship, “survival”). Faced with such output, one thinks, the trampling of Congo just goes on and on.

Jason Stearns shares this lament. A recognized scholar and field analyst with years of human rights reporting from the country’s most remote zones of conflict , he tackles Congo’s complexity head-on, unpeeling the onion of its myriad wars within wars. But Stearns is after larger game than demystifying Congo’s “inscrutable chaos” for a western audience. By capturing the political rationales and individual motives as voiced by key players themselves, abhorrent though they may be, he personalizes Congo’s tumultuous ups and downs. Taming this wooly complexity with character-driven narrative and firsthand experience, the book is ultimately a challenge to the reigning stereotype of Congo as an inchoate mêlée of raw power devouring the meek and innocent. Recalling the reductive lens that framed colonialism’s “civilizing mission” (humanity over barbarism, reason vs. unreason), it’s not hard to discern an unbroken line between western perceptions of Congo in Conrad’s time and our own elitist, arguably racist, comprehension today.

Continue reading this review here.

Haiti's Splendor Within

2011-03-07T18:19:00.005-05:00

While other countries are rediscovering people power and casting out dictators, Haiti is allowing them back. ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier came and went last January; Aristide now has a passport and may return any moment. If Baby Doc’s mute visitation was a desperate bid to correct a country’s freefall, his affect conveyed the opposite: an unreadable face and inchoate gestures of a now pitiful, once grandiose despot. Aristide’s return will be neither silent nor impassive.

So ended 2010 in Haiti, surely the country’s worst year since independence in 1804. The massive quake in January, then Hurricane Tomas, followed by a crippling epidemic of cholera. The year ended with a rocky electoral contest, still unresolved. These unwelcome malheurs conspired to attract the gaze of international media, holding it momentarily. Other spectacles now crow for our attention. Eclipsed by Libya and her neighbors, Haiti’s grip remains tenuous, its silence ominous. Jokes about the depths to which it has sunk—now a platform for foreign dignitaries so low even Sarah Palin can step up—would be funny if they weren’t true.

Leveled to rubble in January 2010, Port-au-Prince is gradually reconstituting itself, but progress will be painfully slow. The city was already mired in failed urban policies long before the catastrophic shudder; the flight of human capital among the political class only advanced as Haiti’s crisis deepened. Today’s void means easy access for anyone of means seeking political office, including pop singers at home and abroad (Michel Martelly and Wyclef). Haiti’s exhausted political class requires new blood, but where are the viable candidates? Popular elections rarely mean the collective interest is served; instead, a leader’s wish becomes his followers’ command. State-sponsored thuggery is a Haitian specialty.

To a new arrival, as I recently was, the obstacles confronting the average Haitian appear to stack up, layer by layer, to a point of monolithic immobility.

Read this rest of this piece here.

Follow the Money Trail...

2011-01-11T13:26:00.004-05:00

Book Review: It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower, Michela Wrong (HarperCollins, 354pp, 2009)

A fast-moving tale of intrigue, deception and murder, It’s Our Turn to Eat follows conflicted patriot John Githongo into battle with a $1 billion USD corruption scheme directed by co-workers in Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki’s administration. The arc of events leading to his exile in Britain, the barrage of threats by Kenyan security agents and Githongo’s prodigal return are recast through the lens of classical tragedy, but with a single, telling anomaly: there’s no redemption, no glory. This is the real world, not Hollywood.

Returning in 2007 after two years in hiding, Githongo watches Kenya plunge into a fratricidal abyss following botched national elections. Waves of inter-ethnic violence push Kenya to the brink, with much of the bloodshed fomented by political elites, six of whom are now wanted by the International Criminal Court. That political violence between ethnic communities was not caused by tribalism, as many outside observers believe, but was a direct result of state-sponsored corruption is the deep water current in this book.

Read the rest of this review over at 3Quarksdaily.com.

Love a Man in Uniform? Think Twice in Congo

2010-11-10T09:00:00.005-05:00

In today’s world, rarely do raping and pillaging so routinely coincide as in Eastern Congo's conflict. Increased scrutiny from the US Congress and concerned activist networks are highlighting the systematic rape and abuse of Congolese women and girls by marauding security forces, particularly Congo’s National Army. Equally appalling is Congo’s 'conflict minerals' problem—mineral ores extracted from mines controlled by various military factions, fueling the lucrative anarchy that is crippling the East and supporting the communications technology central to our way of life. Greater scrutiny should bring practical solutions, but our policy makers are missing the elephant in the room.

So is it greed, governance or grievance driving this crisis? Eastern Congo is a vast ungoverned space; some of its many armed groups are foreign, others domestic. Yet none treat the civilian population as brutally as President Kabila’s own National Army. A recent Human Rights Watch survey indicates that Congolese soldiers are the primary rapists in the East.

Read the rest of this post here.

Comrade for a day in the former Yugoslavia

2010-05-31T23:28:00.004-04:00

Once departed, many dictators are reviled and forgotten. Others are respected, even loved, long after their demise. Strange perhaps, and all the more so as their degree of popular endearment isn't always linked to their political deeds while alive, good or bad. A regular surprise in formerly autocratic states that I visit, the public estimation of departed dictators is more often arrived at through comparison with whatever political dispensation fills the void left in their wake. Few seem concerned by the human costs of a demagogue's quixotic quests or the excesses of his unreconstructed id. However Orwellian their experience, people tend to remember the good, not the bad.

In today's multi-polar world a full-blown autocrat is a rarity, although during the Cold War they multiplied like so many mushrooms. In Serbia, the jewel in the Yugoslav crown, Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) is today neither despised nor idolized. Far greater concerns preoccupy the Serbian political imagination. With two former leaders in The Hague (Milosevic never left), a virulent nationalist movement and its stubborn denial of Kosovo independence, Serbia's ghosts are never quiet. Despite progress towards EU membership and greater economic integration of its ethnic minorities, a stable and prosperous Serbia is still very much a work in progress. While Tito cannot be blamed for Serb aggression and its ethnic cleansing campaigns in the 1990s, the breakup of the Balkans is directly related to the how and why of Tito's pursuit of a unified communist Yugoslav state.

And yet on Tito's birthday last week in Belgrade, I witnessed the malleability of national memory as public spectacle. Tito fans converged to celebrate the achievements of their former leader and to indulge their fondness for the cultish kitsch that accompanied his reign (1943-1980). In a large garden on the grounds of the former headquarters of the National Youth League, we were led to benches in the sun, and limitless beer. Trumpets blared and the Yugoslav flag was raised. No one stood as the former national anthem was sung, but all were smiling and singing along. A Tito impersonator bounded onto the stage, launching into a series of tongue-in-cheek speeches. "Everything is changing, except we who remain the same," he declared to shouts, laughter and applause.

Read the rest of this post over at 3quarksdaily.com....

Protect and Serve: John and Terese Hart on Preserving Congo’s Wildlife

2010-02-09T13:59:00.003-05:00

“Don’t share this image with anyone,” John Hart wrote after our first meeting, attaching a photo of a newly discovered species of primate. “The official scientific announcement isn’t out yet.” We had met in Washington as John was presenting his vision for a new national park in eastern DR Congo. The three river basins of the Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba Rivers (the ‘TL2’ in Hart-speak), all tributaries of the continent’s massive aquatic artery, the Congo River, contain the country’s most remote forests.

Straddling Orientale and Maniema provinces, the planned protected area forms part of the largest continuous canopy remaining in Africa. Living almost continuously in these forests since 1973, John and Terese now devote all their time and resources to the TL2 project. “We have the largest forests on the continent,” the couple explained when I met them later in Kinshasa. “And these contain the only unmapped areas left in Africa.”

What makes conservation in Congo unique is that many of its protected species exist in no other country. Among the best known are the Congo peacock, bonobo, Grauer’s gorilla, northern white rhino, and okapi, though there are many others. It has the highest diversity of mammals in any African country (415 species); 28 of these are found only within its borders. Of more than one thousand bird species, 23 live only in DRC. More than 1300 species of butterfly have been identified, the highest for any African country. Of the more than 11,000 documented plant species, 3200 grow only on Congolese soil.

For the rest of this piece on the Harts and their amazing work, go here.

This article is the first in a series on conservation in the DRC, and the Harts' work specifically: http://www.bonoboincongo.com

Three Problems with the 60 Minutes Story on “Congo Gold”

2009-12-30T11:42:00.002-05:00

On 29 November 2009, the U.S. television news show 60 Minutes aired a segment called “Congo Gold”. This segment purported to expose the link between gold and war in Congo, but there were three major problems with the 60 Minutes story that merit attention and discussion.

Click here for the rest of this story by Dan Fahey.

The oversimplification of a quite complex issue may lead to bad policy that makes no one better off in the long run.

Find more thoughtful consideration of this issue over at 'Texas in Africa'.

New publication

2009-12-11T13:43:00.006-05:00

Happy to announce a new book publication, an anthology in which an article appears that I co-authored with Peter Redfield. It's called 'Catastrophe -- Law, Politics and the Humanitarian Impulse' on UMass Press. Our article is called 'Reintegration, or the Explosive Remnants of War' about the DDR process, particularly with child combatants.

From the intro: "By recognizing the extended effects of crisis states, humanitarian actors put themselves in a position in which it is increasingly difficult to limit their responsibility or to withdraw. When they do so, it is amid a greater sense of uncertainty and incompletion than that which accompanies more immediate acts of 'saving lives'."

Siam I am. Thoughts on Thailand.

2009-11-30T18:08:00.003-05:00

Nature captivates in Thailand. Its beaches and islands are legend; its birdlife and tropical flora endlessly entertain. On this visit though, nature bored me. A relentless jetlag was partly to blame. Its disorientations so warped my perceptions and instincts that I acquiesced to its inversions, accepting the Thai night as my day. Also, I was hungry not for nature but for the artifice of human imagination: grand emanations of culture, artisanry, cosmology. Has our petty species generated anything that I’ve never seen, never imagined? In creativity is there redemption for Homo Faber? For answers to this question Thailand is a gold mine.

Heavily subject to international marketing strategies and thus cast as the ‘Land of Smiles’, Thailand wants desperately to be permeated by magic. Of all possible reasons to be ‘desperately seeking’, permeation by magic is worthy enough, and seemingly free of ulterior motive. Orientalism and its facile seductions be damned, I thought, after my first week in country. If this place holds even one treasure of the human spirit, its authenticity will be self-evident to the most gullible and the most jaded.

From where I live it’s an 18-hour flight to Thailand. I learned to stop fighting jetlag long ago; it is now my companion and confidant. Wandering Bangkok streets and alleys at 3 am, nothing remained of the diurnal parade of human pursuit to entertain me. Roaming dog packs and the occasional buzz of a moto taxi broke the surprising silence of a vast urban labyrinth. I was left with night’s shadows and breezes, long walks along empty boulevards and closed shop fronts, the constant hum of yellow street lamps and neon. Repetition sets in and one begins inspecting a city for its anomalies, its artifacts of human touch, the physical traces of the shopkeeper at home ensconced in dreams.

Continue reading Siam I am...

Under the Sun of Kimia II

2009-10-31T05:05:00.007-04:00

Four different military operations are being pursued on Congolese soil today. The largest, the UN peacekeeping operation, is a patchwork of contingents from around the world, very few of whom are francophone. Most of the UN’s troop contributing nations are developing countries themselves. Their armies are poorly trained and equipped, and are hungry for the cash injection of a UN contract. The result is a purely symbolic peacekeeping force, where actual deterrence (protection of civilians) is hoped for but rarely demonstrated. Several UN contingents--Moroccans, Pakistanis and Indians among others--have been investigated for sexual abuse, arms and mineral trafficking. Like the country's national army and police, foreign troops under the UN banner are largely above the law.

Supported by Congo’s national army (FARDC), Uganda is pursuing remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army who've adopted Orientale Province as their base arrière. The LRA continue their attacks and abductions of civilians, having been reduced to survival mode. In October, Angola ‘invaded’ the Bas Congo province, sparking a diplomatic row, to liberate the Cabinda enclave from long-standing rebel control. If successful, these operations will create a more peaceful neighborhood. Routing rebel forces on neighboring terrain is the only way to end years of mutual suspicion and accusations of ‘supporting the enemy’. Most Congolese pay little attention to these operations, or the civilian abuses they entail. One reads security conditions like weather patterns, and adapts accordingly.

Prominent in the public eye is Operation Kimia II, underway in the Kivus. After years of pressure from the Congolese government, the UN joined forces with the FARDC and Rwandan troops to capture, kill or route FDLR forces involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that have since disappeared into South Kivu’s remote western forests. Ostensibly a counter-terrorism operation, Operation Kimia II is producing mixed results. Local populations have lived for years under FDLR control, subject to a parallel administration widely reported as preferable to the Congolese administration. An absence of forced displaced from FDLR areas over the years attests to pacific relations between FDLR masters and local populations.

But as Kimia II advances into occupied territory, FDLR retaliations are frequent and civilians pay dearly. Recent travels into these areas have been fascinating, and infuriating. Typical of FARDC behavior around the country, soldiers assume control of local taxation structures (roads, markets), local mining operations, and pocket the money. Civilian authorities are shunted aside; local populations ignored or abused for having ‘cohabited with the enemy’. Congolese security culture retains the old Mobutu model: bapopulation baza bilanga ya bino (the population is your revenue source), dark sunglasses, macho pomp and hushed secrecy are de rigueur. No appreciation for classic counter-insurgency approaches, or the need to win the support and trust of civilians. Moreover, there seems a deliberate absence of planning for the transfer of power to civilian authorities, or a return to rule of law. Under FDLR, farmers farmed and miners mined in a climate of moderate prosperity. Now ‘liberated’ by Congolese forces, locals are subject to battering, forced labor, illegal taxation, rape and displacement. The gap between the objectives and methods of Kimia II could not be greater.

The premise of reconstituting eastern Congo by routing rebel forces and their parallel administrations, allowing the country’s civilian authorities to resume basic services and restore rule of law, is a farce. Under Kimia II there is no evidence that Congolese authorities, military or civilian, want or are able to provide those services. Even the modest first steps on Congo's long road towards modern statehood have yet be taken.

May our Gods be angry: Celestial politics in Bas Congo

2009-06-22T05:40:00.003-04:00

Unlike in Latin America, where liberation theology was once an influential force, Christians in Africa rarely confront political oppression. On the surface, African Christian institutions claim not to meddle in affairs of the State. These days, ‘conversion of the heathens’ is passé, as Christianity is now a widespread and entrenched belief system. Churches of all denominations offer manifold development initiatives in education, health and agriculture. In many countries where the State has limited reach into rural areas, churches represent the sole link to the outside world for isolated communities.

But it’s only half the story to say that African Christian institutions are above political interests and the establishment of a modern State. Throughout colonial occupation, the Church completed the political and economic triangle that comprised the massive social engineering project of colonialism. Here was a hearts and minds program that worked—colonial control encapsulated Maslow’s entire hierarchy of needs. From material conditions, social space and into the spiritual realm, colonialism repackaged the indigenous African experience and replaced each dimension with a foreign substitute. Little has changed since independence: neither the school curricula nor the political dispensations (despite elections, ‘Big Men’ reign in a colonial style). Formerly vibrant traditional belief systems are now subaltern and syncretistic, fusing in curious ways with imported Christian ideas.

Read the rest here.

Kinshasa in miniature

2009-06-20T10:21:00.002-04:00

Stumbled on a wonderful slideshow of Kinshasa street scenes in miniature.

This view is of Boulevard 30 Juin in its former glory. Chinese road crews recently decimated all the trees and green medians to make way for a six-lane downtown thoroughfare.

From Afrikarabia.

Fighting for control in Somalia

2009-06-04T14:10:00.002-04:00

Spontaneous and unstaged photos from Mog streets. 'War porn' you might say, but there is virtually no public record of the bowels of hell that is life in Somalia today. Only a few foreign aid workers and intrepid journalists see this madness firsthand. Piracy consumes almost all media coverage, and the plight of the average Somali is eclipsed entirely.

From the Boston Globe:

"While Somalia recently has been in the news for its notorious pirates, back on-shore the country continues to struggle through a years-long war that has intensified lately, and to seek some sort of functional unifying government. Back in January, the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia elected moderate Islamist Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as President. Ahmed has gained international backing in his efforts to bring an end to 18 years of civil conflict.

However, hard-line Islamist groups such as al Shabaab, Hezb al-Islamiya and others continue to reject the government and have been attacking its forces and civilians for years now, most of the fighting taking place in the capital city of Mogadishu. The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) provides over 3,000 troops to maintain security where it can. Since the start of this insurgency in December 2006, nearly 17,000 civilians have lost their lives." (32 photos total)

Werner Herzog: Man the measure of madness

2009-05-24T13:30:00.014-04:00

Herzog explores the complexity of man/nature relations in dozens of films and documentaries; his antipathy towards romanticism and Cinema Verité is well known. To reject both fantasy and empiricism as story telling vehicles, where does that leave a director? Because it blurs fact and fiction, Herzog’s method of documentary cinema is rogue. To contrast his approach with Cinema Verité, in interviews he cites the Heideggerian concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ (remember ‘unconcealment’, fellow philosophers?). The work of the author lies in finding friction between the facts, enough to create light or 'illumination' according to Herzog.

What kind of illumination are we talking about? Behold the classic closing scene from Stroszek, the dancing chicken from Appalachia, a sequence that follows the protagonist ending his life on a vacated ski lift.

Read the rest of this post here.

‘All that is solid melts into air’: the music of Fricke and Scelsi

2009-03-02T03:34:00.005-05:00

Haven't had time to write or think lately, but did manage to squeeze this out for my tribe over at 3quarksdaily.

The best thing about long-distance driving is the sonic qualities of the enclosed acoustic chamber that is the car itself. On a recent pre-dawn drive through the eastern lowlands of North Carolina, two recordings kept me present and transfixed. I knew the pieces well, but the striking commonalities of the two artists had never occurred to me. Their sounds and compositional forms differ dramatically, but both share a belief that music exists to reflect basic cosmological principles—from silence comes word, from tone rhythm, from decay renewal, etc. In different ways, their compositions deliver a direct experience of what each believes to be cosmological truths.

Named after the Mayan genesis myth, Popol Vuh is a German progressive (‘prog’) band best known for its soundtracks to Werner Herzog’s early films. Led by Florian Fricke, Popol Vuh flourished for over three decades, leaving a long and varied discography. Originally a classics scholar, Giacinto Scelsi was an Italian composer often associated with the minimalist movement, despite his music being packed with activity. Scelsi studied Berg and Schoenberg but later abandoned western compositional style in favor of powerful, occasionally violent, monotonal variations.

Read the rest of this meditation here.

Guess the dictator!

2009-01-06T14:58:00.004-05:00

Think your dictator IQ is high?

Think again as you riddle me this one.

Answer here.

