By Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

Gérard Prunier is off exploring Southern Sudan but fear not, we have excerpted from Africa’s World War to feed your Africa fix while he is gone. Below, is a piece about the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Somehow life went on in Rwanda at the beginning of 1995. Amid the ruins. With the killings and the “disappearances.” With the government of national unity staggering on, hoping to provide a modicum of leadership in this broken society. The Rwandese had coined an expression for what so many people felt: imitima yarakomeretse, “the disease of the wounded hearts.”

The economy was in shambles; of the $598 million in bilateral aid pledged in January at the Rwanda Roundtable Conference in Geneva, only $94.5 million had been disbursed by June. Of that money, $26 million had to be used to pay arrears on the former government’s debt. The perception gap between the international community and what was happening in Rwanda was enormous. The international community talked about national reconciliation and refugee repatriation, but suspicion was pervasive. Gutunga agatoki (showing with the finger) denunciations were commonplace: survivors denouncing killers, actual killers denouncing others to escape punishment, bystanders denouncing innocents to get their land or their house. Women survivors tried to band together to help each other, but even then, some Hutu widows might be refused access to the support groups because of ethnic guilt by association, and Hutu orphans in orphanages would be roughed up by Tutsi kids as “children of interahamwe.” Some transport had restarted and the electricity supply was slowly becoming less erratic. Very few schools had reopened. The January 1995 public debate between Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu and Vice President Paul Kagame had not settled the matter of the violence, which everybody knew about but which the UN remained blind to.

This violence eventually led to the Kibeho massacre of April 1995 and to the unraveling of the national unity government. The process leading to the massacre is worth describing in detail because it offers on a small scale all the characteristics of what was eventually to take place in Zaire eighteen months later: non treatment of the consequences of the genocide, well-meaning but politically blind humanitarianism, Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) resolve to “solve the problem” by force, stunned impotence of the international community in the face of violence, and, finally, a hypocritical denial that anything much had happened.

By Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

I thought it would be interesting to provide a quick peek into Gérard Prunier’s thoughts on the history of Congo and the impact of the West. Below is an excerpt from Prunier’s most recent book, Africa’s World War, in which he looks at the history of Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the events that led up to Africa’s world war.

In many ways Africa was – and remains – the bad conscience of the world, particularly of the former colonialist powers of the Western world. They entertain a nagging suspicion, played up on by the Africans themselves, that perhaps the continent wouldn’t be in such a mess if it hadn’t been colonized. So in the ten years that followed jettisoning the heavy African baggage of apartheid, the international community was only too happy to support the so-called African Renaissance, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, the New Millennium Goals, and the Peer Review Mechanism of the newly revamped African Union. Within this new paradigm the continental war began as a seemingly bright illustration of the new trend, but then began to evoke an embarrassing reincarnation of some very old ghosts.

Caught in the web of its own tangled guilt – that of having long supported the gross Mobutu regime, combined with the more recent sin of not having helped the Tutsi in their hour of need – the international community tried to hang on to the image of the new Tutsi colonizers of the Congo as basically decent men devoted to making Africa safe for democracy. Of course, there was a bit of a problem factoring in the personality of the leader they had put in power as their Congolese surrogate. It was difficult to smoothly include Laurent-Désiré Kabila in the New Leader movement because the others were reformed communists whereas he was an unreformed one and his democratic credentials were hard to find. So, in a way, when the break occurred in 1998 and the Rip Van Winkle of Red African politics sided with the surviving genocidaires, it was almost a relief: the good Tutsi could go on incarnating Africa’s decent future while the fat Commie could symbolize its refusal to change. The massacre of a number of Tutsi in Kinshasa and the obliging incendiary remarks of the Yerodia Ndombasi helped the international community integrate the new war into its pro-democracy and anti-genocide ideology. But there were lots of contradictions, and it was going to be a harder and harder conjuring trick to pull off as time went on.

By Gérard Prunier

On May 2nd a force of over 1,000 Chadian rebels mounted on a bevy of Toyota battle wagons and left western Darfur to try to overthrow Chad’s government. This was the third time an overthrow attempt was made, the previous occasions being April 2007 and February 2008. Both previous attacks had been close, but ended in defeat. Similar to the previous two episodes, the recent invasion had the support of the Sudanese government, but since President Omar Hassan el-Bashir now stands accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and needs the critical support of the African Union, one can wonder what would cause him to launch into such a dangerous adventure.

