Zimbabwe: peaceful transition?
One more interesting session at the Achebe Colloquium today at Brown. The original subtitle was “Prospects for a Stable Democracy or Dictatorship.” Robert Rotberg proposed the refocus to peaceful transition, which seems to me right. One way or another the Mugabe dictatorship is finished.
Alex Vines, Chatham House: The economy is improved (inflation down), but the political situation is highly uncertain. The peace agreement of 2008 has run its course. Any election by 2013 will be a tight contest. Mugabe, now 89, likely to stand again (!). SADC (the Southern African Development Community) is underperforming economically, which is one reason South Africa is engaging on Zimbabwe. SADC election observers are a good idea.
Blair Rutherford, Carleton University: Who opposes democratic state? “Those with horns are hard to hide behind grass”: security forces, diamond and land tycoons, dominant culture of national politics (“politics is war”). These forces will continue to shape the results.
John Campbell, Council on Foreign Relations: Elections in Zimbabwe will likely occur in the first half of 2012, followed by bloodletting. What does the U.S. do to avoid this? American leverage is weak, maybe nonexistent. Zimbabwe is a marginal issue in Washington. Zimbabwe does however impinge on South Africa, where demands for expropriation of white-owned land are growing. Washington should be engaging with South Africa, SADC and China. American NGOs and U.S. government should object to Mugabe’s exclusion of international election observers. USG should commit to holding individuals perpetrating electoral violence accountable. This would be a policy of skim milk: words and symbols, no sticks and stones.
Robert Rotberg, Harvard: The dictatorship will not continue in its current form. We need a strengthened dialogue and accountability, as suggested by Campbell. What is happening that suggests a peaceful transition is possible? Eighty-ninety per cent of the country supports MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), which has serious talent able to run a democracy. ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, Mugabe’s political party) loses in anything like a fair election. The country has diamonds and infrastructure, even if it has lost two-thirds of its GDP per capita. Still it has the best-educated population in Africa. SADC is more active, Mugabe is aging and ill, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is interested. But Mugabe is still alive and killing his opposition, corruption is rife, diamonds make it possible, the Chinese help ZANU-PF, media are government controlled, there is no constitution, ZANU-PF will is experienced and accomplished at rigging elections (especially the count). Net assessment: at best mildly hopeful, until SADC takes a firmer stand.
Chitsaka Chipaziwa, Zimbabwe ambassador to the UN: No-show. No surprise.
Vivian Nkechinyere Enomoh, Nigerian Independent Electoral Commission: Need truly independent electoral commission, fully funded by the international community.
Emeka Anyaoku, Former Secretary General The Commonwealth: Speaking from the floor, he underlined the historical role of Mugabe, the centrality of the land issue and the resulting support for Mugabe both inside Zimbabwe and in the rest of Africa. It is not clear that he will lose the election. Chinua Achebe concurred in that view.
Bottom line: Prospects for free and fair elections and peaceful transition are uncertain. It is up to AU, SADC and the Chinese to counter ZANU-PF securicrats and ensure it happens.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
More China in Africa: collaboration or colonialism?
There was a second session on Africa at the Achebe Colloquium this morning. Here is my effort to capture main points.
Tijan Sallah, World Bank: Africa is doing well economically, because of Chinese Brazilian trade and investment and because of improved policies within Africa.
Richard Dowden, Royal African Society: China has been good for Africa economically. Western companies moved back in to compete and to subcontract to the Chinese. Africa has been growing ever since The Economist declared the continent hopeless. China has no mission to change Africa. Africans can play off Chinese against the West, freeing Africa from colonial legacy. Problems for the Chinese: political role at the UN, lack of employment for Africans in Chinese projects, illegal immigration of Chinese to Africa, Chinese purchases of land and indiscriminate arms trading.
Mark Wells, Human Rights Watch: In Zambia, Chinese are good investors but bad employers. They have purchased and revived copper mines, but conditions of employment (health and safety standards, hours, pay) are deplorable. Result is many strikes and some improvements. Effective regulation is lacking. It is the African governments that need to protect worker rights. When there is enforcement, the Chinese respond appropriately.
Muna B. Ndulo, Cornell: Chinese have no colonial history in Africa and supported liberation struggles. Africa has benefited from higher commodity prices and Chinese trade and investment. The Chinese are doing what others do. The issue is how Africa can avoid squandering the benefits. In Zambia, regulation is weak not because of the Chinese but because of the period of nationalization of the mines. The Zambians now have to rebuild capacity to regulate. Africa needs improved governance.