What the meek shall inherit: The case of Guinea

2008-12-28T14:19:00.006-05:00

"The natives are restless" -- I used to get indignant when I heard that paternalistic, sometimes cynical phrase. Now I try to smile. For one, I hear it a lot in my line of work, and it gets tiresome to always think ill of someone whose diction deceives her intentions. But mostly I smile because I want the cliché to mean something else, a portent for positive change, the end of calamitous rule, a new era for the meek. So when the meek turn restless, it should mean that justice is around the corner.

With last week's passing of Guinea's senile dictator, Lansana Conté, and the military coup that followed, the country is marking no deviation from a well-rehearsed choreography, enacted repeatedly since independence from the French in 1958. The dance moves are economical, simple for new generations of political elites to learn.

A leader emerges, accedes power bolstered by populist rhetoric, buys off the military, installs single-party rule. Cronyism flourishes, rule of law evaporates, the military shores up the trappings of statehood. Decades pass; the population languishes. Leader then dies, military resumes control until a new leader-puppet is found. For nine million Guineans, the spectacle and squalor continue.

Conté down for the count

Conté belonged to a dwindling species of wizened and paranoid leaders-for-life, whose ranks include Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Omar Bongo of Gabon. Once hailed as liberators and visionaries, they became pathetic parables of 'absolute power corrupting absolutely'. The psychological path from flamboyant liberator to murderous despot is dramatic stuff, and was ably fictionalized in The Last King of Scotland. An excellent non-fiction account of Mobutu Sese Seko’s rise and fall is Mobutu, Roi du Zaire, by Thierry Michel.

Not so for Conté. A diabetic chain-smoker who rarely appeared in public, Conté was a garden-variety despot whose life and career will be quickly forgotten, even by Guineans. In the murky hours after Conté’s death, a military junta declared power. Western powers demanded an immediate return to civilian rule; a rote bit of finger wagging that has surely never produced a single result.

Alluding to the high propensity for carnage in this West African neighborhood, Senegalese President Wade recently appealed for acceptance of Guinea’s new military junta. Although highly predatory and wholly opportunistic, the Guinean national military arguably prevented the country from sliding into the chaos of its neighbors, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, for whom Guinea served for years as a place of refuge.

The intent of Wade’s appeal is ambiguous. Another leader-for-life in the making and no friend of opposition parties or the free press, Wade's point may be that civilian rule and democracy are over-rated, and that in such places security is primordial. He may also be a proponent of 'negative solidarity', as my Burundian friends call it, between African leaders who defend one another till the bitter end. Witness the deafening silence from African leaders regarding Mugabe.

Amazonian propaganda and guided missiles

Still, it is all deeply disappointing and predictable. Decades of syphilitic, jack-booted rule finally falls flat in the dust, and a unified populace stares blankly while an army faction takes control. Is it that foreign occupiers are enough to mobilize popular resistance (e.g., anti-colonialism) but when the oppressor is your brother you sit on your hands?

Compared to the colonial era, today’s absence of constructive, popular political agency in the world’s poorest countries is mystifying and exasperating. Back then, Sekou Toure led Guinea to independence and stood proud on the world stage, with adulation from Kennedy and visits from Castro.

[ST’s political compass is clear in these photos: star worship for Castro and distraction with Kennedy.]

Like Mugabe and other liberators, it didn’t take long for Sekou Toure to relish the pleasures of despotism. Conté took him down in 1984 and lived to repeat the tale. Sekou Toure did leave one legacy of note, a massive musical propaganda machine, similar to that created and cultivated by Mobutu in Zaire. Of the dozens of
propaganda bands still playing in Guinea, most notable are the Amazones de Guinée, an all female troupe pictured here.

A tidy description of all these different bands, with audio/video footage, can be found here.

Today, any damn idiot can fill a political vacuum in a place like Guinea, and there are dozens of Guineas in Africa. Coups flourish, generally over control of resources, led by marginalized power bases organized along ethnic lines. Mr. Bottom Billion, Paul Collier, wrote an op-ed earlier this year “in praise of coups,” suggesting that the West get back to its once successful business of engineering political putsches where it needed an ally. Only this time, Collier argued, we should do it in favor of better governance by capable partners, and put an end to kleptocracies run by mandarins-cum-raving despots.

Responses to the article were predictable: a fantastical notion; there are no such ‘guided missiles’ in politics. As a dream, though, I understand the appeal of Collier’s idea. Social engineering doesn’t sound so evil when the outcome is a guaranteed net gain. And most people grasp that freedom without structure is a desert, so they might welcome the trade-off. For the meek who get nothing and have nothing, I wonder what they might say to Collier, or anyone who just wants Africa to work.

Like me, Joe Plumbers in Africa want little to do with politics; they just want politicians to do their jobs. Their government’s failings are not their own. So when the ship starts sinking, no one’s interested in going down with it. Who would be? That’s when the jack-boots and ammo cartridges are at their most frenzied.

Condition: Critical

2008-12-06T22:10:00.005-05:00

Publicizing crises like that of Eastern Congo has evolved with the advent of new media. MSF recorded this short film using direct testimonies and images from the epicenter of the human drama.

Visit Condition: Critical, and pass it on.

As one reviewer said, "J'ai pleuré, simplement." Ideally, though, you'll be outraged.

'Lord of the Flies' is fiction to us, but for many Congolese it is daily reality.

Political witch hunt in Western DRC

2008-11-27T05:25:00.004-05:00

Think it's bad in the Kivus? Try surviving as a member of the political opposition in Bas Congo.

This new report from HRW documents the Kabila government's use of violence and intimidation to eliminate political opponents.

Testimonies indicate that Kabila himself set the tone and direction by giving orders to "crush" or "neutralize" the "enemies of democracy," implying it was acceptable to use unlawful force against them.

Expect a new wave of political asylum seekers in the US, folks tortured in the usual military camps: Kitona, Tshatshi, etc.

'Rewarding failure' -- unraveling aid dependency

2008-11-24T05:59:00.003-05:00

A refreshing read from an African perspective: "[...] governments that are highly dependent on aid pay too much attention to donors and too little to the actual needs of their own citizens."

I pondered this as I ran along the Congo River yesterday afternoon, passing elegant villas with beautiful views of the river and Brazzaville on the other side. This is the country's most valuable real estate, yet it's occupied entirely by foreign diplomats. There's nothing conspiratorial about it, imo. Rather it underscores how weak the government is and how much it depends on foreign powers.

There were no major surprises as the to identity of the inhabitants along this Congolese equivalent of the Cote d'Azur; all had their national flags on prominent display. Who was the newcomer on the block? China, of course.

How to change the dynamic of aid, and stop 'disincentivizing a continent...'?

Portraits of Somali Pirates

2008-11-19T14:03:00.003-05:00

'Financial turmoil', Somali style.

More photos from The Guardian.

They might be giants

2008-11-09T23:01:00.000-05:00

The town of Washington DC, where I live, is lilliputian in many ways. There are a few giant Gullivers, surrounded by droves of busy-body Lilliputians. I figure among the diminutive, cause-obsessed lilliputian hordes. We run to and fro with much speed but variable impact, given our small stature. We are disposable and easily replaced; not so the giants whose favor we seek.

The slow-moving Gullivers to whom we cater are the official faces of our body politic. The limited number of giants accentuates their visibility, particularly as they control policy and choose how to spend the assets they obtain from more hordes like me, only further from view.

The reason for my busy-bodyness before these giants is that they dispose of the public funding for which cause-obsessed little people like me must compete. If we win, we use the wealth to assist and rebuild other lands that are at war or are emerging from conflict. The giants grant us these assets with the understanding that they get the credit for any success we achieve through our work. Every act abroad must reflect the grandness of our giants.

Speculation among the hordes

Most of the distant places that benefit from our giants' largesse are poor, diseased and war-wracked, with little immediate strategic interest to the giants themselves. If one of these places fell off the map today, our giants would not miss it.

Why do the giants spend our public funds on crippled, diseased and impoverished places, far from these shores? How do they use the credits they accrue by doing this? We speculate over this. There is no consensus among giants or nor do they offer explicit rationales for these programs. Giants can differ bitterly between themselves over why, where and how they commit public assets in this way.

On the rare occasion when we are face-to-face with such a giant, we defend our cause. To maintain funding levels, we argue that poorer, unstable lands are in the giants' interest. We try to be inventive in our reasoning, but in the end we use a standard set of justifications.

A new set of giants is preparing to assume control of our land, our public assets and, possibly, the ways we engage less fortunate, non-strategic lands. In the short term, a handful of distraught and tragic places will continue to consume the majority of our assistance because despite their chaos, they are considered strategic. Our current set of giants believe these lands are strategic because they harbor our enemies. Something local must be done to deter or befriend them. They cannot hate us; they do not know our beneficence.

The continent that wouldn't go away

A strange twist of fate, the majority of these catastrophic lands with disastrous leaders happen to find themselves in the same neighborhood. Their neighborhood is large, and fills an entire continent. Because this neighborhood is geographically self-contained, it is easily ignored, like a garbage dump outside town. The people on this continent sense their plague and leave in droves. Some manage to arrive at our shores. Their presence here humanizes the pandemonium they leave behind, so strange is it to us. That they survived their ordeal is miraculous, but sheds no light on a solution.

The current set of outgoing giants have done little decisive for this troubled continent, despite having spent more on foreign crises than any previous body politic run by giants. Before the new set of giants settles in, we the cause-obsessed wish to present our strategies for saving the lost continent.

i. No jobs without infrastructure. Without jobs, dependency on foreign assets will continue indefinitely. There is very little electricity or roads on the lost continent. The private sector cannot incubate or grow because indirect costs, owing to absent infrastructure, are prohibitively high. Another land with giants for leaders--China--is bartering road building against access to raw materials (minerals, oil, timber) in these lands. No money exchanges hands, which is good because corrupt leaders would otherwise steal it. It is bad because it infantilizes these leaders, letting them rule while robbing them of genuine responsibility.

ii. No prosperity without stability. For the last eight years, our giants have repeatedly offered this continent all-expenses paid democratic elections. They believed that democracy would solve the continent's problems. Yet there is almost no clean water, medicine, or personal safety for the people of this continent. Many of the new democracies our leaders purchased are skin deep, or have collapsed. The new set of giants should focus on providing security and infrastructure, because fragile or nascent democracies cannot survive without this basic dual foundation.

iii. No accountable governance without education. We wonder why there are not more revolutions on this continent: there is much bloodshed without political intent. Why do they not overthrow their venal political class? Because they lack an effective, sustained system of education. Without education, manipulation and exploitation meet no resistance, and become the norm. Violence escalates but remains unorganized, absent of strategy or political objective. People kill out of frustration, not for want of change. In other places where the majority is educated, the ruling class is held accountable to common standards. Apolitical violence becomes anomalous.

iv. Lastly, we wish our giants to abandon the grandiosity imperative. Our acts abroad should not reflect our greatness, this world is not a hall of mirrors for the vain. Our acts abroad should meet the immediate needs of the people who must live there. Their political present and future are not our experiments to conduct; their world is not our laboratory.

Konono No. 1 --- in broad daylight

2008-10-24T18:16:00.003-04:00

Dag yo -- I miss Kinshasa!!!

The stakes of the Nile Basin Initiative

2008-10-13T05:44:00.003-04:00

Africa's natural resources extend across many borders but are not equally abundant for all. Take the Nile River and its extensive tributaries in Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania--all sub-Saharan countries. This neighborhood, also known as the Great Lakes region, comprises the Nile River Basin, the multiple sources of a river on whose lives all Egyptians and many Sudanese depend. Water is literally life for the ancient desert societies of Egypt and northern Sudan, and their skill at conserving water and maximizing its agricultural uses far exceeds that found in upstream Nile countries where water is abundant.

Clearly there is something primordial and miraculous--but alas not causal--in the relationship between scarcity and ingenuity. Take the case of Egypt, whose irrigation capacity precedes its invention of written language, both of which are over 2000 years old. This historical fact becomes amazing in the context of the Nile Basin, whose countries are the poorest in the world.

Technologically, they are so far behind Egypt that they still depend entirely on rainfall to grow food. In Burundi, for instance, rivers and lakes abound but basic irrigation and animal traction constitute the unthought for farmers there. As a result, during the three-month dry season rural farmers in Burundi go hungry and die. Egypt learned to solve that problem long before the West existed.

Were the state of scarcity itself a causal trigger for change, people and their leaders would have figured out solutions to poverty long ago. And given that practical solutions already exist in the world's poorest neighborhood, like the miracle of Egyptian irrigation in a barren desert, one wonders why Egypt's destitute neighbors continue to look the other way.

Created in 1999, the Nile Basin Initiative seeks to introduce the notion of 'common good' to nine countries for whom the Nile is political hot-potato, conflict trigger, and means of survival rolled into one. Many NBI countries have been at war in the last decade, and the Nile as casus belli is not unthinkable with climate changes already affecting the region. Obviously a lack of trust permeates the region and prevents cooperation on mutually beneficial initiatives, like Nile water management. If successful, then, the NBI would use the Nile to promote development in the poorer countries in a way that facilitates a common approach to solutions and averts conflict.

Nearing its tenth anniversary, the folks at NBI headquarters in Entebbe were rightfully wondering about their impact in the region, and whether regional thoughtleaders appreciated NBI efforts. A qualitative study of perceptions among civil society, government, academics and media from NBI's nine member countries was commissioned; results are coming out now.

Read from a longer piece I wrote for 3QD here.

PRISM goes to CGI

2008-09-28T11:04:00.006-04:00

I spent last week at the Clinton Global Initiative in NYC. Besides moderating discussions, I was representing PRISM Partnerships, a non-profit micro-philanthropy group that Chris, Katy and I created earlier this year. I felt like a serf among titans, and I was, but the level of openness and interest by all participants in what other participants were doing was unlike anything I'd experienced before.

CGI leverages President Clinton's visibility and connections to bring together high-level philanthropists, heads of state, thought leaders, celebrities and field workers like me. The third such conference, around 3000 persons were present. Unlike the World Economic Forum in Davos, an expensive chat session among power brokers, CGI participants are expected to exit the three day meeting having made concrete commitments to solve clearly identified problems in the developing world, but also in jungles like the Washington DC public school system.

PRISM was there to identify supporters for portfolio of partnerships with small but able local initiatives to redress the human costs of conflict in eight East African countries. We don't deliver services ourselves, but we've identified some excellent outfits run by people who've lived the very crises they're trying to remedy. Check the website for lots more detail.

I was also happy to spend an evening with Abbas Raza, Tyrolian sugar-dandy and illustrious editor of 3quarksdaily, for whom I write periodically. I haven't laughed that hard in a while, Abbas--many thanks. Wonderful to meet Azra as well, another regular 3QD contributor.

Darwin's Nightmare

2008-09-22T08:55:00.003-04:00

I had to wait years to see this film--it came out in 2004. Netflix is not always so quick to sort out distribution rights and such. The title alone magnifies the intrigue: what could make Darwin have nightmares? It could be a film about the rise of Creationism, for instance, or the vast spawning of evangelical anti-science conservatives.

Such a film wouldn't have to be about natural evolution at all. After all, 'survival of the fittest' and its application to the social and economic realm was not Darwin's idea; apparently he rejected such extrapolations.

This film is a slow and grim portrayal of the effects of a single-track economy in a country incapable of diversifying its revenue sources, or of creating jobs for a largely unskilled population. This could be any number of African countries, unfortunately, but Tanzania sets the scene for this particular portrayal.

In the end it was a disappointment. Why so many African economies fail to get off the ground deserves serious study, but using the Western liberal anti-globalization bias to frame a documentary does not adequately capture the problem. Instead it turns local poverty into a platform for liberal ideologies; anti-globalization in this case. Africans need jobs and better working conditions. Government regulation of extractive industries has failed, and 'survival of the fittest' rules. In that sense the film is correct, but western demand for African goods is not the true cause of Darwin's nightmare.

Welcome Home, M. La Mort

2008-09-03T13:00:00.005-04:00

For those of you wondering if I’m dead, I’m not. Thanks for your emails. But others are; I know some of them. After the waves of anger and sadness, death still stands near. It breathes in my ear, it casts shadows. Things slow down in its presence.

Damien Gugliermina was among those who died yesterday in the AirServ crash outside Bukavu. He was a genuine spark among the species, alive with every fiber and neuron. He was dedicated in the usual ways that people are in this line of work, his intensity offset by an easy humor and realism about these wars and the impact of our muddling humanitarian institutions.

We first met in 2006 in Kinshasa, then later here in Goma, and again in Bukavu throughout that year. I saw him a couple of weeks ago in Goma, the same ready smile and sparkle in his eye. That was Damien yesterday. Today his body is being recovered from the 10,000 foot escarpment near the Bukavu airport where his plane was headed when it crashed.

Today I’m on a flight with the same aviation company, a non-profit humanitarian air service that flies aid workers and Congolese VIPs around the country’s trouble spots. After yesterday’s tragedy, I didn’t expect to fly today. Late last night I learned my flight to Beni was still on for this morning.

I stood on the tarmac this morning waiting to board our Twin Otter, ignoring the aviation authorities hitting me for a bribe. The pilot strode up and we started chatting about the crash yesterday. "I wouldn't want to speculate about any errors committed by a fellow pilot," he explained. "Surely there are lessons to be learned?" I ventured. It seemed a strange answer to a natural question about possible cause.

We stopped in Bunia on our way to Beni, to refuel and drop off passengers. The pilot and I hung around on the tarmac; me remembering my experiences in Ituri over the years during the war, and how calm things seemed now.

We started chatting again. He asked me what I was doing in eastern Congo. I described my work for the peace negotiator, Abbe Malu Malu, and why I would be in Butembo meeting Mai Mai groups and planning community reconstruction projects using ex-combatants. He took his sunglasses off and looked at me. "That must be the greatest job in the world!" For once, I thought, I can accept this compliment--he was right.

We resumed our flight to Beni, a short hop from Bunia. We entered a storm, my mind was on the conditions that led to the crash of yesterday. We bounced around in the plane, we were flying blind, and I was afraid. I never regretted, though, why I was here and what I am doing. I'm sure that Damien never did either.

Beauty: fractured or pristine?

2008-08-15T04:51:00.007-04:00

Even out here in Goma, images from the Olympics can be had. Coverage is spotty and one cannot actually sit down and watch the Olympics, but visual impressions and reports are getting through in drips and drabs. Watching synchronized diving, or gymnastics, it's obvious that the Olympic ideal is perfection of form as the pinnacle of beauty. Very few can achieve this ideal, hence the rarefied competition among elite athletes. Echoes of classical Greece are obvious, a vertical society despite its democratic pretensions. Cosmology can do that to a people.

The Olympics are tailored to this particular ideal of beauty as the rarefied perfection of form. No room for fractured beauty, obviously, as that would disqualify. Although pristine beauty is by definition more rare than fractured beauty, I tend to champion the latter because it's more pedestrian, more democratic because accessible to all of us, if we open our eyes wide enough. I love cosmologies, but only for their literary value. It's too late to actually believe in one. Fractured, democratic, horizontal: that's where I'm most comfortable. Zeitgeist I guess.

