AFRO-NETS> Africa: More of the Same, and Worse

[Dr Sigmund de Janos <dejanos@home.com>]

Africa: More of the Same, and Worse
-----------------------------------

STRATFOR.COM Global Intelligence Update December 31, 1999

Summary

While it seems too depressingly easy to examine Africa's bleak 
political, economic and social situation and predict more of 
the same, mustering up optimism for a continent with so much 
stacked against it is nearly impossible. Africa is plagued by 
poverty, immature political systems, ethnic and sectarian con-
flict, and international isolation and neglect. The four dec-
ades since most of Africa gained independence has been domi-
nated by aging regimes or alternately, coups and civil wars. 
Unfortunately, the coming decade promises nothing better for 
most Africans. The only parties likely to gain are the foreign 
multi-national corporations involved in natural resource ex-
traction.

Analysis

Africa's overarching problem is the fundamental immaturity of 
its political systems. Few African countries have managed to 
implement a system of popularly elected, representative govern-
ment. On a simpler but far more important level, they have 
failed to develop peaceful, reliable systems of political suc-
cession. This, like many of Africa's problems, is a legacy of 
European colonization and sudden and relatively recent inde-
pendence. Ancient kingdoms and borderless tribal systems were 
amalgamated almost at random, ruled by outsiders for decades, 
then cast loose and expected to adopt European political models 
and to accept their colonial borders.

What has emerged are two main political patterns: regimes of 
long duration, frequently directed by the leaders of the coun-
tries' independence movements, protracted civil wars or re-
peated coups d'etat. Frequently, there has been a bit of both. 
With neither representative government nor a peaceful mechanism 
with which to attain it, coups and civil wars have been the 
source of political transition across Africa. Rarely, however, 
have they represented a transition to anything but another au-
thoritarian regime.

Aging Regimes and Instability

The recent coup in Cote d'Ivoire is a poignant example of a 
continent-wide problem. Prior to the coup, Cote d'Ivoire was 
considered by many to be a bastion of stability and prosperity 
in turbulent West Africa. Yet that stability was grounded in 
nearly 40 years of rigid authoritarian rule by one man, one 
party and one faction. With the current president - only the 
second since independence - blocking any honest democratic 
transition of power, a coup was all but inevitable.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny ruled Cote d'Ivoire as a one-party state 
from independence in 1960 until 1990, when he won yet another 
five- year term in office in the country's first multi-party 
elections, taking some 90 percent of the vote. Upon his death 
in 1993, Houphouet-Boigny was succeeded by his deputy and fel-
low Democratic Party member, Henri Konan Bedie, who was then 
re-elected in his own right in 1995.

Bedie, a Christian of the Baoule ethnic group, followed in his 
predecessor's autocratic footsteps, forcing the Muslim prime 
minister - and leader of the opposition Republican Rally Party 
- Alassane Dramane Ouattara out of office. Recent demonstra-
tions over Bedie's decision to ban Ouattara from running in 
next year's presidential elections led to the arrest of several 
Republican Rally Party officials while Ouattara fled the coun-
try. The Dec. 24 coup ended four decades of one-party dominance 
of Cote d'Ivoire, and coup leader Gen. Robert Guei has promised 
to soon hold democratic elections.

However, the future is far from clear, let alone bright. Un-
seating one regime does not make a political transition. The 
struggle for power in Cote d'Ivoire is in fact only beginning, 
with two political models to guide it - authoritarianism and 
coup d'etat. And in a pattern that has already manifested it-
self elsewhere in Africa, the collapse of Cote d'Ivoire's long-
standing regime has caused sectarian rifts to open in the post-
coup power struggle. In this case, a contest appears to be 
shaping up between Muslims and Christians.

Cote d'Ivoire is paradigmatic of Africa's problems on several 
counts. First, the country is one of many whose post-colonial 
politics have been dominated by one man or one party. Second, 
in the absence of democratic means to break the ruling fac-
tion's hold on power, Cote d'Ivoire experienced a coup d'etat. 
Third, though the post-coup power struggle is only in its early 
stages, it is already playing on religious divisions inside the 
country.

The list of African countries dominated by a single individual, 
party, or clique since independence or for many years is over-
whelming. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Jose Eduardo dos Santos 
in Angola have ruled their respective countries since independ-
ence, as have Sam Nujoma in Namibia and Isaias Afwerki in Eri-
trea, though for a much shorter period. Kenya's Daniel arap Moi 
is only his country's second president, taking the reins of his 
party and the country in 1978 following the death of post-
independence leader Jomo Kenyatta. From major nations to small 
ones, the list of nations yet to emerge from the influence of 
the independence legacy - now decades old - is long. At least 
20 African nations have political systems that to a large ex-
tent have been shaped by a pattern of coups.