Brent Huffman, Northwestern: His documentary film showed the Chinese in Senegal enterprising and successful but preferring to spend time within their own community and importing many needs from China. Ordinary Senegalese are unhappy with cheap, low quality Chinese goods, but official Senegal welcomes the Chinese with open arms.
Tony Gambino, former USAID mission director, Democratic Republic of Congo: Collaboration, yes, but for whom and for what? China came into DRC in a big way after 2006. Focus is on commercial benefit (metals) with tied loans for social or infrastructure projects, repaid by profits from commercial activity. Unlike Western companies, Chinese build infrastructure far from their mining interests. DRC presidency benefits from the Chinese activity, contravening World Bank-sponsored mining code. But in the end the Chinese have had to accept internationally-imposed requirements.
Xiaohon He, Quinnipiac University: China’s rural entrepreneurs are the real engine of reducing poverty in China. Unlike the Western model, political development is coming after economic development. Now China is running into labor and environmental issues, as well as criticism of its currency practices. Chinese are being forced to move abroad prematurely, with bad labor and environmental practices. But the Chinese model may be more appropriate for Africa than the Western model.
Joseph E. Ahaneku, Nnamdi Azikiwe University: China is providing a lot of education and cultural aid. Confucius institutes are successful. Chinese are open to a two-way street, including teaching of Ibo in China. Africa should embrace Chinese and propagate African culture in China.
Bottom line: Chinese economic activity in Africa looks positive from the African perspective, even if it raises issues because of the weakness of African states. The right response is to strengthen those states so that they can deal with the Chinese more effectively (but that conclusion is more mine than that of any of the panelists).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
China and the U.S. in Africa
I’m at the Chinua Achebe Colloquium on Africa at Brown this weekend. I thought this session on “China and the United States in Africa: Cooperation or Confrontation” would be of particular interest:
- Robert Rotberg, Harvard: Chinese goods and traders are ubiquitous in Africa, Chinese growth is Africa’s great hope but Chinese human rights record in Africa is appalling. China’s focus is access to resources: trying to convince Khartoum and Juba to settle pipeline issues (which is a good thing), helping with the Zimbabwe crackdown on protests. Chinese and Americans in Africa have different agendas and will have to find a mutual accommodation.
- Walter Carrington, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria: China offers trade and aid without onerous Western conditions. But United States also is there for its own interests, and it was indifferent to moral considerations throughout the Cold War. U.S. business would gladly see Washington behave the way Beijing does. Africom assures access to African oil supplies. We should avoid competition with China, which behaves like the capitalists we hoped they would one day become.
- James Hentz, VMI: Strategic framework is important: either realist, in which China challenges the U.S. (power transition model) and tries to deny U.S. resources, especially oil, metals; or liberal, in which growing trade and commerce is a good thing, Chinese construction of infrastructure benefits other powers as well. China and U.S. both have huge stakes in stability in Africa, but China does not like American advocacy of democracy. Chinese will want good governance and transparency in Africa, but not American-style democracy.
- Scott D. Taylor, Georgetown: U.S. and China so far moving along parallel tracks. How do Africans view the two? China viewed favorably in most countries. Even in Zambia, China has traction. Views of China are approaching the highly positive levels of views of the U.S., which are slipping because of Africom, hunt for Lord’s Resistance Army, use of drones in Somalia, reduction of PEPFAR funding, toppling of Qaddafi. Anti-U.S. sentiment is growing, to the benefit of the Chinese.
- Omer Ismail, Enough! China and the U.S. compete for resources and markets. The approaches are different: China leads with the state, the U.S. with the market. China has now passed the U.S. in trade with Africa, in corporate deals with Africa, in percentage of oil imports from Africa, supplying weapons to all sides. Possible areas for cooperation: agriculture, security and diplomacy, and environment. What is in it for the people of Africa? That is what U.S. and China should focus on. There is a real possibility for cooperation.
- Deborah Brautigan, American University: China represents a big challenge that echoes for Americans the Cold War and Japanese economic competition. It is a developing country with low labor and environmental standards. Chinese foreign policy emphasizes mutual benefit and non-interference. But China is changing rapidly, we often exaggerate Chinese activities in Africa and have little understanding what they are actually doing. Chinese credit practices can be good because they guarantee that the Chinese get what they pay for, which is better than much Western foreign assistance has done.