Of course, fractured beauty abounds here in Goma. As my boss and I bounced along these terrible roads the other day, inhaling pounds of volcanic dust (always in the air) and diesel fumes blasting into the car from all the trucks lumbering by in the other direction, the boss mused that we were on a merry go round. Everybody's on the narrow road at once, with dozens of moto taxis blurring past, honking constantly (think rickshaw madness in Delhi). The 360 degree view is just heads bobbing up and down, some buzzing past, others slow or stationary--pedestrians lost in the melee.

So instead of being overwhelmed by the oozing human morass of it all and thinking cynical thoughts about the Congo, my boss reverts into a childhood reverie and comes up with the merry-go-round comment. A kindred soul: he can appreciate fractured beauty too, I thought.

The first thing I'll do when I get off this merry-go-round and return home: ride my beloved bikes, of course, then open a book of Borges stories and sit by the sea. Nothing could be more pristine ... or magical.

Zombies and ghosts getting lots done

2008-08-08T08:23:00.005-04:00

Back in Goma after a refreshing week in Dakar. Marathon return journey via Bamako, Nairobi, Kigali, then Goma. I'm still in a zombie state--just as the Congolese who are forced to put up with this ni paix ni guerre situation as it drags on and on.

In 2003-2004 we used to call the Congolese state an Etat fantome, because there was no administrative presence anywhere in the country outside the capital. Yesterday during closed door talks a lead figure in our group of international representatives referred to us as 'zombies'. I had to laugh: zombies controlled by phantoms. Hard to get less visceral than that.

But it's true, we wander from one event to the next, trying to move molehills that the belligerents perceive as mountains. There is little if any political will on any side of the conflict, meanwhile money is flowing hand over fist to keep all these armed groups at the negotiating table.

A high-level delegation came to town yesterday to let all the armed groups know that they had done nothing since signing peace agreements in January, except run up enormous hotel bills in town that they expected the government to pay. Somehow the ultimatum did not seem to catalyze any sudden commitments to withdrawal of troops, disarmament or demobilization of troops.

A friend asked me this morning if western powers should just get out and let the cards fall where they may. It is befuddling why international efforts to broker peace fail in so many situations.

A colleague mused yesterday on Herodotus and our situation here. The story goes something like: Representatives from an occupying power (Athens?) visit a newly conquered but recalcitrant state that refuses to pay tribute. The messengers say, "We are here with the most powerful of gods, 'power' and 'force', so you must obey and pay us tribute." Receiving officials in the occupied land respond, "Oh that's nice, lucky you. We here are under two other gods, 'poverty' and 'incapacity'."

The moral here being that rule of law and military might are impotent before the inertia of destitution, dysfunction and incapacity.

It definitely captures the inability of the international community to get anything done in Congo, particularly on this peace process.

Beautés à Dakar

2008-07-30T06:58:00.009-04:00

Surprise request to leave Goma for a bit and come out to Dakar for a week of meetings. Amazing food, beautiful people, a new city to discover--who could resist?

[Senegal's original flag from late 1950s]

After satisfying a song that's been on the brain for days (classic Brimful of Asha, or the hilarious short version), I hit the streets and have been exploring and eating non-stop since arriving last Saturday. Delighted to run into an old friend I studied with in Germany eight years ago here in the hotel. Nothing more dreamlike than hearing your name called in a country where you know no one, turning around and finding the beaming face of a long lost friend.

Yves and I were together in Abidjan the eve of the 1999 coup that ticked off Ivory Coast's descent into civil war; he was carjacked on the way to pick me up at the airport. What a planet.

Hopefully I'll get some sightseeing in before I leave, between the meetings, the email and the reports to write. There's always Ile de Gorée, Africa's most poignant monument to human slavery, in stark contrast to the Statue of Liberty, a very different maritime marker of [voluntary] human migration.

Back in Goma next Tuesday to learn what is going on with CNDP (Nkunda hasn't been heard from or seen in almost a month) and whether our efforts to keep political negotiations alive will be successful. Not sure that can be claimed at this point.

At least I'll have these memories of Dakar to keep me going!

[Funny the way earworms love a void... the new one is 'Bros'.... or better yet Carrots -- amazing beats!]

DRC: 200 hundred ceasefire violations since January

2008-07-21T05:34:00.004-04:00

And civilians continue to die in far greater numbers than before the Goma Agreement was reached six months ago. A serious lack of political will on all sides is undermining the agreement.

A new Human Rights Watch communique begins:

"On January 23, 2008, after weeks of talks, the Congolese government signed a peace agreement in Goma, North Kivu, with 22 armed groups committing all parties to an immediate ceasefire, disengagement of forces from frontline positions, and to abide by international human rights law. Following the signing, the Congolese government set up a peace program, called the Amani Program, to coordinate peace efforts in eastern Congo. Yet the government and international donors have provided limited funds to carry out that work.

The agreement failed to halt the fighting. United Nations officials have documented some 200 ceasefire violations since January 23, the majority between the forces of renegade general Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and a loose coalition of combatants from the Mai Mai Mongol, the Coalition of Congolese Patriotic Resistance (PARECO), and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan armed group whose leaders participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The FDLR was not a party to the Goma agreement.

Human Rights Watch also found credible evidence that soldiers from the Congolese national army were supporting the PARECO, Mai Mai Mongol, and FDLR coalition, questioning the government’s commitment to the peace process."

Read the rest here. For victim testimonies, see here.

DRC: Peace Deal Unraveling

2008-07-06T10:14:00.005-04:00

I'm currently in Goma supporting the international effort to uphold the Programme Amani, a rather free-wheeling effort to bring over 20 militia groups in the region to an agreement on disarmament, demobilization and absorption into the national army. The ceasefire responsible for this optimistic state of affairs has been broken repeatedly, however.

A primary concern is the lack of 'sticks' (vs carrots) for Laurent Nkunda, the most powerful group. His military advantage over the national army has been demonstrated several times, to much embarrassment in Kinshasa. His strong hand in these negotiations is not diminished by the threat of an ICC indictment; rather he knows he could turn the entire east upside down if things don't go his way. Without a convincing stick to wave in his face, the negotiators' hand is weak.

The other oncoming train in this particular tunnel is the prospect of a national army massively inflated by former rebels, when the Ministry of Defense can barely clothe, train, equip let alone pay its own forces. So a bigger, more dysfunctional national army is a good thing for Congolese civilians? Not sure where that strategy was rubber stamped, but there you go.

Coverage of the Amani process itself can be found here (Radio Okapi)

And the following report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting describes the fragmentation of peace process itself. It is certainly accurate from my view on the ground, but does not exclude the possibility of resuscitation, which we are currently busy with.

'A ceasefire signed by more than 20 militia groups earlier this year is being broken repeatedly.'

The fragile peace that has restored some calm in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, is in danger of collapsing, say key militia groups.

“They attacked our positions. It is now war,” said Sendugu Museveni, the former president and now chief negotiator for PARECO, one of the major ethnic Hutu groups to sign a ceasefire in January.

A peace deal was signed in the Goma, the capital of the North Kivu Province, by more than 20 militias operating in the region. Museveni accused the forces of Tutsi militia General Laurent Nkunda of repeated violations of the ceasefire and of sabotaging the peace process by backing out of the talks last week, as it has done several times before.“This is the last chance,” said Museveni. “We are very tired of responding to the capriciousness of the Tutsis who do whatever they want …. We will not agree to be dominated all the time by the Tutsis.” Read the rest here.

Coup d'etat: the unguided missile from within

2008-06-25T11:30:00.004-04:00

Mr. Bottom Billion, Paul Collier, published an insightful op-ed last week lamenting the current politically-correct mindset that sees powerful, rich nations only bullying weaker, poorer ones. Yet the planet's major disaster states are ruled by isolated autocrats who are omnipotent on their own turf: Mugabe in Zimbabwe, General Than Shwe in Burma. These leaders are far more powerful than any Western head of state; there is nothing weak about them.

Efforts to help the citizens of these countries are blocked by such leaders and their cronies, for whom their people are 'better dead than fed'. The only effective change agent in such situations are the national armies, with their capacity for a coup d'etat. Coups are historically common in such instances, but are like 'unguided missiles', Collier explains, because their outcomes are unpredictable. How then to help make coups 'smarter'?

His answer: "Rather than trying to freeze coups out of the international system, we should try to provide them with a guidance system. In contexts such as Zimbabwe and Burma, coups should be encouraged because they are likely to lead to improved governance. (It's hard to imagine things getting much worse.) The question then becomes how to provide encouragement for some potentially helpful coups while staying within the bounds of proper international conduct."

Read the whole piece here.

Carrots for the General

2008-06-23T15:12:00.006-04:00

Pencils ready? Here's today’s five-second brain teaser: What incentives succeed in getting autocrats to relinquish power peacefully? The use of sticks and carrots to bring about reform is fertile fodder for political theory, yet in practice the tools of the trade are limited and primitive. Privation of goods or commerce is common in today’s climate; chest-thumping and bellicose posturing, another favorite, is practiced by the entire animal kingdom. Carrots, as opposed to sticks, work wonders with children but see little success between nations. Why is that?

In the case of Burma under General Than Shwe and his military junta, no carrots have been tried, to my knowledge. Sticks in many shapes and sizes have been brandished and swung, to little effect. Economic sanctions, asset freezes, arms embargos and travel bans are currently in effect by the US and EU. I posed the question to a Burmese dissident last week. He reflected a moment, then smiled and said, ‘A missile launch pad in Thailand, that’s all we need’. No sticks, no carrots, just elimination: everyman’s fantasy. Were regime change so easy!

Western policies designed to weaken the junta have been contradictory, perhaps even self-sabotaging. The State Department claims its trade sanctions have encouraged ASEAN countries to adopt a more critical stance on Burma; this is correlation, not causation. ASEAN countries continue their waffling course of ‘constructive engagement’, meaning: do business and look the other way. The US was alone in pursuing sanctions for over a decade until the ill-fated ‘Saffron Revolution’ last September, at which point the EU implemented similar measures.

Critics of these sanctions, embargoes and other disincentives highlight their feel-good, symbolic character—much like Bush’s declaration of genocide in Darfur being followed by cooperation with Khartoum on terrorist intelligence matters. As with Sudan, sanctions against Burma arguably strengthen the hand of ruling authorities by creating a scapegoat for their own internal policy failures and narrowing the opportunity for Burmese to expand their economic, social, and cultural contacts with reform-minded nations. The conservative CATO institute, for instance, makes a case for re-opening commercial relations with Burma, arguing that investment and trade brings technology, better working conditions, and increased exposure to democratic ideas.

Burmese pressure groups and international human rights agencies have lobbied the UN for Security Council action to target Burma’s gas and oil industries, the junta’s primary source of revenue. Such a vote was never tabled, as China and Russia would surely veto on the grounds of the principle of non-interference, their almighty sacred cow and miracle panacea for any vexing political crisis.

But for those nations who huff and puff and try to blow the junta house down--to what effect? Sanctions that fail to cut off all revenue streams to an offending party are ultimately a non sequitur. And wherever there is oil, there is always political wiggle-room. Extraction rights to Burma’s vast offshore oilfields were accorded to China in 2007, along with contracts to build an overland pipeline leading—where else?—to China.

Read the remainder of this piece I wrote for 3quarksdaily.com here.

'On the Rumba River '

2008-06-12T13:56:00.003-04:00

On the Rumba River: a new French film on Congolese music and life on the world's second largest river, now a graveyard for abandoned barges and steamers.

Good review here. A snippet:

"The confrontation between environmental ugliness and sonic beauty is part of the point of Wendo's music, and eventually becomes a lynchpin of Sarasin's film as well. Immediately following the band's light, lively reunion show, Wendo - while dolefully gazing at a Congo river littered with decrepit, abandoned boats which symbolize the country's wholesale neglect - laments a country torn asunder by leaders and politicians more interested in enriching themselves than tending to their fellow citizens. It's a forceful juxtaposition of tight-knit community and unjust disregard, amplified by the absence of any superfluous or manipulative aesthetic embellishment. True, the director's refusal to provide basic details about some of his featured musicians, as well as the Congo's rocky past, can at times leave one wanting. But ultimately, On the Rumba River makes up for its lack of informational depth with stirring poignancy."

Ghost at the Humanitarian Banquet

2008-06-02T12:08:00.007-04:00

David Rieff's weekend article in the NY Times Magazine, "Humanitarian Vanities," points out that the logical endpoint of much humanitarian advocacy--regarding the 'right to intervene' and more recently the 'responsibility to protect'--is ultimately nothing other than regime change. After all, if the famous 'root causes' are to be addressed, is that not through direct engagement with national authorities? Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe--who has not dreamt of an end to suffering in these places?

Lasting solutions lie with the venal political class, folks, not aid agencies. And they must go, by any means necessary. Yet most aid agencies are averse to this language, Rieff points out, even though it is the logical conclusion of their interventionist ethos.

"After the Iraqi debacle, it is hardly surprising that we are hesitant to undertake interventions that may well involve regime change. And regime change — its moral legitimacy and political practicality — is the ghost at the banquet of humanitarian intervention. Use any euphemism you wish, but in the end these interventions have to be about regime change if they are to have any chance of accomplishing their stated goal."

I'm glad to see Rieff writing on these issues again; I've always appreciated and learned from his contrarian views. Here's a link to a critique I wrote of his 2002 book, A Bed for the Night, in the Parisian journal Multitudes.

Go Fast Turn Left!

2008-05-26T11:28:00.001-04:00

The final scene of the 1968 Planet of the Apes (Rod Serling script, starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall) is worth enduring the tortuous acting. It's a very different ending from the 2001 remake with Mark Wahlberg, and distinguishes the original Apes as true science fiction. Marky Mark's version is a generic action film.

Briefly: After his escape as a prisoner in an ape society on a distant planet, Heston discovers a damaged Statue of Liberty half-buried on a remote beach. He realizes that his inter-planetary voyage had in fact kept him on Earth all along. Humanity had destroyed its own civilization, paving the way for a Planet of the Apes.

I had a more mundane version of this vision recently: a post-petrol world where combustion engines were a memory and pedal-power had reclaimed the Earth. I like apes, but they didn't play a role in this particular fantasy.

Embrace your inner redneck

Sound advice, perhaps. Not for me though, at least in this lifetime. My inner redneck will have to wait—I’m still recovering from my past life as Pavlov’s dog. But last weekend I had the opportunity to embrace that inner redneck in my first close encounter with the apotheosis of modern redneckdom--NASCAR. This was the Southside Speedway in Richmond Virginia, one of the sport's earliest professional tracks, in use since 1959. NASCAR fans hail Southside as ‘the toughest short track in the south’, and I quickly learned why.

Thing is, I wasn't there for the roaring engines or burning rubber. I came for a day of bicycle racing. These were track bikes primarily but a couple of road bike races were also scheduled. I arrived late and over-caffeinated to find the speedway grounds completely empty except for a hundred or so cyclists in the circle inside the track. Most were either preparing to race or recovering. I had not missed my start time, and ran over to get registered.

Under a gray sky and spots of rain, the place had the mournful feel of a fair ground or circus site after the festivities had ended, the cheers and laughter now gone, the animals and rides long departed. Here too, on the ground were crushed candy wrappers, gluey traces of melted sno-cones, tufts of cotton candy stuck to matted patches of grass where crowds had stood and cheered.

But absent any NASCAR fans and the roar of the spectacle itself, the quiet speedway also had the distinct feel of anachronism, of future-past. I gazed out at the empty bleachers and imagined the speedway as a relic of an extinct civilization, a NASCAR ruin in a post-petrol world.

'I can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain'

Founded by a band of track bike racers without a local velodrome, the Sprint Club (think 'Fight Club') created its own race series called Go Fast Turn Left, in deference to Richmond's long history of stock car racing at Southside, where many GFTL races are organized.

The Sprint Club ethos is a direct descendant of old school punk rock's DIY spirit. That means, in no particular order: (1) Appropriating a found environment, making it one’s own, at the expense of appropriate norms and behavior that belong to that environment; (2) In spectacle or performance, participation trumps consumption. Passive, polite observation is replaced by direct participation, eliminating the distance between spirit and seer, artist and viewer; 3) The ‘do it yourself’ mentality is self-explanatory--there are no experts, only students and practitioners, and all are welcome.

After getting my race number and quickly inhaling assorted carbs and sugars, I steered out onto the ragged tarmac to warm up with the other racers. A banked, tight oval track, Southside is only a third of a mile long. My group would race for 25 laps. From the previous night’s NASCAR event, there were fist-sized chunks of black rubber from exploded car tires, random nuts, bolts and metal fragments scattered everywhere. The racing surface itself was gritty, pock-marked and scarred from crashes and the elements.

Ass on fire

I didn't win the race or even come close, but I learned a few things. First, cycling is a cruel muse. Glorious bouts of smoking and drinking never got in the way of my marathon running, years back. Marathons permitted me the dubious luxury of being a hedonist and a masochist at the same time--usually such joys cannot coexist. But competitive cycling is different than long distance running. Marathons require stamina and effort sustained over hours, as does cycling. Unlike marathons, however, cycling involves regular spikes of acceleration, troughs of radical energy depletion and periods of recovery within the course of a single race.

My fantasy of riding on a post-petrol, futuristic ruin of a NASCAR track was shared, I learned, with other riders, some of whom complemented me on my 'sweet ride' before the race (have a look, it really is an amazing bike). These were the same guys who slammed into me as the peloton whistled forward at a bruising 31 mph. 'Keeping the rubber side down' was more challenging than I thought. At one point, I heard a crash behind me, but rubbernecking was not an option.

Competitive cycling is a contact sport, I also discovered, with lots of intimidating banter between riders. Kind of like a mosh pit, I thought and smiled, as I managed to keep pace with the breakaway pack for much of the race. Surely I would finish in the top five, I thought. But with two laps to go, my legs turned to lead and a handful of leading riders pulled away from me. I hadn't the strength to stay with them, or even maintain a spot in their slipstream. I crossed the finish line and thought, 'Time to kill my inner Marlboro Man'. Alas, it appears my inseparable companions hedonism and masochism will finally be parting ways.

'Shove the money out the door' ....

2008-05-08T14:09:00.006-04:00

... and into some local politicians' coffers.

In 2006 I evaluated the $200m DDR program funded by the World Bank and referred to in the WSJ article below. I found a rotting corpse. To my surprise, the people who hired the evaluation at the Bank were not receptive to my findings, and promptly sat on the report for a year. In the end, they released an anodyne 20pp version of my 150pp report. Talk about deliberate obfuscation -- I've never seen it so shamelessly flaunted.

Read the Wall Street Journal article on the Bank's new anti-corruption efforts...
Bits and pieces here: "On April 21, the bank released the findings of a corruption probe into a $100 million "demobilization and reintegration" scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which uncovered "sufficient evidence to substantiate allegations of fraud, corruption and disallowed expenses." The very next day, April 22, the bank announced that it had approved an additional $50 million grant for – drumroll, please – the same "demobilization and reintegration" scheme in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [...]

There has also been no change to the shove-the-money-out-the-door mentality that lies at the root of the bank's endemic corruption problems. When the bank first initiated the Congo project in 2004, it had just been burned by a similar demobilization project in Cambodia, where by its own later admission it showed "a lack of realism," a "need for greater political awareness," and a "lack of understanding."