The answer is simple: counter-insurgency. This takes us back to the early days of the Darfur quasi-genocide. President Idriss Déby Itno of Chad is a member of the Bidayat, a tribe closely related to the Zaghawa. The Zaghawa live on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border and the Sudanese Zaghawa are one of main tribes fighting the Khartoum regime. President Déby who gained power in December 1990 with the help of that very same Khartoum regime, refused at first to help his fellow tribesmen on the other side of the border. On the contrary, he even tried to help the Khartoum government. This did not sit very well with “his” Zaghawa who made up the core group of the Chadian armed forces. In May 2005 he was faced by a military revolt of his men. Déby was given the choice of either switching sides or being overthrown. This offer was not one to be easily refused and within months the mostly Zaghawa based Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Khalil Ibrahim had Déby’s support.

This, of course, angered Omar el-Bashir and the Khartoum government started to recruit some disaffected elements from Chad to train and arm. Eighteen months later, they launched the first attack on N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. In reprisal President Déby armed the JEM and asked for its help against the rebels. In February 2008 JEM fighters joined the Chadian army to push back the rebels who had attacked N’Djamena, turning the whole conflict into an intra-Zaghawa war since members of the same tribe (but from different clans) were on both sides of the firing line. Three months later it was payback time and Khalil Ibrahim crossed the vast semi-desertic expanse of the Kordofan province to attack Khartoum itself. This attack too failed. Since the ICC indictment, the Sudanese regime feels embattled and fears that Déby, possibly with French and/or US support, might rearm Khalil Ibrahim and launch him again on the assault.

Given this very real danger, el-Bashir and his entourage have decided that the JEM guns are more dangerous than the possible disapproval of the African Union. In any case, the Union is so supine in the Sudanese case that it is likely to look the other way and accept Khartoum’s unconvincing denial of any complicity in the Chadian invasion.

The question remains, will the men in Khartoum manage to defeat Idriss Déby? This is not certain at all. Since last February, Déby, who is an unpopular but formidable warlord in his own right, has fortified his capital, bought heavy tanks and three Russian Sukhoi fighter-bombers. He has also recruited foreign mercenaries from as far as Mexico and the Ukraine. The Sudanese intelligence is aware of his military preparedness and they are at present trying to trigger a palace coup, which would have a greater chance of success than a frontal military assault. After all, there are still Zaghawa on both sides…

Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

While regular blogger, Gérard Prunier is off exploring Africa, I have rounded up a quick update on the Somali Pirates.

- Abduwali Abdukadir Muse is currently being tried in New York under a federal law that has not been used in decades. The law would require Muse to fulfill a mandatory life sentence in prison. Muse was the only survivor of the three men who boarded the American cargo ship, Maersk Alabama, off the coast of Africa on April 8th. The pirates held the ship’s captain hostage causing an international uproar.

- On Sunday, 11 Somali Pirates were captured by a French naval vessel when they mistook the ship for a commercial vessel. The pirates were captured in three small boats off the coast of Somalia. Rockets and guns were found aboard the ships. At this point it is unclear what the European Union plans to do about the capture, but it is clear that the Somali Pirate attacks have disrupted United Nation aid and led some companies to consider routing cargo between Europe and Asia a different way.

Check back next Tuesday for more Notes from Africa!

By Gérard Prunier

On April 18th, eighteen fighting groups, or informal bands of guerrillas, decided to sign a peace treaty that would imply the disbanding of their armed groups. These groups have been known since the beginning of the Congo wars in 1998 as Mayi Mayi, or “Water! Water!,” which refers to the dawa (magic water) the fighters used to put on their bodies to protect themselves from enemy bullets.

On the 18th, the government negotiator, Father Malu Malu, the clever Catholic priest who had already been President of the electoral commission during the national elections in 2006, said that the war was finally over. In a way, he was right.

The Mayi Mayi proved to be a tough consequence of the Rwandese invasion in 1998. At first they fought the invading army, but Rwandese intelligence soon penetrated them, manipulated them, got them to fight each other (most were tribal militias), and even got some to come over to their side and fight their erstwhile comrades. When the war formally ended near the close of 2002, many Mayi Mayi groups refused to disarm. Some turned to banditry; and when the Tutsi warlord Laurent Nkunda started his insurrection against the government, they fought him on Kinshasa’s behalf since the Congolese were completely inefficient and incapable of doing it.