Indeed, a powerful relationship between the aging nature of 
these regimes and instability and warfare is taking shape. The 
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, is a good 
example. A military coup brought long-ruling and kleptocratic 
Mobutu Sese Seko to power in 1965. Mobutu was driven from power 
in 1997 in an armed insurrection led by Laurent Kabila and 
backed by other countries in the region in 1997. Several of the 
factions that backed Kabila turned against him almost immedi-
ately after he took power, and he has been locked in a civil 
war ever since.

Africa's Web of War

The ongoing civil war in the DRC is the prime example of yet 
another other factor conspiring against African peace and sta-
bility - the unbroken web of the region's conflicts. 
http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/072799.ASP

Prior to the still very tenuous peace accord, Kabila received 
active military support from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, as 
well as more tacit support from the Republic of Congo, Libya,
Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic.
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/specialreports/special3.htm

The anti- Kabila faction has been backed by Uganda, Rwanda and 
Angola's UNITA rebels; evidence suggests it has received the 
quiet support of South Africa. This multi-national participa-
tion involvement in the DRC conflict has tied that war tightly 
to several of Africa's other conflicts.

Angola's involvement in the DRC stems from its attempt to con-
trol UNITA, which supports the anti-Kabila forces and uses the 
DRC as a rear area for its war against Luanda. For the same 
reason, Angola has also been involved in the Republic of Congo. 
Namibia, which is facing a growing problem with UNITA along its 
border with Angola and in the breakaway Caprivi Strip, also 
contributed forces to the war in the DRC. Caprivi separatists 
reportedly receive aid not only from UNITA, but also from Bot-
swana and Zambia.

Not only are the wars in Angola, Namibia and the DRC deeply 
linked. The fact that regional powers, South Africa and Zim-
babwe, are on different sides in the wars has rendered the 
South African Development Community (SADC) incapable of ad-
dressing either problem. UNITA has reportedly received South 
African arms, shipped to Mozambique and flown on South African 
aircraft to Angola by way of Zambia. 
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/commentary/m9908010159.htm

To the north, Uganda and Sudan have been involved in the DRC 
conflict in efforts to outflank each other; each supports rebel 
armies in the other's country. Sudan's separatist rebels have 
also received support from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt and the 
United States. Meanwhile, Eritrea and Ethiopia are at war, and 
Eritrea's attempt to outflank the deadlocked front lines by 
supporting Ethiopian rebels based in Somalia has spread the 
conflict to that already war-torn country as well.

What emerges is a seamless web of conflict stretching from the 
Horn of Africa to the Caprivi Strip, with filaments reaching 
out to Tripoli, Harare, and beyond. Only the relatively uncon-
tested military of Nigeria has served as a bulwark between the 
central and western African conflicts, and Nigeria is now fac-
ing its own growing internal ethnic conflict. With such wide-
spread connections, solving any one conflict becomes extremely 
difficult, if not impossible.

The Ethnic and Religious Spillover

Fueling and fueled by the struggle for power in Africa are deep 
and frequently trans-border ethnic and religious divisions. The 
colonial powers drew the map of Africa without concern for pre-
existing divisions, and the international commitment to mainte-
nance of these colonial borders has left a number of pressure 
cookers on the continent.

Prominent among these is Nigeria, home to an estimated 250 to 
400 distinct ethnic groups, with the major groups being the 
Yoruba in the southwest, the Ibo in the southeast, and the 
Hausa-Fulani in the north. Ibo military officers led the coun-
try after a coup in 1966, though other ethnic groups responded 
by massacring Ibos living in the north. Eastern groups tried to 
form the secessionist state of Biafra in 1967, a move that 
sparked a three-year civil war.

The Hausa have dominated recent military governments, though 
new President Olusegun Obasanjo is a Yoruba. Since Obasanjo was 
backed by a faction of Hausa military officers, he is not 
trusted by the predominantly Christian Yoruba, yet since he is 
a Yoruba, he is not trusted by the predominantly Muslim Hausas. 
The ensuing tension has already resulted in riots, and some of 
the northern Hausa states have begun implementing Islamic 
Sharia law, posing a challenge to central government in the 
country. 
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/specialreports/special28.htm

The legacy of ethnic political machinations on the part of 
European colonial powers in Rwanda and Burundi has in the 1990s 
finally expressed itself in genocidal war between the coun-
tries' Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Sudan's civil war is being 
waged between the Muslim government and the predominantly 
Christian opposition in the south. Additionally, Muslim funda-
mentalists continue to challenge the governments of Egypt, 
Libya and Algeria.

Ethnic and religious competition is a constant source of insta-
bility throughout Africa, but during political transitions, 
this contest can quickly grow in importance and hostility. The 
civil war that toppled Somalia's Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 
left a power vacuum that ignited feuds between the country's 
multiple clans. Since then the country has degenerated into a 
number of ill defined and perpetually feuding warlord dominated 
fiefdoms. Two of these, Somaliland and Puntland, have consoli-
dated some semblance of borders and governments and may provide 
a model not only for the rest of Somalia but for other ethni-
cally divided countries in Africa as well.

