Africa News Digest
Rebels Take Port Area in New Assault on Liberian Capital
A new rebel assault on Monrovia, the Liberian capital, on July 19 "shattered hopes that a speedy deployment of international peacekeepers could avert fresh bloodshed in a country where hundreds of thousands have died in two savage civil wars," Associated Press reported.
Heavy explosions and machine-gun fire shook Monrovia July 19 "as rebels punched into the city, sending tens of thousands of panicked residents and weary fighters streaming downtown. Many more civilians surged toward the fighting, waving leafy branches and demanding an end to more than a decade of turmoil," the July 19 AP wire said, adding that "fierce fighting broke out on the two bridges leading into downtown Monrovia and port area."
News wires July 20 said that the rebels have taken the port area and the northern part of the city.
President Charles Taylor told AP, "I will stand and fight to the last man," and will "fight street to street, house to house."
"There was frantic looting in the city center as long unpaid pro-government fighters helped themselves," AP reported.
Ex-Diplomat Tells Bush: Use Powell's Approach in Liberia
CFR Senior Fellow Princeton Lyman called for a "Colin Powell" approach in Liberia, and rejected "doing it on the cheap" (as Rumsfeld has proposed), in a Washington Post op-ed July 19. President Bush has promised some form of help for Liberia, but was still undecided as to what form it will take.
Lyman, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa, writes, "Peacekeeping should be guided by the same principle that Colin Powell, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, brought to fighting wars: If we are to do it, we should mobilize a sufficiently strong force to get the job done. This lesson has had to be learned over and over again at great human cost." He cites the Rwanda 1994 genocide; the initial UN force in Sierra Leone, kept small at U.S. insistence, to reduce costs; and the current situation in Congo.
But, "Now there is talk of doing it on the cheap." He argues that Liberians have mixed feelings about West African troops as peacekeepers, given previous experience; that Liberians need to have confidence that the force will be politically neutral (sic); and that "only by being strongly represented on the ground, in the streets and at the points of potential trouble can the U.S. exercise real control over the peacekeeping force to maintain standards of respect for the population ... and [standards of] effective confrontation, when necessary.... There is no better way to train African peacekeeping forces than to have them part and parcel of a U.S.-led and U.S.-controlled operation."
The U.S. should plan for an initial force of 1,500 to 2,000 U.S. troops, supported by 2,000 to 3,000 West African troops, "to stabilize the situation around Monrovia, where a third or more of the Liberian population has gathered." He continues, "This ... must include a plan of action for dealing with child soldiers, drugged and separated from their families, who make up much of both Charles Taylor's and the rebels' forces. An amnesty should be declared for all those under 18, and reception centers immediately established. And there must be rules of engagement for how to deal with child soldiers who threaten force."
"Taylor has to be persuaded to leave," he says. "Rebel forces must stand down, and the neighboring states that support them should help persuade them." The UN should be asked to provide political and material support for the political negotiations conducted by ECOWAS, the group of West African governments. "This effort should lead to a transitional government, perhaps under UN oversight, that could ... establish a political process free of warlords."
The UN, Lyman says, should establish a much larger force than the U.S.-led one, "comparable to the 17,000-member force needed in Sierra Leone, which would move through the rest of the country."
South African President Mbeki indicated, during President Bush's visit to South Africa earlier this month, that he favored U.S. participation in a peacekeeping force for Liberia, but not U.S. leadership of it.
West African States Sending Troops to Liberia
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) planned to have at least 1,500 troops from Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, and perhaps Senegal, in Monrovia by about July 20, to enforce the ceasefire, but their arrival has been postponed until the end of July. More ECOWAS troops will follow, and troops may also come from South Africa and Morocco. The decision was made in Maputo, Mozambique, in a meeting between UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and West African leaders July 9.
Reports of the Maputo decision did not indicate that the ECOWAS troops were conditional on a U.S. troop commitment, but according to Reuters July 19, "ECOWAS insists on American participation, not least to provide logistics support."