When the Rwandese Army entered Congo in late January of this year with the government’s approval, the Mayi Mayi melted away. The reason being that many of them had been loosely allied with the Forces Démocratique pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the former genocidal group of anti-Kigali exiles. Many Mayi Mayi groups worked with the FDLR to run small artisanal mines of various non-ferrous metals that they would sell…mostly to Kigali! This strange commercial arrangement came to a brutal end with the January Rwandese offensive, which left the Mayi Mayi bereft of their former allies. It is this situation of economic difficulty coupled with intense pressure from the government and the international community that eventually lead to the April 18th agreement.

The obvious question is: “Will it last?” Well, it might, if the right kind of post-demobilization program of economic and social reintegration is brought to bear. Everybody is tired of war, even some of the young men who derive difficult and temporary benefits from it. Since April 18ththe problem has moved from a military to a social one, and if peace is to be found, the former fighters must find economic opportunities that will make it worth their while to refrain from digging up the guns they have certainly salted away as an insurance policy. This is where the international community comes into play. The UN and other politically correct groups love peace, but bringing up the rear end, so to speak, is often neglected. It is much less glamorous, it takes much longer, and the press coverage is scant, if any. If we want Father Malu Malu to be right and the war to stop, a very reasonable modicum of economic effort must be displayed.

By Gérard Prunier

The recent hijacking of a US ship by Somali pirates off the coast of Kenya is a perfect example of the bizarre relationship the world entertains with Africa. First, where the hell is it? Most people hardly know. Then, why are these people bothering us? Could we not simply blow them off the water? Third, why are they targeting the US, it seems vaguely reminiscent of the post 9/11 syndrome. Fourth, why should we even bother? At this point, readers who are a bit conversant with the situation will point out that the Maersk ship which got hijacked was bringing relief food for Kenya, now in the thralls of a punishing famine brought by drought (and to some extent, by civil strife). There goes another groan. They have to hit us when we are just trying to help them. Yet, most people miss the point: the pirates are Somali and the victims of famine are Kenyans.

Okay, Africa is not in very good shape. But it might be a good idea to try to understand why. Oh, not simply those vast questions of colonialism, economic backwardness, the usefulness (or lack thereof) of aid and the impact of the world economic crisis. No, that is a bit too big. Could we not be a bit more simple and specific? Simply look at one situation at a time?

Take Somalia. For reasons having to do with its clanic social structure, Somalia has been unable to muster a working government for the past eighteen years. The main victims of that situation are, of course, the Somali themselves, who in many ways have caused their own misery. Many Somali are now starving and some of the younger ones, bold and born into a world where they have known nothing but civil war, have taken to the seas to survive. During the past ten years the rich world has: a.) dumped thousands of tons of toxic waste along Somalia’s unguarded coastline, and b.) taken hundreds of millions of dollars of fish from it’s unpatrolled national waters. It was not very nice but as long as the Somali took it lying down, everybody was happy with ignoring it. Now, they are coming out like hornets from a nest and bothering the ships laden with rich cargo that are sailing past their coast. As long as those ships were Saudi oil tankers, French yachts, or Yemeni tugboats, the anger was moderate. But a US cargo ship! God forbid!

The last interaction the US had with Somalia was three years ago when the CIA brought together a bunch of criminal warlords into a bogus political alliance in the hope that those warlords could crush the growing Islamist movement in Somalia. The gamble failed and gave the Islamists a popularity they never had before. As a result, they took power (some kind of power, anyway) and the US backed an Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia which only heightened the civil strife. Now the Ethiopians have left, but the situation is more confusing than ever and the popularity of the US is not high. Are the pirates connected with the Islamists? Not really. They exchange some services and swap information, but the pirates don’t like the kind of religious Puritanism the Islamists pride themselves in. Do they kill people? Not if they can avoid it. They are in business. They have lost more men to the high seas and to the virtuous international guardians of law and order than they have killed. Would they do something else if they had the opportunity? Most likely. Could they? Don’t be joking!