The international community long held a policy of inviolability 
of borders in post-colonial Africa, but that is changing. 
Partly, this is due to waning interest on the part of the de-
veloped world for Africa and its politics. Partly, it is a con-
scious policy decision. No one blinked at Eritrea's secession 
from Ethiopia. Italy has appeared to promote segmentation as a 
solution to the Somali conflict 
http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/121098.asp, and the 
United States even appears to be backing secession for southern 
Sudan.
http://www.stratfor.com/MEAF/commentary/m9912032330.htm

Not Worth the Effort: International Neglect of Africa

Facilitating the unchecked strife in Africa has been the devel-
oped world's abandonment of the continent.

While France, for one, continues to dabble in its former colo-
nies, the other colonial powers and, significantly, the United 
States, have effectively washed their hands of the continent. 
The United States was burned in Somalia when the Somalis re-
fused to play by Washington's rules. Though it continues to 
moralize, Washington has not found a good reason to return to 
the continent. The risks simply outweigh the rewards. Economi-
cally, there are richer pickings elsewhere, and with the end of 
the Cold War, Africa has lost most of its strategic signifi-
cance. The geopolitical game against a resurgent Russia and in-
creasingly assertive China is being played out in Central Asia 
and the Caucasus, not in Angola.

What has emerged is a situation in which international bodies 
such as the United Nations, which could conceivably intervene 
in Africa, have the most powerful member, the United States, 
deeply disinterested in doing so. Add to this the fact that the 
UN's European members are more concerned with economically and 
politically critical regions such as Eastern Europe, the Bal-
kans, the former Soviet Union and Asia. The result is that Af-
rica gets ignored.

Would-be regional power brokers such as South Africa, Libya and 
Nigeria are involved in a number of Africa's conflicts, but 
their own long-term stability is very much in question. Libya's 
Moammar Gadhafi, who rose to power in a coup in 1969, has no 
heir apparent. Nigeria's ethnic and religious rifts are deepen-
ing, despite and in part because of the democratic election of 
Obasanjo. And the short tenure of the African National Congress 
(ANC) at the helm of South Africa's government has seen a dra-
matic surge in crime and a deterioration of the country's in-
frastructure. After decades of apartheid, black South Africans 
are not soon about to tolerate the election of a white govern-
ment, while the whites are not going to tolerate much more de-
terioration under the ANC. Neither is eager to give the Zulu 
Inkatha Freedom Party a chance. Unless the ANC can revitalize 
South Africa's economy and enforce domestic peace and stabil-
ity, a day of reckoning is approaching.

Africa's Future: Somebody's Interested

There is, however, one set of external actors that may have a 
substantial impact on the future of Africa - multi-national 
corporations. Those companies involved in extracting Africa's 
rich natural resources have a vested interest in maintaining 
stability around their concessions.

Examples abound of their cooperation with various competing 
factions. Shell Oil has a documented and widely criticized his-
tory of backing the military regimes in Nigeria. Jean-Raymond 
Boulle, chief shareholder of the mining firm American Mineral 
Fields, Inc., reportedly received a mining concession after he 
provided a company jet to then rebel leader Laurent Kabila dur-
ing his battle to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. And De-
Beers recently publicized its official decision to cease pur-
chasing diamonds from UNITA, purchases the rebels had used to 
finance their war in Angola. The pattern holds true in areas of 
instability outside Africa as well, for example in Colombia, 
where British Petroleum has been implicated in a scandal over 
funding a Colombian Army unit that was charged with human 
rights violations.

Other companies throughout Africa hire what amount to private 
armies of security forces, and unrevealed instances of direct 
cooperation with warring parties are undoubtedly far more nu-
merous than the documented examples. As struggles over politi-
cal succession proliferate, corporations face the choice of 
sitting passively by as war consumes investment - or quietly 
backing one of the factions. The natural symbiosis between war-
ring factions eager for financial support and corporations ea-
ger to protect their investments will inevitably lead to coop-
eration between the two - particularly in the context of broad 
neglect of the region on the part of the corporations' European 
and American home governments.

The future of Africa appears to be more of the same, and worse. 
International disinterest has left the continent to solve its 
own problems. Lacking the mechanisms to solve those problems by 
peaceful means, the continent is destined for further violent 
political transitions. This competition for power inevitably 
plays off of pre-existing ethnic and religious rifts in African 
countries, and as there is no longer an international commit-
ment to the integrity of Africa's borders, the net result will 
be a widespread redrawing of those borders.

Finally, as foreign companies struggle to protect their assets 
in Africa, the relationships they will build with the warring 
factions will, when the new borders and regimes ossify, ironi-
cally lead to a kind of corporate re-colonization of Africa. 
Africa will evolve into smaller, more ethnically and relig-
iously homogenous countries, many of which will be symbioti-
cally tied to one or more foreign corporations. The best that 
can be expected is that the violence and disorder that will 
continue to dominate Africa over the next decade will rational-
ize some of the continent's colonial borders and bring new 
players to the political stage.

(c) 1999, Stratfor, Inc. 

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