Overall message: some competition is inevitable, but the Chinese role in Africa is already more positive that many think (finance, infrastructure) and more like U.S. private sector behavior than we like to admit. There is a negative side: supporting unworthy rulers, use of veto at the UN, Chinese racial attitudes, and company exploitation of diamonds in Zimbabwe. But Chinese are evolving in a direction that may allow more cooperation on Africa in the UN and in an Africa that is increasingly democratic and resistant to exploitation.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Responding to the Islamist wave
Islamists have now won pluralities in recent Tunisia, Morocco and the first round of the Egyptian elections. There is every reason to believe they will continue to do well in Egypt and in Libya. How should the U.S. and Europe respond?
Calmly. It is not surprising that relatively well-organized Islamists, who for decades led often underground opposition to nominally secularist and nationalist autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya (and to the monarchy in Morocco), are doing well in the first sort-of free and fair elections. Yes, relatively secularist youth led the protests earlier this year, but they are not reaping the electoral fruits. There has not been nearly enough time for them to organize, and in Egypt they have been more inclined to protest in Tahrir than to get out to the hustings. Secularism, stained by autocrats and often viewed as synonymous with atheism (not only in Muslim countries), faces a long uphill struggle. Separation of mosque and state is not even on the horizon.
In Tunisia and Morocco, the parties winning pluralities seem determined to avoid the worst excesses of Islamism, but there are going to be constant tussles over veiling, alcohol, status of women and other religious/social issues. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has also been toeing a relatively moderate line, but the far less moderate and Salafist Nour party is also doing well. In all three countries, at least some of the Islamists would like to imitate the success of the ruling Turkish Islamists, who have managed to gain a clear majority by moderating their once more militant views.
The Islamists who do well this year will have an enormous challenge ahead of them, as economic conditions are going to be difficult. This may force some degree of moderation, or at least reduce the saliency of social/religious issues and give secularists some time to get their act together.
The key battleground in my view will be rule of law. Rule of law is where secular regimes in Muslim countries have most obviously failed. It is also the area where many Muslims regard Islamists as offering a credible alternative.
Islamists think Sharia should be the basis of law in Muslim countries, as in fact it nominally was even under supposedly secular autocrats. The question is one of degree and interpretation. If Europe and the United States want the 2011 Arab spring to result in democratic regimes that respect human rights and see eye to eye with the West, they are going to need to engage seriously on rule of law issues. This would mean helping the judiciaries of these countries to rid themselves of corruption and enabling them to establish the kind of independence from executive authority and moderate interpretations of Sharia that might lead to legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
Sincere secularists have advantages in this struggle for hearts and minds. The more than 50 per cent of the population that is female cannot expect equal rights under the more extreme interpretations of Sharia. It is hard to picture the substantial middle classes of Tunisia or Morocco accepting public stoning of adulterers. Egypt’s Christian minority will want a more moderate legal regime.
But to take advantage of these advantages, secularists and more moderate Islamists will need to regroup after these elections and get serious about protecting individual human rights and independence of the judiciary. Their friends in the West should provide support.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Say WHAT?
Across my desk yesterday came this policy brief, in which the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade appeals to the international community
to consider our invitation to Serbian authorities to release citizens of northern Kosovo from the mandatory presence at the barricades disguised as a compulsory service
Say WHAT? Serb citizens of northern Kosovo are being obligated by the local authorities (who report to Belgrade, not Pristina) to man the barricades as “compulsory service”? I’ll be glad if someone can tell me definitively that this is not true, that in fact they do it purely out of (misguided) personal passion and commitment. But otherwise it is pure outrage. If the organs of the Serbian state, established in contravention of UN Security Council resolution 1244 on the territory of Kosovo, are requiring citizens to man protests against those charged with implementing 1244, we are truly beyond the realm of the reasonable. That is not behavior worthy of a European state, or of one that aspires to be a candidate.
The barricades in question have been blocking roads in northern Kosovo, where the local population is resisting the authority of NATO, EULEX and Pristina, fearing that they will enable collection of customs duties at the Serbia/Kosovo boundary/border.
That is certainly something they intend to do, and should do. As Ambassador Rosemary Di Carlo said at the UN Security Council Tuesday:
we echo the Secretary-General’s call for KFOR to continue its efforts to ensure freedom of movement throughout Kosovo. This Council has affirmed that Kosovo is a single customs space. This is fully in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1244 and was a key point in the Secretary General’s November 2008 report on UNMIK, a report that the Council welcomed in its presidential statement of November 26, 2008. Kosovo therefore has the right to control its borders and uphold rule of law in full cooperation with the international community. It cannot be considered unilateral action for Kosovo to enforce its customs controls. Moreover, Kosovo also coordinated its activities with the international community, including KFOR and EULEX.