Okay, Somalia is sick and its misery is oozing out. But what we hate is not the sickness but rather its unpleasant consequences. Of course they are not of our own making; but we both tolerated them for a long time and even made them worse through perfect stupidity. Well the chickens – or perhaps in this case, the sea gulls – have come home to roost. A commentator recently said that the shipping that has fallen victim to the pirates is one quarter of one percent of all that goes through the Bab-el-Mandeb. Any thought on discussing the massive rise in insurance costs and how justified it is?

By Gérard Prunier

During the years of civil war in Sudan, both the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) considered the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), then closely allied to the communist Derg, to be an enemy.

After Mengistu’s regime had been overthrown, both the EPLF and the EPRDF guerrilla movements, which had ascended to power with Khartoum’s help, realized that their Sudanese ally was not so friendly. Yet there was a modicum of difference in their experience with Khartoum’s hostility: in the case of Eritrea it was plain and open, Khartoum supported the Eritrea Jihad armed movement and Eritrea’s President, Issayas Afeworki quickly invited the SPLA into Eritrea to retaliate against Sudan.

In the case of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, although duly suspicious of Khartoum’s policies, he nevertheless tried to keep a more or less neutral stance towards the Sudan’s Muslim Brothers’regime. Zenawi fought against Sudanese military encroachments when they took place – mostly through helping the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) rebels. He even launched Operation Black Fox deep into Sudan in 1994, but later expelled the SPLA from Ethiopia in 1999. Why? Because by then the relationship between Asmara, Eritrea and Khartoum had turned 180° due to the Ethio-Eritrean War of 1998-2000.

With the war, Issayas stopped supporting the SPLA and decided to woo Khartoum. As a result, Meles let the former guerrillas come back to Addis-Ababa after they “regularized” their diplomatic status by signing the so-called “Consolidated Peace Agreement” (CPA) with the northern government in January 2005. Yet Meles kept an even balance between politeness to the North and friendship with the South. Not so in the course followed by Asmara, which progressed deeper and deeper with Khartoum as its own quarrel with the US grew. Things became worse with the support given by the Eritreans to the radical Islamist Shebab then fighting the Ethiopian Army in Somalia.

This game of strategic musical chairs took on a new turn when President Omar el-Bashir recently visited Asmara. Bashir was, of course, invited in open defiance of the March 4^th ICC indictment, both to score a point against the international community (read “the US”) and to cement Issayas’ ever growing involvement with the Muslim and Arab world. This confirmed and accelerated Addis-Ababa’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan. Already in February, Ethiopia announced that it had contracted a Chinese company to build a $25m highway between Gambela, Ethiopia and Akobo. What it had not announced was that it was also giving the Juba government discreet but growing military support. The relationship has now gone even deeper since the Ethiopian Prime Minister became an international advocate for the SPLA.

On March 31^stthe Presidential Affairs Minister of the Southern Sudan government (GoSS), Luka Biong Deng, asked Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to raise the issue of South Sudan’s fiscal crisis at the G20 Summitin London the following Thursday. Due to a drop in world oil prices, the GoSS, which gets 99% of its income from the oil money payments transferred by Khartoum, has practically gone bankrupt. So now in a new twist of fate Meles finds himself being an advocate for the SPLA he had once banned from Ethiopian territory, while Issayas Afeworqi embraces President Bashir against whom he used to support that selfsame SPLA.

Of course, the first underlying layer of logic remains, as ever, the Ethio-Eritrean mutual hostility. Forty-eight years after the beginning of the Eritrean war of independence, the knives are still drawn. And Sudan remains the third angle of the triangle, now cozying up to one of the players and then trying to stab him.

Among students of the Horn’s regional history, the prize money goes to those who can explain the underlying logic of the continuities buttressing these apparent contradictions. Any takers?

Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

While Gérard Prunier, author and blogger for Notes from Africa is away, I thought I would try to analyze the reaction to the indictment of Sudan’s President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The indictment was one of the major topics at the annual summit meeting last week.

When the Arab leaders gathered for their annual summit meeting in Doha, Quatar, they had plenty of major topics to discuss, but they did find common ground on one issue. The group rallied together in support of Sudan’s President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for charges war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges are based on the ICC’s belief that al-Bashir organized and led the killings in Darfur.