Annan, who favors U.S. leadership of the peacekeeping force, has just appointed a senior U.S. diplomat, Maj. Gen. Jacques Klein (ret.), as his Special Representative for Liberia. Klein has served as Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force for International Affairs and held posts in the State Department.
President Bush is still awaiting recommendations from his advisers, based on reports from two U.S. military teams sent to assess what role the U.S. should play. One went to Liberia; the other toured ECOWAS capitals.
U.S. Creates Obstacles to Cheap Anti-Retrovirals
The U.S. Commerce Department and the Trade Representative's Office are making it unnecessarily hard for developing countries to access generic anti-AIDS drugs. That was the Wall Street Journal's message to the Bush Administration in an article by Michael Schroeder July 9, while Bush was in Africa. The Commerce Department is helping shape patent laws in developing countries that go beyond global standards in protecting the drug makers.
In 2000, the U.S. Agency for International Development started funding a $1.2-million technical assistance program administered by the Commerce Department, and in Nigeria, for example, the project included helping rewrite patent laws.
Olayide Akanni, a representative of the Treatment Action Group, makes the following points against the resulting Nigerian draft law, as summarized by the Journal: It "mandates a complex Nigerian court process to license cheaper generic drug copies to treat serious diseases, instead of the simpler government administrative procedure allowed by global rules. It adds a four-year waiting period for issuing drug licenses, when WTO rules in general have no waiting period. The bill would block ... [non-governmental] organizations from applying for licenses."
In December 2002, urged by the drug companies, the U.S. alone, among 144 World Trade Organization (WTO) members, blocked a proposal for distributing patented medicines to less-developed nations.
Harvard Africa Expert: Bush Trip to Africa a Failure
Robert Rotberg, an Africa specialist from the Cold War years, called President Bush's trip to Africa a failure in a Boston Globe op-ed July 15, "Bush's lost chances to help Africa."
Rotberg writes, "His swift leapfrog from capital to capital was heavy on photo opportunities and platitudes but light on accomplishments and policy articulations. The President meant well, but Africa needs promises of concrete action; none were enunciated. Many and momentous were the missed opportunities, particularly so for someone expressing a newfound compassion for Africa.
"Bush's biggest bungle was over Zimbabwe, giving dictator Robert Mugabe an unnecessary propaganda victory.... Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush cannot intervene in Zimbabwe.... But he missed the chance to express a loathing of Mugabe's evil regime on African soil.... Bush either bought into or simply let Mbeki declare optimistically that South Africa's ongoing quiet diplomacy was about to reconcile Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. Surely Mugabe's brutalities merit attention equal to those accorded the axis of evil?...
"Bush had a perfect opportunity ... to commit at least a few thousand U.S. troops to African peacemaking duty. Instead of declaring the United States squarely in favor of peace enforcement and promising to put money and personnel behind the task, Bush on Friday [July 11] even praised President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, one of the backers of rebel turmoil in Congo, as a man of peace."
Rotberg is currently director of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School's Program on Intrastate Conflict.
Mbeki, Zimbabwe Government Press: 'Secret Deal' a Fabrication
South African President Thabo Mbeki and the government-run Herald in Zimbabwe have denied a claim that Presidents Bush and Mbeki reached a secret deal to have Mugabe out of power by the end of 2003. The story appeared July 11 in the Zimbabwe Independent, an opposition newspaper, and the British Independent July 15. The Zimbabwe newspaper cited diplomatic sources; the British version cited no sources and made no reference to the earlier story.
Mbeki, speaking to reporters July 18, said, "There is no such thing. I don't know where that comes from. There was no discussion at all about anybody stepping down."
China To Provide Economic-Technical Help to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe and China signed an economic and cooperation agreement worth US $4.5 million, according to the Herald and People's Daily July 15. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Lu Guozeng signed the agreement in Harare after a long meeting with Mugabe, during a three-day visit.