It is time for Belgrade to end behavior that puts its own aspirations for European Union membership, which are supposed to be decided December 9, seriously in doubt.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The Balkans in Europe whole and free
My colleague here at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Kurt Volker, testified earlier this month in the House on the Balkans. Kurt and I don’t agree entirely on some policy points in his presentation, but I think the analysis was spot on and the policy recommendations–as would be expected from a former ambassador to NATO and principal deputy assistant secretary for Europe at the State Department–were well crafted in the broader context of Europe whole and free. So I am delighted he has given me permission to post his written statement. It is well worth a read for the Balkan-watchers (and inhabitants) among you.
Here are Kurt’s main policy points:
• In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Dayton framework has stalled out. It is time to launch a new, major push from the international community to go beyond Dayton and establish lasting, effective governing structures – a Dayton Two. The Butmir process of a few years ago was a good effort, but ultimately did not succeed. We should go further.
There are plenty of positive forces for change in Bosnia today – from reformers and young people to civil society to businessmen and so forth. The conditions for progress have never been better. But the current political structures have guaranteed long-term divisions inside the country that play to the hands of nationalist and separatists. We should not close down the Office of the High Representative, or phase out the EU Force, until political structures are settled and functioning. So we should make a major push to settle these very issues.
• Likewise, we need a fresh push for political progress on Kosovo – in particular arrangements for Mitrovica in the north. Ethnic Serbs in southern Kosovo are well-protected and able to participate actively in society in Kosovo. There is no reason ethnic Serbs in the north could not do the same, but they are radicalized and held back. Criminal interests – both local and from Serbia proper – Serbian interior ministry police, and of course the nature of the Kosovo government and international community’s past engagement, have all played a role. But it has gotten worse with time, not better, and it is time to push for a more wide-reaching resolution.
Here, one needs also to push the European Union on its role. Despite years of history and the ruling of the International Court of Justice, five EU member states do not recognize Kosovo’s independence, as the United States and 22 other EU members have done. This serves to perpetuate the belief in Serbia, and in Mitrovica, that Kosovo’s independence can be un-done. It can’t. And neither can partitions or territory swaps solve Kosovo’s problems. Indeed, such steps would add new problems in the entire region. While no one can force any state to recognize another, the sooner the EU develops a stronger and more unified position, the sooner both sides in Kosovo can stop looking backward and start looking forward. With all the other problems Europe has to tackle right now, it makes no sense to continue contributing to this one.
• I want to add a word on Macedonia as well. In 2008, Macedonia was ready to be invited to join NATO, but there was no consensus within NATO to do so, because the name dispute with Greece was unresolved. Under the interim agreement of 1995, Greece had supported Macedonia’s participation in international organizations under the temporary name of “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” But Greece broke with this practice when it came time to admit Macedonia to NATO. Since then, Macedonia itself has slid backwards on some reforms, and has ramped up its use of controversial symbols of ancient Macedonia as a means of rallying the public and distracting from other issues at home.
Macedonia should be a vibrant crossroads of the Balkans – linking Greece to the north and linking the Western Balkans to Greece and the Mediterranean. The current stand-off serves no one’s interests: Not Greece, not Macedonia, not Europe, not the people of the Balkans, and not the United States. For years, we have supported the UN lead in negotiating a possible solution to the name issue. All of the elements have been put on the table at one point or another. It is time for the U.S. and EU together to make a concerted effort to (a) re-assert the validity of the 1995 interim agreement and use of FYROM as a temporary name, which – with Greek agreement – would allow Macedonia to join NATO and progress toward the EU; and (b) simultaneously, launch a major political push, including with incentives and disincentives, in support of the UN process, to get both sides to a final settlement.
Where would I differ?
Mainly on Bosnia: I would not be able to tell the Secretary of State that she should risk another failure like Butmir. Dayton 2 is much more likely to lead in a more ethnic nationalist direction, which is the wrong one in my view.
On Kosovo, only in nuance: I think we should make resolution of Kosovo issues–at least of the north–a condition for Serbia’s EU candidacy, which should not go ahead December 9 unless there is a clear and irreversible Belgrade commitment to cooperate in reintegrating the north with the rest of Kosovo.
On Macedonia, not at all: the interim accord is the way to go. I understand an International Court of Justice decision on this is due December 5. Let’s hope it is clear and unequivocal in Skopje’s favor.
Thank you, Kurt for a terrific overview!
RSS - Posts