Yet none of these lessons were so much as mentioned in the bank's internal project proposal for the Congo. That proposal contains page after page of written promises of external financial and technical auditing, competitive bidding and other anticorruption bells and whistles. None of it seems to have made much of a difference in preventing the scheme from sliding into the same morass that is the frequent endpoint of World Bank projects."

Carbon Footprints in the Rift Valley

2008-05-02T18:31:00.005-04:00

Somewhere down in this amazing valley, around Lake Naivasha, Chris and I had a wonderful day's ride...

Waterbuck and wildebeest in the background, also zebra and giraffes...

Ugali in Kigali

2008-04-23T02:32:00.002-04:00

I feel like the Cookie Monster when I’m in this part of Africa – can’t get enough ugali. Doesn’t help that I’m a vacuum cleaner by nature, generally eating anything within reach of my arms or legs. My big orifice welcomes anything remotely edible, except manioc ugali (foufou); I like the maize version.

Took the bus back from Bukavu via Cyangugu to Kigali yesterday. Stunning countryside, and we passed many towns where I worked in 1994: Gikongoro, Kibeho, Butare, and lots of small villages. Back then Butare was a ghost town, littered with bodies, no civilians in sight, and occupied only by the RPF. Between Gikongoro and Butare was ‘the line’—basically an international border where RPF control stopped and that of the French military began.

On the French side, all the way to Cyangugu and the Ruzizi River where Congo starts, were Hutu IDPs: some certainly guilty of genocide, some not. But all of them were running for their lives. Anyway, there was no way to tell who was guilty, and culpability was not a priority issue then. The main thing on everyone’s mind was to prevent a second (revenge) genocide.

It took a while to figure it out, but my cramped minivan yesterday was filled with Banyamulenge (Tutsis of Rwandan extraction born or raised in Congo). Politics was the primary discussion point, and lots of laughter about life in general. In today’s ethnically charged climate, Banyamulenge are no longer welcome in Congo. Many felt forced to immigrate to Rwanda, a country they don’t consider home, and that does not accept them. Many never learned to speak Kinyarwandan, as pressure to assimilate in Congo meant speaking Swahili and French. Unwelcome in Congo, in Rwanda they must assimilate again, this time to a society conrolled by Tutsis from Uganda—English and Kinyarwandan speakers.

JG, a friend here, was born and raised in Bukavu to a Tutsi refugee father and a Congolese (Shi) mother. In his final years of study towards priesthood at Bukavu’s prestigious seminary, his mentors and colleagues turned on him. Because he was half-Tutsi, he had to leave. With no English or Kinyarwandan, he came to Kigali and found the professional ranks occupied entirely by Tutsis who’d followed the RPF from Uganda. Along with the Hutu majority here, JG is essentially excluded from participating in the bright and prosperous Kigali of today.

Over ugali and beer yesterday, JG and I recalled the French expulsion from Rwanda in late 2006. For a government that brooks no dissent, no opposition politics and barely a peep from civil society, it was logical that they eject a threatening foreign presence: recall the Kagame indictments issued by a French court (and more recently by a Spanish court). However consistent the logic of this regime—brook no dissent—it is a recipe for open hostility, sooner or later.

JG wants a country where ‘all Rwandans are one’; his NGO works with former prisoners (ex-genocidaires Hutu) to reintegrate into society. Very brave, but essential if the timebomb is to be diffused. JG's work is a drop in the ocean, unfortunately. And as long as the government treats everyone except the Ugandan Tutsi community as potential traitors, the supposed center will not hold.

Congo Planet

2008-04-23T00:59:00.004-04:00

The Earth trembles on this Bukavu morning. Nothing shattering; these are mild but sustained tremblings. Gerry’s white brick bungalow is marked with diagonal cracks and fissures left by previous earthquakes. It’s an old colonial structure, humble and solid, from the 1930s or 40s. But the last serious earthquake knocked his chimney off, and now his high-pitched roof leaks. When such heavy quakes hit Bukavu, newer constructions crumble, landslides destroy roads and whole areas find themselves completely cut off from the outside world until road repairs are completed.

In Congo, that wait can last for years, as the state does nothing. It undertakes no repairs, provides no services—emergency or otherwise—to people affected by conflict or natural disaster. How a country’s government can get away for so long with such criminal negligence is befuddling to outside observers; even insiders get lost in the maze of causality behind dysfunction and crisis on so colossal a scale.

Update on the plane crash in Goma: Congo’s Transport Minister is blaming the tragedy on the volcanic eruption in 2002, whose lava consumed part of the runway, shortening its length. No repairs were ever undertaken to return the strip to its former length; landings and take-offs simply became that much more treacherous. The minister did not stop with the volcano. He also blamed the crash on the war, which effectively ended in 2004, although conflict continues in the eastern provinces. Neither he nor any other Congolese politician ever mentions the absence of an official regulatory body as a probable cause. Yes, aviation is a regulated industry, in the interest of public safety. Does anyone in this government know what such a regulatory body would look like, or how to run one?

Congo continues to sink at free-fall velocity. No vital signs are apparent since elections in late 2006. Popular hopes and expectations were perhaps too high, now people are waking up to their worst fears: plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Some Lega masks from South Kivu, about 60 years old. Exquisite up close.

South Kivu Rising

2008-04-21T09:59:00.002-04:00

Overnight shelling in downtown Bujumbura last week by FNL; attacks on the Rwandan genocide memorial and commemorative activities in Kigali the week before. Is there a link? Re-read the Hutu Ten Commandments, in case they’ve slipped your mind.

Hutu Power is once again raising its fist across the region. For the uninitiated, Pouvoir Hutu is the local species of genocidal ideology that unleashed the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It is also largely responsible for both Eastern Congo’s ongoing mess and Burundi’s failure to consolidate peace, some two years after a formal peace agreement and national presidential elections. Besides ongoing battles between the FDLR/Interhamwe, Laurent Nkunda’s troops and the Congolese national army, the last major assault on Tutsi civilians was the Gatumba massacre in August 2005.

The ideology covers the region; its supply lines and popular support base criss-cross Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and Tanzania. Eastern Congo’s unruly wilderness provides excellent camouflage for extremist Hutu groups of Rwandan or Burundian extraction. Their rear bases are reportedly concentrated in the deep south of South Kivu. If Kagame and Kabila are able to find common cause on confronting this problem, it will likely see renewed conflict in South Kivu. Kagame has already stated that if Kabila gets no results, the Rwandan army will invade to deal with the problem. If that happens, we can expect the resurgence of a regional war.

Under the volcano

2008-04-16T07:58:00.008-04:00

Arrived in Goma by road from Kigali yesterday; a surprisingly painless trip. Goma was flattened by volcanic lava in 2002. The area continues to experience minor eruptions and tremors, including massive methane releases toxic to humans and livestock. But it is a beautiful sight, the Nyiragongo volcano, particularly on a clear night when its lava dome lights up the sky. I have yet to climb it and peer inside; those that have claim it is a risky (not falling in but inhaling toxic fumes) yet amazing experience.

The volcano was the last thing on my mind as I approached the border, fearing I would have to negotiate my entry with drunken policemen and soldiers. Instead I found an efficient customs service manned by rational, non-threatening civil servants, as professional as on the Rwandan side of the border. Small signs of progress make big impressions, given the state to which the DRC has sunk over the years.

An hour later, I learned that a DC-9 from the primary national airline, Hewa Bora, crashed on take-off from the city airport. The fuselage spun into a residential/commercial area and exploded, claiming around 80 lives. DRC is well known as having the worst air safety record in the world. Locals have abandoned the former reference for commercial aviation, ‘air peut-etre’, in favor of the darker language of ‘cerceuils volants’, or flying coffins. See the BBC story here.

Still, I've managed to meet many local NGOs to discuss their work in hopes of connecting them to donors elsewhere. The primary constraint is capacity: very few are large enough to absorb much money, and all reauire direct supervision, regular training and institutional development. Despite a peace accord in 2004 and presidential elections in 2006, Eastern DRC is very much an emergency context, although limited development and recovery activities are underway. The national government is weak; the army provides no security and there are no public services or any basic infrastructure to speak of.

If I could change one thing about international assistance to Africa, it would be to drop the democracy and elections obsession. Security and infrastructure are the most basic conditions for progress. Democracy bakes no bread and stops no bullets in this part of the world.

For the next leg to Bukavu, I'm taking the boat!

A book through my fingers

2008-04-14T02:15:00.004-04:00

Once in a while you stumble on a book that's been out for a while and ask, 'How could I have missed this?' Chris and Katy, my PRISM partners, have an excellent Africa library in Nairobi. I picked up a travelogue/investigation by Sven Lindqvist called 'Exterminate All the Brutes'--the reference being Conrad's Kurtz character in Heart of Darkness.

Out in Swedish since 1992 and in English since 1996, how did it slip by me? Old and lazy, I surmise. To make up for my failings, I've been trudging around with it for the last couple weeks, letting its thesis seep into my veins, like a slow-drip IV.

Lindqvist writes with a delectable dryness, like Kapuscinski (Guardian obit here), one of the few western writers on Africa I respect. Lindqvist also travels 'embedded', and his content is driven by his encounters and their always unpredictable unfoldings. A man infatuated with Fortuna is a kindred soul.

Unlike Kapuscinski, always meek before taxing geopolitical questions, Lindqvist is a gleeful slaughterer of sacred cows, an iconoclast and anti-ideologue par excellence. The thesis of this book is that the Nazi quest for Aryan supremacy and Lebensraum was at its core an application of the expansionist and racist principles of imperialism and colonialism that Europeans had long been applying to the Third World.

In this light, there is little exceptional about the Holocaust itself, given that its precursors were myriad. No one notices this historical continuity because the victims of European expansionism and subjugation were not Europeans, until Nazism--itself a culmination of certain trends in European thought and action over centuries. Is this so shocking a thesis? I think not.

Among the African countries I know well where large scale human massacres have occurred, I'm finding that debate in Rwanda over justice, reconciliation and root causes is relatively free of the usual blame game and denial of responsibility that goes on elsewhere. All are aware that colonialism did much to poison Hutu-Tutsi relations here, and post-independence relations with France have been dubious to say the least. France was forced to pull its diplomatic presence here in 2006.

But Rwandans are not blind to the fact that a homegrown logic was unleashed here: it was not imported or forced down anyone's throat by outsiders. What I've found so uncanny is that many here read the metamorphosis of mind that led to Hutu Power and the 'Intent to Destroy' (the name of Lindqvist's new book on the methods of genocide) that were unleashed in April 1994 in almost identical terms as Arendt's elucidation of the origins of totalitarianism.

A group I met today, Never Again Rwanda, made this case quite clearly, despite no one knowing Arendt or her work. Their efforts revolve around creating a 'culture of reason' in a country where a 'culture of silence' predominates, and automatic obedience before authority is expected and assumed. Critical thinking is rare, and not rewarded. NAR are trying to inculcate these values in schools and among local authorities.

Genocidal ideology is resurging, and eyewitnesses to the genocide who survived and can now testify are being targeted and killed. 'Survivor' and 'perpetrator' are the new categories for Tutsi and Hutu. Although everyone knows that ethnic hatred is an organizing principle to the violence and not its root cause (which is unequal wealth and power sharing), many remain susceptible to ethnic rhetoric. NAR is doing good work; we hope to find them more funding to expand their efforts on a national scale.

14 ans depuis...

2008-04-12T20:20:00.006-04:00

This week is the national commemoration of the 1994 genocide here in Rwanda. Two Rwandan friends took me to the Kigali Memorial Center today, amongst thick crowds. A grenade had been tossed into the place the day before--perpetrators and survivors do not cohabit well, and anti-Tutsi 'genocide ideology' is still very much alive and well in the region.

The experience was heavy and I choked up, but emerged strangely grateful that I had been in the country for the immediate aftermath of the primary wave of killing. Today's visit also brought back a lot of memories from that period of my life that had faded or simply been repressed. I've always contextualized my time in Rwanda in 1994 as just another relief mission to a war-torn country, but I now realize that it was something else entirely.

It's easy to say, but genocide is the most extreme human transgression. That thought needs a visceral connection somehow, otherwise it remains purely intellectual--subjective and forgettable. Today I grasped in my bones that there is nothing else at the bottom of the human psyche after all other trap doors have given way. Beyond madness, beyond reason, beyond fantasy, beyond brute physicality, genocide is the final cul-de-sac at the bottom of human consciousness.

There are several genocide memorials around the country; this one is both a museum and an unmarked cemetery with enormous mass graves in submerged cement containers. Name placks are fixed to an adjacent wall, somewhat like the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

Survivor stories are playing on video screens positioned throughout the tour, which occurs largely underground. That of Valentine runs: "I lay down again among the dead bodies. It was three days after the killings, so the bodies stank. The Interahamwe would pass by without entering the room, and dogs would come to eat the bodies. I lived there for 43 days . . ." [read rest here]

Rwanda is recovering slowly; there is security and infrastructure, the two main ingredients for human prosperity in a post-conflict country. Latent tensions between Hutu and Tutsi are spreading, however, and many I've talked to are not optimistic about the prospect of peaceful cohabitation.

More on all this later...

Assault on dystopia

2008-04-10T03:27:00.014-04:00

I'm spending this month visiting a clutch of countries in East Africa defined, in part, by their history of armed conflict and failed governance. This is a causal relation, not just collective misfortune: conflicts ignite and humanitarian crises ensue because of poor governance. Felonious states, murderous regimes and the eternal recurrence of la politique du ventre.

Somalia being the sole exception, the rest of this neighborhood is entering an 'early recovery' phase now that peace was bought on the cheap. That means no justice for victims; impunity greases all palms. Rebel leaders lay down arms in exchange for posts in the national army, government, or some other enticement. No sticks, just carrots--presto, it's donkey heaven. The international community who funds these charades can only pray the juice is worth the squeeze.

Lower on the rungs of power, paramilitary thugs and drooling militiamen get their reward too: a poorly run DDR program and the chance to return to village life without trial or sanction for all the bloodshed and rape in their wake. La politique du ventre started these wars; in turn it offers an incentive to end them. I recall Goethe saying that however complex man's psyche may seem, the 'circle of his states is soon run through'. Or in this case: 'me want you got', as they say in Sierra Leone.

So besides an Empedoclean dance of love and strife, what drives this dynamic of power and suffering, of 'grievance and greed'? I see a perfectly balanced Pavlovian equation stuck on infinite repeat: Oppression, rebellion, reward. Oppression rebellion, reward. Hunger for power starts wars as easily as it ends them. Keep justice and culpability out of any peace negotiation and the powerful can remain atop the dung heap for generations to come. Laundry detergent dreams for evermore! Even Pavlov's dogs could have smelled the rot of this seamlessly conditioned feedback loop--a mile high stench totally lost on the big brains at the UN Security Council.

But what about the African Union--are they not capable of some form of leverage, an anchor of reason in this ocean of impunity? Alas, the AU still worships the 'brotherhood of African leaders'. In practice this means Mugabe gets a winking tisk-tisk from Mbeki; Obasanjo offers exile to Charles Taylor. The AU says nothing, which is consent. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of ZANU-PF supporters continue believing the absurdity that to vote for Mugabe is their only hope against 'imminent British invasion'. A successful politics of the belly thus appears to confer mass hypnotic powers to the demagogue over the hoi polloi. If the AU ever awakes from its hypnotic state of genuflection, maybe it will stop facilitating the dingdongs at Africa's helm and roundly condemn them.

Taking Tiger Mountain

So who's taking tiger mountain by storm? Here comes a warm jest. Given the colossal scale of human suffering this madness entails, this post-conflict neighborhood is swarming with massive UN operations, hundreds of NGOs doing relief and development, philanthropists, human rights activists and do-gooders of every stripe. It's easy to dismiss the humanitarian circus as futile or naively quixotic; it is a most imperfect enterprise, full of disappointment and disillusion. Nor can it fix any of the political dysfunction and self-serving governance at the heart of Africa's problems. Still, I find hope in the humanitarian movement because it is the only full-fledged assault on dystopia going in this part of the world. Everyone else is either getting crushed under a boot, or donning boots to do some crushing.

I'm in Rwanda right now, and havent been here since 1994 just after the genocide. It offers a significant exception to my rant above. An amazing transformation of the country has occurred; it stands in complete opposition to its immediate neighbors, particularly DRC and Burundi. Under Kagame rule, it is not exactly a democratic place, and there is no independent media or much civil society to speak of. But security and the foundations for economic development are clearly here, and Rwanda has prospered as a result.

One thing I agree with Kagame on is his ambition to wean the country off of international charity as quickly as possible. I too want a world where there are only workers, no expatriate labor force or foreign donors at the top of the food chain in developing countries. International financial assistance to private and public sectors will be needed, but the vast machine of intermediary entities--international NGOs, UN agencies, the World Bank country offices--should disappear, the sooner the better. Direct support to indigenous efforts, providing human capital and capacity are sufficient, will get everyone off the ground and into the air. Hence my visit: our little initiative (called 'PRISM Partnerships') aims to connect local NGOs with financial backers elsewhere.

I'm surprised how many positive reactions I've gotten from people across the board: locals, internationals, cynics and dreamers. From the bottom of the well at night, one can only dream--not of utopia but of resistance strategies, of the infinite possibilities for effective assault on dystopia.

Back in Burundi

2008-04-07T14:19:00.005-04:00

Listening to Boris, holed up in a sweatbox hotel I haven't set foot in since 1994, when we launched relief operations in SW Rwanda just after the genocide.

That was before Burundi's serious problems started, and it was considered the more stable of the two countries. Even in 1994, before the war commenced here in earnest, I recall our jeep breaking down in the center of Bujumbura in a torrent of flashfloods and rainfall. I got out to look under the hood for five minutes or so, then scrambled back into the dry interior to wait out the downpour. Looking around inside I realized that the lurky loiterers who'd materialized around the jeep had also managed to clean out everything inside it--while it was fully locked!

I got back out of the car and trudged ankle deep into the immobile, drenched crowd to see if any of our goods were visible in anyone's hands, carts or atop their heads. Everyone I passed had clearly witnessed the theft, and now either stared at the ground or averted my gaze when I stood before them. Some smiled and looked away. Clearly some sort of game was going on. No one offered any information, or even acknowledged me as I moved between them, rustling and poking among their belongings in search of my own. Their deliberate passivity and blatant complicity was infuriating in a way I'd never before experienced.

That was my second time in Burundi, and I've since worked here off and on at least 7 or 8 times over the years. And I've since had many more things stolen -- each time the takings dig deeper into my resources! So I'm familiar with the silence, the pretending-it-didn't-exist while still in full stare mode that Burundians indulge in so shamelessly at the expense of other people's troubles.

That jeep incident was the first time I'd been dealt a full dose of the well-known Burundian trait people here call 'solidarite negative': never disclose anything to betray a member of a group, even an accidental group (a crowd at a market), because your disclosure will be remembered and brutally avenged. A warm and fuzzy place indeed.

