Africa

Katrina Manson Fragile hope for Somalia

May 20, 2013 12:56 pm by Katrina Manson

 

In our Reporting Back series, we ask FT foreign correspondents to tell us about a recent trip. Katrina Manson, the FT’s east Africa correspondent, tells us about her visit to Somalia.

Why now? It’s a rare day anyone can say the future looks bright for Somalia, but for the first time in years, the state preyed on by jihadis, pirates and warlords has a shot at stability. The most significant success came towards the tail-end of 2011, when African Union troops forced out al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists, from the capital Mogadishu.

On guard: a pirate on the Galmudug coast.

Ever since, diplomats, donors and Somalis have been hopeful. But Somalia hasn’t had a functioning government for the past 22 years. Everything needs to be done and all gains are fragile. Relations between a new, weak central government and clan-aligned regions are increasingly fractious, al-Shabaab launches regular suicide attacks on Mogadishu and still controls much of the southern countryside. This month, the UK hosted a conference dedicated to security, political stability and reform in Somalia. Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid were pledged. Much more is needed, but Somalia’s debts need to be cleared first. Read more

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Posted in Africa, Foreign affairs, Reporting Back |

Katrina Manson Xi in Africa: ‘A galloping African lion’, and other interesting phrases

March 25, 2013 2:46 pm by Katrina Manson

In 2005, Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina’s seminal, satirical essay, How to Write About Africa, urged outsiders to conjure descriptions that are “romantic and evocative and unparticular”, talk of safari animals, the African light, big skies and always “treat Africa as if it were one country”.

On those criteria, new China president Xi Jinping’s cliché-heavy first speech on African turf as head of state has measured up all too well. Addressing Tanzanian dignitaries in a Chinese-built conference hall on his first trip to Africa as head of state, Xi spoke of his welcome being “as warm and as unforgettable as the sunshine in Africa” and characterised the economy as “forging ahead like a galloping African lion”.

He also spoke of the warm reception received by a Chinese television series in Tanzania and told a story about a young Chinese couple who honeymooned in the Serengeti and wrote a blogpost on their return that was a bit of a hit in China, which said: “We have completely fallen in love with Africa and our hearts will always be in this land.”

In a blow to Xi’s stated aim of treating Africans as “equals”, Wainaina said the tone of the imagery offered “cheap sentiment” that “smacks of paternalism”.

“China’s charm offensive seems to want to assume there are no serious cultural and intellectual exchanges and conversations to be had,” said Wainaina after reading excerpts of the speech. “I do not get a sense of what Africans are thinking and planning… what African thinkers mean to a growing China. If a Chinese leader cannot begin to articulate what Africa is to them with more substance, Africans should be worried.”

Such sentiments should also worry China, which seems to be failing in its efforts to sidestep allegations of neo-colonial attitudes that mar Africa’s relations the west and to deliver the “bosom” friendship Xi said he espouses. Read more

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Posted in Africa, China |

Katrina Manson Tea with the Terminator: the day I met Bosco Ntaganda

March 21, 2013 6:03 pm by Katrina Manson
Bosco Ntaganda smiles after receiving a Congolese army uniform during an integration ceremony held by the Democratic Republic of Congo on January 29, 2009 (WALTER ASTRADA/AFP/Getty Images)

Bosco Ntaganda in January 2009 (AFP/Getty)

This week Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese warlord indicted for war crimes, gave himself up after evading an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for more than six years. I’m pretty sure I was the last international journalist to meet and interview him.

It wasn’t exactly the uniform I’d imagined him in, but when I came across the Congolese warlord in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, he was wearing a t-shirt with the words “peace and reconciliation” across his front.

General Ntaganda is an indicted war criminal accused of recruiting child soldiers for a 2002 conflict and who, at the time I met him in 2010, had managed to duck an international arrest warrant for more than four years. All the while, he continued to draw allegations of further atrocities – massacres, political assassinations and rape among them.