While the ICC has placed a warrant out for al-Bashir’s arrest, he was warmly welcomed to Quatar by the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The massive support of the Arab leaders is in sharp contrast to the opinion of the ICC, the West, and several human rights organizations. The leaders argue that by indicting al-Bashir, the ICC is compromising Sudan’s sovereignty and displaying a double standard in their treatment of Arabs. They believe that is unfair for al-Bashir to be punished after so many crimes went unpunished during Israel’s attack in Gaza.

While both sides maintain a strong stance on the situation, it makes one wonder what’s really going on. There has been speculation that the support of al-Bashir by Arab leaders is based on a sense of self-preservation rather than conviction. Some believe that the leaders support al-Bashir because they fear that his indictment may lead to the investigation of their less-than-perfect pasts.

The news surrounding the warrant for al-Bashir and its validity seems to based on plenty of speculation, but what is the truth? It seems it all comes down to the involvement of the West and the pull of power between the Arab leaders and outside involvement. The Arab nations feel that the ICC is blindly trying to control a situation they know little about, yet the ICC and it’s supporters believe they are working towards establishing order and peace. While only time will show who will win this power struggle, it is clearly an issue that will not be resolved easily.

Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

Since Africa’s past and present can be complicated, we thought it would help to have a quick overview of some of the groups and political figures in Sudan and Somalia . We have selected some key topics that Gérard Prunier often referenced in Notes from Africa, and have provided a quick rundown of what they are.

Sudan:
-  Justice and Equality Movement (JEM): JEM is a rebel group in Sudan that is involved in the Darfur conflict. Like other rebel groups, they strongly oppose the Sudanese government which is run by Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir. JEM is under the leadership of Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir.

-  Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir: Khalil Ibrahim is from the Kobe branch of the Zaghawa ethnic group. He started and currently leads JEM. Ibrahim has claimed credit for starting a government revolt in regard to the Darfur conflict.

-  International Criminal Court (ICC): The ICC is an independent institution, although they maintain close ties with the United Nations. They were established to control perpetrators of serious international crimes, such as genocide and war-related crimes.

-  President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir: Sudan’s leader, President al-Bashir, has been in power since 1989. This year Sudan will have their first democratic election in which current Vice President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, will challenge al-Bashir’s presidency. Mayardit is also the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) .

Somalia:
-  African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM): AMISOM works in Somalia to stabilize the country as a whole. Their mission is to, “…create a safe and secure environment in preparation for the transition to the UN.”

-  Transitional Federal Government (TFG): The TFG was formed in 2004 and is one of several attempts to create a stable government in Somalia. The TFG is hoping to establish a democracy in Somalia with the planned democratic elections coming up this year.

-  President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed: Sheikh Sharif became president after Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned in December of 2008. He has been called a “moderate” leader, and was the chairman of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

-  Union of Islamic Courts (UIC): After winning a battle for Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the UIC controlled most of southern Somalia for six months. The group was made up of local Islamic courts that were created by businessmen to catch and punish their enemies.

Prunier brings these people, groups, history, and conflicts to life in his weekly blog. Keep reading on Tuesdays to find more Notes from Africa.

Eve Donegan, Sales & Marketing Assistant

While author and weekly blogger Gérard Prunier is off exploring Africa, we thought it would be fun for you to do the same. Here are some of the best Africa-focused blogs.

• -Ingrid Jones provides up to date information on several African and non-African countries in her “Watch” series. A few to check out are: Congo Watch, Sudan Watch, and Uganda Watch. Jones’ multiple blogs do a great job of providing news from around Africa.
• -For a mix of African news, U.S. politics, and the influence of China, visit Africabeat. This blog is written by Harvard grad student, Jennifer Brea.
• -The socially conscious and internationally focused My Heart is In Accra brings a broad range of topics to the table while focusing on Africa. This blog is great for readers who are interested in being socially and internationally aware.
• -To get the hard news on Africa, visit ConnectAfrica. The blog brings up to the minute news on Africa’s news and politics without bias.
• -Sociolingo’s Africaprovides comprehensive coverage of Africa. On the right side of the homepage you can find articles on Africa’s environment, economics, and technology, to name a few. The site also gives the viewer the option of looking at news from certain African countries. The site’s editor tries to focus on subjects and issues that are not covered by other Africa bloggers.
• -For a deeper look at Uganda, check out jackfruity. The blog focuses on Ugandan issues, with global topic updates sprinkled in.

Come back next Tuesday to read Prunier’s regular blog. In the meantime, have fun checking out other African blogs!