I got here today at noon and met immediately with an old Burundian friend and colleague to download recent political developments and hear where the country was heading. Little appears to have happened since my last visit in late 2006, except that the ruling political party has split, creating a dysfunctional breach.

More on this as my visit unfolds...

Mea culpa: Can it liberate?

2008-04-04T04:23:00.003-04:00

And your silence is all to no avail; today the blinding sun of torture is at its zenith; it lights up the whole country. Under that merciless glare, there is not a laugh that does not ring false, not a face that is not painted to hide fear or anger, not a single action that does not betray our disgust, and our complicity.

-- Sartre, Preface to Fanon's The Wretched Of The Earth

In my recurring fantasy, Americans awake in toxic shock at an administration so far beyond the pale that each of us, asphyxiated and sputtering with rage, simultaneously grasps our complicity, our guilt by association. If nothing else appalls and shames us into action, passivity as complicity just might. In that Rorschach moment where silence and complicity meet, responsibility for national wrongs becomes ours, just as the parents of bullying, violent children know they too are to blame. Once the floodgates of popular rage are open, our leaders will remember to whom they are accountable.

Find the rest of this post on the absence of outrage in American culture over at 3 Quarks Daily.

Victor Bout arrested

2008-03-07T11:34:00.003-05:00

The infamous Russian, known to anyone who's worked in African conflicts over the last twenty years, was arrested today in a sting operation by US DEA officials in Thailand. The so-called 'Merchant of Death', the subject of a book and movie ('Lord of War', with Nicolas Cage) supplied arms and military hardware to all sides of almost every major global conflict, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, and yet lived openly in a Moscow luxury high rise until his Thailand trip. His links to African blood diamonds and Al Qaeda financing have been the subject of much research, mostly by Doug Farah, formerly of the Washington Post.

Hopefully this will stop the US from hiring him as a subcontractor on its 'heavy lift' cargo operations, under KBR, Fedex and others. More on his liaisons with the very governments ostensibly seeking his arrest over the years on Doug Farah's blog here.

Here is Bout on an airfield in North Kivu in Eastern DRC during the war.

Franco, King of African Rumba

2008-03-05T13:47:00.002-05:00

Africa has produced many musical giants. Some, like Fela Kuti and Cesaria Evora, achieve international renown; others influence a wide swathe of musicians but remain relatively unknown to a wider public. François Luambo Makiadi (6 July 1938 - 12 Oct. 1989), the Congolese bandleader and guitarist, is definitely in the latter category. Considered the father of the modern Congolese sound, he is a towering figure even in death, and certainly the greatest the DR Congo (formerly Zaire) has ever produced.

Read the rest of this story, with links to various Franco tracks and videos, over at 3QuarksDaily.

Bosana mayele ya bakoko te!

Surviving survival school

2008-01-21T12:11:00.000-05:00

The novelty of the new year is only starting to dawn on me. Last year was amazing; ecstatic and sad in equal measure, like any satisfying novel or credible cosmology. This year started with an unexpected blast in the face: a week of wilderness survival training in southern Florida. Not of the 'me alone against nature' school, this approach emphasizes the acquisition of primitive/ancestral lifeskills over grin-and-bear-it privation and endurance. Its aims are far-reaching and total--providing one is ripe for conversion, the experience is nothing if not transformative. On the mundane, pragmatic level, its lessons will enable you to park you car and walk into Nature's green veil without a knife, food, water or clothing and 'live lavishly', or so the instructors like to repeat.

Read the rest of my article on the experience over at 3QD. The place is called Tom Brown's Tracker School, found here.

Some other good articles on the School and the man have appeared in Outside and the London Times.

The Ongoing Saga of South Sudan

2007-12-14T14:11:00.000-05:00

Between northern Uganda and now Southern Sudan, heavily armed Nilotic pastoralists have been much on my plate these last two months. I wrote about Karamoja in November, a remote and volatile region of Uganda where life revolves around livestock, primarily the bovine variety. Tending and stealing cattle is how most Karamojong spend their time. I’m now in Southern Sudan where related Nilotic tribes live the same way, but in the context of a long civil war. Bullets fly and cattle reigns supreme.

Read the rest of this missive here.

Karamoja's Militant Pastoralism

2007-11-15T07:29:00.000-05:00

Under colonial rule and since independence, the Ugandan state flag has rarely flown over Karamoja, the remote and semi-arid northeastern region bordering Kenya and Sudan. Armed violence was first documented there among resident pastoralist tribes in the early 1900s. Muskets and rifles gradually replaced spears, bows and arrows. Violence spiked to new levels when automatic weapons flooded the area after Idi Amin’s local armories were abandoned in his 1979 flight from power. At the same time a regional arms market encompassing seven local nations saw escalating armament and munitions stockpiling among Karamoja’s disparate clans.

Read the rest of this article over at 3 Quarks Daily.

This curious inscription was found on the door of a hut behind the local bishop's house in Kotido.

Karamoja's amazing bird life

2007-11-08T07:38:00.000-05:00

I've been in Uganda's remote and arid Karamoja region for the last few weeks looking at abuses against children by local warriors and in the government's forcible disarmament program. A fascinating context, but the real attraction has been the bird life!

Clockwise: African Hoopoe, Go-away Bird, Secretary Bird, Lilac-breasted Roller, and the Crowned Crane, Uganda's national symbol. These arent my photos but I have seen all these during my visit, plus many others. Birds dont scatter from gunfire, it seems.

Independent Media in Sri Lanka

2007-10-17T21:06:00.000-04:00

“These days, we have a saying among journalists,” a radio features reporter in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province told me. “Don’t open your mouth—except to eat.” Disappearances and killings of journalists are on the increase. Diplomats and aid officials characterize the Lankan media as “one of the most closed in the world.” Little wonder that the country’s ongoing civil war rarely makes the international news wires. For those with a vested interest in waging war by any means, a carefully cultivated information blackout is key to sustaining the pugilistic Lebensraum.

Read the rest of this piece here.

The Reluctant Swami

2007-10-11T06:24:00.000-04:00

Leaving Zimbabwe in 1991 for my first visit to India, I traveled directly to the Sivananda Vedanta Ashram in the wooded hills above Thiruvananthapuram, capital of Kerala.

Through a friend I knew the Ashram would be holding a five-week intensive training for aspiring yoga teachers, which I was not. I knew nothing of yoga besides its sequence of warm-up of postures, the so-called “sun salutation.” The training would force me to dive deeply into yoga, well over my head—exactly how I like learning experiences to be.

Read the rest of this post about the absurdities and rewards of seeking spiritual insight in a foreign place, at 3 Quarks Daily.

India Turns Sixty

2007-08-24T04:51:00.000-04:00

Over at 3 Quarks Daily, find this travelogue account of the Indian subcontinent as it celebrates its sixtieth anniversary since independence.

Monrovia mural

2007-07-20T06:03:00.000-04:00

For the rest of my article on current conditions in Liberia and the region, please click here.

Congolese Pygmies in a master/slave dynamic with local Bantu

2007-06-28T20:26:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a trip to assess access to basic services (health, education, etc) of Congolese Pygmies in the province of Equateur. They are largely sedentary but have little access to their own land, and work as day laborers in the fields of the Bantu families who 'own' them. An article on the experience can be found here on 3 quarks daily.

Could France’s new odd couple—Sarkozy and Kouchner—spell the end of French privilege for Africa’s most venal?

2007-05-28T22:27:00.000-04:00

In the 1960s, post-colonial Africa was the most hopeful place on the planet. Post-partum exuberance in Europe’s former colonies was infectious and abundant. Yet fate has not been kind to sub-Saharan Africa. From Namibia to Guinea to Somalia, the path of most sub-Saharan nations has traced an arc of intimate complicity with the predatory appetites of their former colonial masters. Nowhere has this neo-colonial continuation of anti-development and enrichment by and for the few been more evident than in France’s former colonies.

The nature of governance in these ex-colonies attests to the abiding power of the self-serving instinct and immediate gain, over and against the long-term goal of national progress. Such is the confounding irony of Africa’s entire post-colonial era in nations previously occupied by France, Britain, Portugal and Belgium alike: why is the colonial, predatory model of governance so faithfully re-enacted by ruling African elites? It’s as if all that negative conditioning only succeeded in instilling a predatory instinct in the new ruling class. Why are Mandela-style visions for collective prosperity not more common, given the shared experience of subjugation and occupation across the continent?

read the rest of this article, posted at 3quarksdaily, here.

Evaluating hurricane recovery in the US

2007-05-06T15:55:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans area early morning August 29, 2005. The storm surge breached the city's levees at multiple points, leaving 80 percent of the city submerged, tens of thousands of victims clinging to rooftops, and hundreds of thousands scattered to shelters around the country. Three weeks later, Hurricane Rita re-flooded much of the area.

As someone who works on disaster relief programs worldwide, I was invited to come for a month and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of various projects in New Orleans and Biloxi, two centers of urban devastation. The experience thus far has been surprisingly positive and inspiring, an unexpected antidote to my entrenched cynicism regarding relief efforts in places like Darfur or Congo, where I typically work.

[...] I've pondered over some perhaps facile but nonetheless empirical truths about the dynamic of human response to extreme disasters.

Read the rest of this post at 3 Quarks Daily...

The ICC and the war in northern Uganda

2007-04-23T22:48:00.000-04:00

'By today’s measures of geopolitical relevance, Uganda would seem an insignificant country. Its name may trigger a few neuron firings among those who’ve read Giles Foden’s The Last King of Scotland, or seen its recent film adaptation starring Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin.

Ugandans who’ve seen the film are less than delighted. Amin’s son allegedly complained to reporters, “He [Whitaker] doesn’t even look like my father.” More clueful viewers writing in local newspapers claim the film relies on the tired reference of African dysfunction to tell and sell a story to an international audience. Much agreed—although I appreciated the film’s portrayal of complicity with evil as a creeping, dimly conscious evolution, capable of crippling the purest intentions.'

Read more from my April article for 3 Quarks Daily on the war with the LRA and how the ICC indictments and the UN Security Council are affecting change here.

The ICC: ‘A giant without arms or legs’

2007-04-23T22:40:00.000-04:00

'A gripping and maddening slow-motion spectacle, last week’s Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Situation in Afghanistan (available on C-Span), drifted predictably to Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan as senators and experts grappled over why Afghans, like Iraqis, could not ‘get it together after all we’ve done for them’. Another exasperated senator demanded, uncomprehending of why the hunt for Osama Bin Laden was still inconclusive: ‘Why not raise the price on Osama’s head by a million USD a week?’ It is currently valued at $25 million. Surely more millions would do the trick.'

Read more of a piece I wrote in early March 07 for 3 quarks daily on international justice for war crimes and the ICC experiment here.

Evangelical aid agencies finally under scrutiny

2007-03-05T12:09:00.000-05:00

Often operating below the radar and marching to their own drum, humanitarian relief efforts funded and implemented by evangelical Christians are a common feature in many of the world's emergencies.

An AP report from Uganda addresses the professionalism and qualifications of one such organization, Samaritan's Purse, led by Franklin Graham, Reverend Billy Graham's son. Billy Graham was described by Time magazine as an American 'hero and icon' of the twentieth century.

The AP story begins:
"Telephone to Jesus. Hello?" the children of Aler refugee camp in northern Uganda sing, their bare feet thumping the ground as they dance wildly in their concrete chapel. Most camp residents have never used a phone, but they are learning about Jesus. The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, smiled as he watched the children — members of a club run by Samaritan's Purse, the Christian missionary organization he leads.

Critics accuse them of taking advantage of vulnerable communities — forcing people to abandon traditional beliefs in exchange for desperately needed goods and medicine. Graham, though, says his group is meeting spiritual as well as physical needs, and he's proud of what has been accomplished.

Read the rest of the story here.

In 2003, Slate reported on Franklin's global vision as informed by his faith. It is worth a read, and starts thus:

"Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham and a far more influential figure in the evangelical Christian community than Jerry Falwell or even Pat Robertson. Graham is viewed as the torch-carrier for his father, who is still among the most beloved figures in American Christianity. Moreover, the Graham family is close to Bush. Billy Graham led Bush to Christianity in the 1980s; Franklin Graham delivered the invocation at his presidential inauguration.

In addition to being publicly allied with the Bush administration, Graham also happens to be stridently anti-Islam. His list of anti-Islam comments is long; his most succinct was that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion."

Guinea: Arising after two decades of civic slumber

2007-02-15T11:23:00.000-05:00

From ICG's new report: "Guinea has been dominated for nearly 23 years by the unique figure of General Conté, corrupt and desperate to hold onto his privileges. The opposition to the Conté regime, begun during the general strike at the beginning of the year, has taken a bloody turn and has mutated into an unprecedented popular uprising.

Guinea now faces two possible scenarios. There is still a chance, though a diminishing one, for a negotiated solution involving key Guinean, regional and wider international actors. Alternatively, if the Conté regime continues to rely on military repression, it could rapidly bring Guinea to a dramatic spiral of violence: full popular insurgency, with increasing chaos that is likely to stimulate a military take-over in a blood-bath, leading in turn to a possible civil war comparable to those that have torn apart its neighbours in the past decade and with uncontrollable consequences.

Western governments as well as multinational firms that benefit from the country’s natural resources value political quiet but they would be making a serious mistake if this led them to support, even by passivity, an effort to retain the Conté system (with or without its creator)."

Read more from the new Crisis Group Report on recent events, called "Guinea: Change or Chaos"

BBC is doing some good reporting as well here.

Paris: New proscriptions against use of child soldiers

2007-02-07T09:55:00.000-05:00

From the Unicef website:

"Fifty-eight countries represented at a high-level conference in Paris today committed themselves to stopping the unlawful recruitment and use of children in
armed conflicts.
[Former child soldier Ishmael Beah holds up the Paris Commitments at the end of the historic ‘Free Children from War’ conference in Paris.]
The Paris Commitments, as they are now known, lay out detailed guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces. They will complement the political and legal mechanisms already in place at the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court and other bodies trying to protect children from exploitation and violence.

The conference, which was jointly organized by the French Government and UNICEF, attracted dozens of government ministers, donors, the heads of several UN agencies – including UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman – and many non-governmental organizations."
Read more about the Paris conference here.
And read the recent NYT article on Ishmael Beah and his forthcoming memoir called “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” babout life as a child soldier here.

UN Reform: "Death by 1,000 meetings"

2007-02-05T18:23:00.000-05:00

So stands the threat of fillibuster by poor nation member states, who oppose the UN reform agenda that new Secretary General Ban Ki-moon inherited from Kofi Annan.

"Developing nations withheld approval on Monday of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's reorganization plans, supported by the United States and Europeans, who warned of death by 1,000 meetings.

The secretary-general, in an effort to balance posts between major contributors and poor nations, urged 192 member states in the General Assembly to back his proposals to split the peacekeeping department in two and downgrade disarmament affairs but attach it to his own office."

The new SG is finding out that "when you want to change anything at the United Nations, the first question is, who moved my cheese?" (Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman)

My Life in the Bush of ... 3 Quarks Daily

2007-02-05T13:01:00.000-05:00

If I'm not here clicking and typing away for this blog, I'm probably at 3 Quarks Daily where I write longer pieces as a guest columnist every fourth Monday.

3 Quarks is a happy place, and comes highly recommended from notable big brains Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, even David Byrne.

Editor and friend S. Abbas Raza describes the aim and structure of the site:

On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating. We want to provide you with a one-stop intellectual surfing experience by culling good stuff from all over and putting it in one place. In other words, we are what has come to be known as a "filter blog." And we try not to be afraid of challenging material. Though we are a filter blog on all other days, on Mondays we have only original writing by our editors and guest columnists.

Hope you will drop by for a visit...

NGOs to UN: 'Stop Playing Donor!'

2007-01-31T18:07:00.000-05:00

Research released today by Save the Children UK says that the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which was created almost a year ago to accelerate funding for agencies addressing rapid-onset emergencies, is inefficient and actually reduces the amount of money going directly to work on the ground.

The fundamental flaw of the CERF mechanism is that non-UN aid agencies, like Save the Children, are not allowed to receive direct funding from international donors, despite the fact they are usually first on the ground and deliver more than half of all emergency relief.

Basically, where NGOs like Save the Children traditionally get their money directly from donor governments to implement aid programs on the ground, the creation of large funding pools like the CERF mean the introduction of two new 'middle men' into the equation: the CERF itself (located in Geneva) and the UN agency dispensing the cash in country to the receiving NGO. I recently evaluated a similar fund called the Rapid Response Mechanism and found more positive results in terms of impact for beneficiaries. Donors tend to like the CERF and other UN-created funds because it fits with donor governments' desires to see a more robust, accountable UN. NGOs are divided on whether the new middle men are an added value, and Save is clearly opposed.

Their points about overheads are valid. Both UN agencies and the aid agencies carrying out project work are entitled to take a 7% cut of donor funding to pay for overheads and support. Save the Children’s research finds that, if both the UN agency and the implementing aid agency take overheads, only 86p per pound reaches the beneficiaries compared to 93p if non-UN agencies were given funding directly.

Save the Children is calling on the UN, and specifically the CERF board members, to cut out the middle-man and change the rules to allow aid agencies to access the fund directly in the same way as UN agencies.

Read the SC-UK report here: Exclusion of NGOs: The Fundamental Flaw of the CERF

'Third World': Expect spacejunk from Davos

2007-01-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

Davos luminaries will soon be launching laptops to Africa's poorest, or so runs the current saviour complex of today's tech gurus. An article from yesterday's NY Times offered a revealing glimpse into the type of utopian fantasies circulating at this year's Davos World Econcomic Forum.

"How to Wire the Third World" describes how today's technology CEOs dream of global relevance via the salvation of the world's poor. Their debates over how to solve the global 'digital divide' bear the mark of all starry-eyed social engineering endeavors, with the world's digitally illiterate providing a conveniently captive set of guinea pigs. Lack of food, water, education and safety for many in the developing world apparently matter little when you can throw a $100 laptop at the problem.

[An MIT rep demonstrates the $100 laptop]

I'm not one to call the kettle black, for the international development and disaster relief business is rife with fantasies and funding dedicated to a 'better world' for the most destitute of the planet. But at Davos, where so many rich people and self-proclaimed visionaries mingle annually, one would expect their underlings to have researched what prior forms of literacy, infrastructure and knowledge are required if a computer is to mean anything other than spacejunk to an subsistence farmer, a former child soldier, or the third wife of a man with 27 children to feed.

I'm soon headed to northern Uganda to research violations against children by the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan National Army. I'll keep one eye skyward for any falling laptops--although such spacejunk is already common in rural Africa. I used to work with Dinka pastoralists in Southern Sudan who decorated their cattle by hanging discarded CDs from their horns. The CDs were recovered from the trash pits of international NGOs working to improve the lives of southerners during the war with Khartoum. Of course they had no idea what the CDs were, other than round reflective disks once used by foreigners. What would the Dinka do with laptops? Maybe trap wild game in the mighty jaws of the hinge mechanism connecting keyboard and screen.