When a journalist colleague pointed him out to me, he was huddled with the chief of the Congolese armed forces beside a grass football pitch that doubled as a UN helicopter base surrounded by the forests of Walikale.

That in itself was significant – the UN had repeatedly issued contorted and ambiguous statements in an effort to deny Gen Ntaganda was part of a UN-backed Congolese army effort deployed to beat back several rebel groups in the area. But it was an open secret that the former rebel commander whose loyalists had like him been integrated – poorly – into the army, was now second-in-command of the UN-backed mission. The UN later warned me to drop the story when I sought a response from a senior representative.

As Gen Ntaganda began to walk away I found myself walking up to him and greeted him in Swahili. “I am military co-ordinator for the operations…I am the number two,” he soon told me as he reached a vehicle packed with armed troops who looked so young I wondered about their age. “I am going to see my forces,” he said as he prepared to drive off.

The next day he directed me to a secret location in Goma, the volcanic city at the heart of eastern Congo. An armed guard kept look-out from a raised sentry box at the gate while others patrolled the site. One of them eventually summoned me with his muzzle to meet him. Read more

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Posted in Africa |

Smart Reads March 11, 2013

March 11, 2013 2:41 pm by Amie Tsang

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Posted in Africa, Foreign affairs, Smart Reads |

Peace at all costs in Kenyan elections

March 8, 2013 7:03 pm by William Wallis

Kenyan police officers outside a polling station in Nairobi (Getty)

Foreign election observers have yet to pronounce on the overall credibility of Kenya’s tense elections. But there are already strong indications that they will go along with almost any outcome if it means preserving the Kenyan peace.

“Monday was a great day for Kenyan democracy. They undertook a lot of things to ensure things went in a smooth way,” Alojz Peterle, head of the European Union observer team, said on Friday.

His stance was in marked contrast to his predecessor’s proclamations on fraud at Kenya’s last elections in 2007, which reinforced Raila Odinga’s claims to have been robbed of the presidency.  Read more

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Posted in Africa, Foreign affairs |

Esther Bintliff In the Picture: Kenya’s 2013 election

March 2, 2013 7:42 pm by Esther Bintliff

The last time Kenyans voted in a general election, more than a thousand people died in the ensuing violence and hundreds of thousands were displaced. It’s hardly surprising that emotions are running high ahead of this year’s vote on Monday March 4. The election will also be the country’s first under its new constitution, which was introduced in 2010 with the aim of devolving more power to the regions. Adding to the tension is the fact that Uhuru Kenyatta – one of the two men considered most likely to win this year – has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague for crimes against humanity, along with his running mate, for their alleged role in the 2008 violence.

In the FT

  • What happened last time? After trailing in the polls, the incumbent President – Mwai Kibaki, a member of Kenya’s largest tribe, the Kikuyus – was narrowly re-elected in a vote that many international observers said was flawed. He was sworn in on December 30 2007, but supporters of his opponent – Raila Odinga, a member of the Luo tribe – said the election had been rigged. William Wallis recounted how anger grew: “Text messages circulated stating simply: 41 on 1. This was a reference to Mr Kibaki’s Kikuyus, who comprise close to a quarter of the population, and the 41 (or so) other tribes who make up the rest. It was an ominous reminder of the perils of a system that has encouraged Kenya’s leaders, since the British colonial days of divide-and-rule, to abuse tribal allegiance for economic and political gain.”

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Posted in Africa |

Esther Bintliff The fabling of Timbuktu – a primer

January 30, 2013 3:06 pm by Esther Bintliff
Residents welcome Malian soldiers as they enter Timbuktu on January 28, 2013 (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

Residents welcome Malian soldiers as they enter Timbuktu on January 28, 2013 (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

French and Malian troops this week took control of the historic city of Timbuktu from the jihadist militants that had taken over the city in April 2012. The adjective often used to describe the desert city is “fabled” – but what is the fable of Timbuktu?