China will fund economic and technical development programs in Zimbabwe. Lu said that new Chinese President Hu Jianto wishes to continue strengthening friendship between the two countries. Zimbabwe imports such goods as machinery, textiles, grain, and light industry goods from China. China is the major importer of Zimbabwean tobacco.
Sudan Gets Egypt's Help Over 'Destructive' Peace Proposal
Egypt has responded to the Sudanese government's request for Arab mediation for the U.S.-backed plan for settling the country's conflict. The Khartoum government continues to reject the peace plan put forward by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African grouping.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher met with U.S. envoy to Sudan John Danforth in Cairo July 16, and stressed the need to redress the flaws in the most recent draft agreement put forth by IGAD, to which Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir responded July 14 by saying: "let IGAD and those behind it go to hell." Bashir called the IGAD proposals a "document of war, destruction and division." The Khartoum government has rejected its plan to give a virtual monopoly of power in the South to the SPLA rebels, disregarding other southern political forces; set up a council of ministers in the South; carve out an area of Khartoum and designate it the joint capital; and suspend Islamic law in Khartoum during the transition.
Maher noted in his talks with Danforth: "The Sudanese government voiced objection to the proposal, as it exposes Sudan's unity to danger and paves the way for the secession of [the South from] Sudan." It is essential, he said, that "any initiative concerning the solution favor a united Sudan in which people can access land and wealth fairly." Following talks with Maher, Danforth will go to Khartoum with a message from President Bush to President Bashir. Negotiations are to resume July 23.
But Danforth, in a Nairobi press conference July 19, claimed there was no serious bone of contention, and warned the parties that the U.S. and the Europeans would pull out if agreement were not reached in weeks.
Oil Majors Watching Sao Tome Closely in Wake of Coup
A spokesman for Exxon Mobil told the New York Times July 20 that the company was "closely following the situation like everybody else," after the army of Sao Tome and Principe overthrew the government in the early hours of July 16. "Everybody else" includes ChevronTexaco, Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFinaElf. The press characterizes the coup as arising merely from tensions over how the country of 170,000 souls will use the income from the oil bonanza that is about to beginin the form of $108 million next year from selling nine offshore exploration permitstwice the national budget. Oil deposits are believed to be as much as 6 billion barrels of crude.
Overthrown President Fradique de Menezes had chosen the U.S. as the country's protector, Prime Minister Maria das Neves is an IMF true believer, and U.S. military plans in the Gulf of Guinea include possibly building a naval base in the country.
The first broadcasts of the coup leaders, led by Maj. Fernando ("Cobo") Pereira, chief of the military academy, do not, however, make U.S. ties the issue, but say the coup was "the reflection ... of the difficult economic and social conditions the country is going through." This may refer to the IMF-oriented policies of das Neves, who said last year that her policies would inflict pain on the people. Sao Tome is one of the world's poorest countries.
Pereira has reportedly said his forces do not plan to alter existing agreements with oil companies.
The World Bank has cut off all aid. After four hours of talks July 20 with envoys from eight countriesled by Gabon and including the U.S. and Nigeriacoup leaders departed saying negotiations had not even begun.
Plan for Railroad from Port Sudan Across Ethiopia to Kenya
Experts from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Turkey are planning a railroad from Port Sudan on the Red Sea, right across Ethiopia, to the Kenyan border at Moyale. Government experts from the three countries met in Addis Ababa July 2 to consider joint financing for the 1600-mile railway. A final decision to build has not yet been reached. The project is based on a study by a Chinese company. Trains on such a railway would climb from sea level to the Ethiopian plateau, 1.1 miles high, and down again. The outcome of the July 2 meeting is not known, but the experts also considered other trilateral projects in agriculture, energy, water, transport, and communications.
Ethiopia is landlocked, and in the present food crisis, when forced to choose between using the ports of a hostile Eritrea or a route much inferior logistically, it has chosen the latter. The railway solves the problem.
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