Sudan, Chad and CAR: a cauldron for civilians

2007-01-08T17:46:00.000-05:00

The nexus of conflict and refugee flows between Darfur, Eastern Chad and the Central African Republic continues to boil over, with tragic impact on civilian lives. The Council on Foreign Relations just released this concise summary of the dynamic and its humanitarian consequences.

Rwanda mediates between DRC govt and Nkunda

2007-01-03T14:14:00.000-05:00

Rwanda is mediating in talks between a government delegation from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda, a Rwandan military spokesman said Wednesday. "This shows the confidence the Congolese government has in the government of Rwanda," he said.

Nkunda launched attacks on Congolese army positions near North Kivu's provincial capital Goma in late November, sparking on-off fighting.

Read the Reuters article here.

DRC: "Dubious mining deals..."

2006-12-27T18:30:00.000-05:00

John LeCarre, the celebrated author, and Jason Stearns,
analyst for the International Crisis Group, published an op-ed in the Boston Globe just before Christmas describing the
challenges to establishing fiscal legitimacy in DRC post-elections.

"JOSEPH KABILA was recently sworn in as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ceremony marked the end of a tumultuous peace process that led the country out of seven years of war. [...] But dubious mining deals between the Congolese government and international corporations may be threatening the nation's chances of rising from the ashes."

Read "Getting Congo's wealth to its people" here...

Uganda: Is the ICC a carrot or stick to the LRA?

2006-12-18T10:15:00.000-05:00

[LRA: children killing children]

The answer is much more complicated. Local perceptions and opposition to the ICC in Uganda are extremely high, despite popular will to see an end to the ruthless terror of the Lord's Resistance Army in the north. Published by Zed Books, Tim Allen's recent book defends the institution's pursuit of LRA leaders and tries to understand Ugandan opposition to the ICC.

From the publisher's note, "The International Criminal Court has run into serious problems with its first big case - the situation in northern Uganda. There is no doubt that appalling crimes have occurred here. Joseph Kony‘s Lord‘s Resistance Army have abducted thousands, many of them children, and have systematically tortured, raped, maimed and killed their victims.

Nevertheless, the ICC has confronted outright hostility from a wide range of groups, including traditional leaders, representatives of the Catholic and Anglican Churches, and non-governmental organizations. Even the Ugandan government, which invited the ICC to become involved in 2003, has been expressing serious reservations. For many, the Court is spoiling the peace process and is making continued warfare and suffering more likely.

This book argues that much of the antipathy to the ICC is based upon ignorance and misconception. Drawing on field research in Uganda, it shows that victims are much more interested in punitive international justice than has been suggested, and that the ICC has made resolution of the war more likely."

Darfur: Western diplomats press for sanctions

2006-12-18T07:39:00.000-05:00

From today's Financial Times:

Sanctions would force change of policy in Sudan.
A proposal from 15 former foreign ministers...

"The surest way to save lives in Darfur would be through a fully observed ceasefire leading to a sustained political settlement that allows refugees and the displaced to return to their homes. In the interim, the under-manned and under-equipped African Union peacekeeping force must be enlarged and strengthened. In meetings in Addis Ababa and Abuja last month, a broad diplomatic coalition recommended a hybrid force that would combine AU personnel with financial, logistics and other support from the United Nations.

In the past, President Bashir has claimed that outside efforts to save lives in Darfur were a ploy to mask western interference in Sudan’s internal affairs. The Addis-Abuja proposal clearly negates that claim, coming as it does with support from the AU, Arab League and UN Security Council (including China). This is an African and Arab-supported plan to save Sudanese lives. Mr Bashir has no more excuses. [...]"

About 2.5 million Darfuris have been made homeless by the conflict

Ethiopia: Mengistu convicted... of genocide?

2006-12-15T05:49:00.000-05:00

The BBC reports on the conclusions of the marathon Mengistu trial:

"Ethiopia's Marxist ex-ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, has been found guilty of genocide after a 12-year trial.

The former leader was tried in his absence. He has been in exile in Zimbabwe since being ousted in 1991 and many fear he will never face justice. In a notorious campaign - known as the Red Terror - thousands of suspected opponents were rounded up and executed and their bodies tossed on the streets. Mengistu and dozens of his officials could face the death penalty. " [read rest here]

Mugabe in Zimbabwe of course refuses to extradite Mengistu. Hoorah, the African Old Boy's Club is alive and well. No surprise there.

Still, the Mengistu conviction is surprising. Mostly, why genocide--what 'genus' of Ethiopians were targeted and killed, besides those sharing the non-physical trait of opposing socialist policies implemented by the Dirgue, the military junta that ousted Haile Selassie in 1974?

Literature on Ethiopia's 'Red Terror' tends to amalgamate the government-sanctioned killing of political dissidents with those who died from famine (approx. 1.5 million) in rural areas in the late 70s and early 80s. These deaths resulted, so the argument goes, from land redistribution programs that forced the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of farmers to uncultivated, barren areas of the country. Little information is available on the legal arguments used to frame the totality of these deaths as genocidal, which would require proof of a state apparatus constructed deliberately for the single purpose of identifying and terminating the lives of individuals exhibiting certain physical traits. Rwanda and Nazi Germany are the classic examples.

My sense has always been that Mengistu's Ethiopia fashioned itself (with Soviet support) a laboratory for Marxist land reform schemes that failed miserably, such that millions perished, as lab rats do in any controlled environment when an experiment runs amok. Large scale humanitarian tragedy, yes, made even worse by a lack of justice for its victims. Social engineering in hyper-drive, yes, but a genocide?

The affair also made me do a quick mental inventory of other African dictators who absconded with their crimes--where are they now?

Idi Amin, the self-proclaimed 'King of Scotland', died in Jeddah in 2003 after a long exile. His ouster by Tanzanian troops ('regime change' a l'africaine) in 1979 ended an eight year rule. Amin never faced trial for his alleged crimes. Up to 400,000 people are believed to have been killed under his rule. [Amin in reflection: "No coffee, just more medals."]

Chad's Hissein Habre is still alive in Senegal, having fled in 1990 after ouster by Idriss Deby, the country's currently beleaguered president. A Chadian government inquiry accused Habre's regime of 40,000 political killings and 200,000 cases of torture during his 1982-1990 rule. After significant international pressure and a call for extradition for trail in Belgium, Senegal agreed to undertake Habre's trial. It has requested international funding to do so.

[With Mitterand, looking rather like a Whirling Dervish.]

Liberia's Charles Taylor first found refuge in Nigeria, but has since been extradited to the ICC in the Hague. He is accused of funding Sierra Leone's former rebels, the Revolutionary United Front by selling diamonds on their behalf and buying weapons for them. RUF fighters were notorious for hacking off the arms and legs of the civilian population with machetes, as well as killing, raping and robbing them.
[See other charges against Taylor here]

UN Convention against Corruption: will it have teeth?

2006-12-11T13:12:00.000-05:00

Transparency International released its Global Corruption Barometer 2006 on Dec 7 last week, in advance of the third annual International Anti-corruption Day.

Transparency International looks at corruption from several angles. Its Global Corruption Barometer tries to show corruption through the eyes of ordinary citizens, by polling around 59,000 people in 62 different countries. It asks people their opinions about which public sectors are most corrupt, and which spheres of life are most affected by corruption (family, politics, business), and how their government is doing in its fight against corruption. This Barometer report investigates bribery particularly--who pays what to whom, why and how much--particularly regarding the forces of order (police, military, civil servants).

International Anti-corruption Day is in recognition of the signing of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in Mexico three years ago. This agreement (in PDF here) came into force last year: 140 countries have now signed on, and 80 have ratified. DR Congo is not among them.

From 10 to 14 December, the UNCAC countries will meet in Jordan to decide the fate of the agreement: the funding of monitoring, how to ensure compliance and secure the repatriation of stolen wealth, among other issues. Compliance, or enforcement of norms, and the repatriation of stolen wealth are of obvious relevance to numerous African countries, particularly those with natural resources and little effective control over their extraction.

On unregulated resource extraction in Africa, the lobby group Fatal Transactions is active and interesting. Their March 2006 report on extractive mining in Katanga, DRC, is worth a look: "The State vs. the People. Governance, mining and the transitional regime in the Democratic Republic of Congo".

CAR: Staging ground for regional conflicts

2006-12-10T05:42:00.000-05:00

And is itself a powderkeg.... Intelligent coverage about dynamics in this little understood region in today's NYT:

The Central African Republic — so important as a potential bulwark against the chaos and misery of its neighbors in Chad and the Darfur region of Sudan — is being dragged right into the dangerous and ever-expanding conflict that has begun to engulf central Africa.
So porous are its borders and ungoverned are parts of its territory that foreign rebels are using the Central African Republic as a staging ground to mount attacks over the border, spreading what the United Nations has called the world’s “gravest humanitarian crisis.”

Read more here...

DRC: Volcanoes, rebel attacks and tense elections all in one day

2006-11-28T02:54:00.000-05:00

What other country can boast such diverse forms of crippling instability, all occuring simultaneously? If the Bemba fanatics in Kinshasa dont lynch you for speaking Swahili and supporting Kabila, Nkunda's men around Goma will gladly terminate you on suspicion of 'oppressing Tutsis'. And don't go seeking refuge in the wilds around Goma, as you're sure to get cooked by fresh lava flows from Mt. Nyamuragira, which erupted last night just outside of town.

Official election results were announced last night by Supreme Court officials in Kinshasa. They spoke under heavy armed guard from their temporary digs in the Ministry of the Interior, following last week's incendiary ravaging of the Supreme Court building by rabid Bemba supporters. Never has the thirst for lawlessness been more accurately expressed. Dont care for rule of law? Just burn down the Supreme Court.

In any other country, tanks would have flooded the streets in retaliation, and martial law immediately declared. In Kinshasa, police forces stood agape for a few reflective moments before the ravenous crowd of assailants, and promptly fled. UN peacekeepers arrived after the fact. The national army did not respond. Days later, Kabila formally asked Bemba to remove some of his estimated 1000-strong private army, of which around 60 were reported to have left the city. Congolese pundits blamed the international community for letting this 'blow to the heart and soul of Congo's national integrity' transpire uncontested, and in broad daylight. When will Congolese leaders assume the minimum of responsibility for their predicament?

From the BBC election graphic above one notes the clear division in voter preference between East and West, as though little mattered more than the geographical origin of the candidates themselves. Throughout their respective campaigns, neither candidate ever developed much in the way of political platform or agenda for reform. It was largely a high school popularity contest, costing the international community over $400 million. The cult of personality as the primary ingredient of political success in the Congo has changed little from the Mobutu era. Old habits, like dictators, die hard.

Now, Kabila has five years to address the country's problems, or will otherwise (one hopes) be voted out of office. Perhaps that in itself is worth all the effort, risk and cost of introducing democratic process to this country. Immediate benefits are intangible at this point.

On a different front here in the far East of the country, on the Rwandan border, the town of Goma has been on tenterhooks these last few days for very different reasons. Dissident general Laurent Nkunda of the national army has been rallying his forces to take the town of Sake, some 15 miles from Goma.

His apparent intention was to repeat his bloody takeover of Bukavu in June 2004. Then, UN peacekeepers stood by and watched, as the national army itself was crushed by Nkunda's powerful but limited number of men. This time, however, MONUC forces were intent on defending Goma, and spent much of yesterday reclaiming Sake and pursuing Nkunda's men with a combination of ground fire and helicopter gunships.

[displacements in Sake]

Nkunda's attack was reportedly triggered by the summary execution of a Tutsi man at a Sake checkpoint, a man with direct ties to Nkunda. Given Nkunda's pretense of defending his oppressed Tutsi brethren across eastern Congo, the murder provided a convenient pretext to begin military operations again, silent since August 2006.

Having been routed by MONUC forces, today the rumor is that Nkunda is ready to negotiate, although his exact terms and conditions are not clear. Amnesty for war crimes committed during his Bukavu invasion are likely among them.

On a final front, just outside Goma at 8pm last night, Mt. Nyumalugira erupted, sending lava 150m into the night sky. There is no threat to the town or its residents, as happened with Nyiragongo in January 2002. Goma town was eviscerated, and thousands were displaced. Whether the gods are crazy, angry or celebrating current events in Congo, no one bothers to speculate. Brute life soldiers on.

[satellite image of Goma, Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira]

Rwanda: France weighs in on genocide

2006-11-24T06:58:00.000-05:00

In the event of any lingering doubts you might have about the facts of the Rwandan genocide, have no fear. France is now the self-proclaimed expert on what triggered the genocide, and who is responsible. A French court has issued warrants for their arrest. The indicted happen to be nine of President Paul Kagame's closest government aides--including armed forces chief James Kabarebe and army chief-of-staff Charles Kayonga.

They are accused of involvement in the shooting down of a plane carrying Rwanda's former president - an incident the French judge claims sparked the mass slaughter.

The elephant in the room here is the preposterous notion that the downing of then President Habyarimana's aircraft was what triggered the genocide. The French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, is investigating the case because the crew of the plane were French and the families filed a case in France in 1998. The credibility of the case appears to rest on a brazen re-reading of history, whereby the Hutu extremists who murdered over 800,000 Tutsis were somehow directed or at least in collaboration with the Tutsi-led army (RPF), supposedly directed by Kagame from exile in Uganda.

Go France! Invent the facts and make it up as you go--the rest of the world does it equally shamelessly!

I cant believe anyone is taking this seriously. Habyarimana's assassination by surface-to-air missile and the assassination of 800,000 Tutsis by machete and petrol fires are separate events. Thousands of eyewitnesses and survivors to the genocide have already attested to the identity of hundreds of convicted genocidaires, all Hutu, most unapologetic: none of them claimed direction or affiliation from Kagame, or any other Tutsi on the planet. Why would they?

BBC and AFP have been reporting on recent developments:

"The French allegations have sparked anger in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where around 25,000 people are reported to have taken part in a government-organised demonstration against France. Foreign Minister Charles Murigande told AFP news agency Kigali had recalled its ambassador to Paris as they didn't "see why he should be there at this point"." I'm tempted to drive over to Kigali this weekend and savor all the anti-French ruckus.

On an entirely different front -- I'm a big fan of flags, so I cant avoid commenting on Rwanda's 'new look'.

Here's the new Rwandan flag, since Kagame took power after the events of 1994. It looks kind of South Pacific to me, less austere than the old one below.

Such was the old Rwandan flag, so devoid of creativity they had to put a big 'R' in the middle to distinguish it from the dozens of other African countries with this same color format.

DRC: Effects of Kabila's victory

2006-11-20T04:21:00.000-05:00

Last week's announcement of the final results from the presidential elections were met with widespread celebration here in the Eastern provinces. I was in Beni, a commercial center in the Grand Nord part of North Kivu province, and everyone went wild. Not so in the Western provinces, particularly in Kinshasa, where Bemba had the majority. "Awa tozo sepila, kuna na Kin bazo lela" was the assessment of one smiling man here. (Here we're celebrating, there they're crying). Kabila won with 58.3% percent of the vote; turnout was pretty poor but I dont have the exact figure.

Bemba, the loser, claims he will contest the elections through legal process, which remains to be seen. Kinshasa is still tense, but no acts of violence since the announcement have been reported.

Here in Ituri it is relatively calm, although populations continue to be displaced in clashes between FARDC (govt army) and local militia groups. As the wider Congolese context is pacified, Ituri no longer qualifies as a 'war within a war', as was long the case. Kabila's election is likely to have a positive effect on the disarmament negotiations with local militia leaders, currently underway. Three leaders of different groups "want to be generals in Kabila's army" (they probably didnt vote Bemba!), and this may provide the carrot that should string them down the path of pacification. They are also demanding amnesty from ICC indictment, which remains to be seen. DRC government negotiators are in the area now meeting with the three leaders, something that has never been able to transpire in the past.

Kinshasa voted in favor of Bemba, from Equateur province north of Kinshasa, claiming he's the "son of the soil" (mwana mboka) -- not Kabila, who they argue is really a Rwandan, nor does he speak Lingala. The two candidates represent the two major cultures (east and west) defining and dividing the national psyche. The electoral contest has strained the limits of their compatibility: between east and west, that is.

Perhaps this grievance will abate with time, particularly if Kabila actually does something to improve the lot of the country, which wouldn’t be hard since its lows have never been lower. Political will to do so has been absent in this country for 40 years. For reasons I find incredibly myopic, people in Kinshasa think that whoever runs the country has to speak lingala and hail from Equateur, like Mobutu.

Very little time to blog or even breathe here but hope to catch up soon.

DRC: ICC 'pre-trial' hearing of Ituri militia leader

2006-11-10T08:22:00.000-05:00

From a recent Human Rights Watch press release:
"Under rebel leader Thomas Lubanga, in ICC custody since March 2006, the Union des Patriotes Congolaises committed serious crimes in Ituri, including murder, torture, rape and mutilation of civilians. "

[Lubanga with underage cannon fodder]

"For example, UPC combatants under the leadership of Lubanga slaughtered at least 800 civilians on the basis of their ethnicity in the gold mining region of Mongbwalu between November 2002 and June 2003. More than 60,000 civilians have been slaughtered by armed groups in Ituri since the beginning of the conflict, according to the UN."

Human Rights Watch further reports that Lubanga's case will be considered for sufficient evidence before passing to trial, although the only current charges against him concern the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Numerous other rebel leaders, active in Ituri and elsewhere, have much blood on their hands but have been given military posts in the newly integrated national army as a means of securing the cessation of hostilities.

Impunity for rebel leaders is a useful bargaining tool when trying to pacify on the cheap, as the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Congo is learning. Lubanga was handed over to the ICC as a 'stick' to encourage other rebels to concede to ceasefire terms, though this is not working out as planned. For victims and their families, an ICC trial of Lubanga on the basis of child soldiers is mere theatre, a miniscule comfort given the scale of carnage associated with this war. Yet this possibility for justice in the Hague is the only light in Congo's legal darkness, whose judiciary system is non-existent and revenge the only form of justice available to victims today.

Read the ICC press release here.

Congo's Pygmies: Can they be 'made equal'?

2006-11-07T09:03:00.000-05:00

For 2007 UN agencies are considering intensive programming aimed at establishing the equal rights of Congolese Pygmies (Bambuti and other groups) long denied by the Bantu groups dominating Congolese society, politics and administration. There is little to romanticize in the Pygmy's remote and rustic lifestyle, whose perpetuation is largely the direct result of relentless discrimination by the Congolese majority.

A National Geographic site covers their status in the country today, complete with accusations of cannibalism committed against various Pygmy groups by presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba's armed group, the Mouvement pour la Liberation du Congo (MLC). The degree to which they are subjected to an unparalleled degree of humiliation, ridicule and abuse by Bantu groups across the country explains their currently abject state.

Within the last five years, I have had the occasion to work directly with Pygmy groups outside Isiro, Orientale, and in the Mai Ndombe region of northern Bandundu. In both instances I was struck by the automatic and fierce prejudice with which they were treated by the surrounding Bantu Congolese, people who were living at basically the same level of extreme indigence and dispossession as the Pygmies themselves. The other primary characteristic of their misery was the degree to which they had internalized the Bantu discourse of their inferiority and ignorance.