In the 19th century, the city was considered so hard to get to that the Société de Géographie offered a 10,000 franc reward for the first person to reach the city and make it back. By the time the young Frenchman René Caillié arrived there, disguised as an Arab, the centuries-old reports of riches and splendour that had lured so many explorers had disappeared into myth. Caillié described his arrival in a book published in 1830:

Timbuktu, circa 1950 (photo by Richard Harrington/Three Lions/Getty Images)

Timbuktu circa 1950

“I now saw this capital of the Sudan, to reach which had so long been the object of my wishes…

I looked around and found that the sight before me, did not answer my expectations. I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuctoo. The city presented, at first view, nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth.”

• Timbuktu’s golden age One definition of the word ‘fable’ is ‘an untruth; falsehood’. But Timbuktu did experience a golden age – Caillié was just a few centuries too late to see it. As E.J.Kahn, Jr. wrote of Timbuktu, “for a while, it was a shining city of the Empire of Mali, which early in the thirteenth century succeeded the Empire of Ghana as West Africa’s paramount nation.” The root of the city’s prosperity was its geographical location at the crossroads of a caravan route between Africa’s Arab northern regions and west Africa. Situated between the Sahara desert and the fertile banks of the Niger river, Timbuktu became a busy trading hub for merchants exchanging west African goods including gold, ivory, and salt, for Mediterranean products such as glass, ceramics, and precious stones. Read more

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Posted in Africa |

Mali: the liberation of Gao

January 28, 2013 3:06 pm by Financial Times
French army troopers arrive at base camp in Sevare on January 25, 2013 (FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

French army troopers arrive at base camp in Sevare on January 25, 2013 (FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

French and Malian forces have made rapid advances in recent days in their efforts to defeat Islamist militants in Mali. On Saturday they captured Gao, which has been under control of the Islamists since last April.

Xan Rice, the FT’s west Africa correspondent, spoke to a teacher from Gao, who did not want his name to be used, about the liberation of the town.

Here is a transcript of the teacher’s account:

“We had a big celebration when the French and Malian army arrived on Saturday. On all the main streets people were out welcoming them.

“It was ‘Long live France, long live Hollande, long live Mali’s army’. The town is secured. We also have soldiers from Niger and Chad here. We are all very happy because nobody liked the Islamists. They were strong but they lost a lot of equipment and vehicles when they attacked Konna [a central town, where the conflict started in January]. We knew that when the army came here, the Islamists would fly away.

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Posted in Africa |

A Davos Q&A with Lord Paul Boateng

January 25, 2013 8:35 am by Financial Times

Lord Paul Boateng, former chief secretary to the treasury and the former UK high commissioner to South Africa, answers questions about his first trip to Davos.

1. Is this your first trip to Davos?

I have to confess that it is. I’ve reached a fairly advanced age without ever having felt Davos was for me. I have been an active participant, however, both as a cabinet minister and a diplomat at the spin offs in Mumbai and Cape Town where the WEF reaches out to the rest of the world.

2. What’s the best thing about going to Davos?

If you’ve got an idea or a product to sell then this is a quite unique market place. There are lots of serious people on the lookout for the next big idea or opportunity. A voracious media circus with the promise of global coverage also helps. Read more

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Britain, Davos, Development, World affairs |

In Mali it’s Chad not C-17s that matter

January 23, 2013 4:23 pm by William Wallis

While parts of the British media obsess about whether or not the UK has landed a few special forces boots on the ground in Mali, a far more significant deployment has been taking place.

An armoured column of Chadian troops was rumbling on Wednesday through the Niger scrub on its way to the Mali border. The contingent is part of a 2,000-strong force that N‘Djamena has promised to deploy to help retake the northern two-thirds of the country from Islamist militias, whose offensive towards the Malian capital triggered France’s intervention.

The Chadian army has had extensive training from France and some from the US too in recent years. More importantly, the Chadians have their own history of fighting rebellions in scalding desert sands and mountains – something the smaller Nigerian contingent that has landed in Bamako as part of a hurriedly put together African intervention force cannot quite claim. Read more

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Posted in Africa |
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