They were at such a nadir that they actually believed the racist slander to which they were constantly subjected; their inferiority complex was total and all-consuming. Every aspect of their lives was to them proof not of the injustice of the discriminatory discourse around them but of their own failure, their incompetence, their baseness. Their identity as they expressed it in focus group discussions consisted precisely of the very insults they heard throughout their lives from their Bantu neighbors. It was stunning and tragic—they were totally brainwashed. I would not be surprised if the majority of Pygmy communities in the DRC suffered this same degree of self-abnegation, the result of the extreme prejudice and humiliation to which they are constantly subjected.

I am curious to see how the UN approaches this issue: clearly Congolese society is at fault, rife as it is with profound racism and prejudice towards its original inhabitants. Project proposals I have seen base themselves on UN legal precedents recognizing and protecting the rights of indigenous groups, based on the principle of 'autochthony'.

I’m not convinced that in a Congolese context the autochthony argument is the most appropriate to defend/restore their rights and equality. Autochthony as the right to equal treatment of oppressed indigenous groups has its role in international law, although I'm quite sure no such precedent exists in Congolese law.

But are victimhood and a history of oppression the most constructive rhetorical arguments to restore equality between peoples? Victimhood as a tool of empowerment—'victimhood' being a placeholder for autochthony given the oppression indigenous peoples have universally experienced—does not seem to result in sustainable integration or equality between peoples; it simply perpetuates a discourse of difference, resentment and the ‘you owe us’ mentality. If such is the result, I dont see how it can serve the objectives of integration or equality at all.

Even the Congolese see themselves largely as the ‘victims’ of Rwanda, the international community, colonialism, ad infinitum, to the point where they take no responsibility for their predicament because ‘the world owes them’. As anyone who has spent a long time in this country would agree, this enormous and largely vacuous grievance has achieved nothing for the Congolese. My sense is that autochthony—often a sanitized synonym for ‘oppressed group’—as a rhetorical argument to assert the equality of minorities can backfire with disastrous consequences. What worse fate for the Pygmies to go from the frying pan into the fire by trying to beat back ingrained Bantu prejudice with the victim argument... . But, who knows, there are definitely no geniuses at the helm.

More as the 'plotting for Pygmy equality' unfolds...

"Trade not Aid": Whither the China-Africa Summit?

2006-11-04T04:40:00.000-05:00

From the BBC today: "Beijing is plastered with billboards announcing the China-Africa summit taking place this weekend to highlight the huge and growing relationship with the continent. The summit, called the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, began on Friday and is being attended by the heads of state and government officials from nearly 50 African nations.

Beijing has been busy wooing Africa in recent years. Trade between the two sides is expected to exceed £27bn this year but the Chinese presence has also drawn criticism. The US and the European Union say that China is dealing with what it calls the repressive regimes of Angola and Sudan, ignoring the wishes of the international community. China has been criticised for ignoring human rights and failing to meet environmental standards. However, increasingly reliant on Africa's resources, Beijing defends its actions.

Trade between the world's fastest-growing economy and the 49 African countries it has diplomatic relations with, increased tenfold from £2bn to nearly £20bn over the past 10 years."

====

The Chinese approach to African development is strictly business, avoiding the 'nation building', governance concerns and 'rights-based assistance' that inform the Western strategy, particularly the UN, donor governments, the World Bank and NGOs. The absence of these carrot-stick methods used by the West is welcome news to many African governments, particularly its most infamous rights abusers, such as Sudan, Angola and DRC--which happen to possess its greatest natural resources.

Will trade with China replace the Western aid machine in Africa's most troubled countries? Twenty to thirty years of foreign aid going to Africa from Western governments have had little impact, and most places are far worse off than they were at the time of independence. This is not the direct fault of the foreign aid machine, of course, but its sustained efforts are not having the desired effect.

Liberal economists and libertarians in the West should laud the Chinese invasion, because the constant hand-holding in the form of charity and aid subsidies by Western institutions has arguably generated a welfare state -- precisely the opposite approach to the domestic policies applied in the US, UK and elsewhere to bootstrap the indigent and marginalized up and out of their dispossessed state. If only the Western aid machine actually created jobs for the beneficiaries of its assistance, I could better defend its presumptions about 'good governance', democracy, and human rights.

Africa's poverty is its greatest challenge since colonialism, that much is incontrovertible. It may well be that increased trade with China allows the man in the street to improve his lot, even as Africa's worst governments remain the unaccountable, cronyistic and self-interested institutions they are today. If so, individuals will stand a better chance of prospering, even if their governments continue to be criminal and inept.

DRC: Article on predatory governance

2006-11-01T12:54:00.000-05:00

Research I conducted in 2004 in the DRC on the predatory practices of local administrators and the forces of order were documented in a series of internal reports. In 2005 a summary analysis of these practices and their impact on civilian livelihoods was accepted for publication by Disasters: The Journal of Disaster Studies, Policy and Management. The article, entitled "Democratic Republic of Congo: Undoing government by predation," is finally being published.

But isn't the data obsolete? I wish it were; I wish Congo were a completely different place today. Unfortunately little has changed, and the basic humanitarian and economic indicators remain as low as they were in 2004. The study is thus still relevant to the current landscape in DRC. While I dont have the right to post it here, if you are interested let me know by email and I'll send one along.

Here's an outtake from the Executive Summary:

"(...) Government by predation is an endemic and systematic feature of the civil and military administration, ensuring the daily economic survival of soldiers and officials, who are able to wield their authority in a 'risk free' environment, without oversight or accountability. The paper's conclusion tries to make sense of the persistence of corruption in social and political life, and assesses the capacity of ordinary citizens to reverse their predicament."

Fear and loathing on the eve of DRC elections

2006-10-28T13:41:00.000-04:00

Whew -- happy to get out of Kinshasa before elections tomorrow; tensions real and imagined are in the ascendant. Kinshasa, the giant anthill of 'inhabited devastation' (Conrad), is the night of Lubumbashi's day, where I landed today, quite malarial from too many bloodsuckers in my crappy Kinshasa hotel room.

I'll be working here this coming week before heading to Ituri and the Kivus. A lovely city, this Lubumbashi, home of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first and only true martyr; it is long since my favorite. While looking for photos of the place on the web, I ran into this curious site, apparently assembled by former colonials with a deep affection for Katanga, called Inchi Yetu. Loads of images and curios of the region from past and present.

Lots is happening across the country in these final days before voting occurs tomorrow; some of it making international news, much of it not. Kofi Annan is making the usual appeals for calm, most certainly unheard by the illiterate thugs ruling the streets of Kinshasa. Of particular note are events in Gbadolite, Mobutu's former feifdom, where his son Nzanga Mobutu, a presidential candidate in the August elimination round, was taken hostage by Bemba's forces. BBC reports on it here, but do not capture the intriguing nature of the Mobutu - Kabila alliance. I'll elaborate very unscientifically on this clever alliance below.

It seems that young Mobutu wants political relevance at any price , going so far as to ally himself with the son of the man (Laurent Kabila) who drove his father, Mobutu Sese Seko, from power in disgrace and terminal illness in 1996. Two sons of former enemies now joining forces -- stranger things have happened of course, but why this particular alliance? Both are rich as sin, which makes them equals in one way. They can visit their Swiss accounts together, perhaps even share the same private jet.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, the opposing candidate who's wanted by the International Criminal Court, hails from Equateur province, as does the Mobutu family. He married into the Mobutu clan years ago, compounding their riches with his own self-made wealth. In the popular psyche here, Bemba lays claim to the Mobutu heritage and days of yore when the place actually functioned -- rotten governance for sure but with a patina of joie de vivre that all Congolese recall with nostalgia. Like Saddam's Iraq, it was a brutal dictatorship but a boatload better than anything on the horizon today. Today, any Congolese will tell you, is relentless misery.

(Bemba and Kabila in a clever montage - IRIN)

So young Mobutu's alliance with Kabila is a veritable slap in the face to Bemba and the many Congolese voters who favor a continued reign of the Lingala speakers who descended upon Kinshasa from Equateur when Mobutu senior first seized power in the early 1960s. The alliance also offers Kabila far greater leverage over the Equateur-based, Lingala speaking electorate, with whom he had little clout up until now.

Tomorrow's voting, described by Jeune Afrique l'Intelligent as a 'Match' à la football, will hopefully attract a majority of the population. In Kinshasa people fear violence and are less keen to get out and stand around in the long lines. Adrenaline will be high among the lawless thugs supporting this or that candidate and roaming the streets looking for an exuse to explode. Here in Lubumbashi people are calm and content to see the process unfold, come what may.

Sudan: Blog bites man

2006-10-26T07:24:00.000-04:00

UN envoy Jan Pronk, former Dutch diplomat, was expelled from Sudan over the weekend. The reason given was his ongoing criticism of government atrocities in Darfur described on his blog, which is always a good read. A contentious figure in the humanitarian community working in Darfur, I have always appreciated Pronk for his classic Dutch directness, and fearlessness in the face of government intimidation and opposition to aid efforts. He worked tirelessly to increase access of humanitarian agencies to targeted populations, and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get imprisoned or kidnapped aid workers released.

AFP reported today, "Sudan will not have any further dealings with expelled UN envoy Jan Pronk, regardless of what the United Nations may decide about his future, a senior official said Thursday.

"The decision to expel Jan Pronk is irrevocable because of positions he has taken that are incompatible with his mission in Sudan," foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadek told journalists.

The Sudanese military had accused him of "waging psychological warfare on the armed forces by propagating erroneous information."

[...] Pronk has long been a thorn in the side of the Khartoum government. He has openly called Sudan a "police state" and said refugees in Darfur were victims of "Arabic racism"."

Read rest of AFP article here.

Chad: timeline of the rebellion

2006-10-26T07:11:00.000-04:00

IRIN News offers a useful summary of the rebellion against the Deby regime in Chad, active since late 2005:

"There have been at least a dozen attacks by rebels opposed to Chad’s president and skirmishes with the Chadian army in the last 12 months. After briefly occupying the southeastern Chadian towns Am Timan and Goz Beida this week, the rebels again melted away into the desert on Wednesday, according to a Chadian government spokesman."

DRC elections: SADC monitors cannot communicate

2006-10-25T03:26:00.000-04:00

Representatives from the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, are present in force here in Kinshasa, apparently to monitor elections scheduled for this Sunday, October 29. All the high end hotels (all two of them) are overbooked with election monitors and military from the European Union Force or EUFOR, a supplementary military force here to ensure calm during and shortly after the elections.

All are used to foreign militaries parading around this country, some were belligerents in the war, others here ostensibly to keep the peace. None of them spoke a single word of French or any local language, yet both groups managed to abuse and exploit local women and girls. Foreign armies, such as Uganda, Rwanda, Angola and Zimbabwe, remain above the law--surprise. But UN Peacekeepers have experienced a serious crackdown on their interaction with locals, particularly regarding sexual contact.

A minimum of communication skills ares obviously essential to ensuring positive relations with the local population that foreigners are here, for the time being, to protect and serve. And, not least, to get one's job done. But the wave of SADC officials and election monitors preparing to be dispatched across the country, none of whom speak any French or local language, sets the stage for an epic theatre of the absurd. Imagine the emphatic gesticulations and deaf mute grunts that will ensue as ballot boxes are analyzed and voting procedures contested between SADC drones and the Congolese. I hope someone films the interactions as evidence of the colossal waste of the SADC intervention.

Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president and a major force behind SADC, has always advocated for 'African solutions to African problems'. Surely a common language should be a key competency before intervening in another's sovereign affairs.

DR Congo: Gov't soldiers abducting civilians

2006-10-19T09:09:00.000-04:00

This AP file photo shows a freshly uniformed government soldier walking in the fields around Goma, with its active volcano smoldering in the background. Government soldiers of the FARDC, or DRC Armed Forces, are the product of a long and expensive process of security sector reform, in which all former combatants (including rebels, ethnic militias, and popular defense forces) are disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated (DDR) either into civilian or military life, depending on their capacities.

Human Rights Watch recently released a report documenting a well known but troubling reality about the success of the country's DDR program : troops
from the 'new', reformed government army are responsible for massive human rights abuses, in particular the abduction of civilians for manual labor. Digging and sifting in open mines for coltan, diamonds and gold is one such activity, ostensibly to offset the lack of salary received from their superiors in Kinshasa.

"Congolese government soldiers were sent to Ituri to protect civilians against abuses by local militias, but they themselves are devastating the area," writes Alison Des Forges, Africa adviser at Human Rights Watch.

I will be in the DRC for the next six weeks, so expect more blogging from there. Especially as the 29 October elections approach. My camera was stolen on my last visit in June. I haven't replaced it, so will have to crib others' photos, alas.

DRC: Democracy is no panacea

2006-10-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

Writing this week for "The New Statesman", Michela Wrong, author of In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz and more recently I Didn't Do It For You, gazed with fresh eyes on the problems brewing in Kinshasa in advance of the 29 October elections.

"This is not hysteria," she writes, "the ingredients for serious trouble are all in place. A new form of xenophobia between Lingala-speaking westerners, who regard themselves as "sons of the soil", and Swahili-speaking easterners, rejected as "foreigners", is being stoked by television stations owned by the two candidates. Unpaid soldiers, whose wages are routinely pocketed by their commanders, roam at will. Both men control private armies that opened fire on each other after the first round of voting, leaving 30 dead, and have been importing weapons ahead of the coming showdown. Whoever loses is certain to denounce the results as rigged. Both Kabila and Bemba, after all, are men who owe their prominence to their readiness to take up arms, so why accept the verdict of the polls?"

She concludes, "If all hell breaks loose in the DRC after 29 October - and I desperately hope it does not - it will be tragic evidence of the damage a very human inclination to hope for the best can do."

But is exporting democracy--in this case with a $420 million price tag--the best the international community can do? Most ordinary Congolese lament the lack of tangible benefits to their individual lives and to society generally. Congo needs administrative structures, a capable bureaucratic class to operate these structures, and leaders capable of managing the mechanisms of modern statehood. Can such core necessities simply be bought? Of course not, only the Congolese can provide the human element.

Elections themselves are window dressing, all would agree, and if peaceably implemented, could lend legitimacy to Congo's status in a world of states. But as William Swing, the Secretary General's envoy to Congo, said last week in Kinshasa, if elections go well and the results are accepted by the losing party --but nothing improves in the country, then that $420 million will have been a complete waste.

Washington Post: UN reform falling flat

2006-10-13T12:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the Washington Post editorial page published what amounts to an epitaph of reform efforts at the United Nations, in particular its Human Rights Council. The author described reform efforts aimed at the Council as having 'run amok', and as 'making the old one look good' ("Reform Run Amok").

The old one, we recall, sported the likes of Sudan, China and Libya as Council member states. Attention was successfully diverted from Darfur and Uzbekistan, and focused exclusively on Israeli 'atrocities' in Lebanon and Palestine. The exclusive focus on Israel was possible, according to Mallaby, thanks to Council rules allowing one-third of its membership to effectively run proceedings unilaterally. 17 of the 47 member states happen to be partisans of a so-called 'Organization of the Islamic Conference', and are thus able to sustain their screeching anti-Israel rhetoric while Darfur burns, China and Russia imprison and murder their journalists, and Guantanamo persists.

The editorialist maintains, "For all its faults, the previous U.N. commission occasionally discussed and condemned the regimes most responsible for human rights crimes, such as those in Belarus and Burma. China used to feel compelled to burnish its record before the annual meeting. The new council, in contrast, has so far taken action on only one country, which has dominated the debate at both of its regular meetings and been the sole subject of two extraordinary sessions: Israel."

"[...] Human rights groups that supported the creation of the council, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, admit to being appalled by the outcome; they nevertheless argue that the panel should be given time to right itself. That could happen, they say, if the democratic members of the council organize and work with the same cohesion as the "unfree" states. They also suggest that the United States, which refused to join the council, reconsider."

Personally, I have tended to withhold judgment on the success or failure of the UN's declared reform efforts given their sweeping and comprehensive nature. They will take time, and lots of dead wood will have to go. One can imagine many insiders will resist the process, like derelict renters facing eviction. [Having waited a full five months to get paid for a job I did for UNICEF in May of this year, I know intimately the unseemly odor and ungainly heft of the UN's administrative dead wood.] But widespread reform is urgent and imperative, and many UN careerists admit this.

Kofi Annan rightly recognized that the logical starting place was to fix one of the most glaring blemishes on the UN's tattered face, that of its infamously dysfunctional Human Rights Council. Why exactly this failed so egregiously is unclear. Mallaby recommends cutting off US funding, as happened to UNESCO in the 1980s. The UN only further undermines its waning credibility by allowing such anti-Zionist forums to abide and prosper.

DR Congo: Amnesty Int'l claims child DDR programs are 'failing'

2006-10-11T20:22:00.000-04:00

DDR is the process by which ex-combatants from rebel and government forces are disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated into civilian life. Those who pass certain tests are allowed to remain in the national army, the remaining adults are given a short-term stipend and some vocational training.

Minors, of whom there were an estimated 30,000 associated with armed groups in the DRC, qualify only for civilian life. They are automatically demobilized and reintegrated because their association with armed groups is prohibited by international humanitarian law and a clutch of related international treaties and conventions specific to the rights of children. The work of de-militarizing their minds and acclimating them to school, village life with their family, the poverty and monotony of the life they left behind, is still an experiment. Programs differ significantly from country to country, as new methods are tried in light of past failures. The children dont get any 'better' at the programs, and are generally very difficult to work with, in addition to being violent.

In 2005 and 2006 I've been working in and evaluating several such programs in Burundi and DR Congo. It has been fascinating, but also enormously frustrating. There is always much to criticize in any aid program. Things rarely go as planned and measuring impact in highly insecure and fluid environments is notoriously difficult.

But DDR is unlike any other aid effort because of its close links with human security and its centrality to the pacification of the country itself. It's no exaggeration to say that a poorly executed DDR program adds a new powderkeg to an already volatile situation, and can re-ignite widespread violence when participants decide to withdraw from the program. The consequences of poor performance in other types of aid programs, like emergency nutrition or medical services, do not include returning the country to war. This happened in Liberia: failed DDR programs in the late 1990s meant a return to war. A new
international commitment to bring belligerents back to the negotiating table took much time and money, and only then could another DDR program get
underway.

This week, Amnesty International released its independent investigation into the success of child DDR efforts in DR Congo, called "Children at war, creating hope for the future ."

BBC covered the story, highlighting the fact that the "missing 11,000" children are girls "used as sex slaves by military commanders or regarded as dependents of adult fighters." Girls made up 40% of the children taken by armed groups during the war yet the vast majority remain unaccounted for, according to Amnesty. "A lot of them were used more as sex slaves and therefore the combatants are considering them as their possession or their wife," Amnesty researcher Veronique Albert told the BBC.

It is an accurate claim. Girls associated with armed groups--often abducted by force, sometimes joining voluntarily--have proven nearly impossible to access and get released by soldiers and rebels
alike. There are many reasons for this, most of them cultural: the end result is that many girls choose to stay with these men, with whom they now have children. Read Amnesty's press release here.

With the second round of presidential elections approaching on 29 October, I dont think the problems with the DDR program pose a great risk to a peaceful outcome. There is already enough hate speech circulating and private militias
waiting in the wings, to deliver a crippling blow to the country's recovery. Today's report about Kabila's party representatives in London getting assaulted by a mob of Bemba supporters is indicative of the overt tensions around elections.

Chad: Conflict spills over from Darfur

2006-10-10T09:59:00.000-04:00

For the first time, heavy fighting between Sudanese rebel groups and the government of Sudan has spilled across the border from the embattled Darfur region into eastern Chad, IRIN new service reported yesterday. Previously, such clashes had involved the Chadian army in pursuit of rebels seeking to oust Chadian President Idriss Deby.

"Fighting spread into Chad after wounded fighters started scattering, according to reports. 80 of them have congregated at a refugee camp in Oure Cassoni, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

A dozen refugee camps in eastern Chad host about 250,000 Sudanese who have fled looting, raping and killing in the neighbouring Darfur region of Sudan. At least 200,000 people have been killed in the violence in Sudan and more than 2.5 million have been displaced.

The camp at Oure Cassoni is less than 20 km from the Chad-Sudan border and 400 km northeast of the aid hub Abeche."

Darfur: Bearing witness to civilian massacres

2006-10-09T11:07:00.000-04:00

Just when aid efforts in highly militarized zones such as Darfur begin to seem futile, their compassion a drop in an ocean of unchecked cruelty, one of their core raisons d'etre returns to view.

Reports, communiques and eye witness testimonies of civilian atrocities are one among several options in the humanitarian tool box. Sudanese government forces and their proxy militias have resumed their campaign against civilians across Darfur, and the heightened levels of violence make access and mobility difficult for aid agencies. The government claims it has returned to its rightful mission of clearing the state of insurgents. Witnesses say the attacks are indiscriminate and intended to decimate and terrorize specific civilian groups, whether they are armed or not.

An exerpt from a recent interview with operations directors of Doctors Without Borders captures the difficulties of responding effectively in Darfur, where twelve aid workers have been killed since June 2006 alone. "We are currently reaching the limits of our assistance. We do not have access to people who are directly affected by the conflict. [...] Today, the survival of populations in pockets where humanitarian assistance was still possible is jeopardized. Because of the lack of security, some of our operations in the field has been temporarily suspended, or continue with a smaller number of aid workers. Another consequence is that all our mobile medical activities, which target especially nomadic populations, had to stop."

Despite these difficulties, many agencies continue to document and report on ongoing atrocities, particularly against women. Rape of Darfuri women and girls is regular practice for government militias aiming to terrorize the population, break up families and destroy individual lives.

Documentation and public condemnation of the practice by aid agencies and human rights groups has been strident since war broke out in 2003. Government spokesmen dismiss the reports as 'Western propoganda', but will arrest aid workers involved in treating and documenting rape to dissuade them. So goes the debacle.

A UN communique today denounced the practice: "The rising rate of violence against women and children is increased by the participation of many different groups in these crimes. Warring parties seeking retribution against their opponents by inflicting humiliating punishment on civilians are flagrantly disregarding their obligations under international law. Moreover, there is scant evidence that culprits are being actively sought, let alone punished, for their crimes." [read the UN communique]

The Office for the High Commission of Human Rights, known as OHCHR, just published a detailed collection of testimonies documenting recent events in which "300 to 1000 armed militia from the Habbania Arab tribe carried out a series of attacks on some 45 villages in the Buram locality of South Darfur in late August. The attacks were reportedly marked by widespread targeting of civilians from tribes of “African” origin, wholesale burning of villages, looting and forced displacement. The population of the villages attacked is estimated to be about 10,000 people, mainly of the Zaghawa, Massalit and Misserya Jebel tribes.The attacks appear to have been conducted with the knowledge and material support of Government authorities, and the death toll is estimated to be as many as several hundred civilians."

There is one sign of hope in all this tragic reporting: at least there are people on the ground to document and bear witness to the seemingly relentless violence committed by government forces, and Darfuri rebel groups as well, against civilians.

UN Assembly: Annan's departure speech

2006-10-03T09:38:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while; it was delivered in late September in New York. It's the usual optimism about the state of the world one expects from those in high public office, none of whom seem to want to admit that the planet is going up in a pyromaniac flame-throwing frenzy. That said, I admire the man and his cause. His remarks about terrorism are interesting, and it is refreshing to be reminded that the UN is not the pious adherent of the pro-globalization orthodoxy so common on these shores. More cash for the rich does not float all boats. Here's the speech in full:

Madam President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

When I first spoke to you from this podium, in 1997, it seemed to me that humanity faced three great challenges. One was to ensure that globalization would benefit the human race as a whole, not only its more fortunate members. Another was to heal the disorder of the post-cold-war world, replacing it with a genuinely new world order of peace and freedom, as envisaged in our Charter. And the third was to protect the rights and dignity of individuals, particularly women, which were so widely trampled underfoot.

As the second African to serve as Secretary-General, I felt that all three of these challenges-- the security challenge; the development challenge; the challenge of human rights and the rule of law -- concerned me directly.

Africa was in great danger of being excluded from the benefits of globalization -- indeed, of being left to rot on the margins of the world economy. Africa was also the scene of some of the most protracted and brutal conflicts.

And many of Africa's people felt they were unjustly condemned to be exploited and oppressed, generation after generation, since colonial rule had been replaced by an inequitable economic order on the global level, and sometimes by corrupt rulers and warlords at the local level. In the decade since then, many people have been struggling to confront these three global challenges.

Much has been achieved, but events have also presented us with new challenges -- or rather, have given the old ones new form, or a sharper bite.

In the economic arena, both globalization and growth have continued apace. Some developing countries, notably in Asia, have played a major role in this growth. Many millions of their people have thereby been released from the prison of perpetual poverty. Meanwhile, at the level of development policy, the debate has advanced, moving from rival models to agreed targets. And the world has now recognized HIV/AIDS as a major challenge to development, and begun to confront it. I am proud of the role the United Nations has played in this.

Development, and the Millennium Development Goals, now take pride of place in all our work. But let's not delude ourselves. The Asian miracle is yet to be replicated in other parts of the world. And even within the most dynamic Asian countries, its benefits are far from equally shared. By the same token, the Millennium Goals are unlikely to be achieved everywhere by 2015.

True, in many developing countries there is now a much better understanding of what good governance is, and why it's important. But many still fall short of it in practice. True, there is progress on debt relief, as well as encouraging promises on aid and investment. But the 'global partnership for development' is still more phrase than fact -- especially in the all-important area of trade. My friends, globalization is not a tide that lifts all boats. Even among those who the statistics tell us are benefiting, many are deeply insecure, and strongly resent the apparent complacency of those more fortunate than themselves. So globalization, which in theory brings us all closer together, in practice risks driving us further apart. Are we any more secure against the second challenge -- the ravages of war?

Again, some statistics would tell us so. There are fewer inter-state conflicts than there used to be; and many civil wars have ended. Here too, I am proud of the United Nations' role in this. And I am proud of what my fellow Africans have achieved in ending many of the conflicts that disfigured our continent. But here too, we should be under no illusion.

In far too many parts of the world -- especially the developing world -- people are still exposed to brutal conflicts, fought with small but deadly weapons. And people in all parts of the world are threatened -- though some are more aware of it than others -- by the spread of weapons of mass destruction. It is shameful that last year's Summit Outcome does not contain even one word about non-proliferation and disarmament, basically because states could not agree which of the two should be given priority. It is high time to end this dispute, and tackle both tasks with the urgency they demand. Moreover, just as some who benefit from globalization may feel threatened by it, so, many who are statistically safer from conflict do not feel safe.

For that, we have terrorism to thank. It kills and maims relatively few people, compared to other forms of violence and conflict. But it spreads fear and insecurity. And that in turn drives people to huddle together with those who share their beliefs or their way of life, while shunning those who appear 'alien'.

Thus, at the very time when international migration has brought millions of people of different creed or culture to live as fellow-citizens, the misconceptions and stereotypes underlying the idea of a 'clash of civilizations' have come to be more and more widely shared; and insensitivity towards other people's beliefs or sacred symbols -- intentional or otherwise -- is seized upon by those who seem eager to foment a new war of religion, this time on a global scale. Moreover, this climate of fear and suspicion is constantly refuelled by the violence in the Middle East.

We might like to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. But it is not. No other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield. As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation; and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses and in dance-halls: so long will passions everywhere be inflamed.

On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged, by standards that are not applied to its enemies -- and too often this is true, particularly in some UN bodies.

On the other side, people are outraged by the disproportionate use of force against the Palestinians, and by Israel's continued occupation and confiscation of Arab land. As long as the Security Council is unable to end this conflict, and the now nearly 40-year-old occupation, by bringing both sides to accept and implement its resolutions, so long will respect for the United Nations continue to decline.

So long, too, will our impartiality be questioned. So long will our best efforts to resolve other conflicts be resisted, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose peoples need our help just as badly, and are entitled to it. And so long will our devoted and courageous staff, instead of being protected by the blue flag, find themselves exposed to rage and violence, provoked by policies they neither control nor support.

But what about the third great challenge facing humanity: the challenge of the rule of law, and our rights and dignity as human beings? Here, too, there has been significant progress. More rights have been enshrined in international treaties -- and this Assembly is now about to codify the rights of a group who particularly need it: people who suffer from handicaps and disabilities. More governments today are elected by, and are accountable to, those whom they govern.

Humanity has actually brought to justice some of those who committed the most heinous crimes against it. And this Assembly, meeting last year at the highest level, has solemnly proclaimed the responsibility -- of each individual State in the first instance, but ultimately of the whole international community, acting through the United Nations to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. And yet.

And yet. Every day, reports reach us of new laws broken; of new bestial crimes to which individuals and minority groups are subjected. Even the necessary and legitimate struggle around the world against terrorism is used as a pretext to abridge or abrogate fundamental human rights, thereby ceding moral ground to the terrorists and helping them find new recruits. Sadly, once again the biggest challenge comes from Africa --from Darfur, where the continued spectacle of men, women and children driven from their homes by murder, rape and the burning of their villages makes a mockery of our claim, as an international community, to shield people from the worst abuses. In short, Madam President, the events of the last ten years have not resolved, but sharpened, the three great challenges I spoke of an unjust world economy, world disorder, and widespread contempt for human rights and the rule of law. As a result, we face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community, upon which this institution stands.

And this is happening at the very time when, more than ever before, human beings throughout the world form a single society. So many of the challenges we face are global. They demand a global response, in which all peoples must play their part.

I deliberately say 'all peoples', echoing the preamble of our Charter, and not 'all states'. It was clear to me ten years ago, and is even clearer now, that international relations are not a matter of States alone. They are relations between peoples, in which so-called 'non-state actors' play a vital role, and can make a vital contribution. All must play their part in a true multilateral world order, with a renewed, dynamic United Nations at its centre. Yes, I remain convinced that the only answer to this divided world must be a truly United Nations. Climate change, HIV/AIDS, fair trade, migration, human rights -- all these issues, and many more, bring us back to that point.

Addressing each is indispensable for each of us in our village, in our neighbourhood, and in our country. Yet each has acquired a global dimension that can only be reached by global action, agreed and coordinated through this most universal of institutions. What matters is that the strong, as well as the weak, agree to be bound by the same rules, to treat each other with the same respect. What matters is that all peoples accept the need to listen; to compromise; to take each other's views into account. What matters is that they come together, not at cross purposes but with a common purpose: a common purpose - to shape their common destiny. And that can only happen if peoples are bound together by something more than just a global market, or even a set of global rules.

Each of us must share the pain of all who suffer, and the joy of all who hope, wherever in the world they may live. Each of us must earn the trust of his fellow men and women, no matter what their race, colour or creed, and learn to trust them in turn. That is what the founders of this Organization believed in. It is what I believe in. It is what the vast majority of people in this world want to believe in. And that is what has spurred the reforms and new ideas of the United Nations over the last frenetic decade.

From peacekeeping to peacebuilding, from human rights to development and humanitarian relief, I have been lucky enough to preside over the Secretariat -- and its wonderful, devoted staff at a time when your ambitions for the Organization have sometimes seemed limitless -- although your pocket books less so. These last few weeks, especially, as I travelled through the Middle East, I saw again the legitimacy and the reach of the United Nations. Its indispensable role in securing the peace in Lebanon has reminded us all how powerful this Organization can be, when everyone wants it to succeed.

Madam President, dear friends: This is the last time I shall have the honour of presenting my annual report to this Assembly. Let me conclude by thanking you all for allowing me to serve as Secretary-General during this remarkable decade. Together we have pushed some big rocks to the top of the mountain, even if others have slipped from our grasp and rolled back. But this mountain with its bracing winds and global views is the best place on earth to be. It's been difficult and challenging, but at times thrillingly rewarding. And while I look forward to resting my shoulder from those stubborn rocks in the next phase of my life, I know I shall miss the mountain. Yes, I shall miss what is, when all is said and done, the world's most exalting job. I yield my place to others with an obstinate feeling, a real obstinate feeling of hope for our common future. Thank you very much.

Peacekeeping missions extended in Liberia, DRC, Ethiopia/Eritrean border

2006-10-02T12:55:00.000-04:00

The UN Security Council voted unanimously today to extend the mandates of the United Nations peacekeeping missions in Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Liberia, which would have otherwise expired at the end of this month.

Council members adopted resolutions extending the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE), the UN Organization Mission in the DRC (known by its French acronym MONUC), and the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). UNMEE has been extended until 31 January 2007, MONUC’s authority continues through 15 February 2007 and the mandate of UNMIL is now extended until 31 March 2007.

Read the full press release here.

The three peacekeeping contexts face very different challenges, yet all are equally central to building environments conducive to reconstruction and regional stability. All three contexts form each a unique epicenter of far-reaching regional tensions and cross-border interference that have caused much suffering and little political gain for the last 10 - 15 years.

How Charles Taylor's Liberia and Congo's conflict destabilized their respective regions and claimed millions of lives are well known. Less covered in the popular press is the degree to which Eritrea and Ethiopia have competed for dominant influence in both the Sudanese conflict (North & South, Darfur, and more recently the East), and in Somalia. There, Eritrea reportedly backs the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) while Ethiopia supports the feeble regime of President Ghedi, a product of western-financed mediations in Nairobi over the last 8 years. That Ghedi has been calling for a return of UN peacekeepers further allies him to the detested international community.

Congo will surely need the peacekeepers through 2007 to help control the probable violence that will follow the 29 October electoral showdown between presidential hopefuls Kabila and Bemba. International Crisis Group just released a report about the 'state of the state' in the buildup to this important date in Congolese history.

"Because both Kabila and Bemba will be tempted to use violence should they lose the second round, and the former in particular is very strong militarily, the Congolese government and the international community must move quickly to make secure the run-off as well as the provincial assembly elections on 29 October. Militias also threaten stability elsewhere in the country, notably in North Kivu and Ituri, but the capital is likely to be the most sensitive location again."

Take a tour: Kim Gjerstad's Congo

2006-10-02T10:11:00.000-04:00

Check out this blog from Kinshasa by Kim Gjerstad, whom I've met a couple of times. The photos are particularly impressive. Images from the Ruwenzori mountains, long inaccessible because of insecurity, are stunning. Also see his photos from Salonga national parks (I&II), which few outsiders have ever visited owing to their geographic inaccessibility deep in the center of the country where roads have long been reclaimed by nature.

Here's yesterday's posting.

Street Kids Get Political and Get Locked Up

Top: street kids rioted in town two weeks ago.
Bottom: they've been catching them and locking them up since.

Kim writes: "Life without street kids is awesome. Last week, my flat mate, Tim, and I discovered the joy of walking free. Kinshasa’s main throughway, the infamous Boulevard 30 Juin, was peaceful. “The city feels like a normal city!” cried out Tim. So fine it was, we went for pleasure stroll, the first in three years."

Yes, you read that correctly. Kinshasa is not yet a place for the defenseless pedestrian. Nor has it been since 1991, the first time (of many) that I've been evacuated from there.

[read/see more here]

Images from Mogadishu

2006-09-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

Some more photos from the NYT Sunday article on life in Mogadishu and changes since the takeover by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

The former Mogadishu municipality buildings built by Italy in the late 1920's are now destroyed and riddled with bullet holes.

Military recruits jog in formation during an exercise. Former fighters allied to the warlords who previously ran Mogadishu now train at a military camp run by the Islamists.

A boy lays out in front of Mogadishu's largest mosque, The Islamic Solidarity Mosque, seen in the distance.

Photos: Jehad Nga for the NY Times

This BBC map shows UIC areas of control after the taking of Kismayo, and the enclave that remains of Baidoa, where Ethiopian troops are currently coming to the aid of President Ghedi, who was chased from the capital earlier this year.

Somalia: Islamists pacify Mogadishu; setbacks in Kismayo

2006-09-25T09:59:00.000-04:00

It may be premature to pronounce on 'peace returning to Mogadishu', but the recent gains in territory by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC--yes, they're on the US terrorist list) are offering enough stability for local commerce and schooling to resume at a level unseen in years. Primary schools are mixed gender, and soccer is allowed--not what anyone expected from the UIC, who were tagged with the Taliban label early on.

Yet extremist elements are still prevalent in areas under UIC control. Witness the murder of an Italian nun in a Mog hospital last week, an apparent retaliation for the Pope's citation of a 1500 year-old quote about Islam.

Yesterday the NY Times covered life under the UIC:

"... It is hard to imagine that this is Mogadishu, the same Mogadishu of “Black Hawk Down,” and clan against clan and 15 years of anarchy. But over the past three months, the Islamists in control here have defied international expectations — in many ways. Not only have they pacified one of the most dangerous cities in the world, they also seem to have moderated their message."

“Nobody knows where we’re headed,” said Ahmed Mohammed Ali, chairman of a Mogadishu human rights organization. But, he added, the Islamists “pacified this place and brought the clans together. Whatever you think about them,” he said, “you can’t overlook that.”

This morning in Kismayo, the second largest city about 500km south of Mog, UIC troops entered and took the town unopposed. Civilians gathered to welcome their arrival, but well-armed local khat traders organized a protest, which turned violent.

UIC plans to ban the lucrative khat trade, and the daily supply flights from Nairobi that keep the population munching on the bitter green twigs. The US military tried to shut down the khat trade when they arrived in 1992 (setting fire to tons of the stuff) and triggered the hatred of Somalis that would ultimately drive them from the country in shame. Perhaps the Islamists will offer some sort of compromise.

Also this morning, dozens of trucks carrying Ethiopian troops rolled across the border towards Baidoa, the residence in exile for the beleaguered Somali President who suffered an assassination attempt last week. I'm very curious to see how the region would respond a possible confrontation between Ethiopian troops and the local Islamists. My Somali taxi drivers here in Washington are already seething with rage at the audacity of their Ethiopian neighbors.