United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

15 April 2011

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

A light footprint (The Economist)

(Germany/Pan-Africa) Rarely have American generals seemed less keen to claim glory
on the battlefield. Those in charge of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (Africom) are
mightily relieved to have handed control of Libya’s no-fly zone to NATO earlier this
month, before the going got tough.

Allies Vow to Push Libya Campaign Until Gadhafi Goes (VOA)

(Libya) The leaders of Britain, France and the United States say the NATO coalition will
continue its military campaign in Libya until Moammar Gadhafi leaves power, while
rebels said loyalist attacks killed 23 people in the besieged city of Misrata.

Obama praises Emir of Qatar over Libya (AFP)

(Libya) US President Barack Obama Thursday poured praise on the emir of Qatar,
saying in Oval Office talks that the international coalition in Libya would have been
impossible but for his leadership.

EU lifts sanctions on Libyan defector (CNN)

(Libya) The European Union has lifted sanctions on Libya's highest-profile defector,
allowing him to travel freely in Europe and access his money.

Amateur Videos from Libya Show Frustration (VOA)

(Libya) Government restrictions on the media in the parts of Libya controlled by
Moammar Gadhafi make it difficult to get uncensored news out of Tripoli. But a VOA
correspondent has contacts in Libya and has received videos over the Internet that
apparently show examples of government repression. We want to to share these videos
with you and dissect what it is they show.

China's interests in Gaddafi (Aljazeera)

(Libya) What a sight. Chinese president Hu Jintao pulling a vintage John Lennon
performance in Beijing and telling self-styled Arab liberator and French neo-Napoleonic
president Nicolas Sarkozy to "give peace a chance" in Libya.
Ivory Coast, Libya highlight growing rift between Africa and the West (Christian
Science Monitor
(Pan-Africa) If ever there was doubt of a growing rift between African and Western
leaders, it was made clear with the recent conflicts of Libya and Ivory Coast.

UN Expects Swift Economic Recovery in Ivory Coast (VOA)

(Côte d’Ivoire) Forces loyal to Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara have taken
control of the presidential palace in downtown Abidjan. It was one of the last places
where fighters backing the former president were holding out after months of political
violence. The United Nations expects a swift economic recovery for the country once
security is restored.

Sudanese leaders to discuss Abyei (UPI)

(Sudan) A decision by parties in Sudan to discuss solutions to simmering disputes in
the border region of Abyei is a welcome measure, the U.N. Mission in Sudan said.

South Sudan army says it is capable of providing adequate security (Sudan Tribune)
(Sudan) The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said on Thursday it is capable of
providing adequate security to all its citizens and their properties, across the ten states
and in the surrounding areas.

World sea attacks surge with more violent pirates (AP)

(Somalia) Sea piracy worldwide hit a record high of 142 attacks in the first quarter this
year as Somali pirates become more violent and aggressive, a global maritime watchdog
said Thursday.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Côte d’Ivoire stand-off over but humanitarian crisis continues, UN and partners
warn
 UN agencies in Namibia appeal for funds to respond to flood emergency
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Friday, April 15, 2011; 9:30 a.m.; Brookings Institution, 1775
Massachusetts Avenue NW
WHAT: The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA): Opening Doors for U.S.-
Africa Economic Relations
WHO: Mwangi Kimenyi, Director of the Africa Growth Initiative; Stephen Hayes,
President of the Corporate Council on Africa; Florizelle Liser, assistant U.S. trade
representative for Africa; Zambian Commerce, Trade and Industry Minister Felix
Mutati; John Page, senior fellow of Global Economy and Development at Brookings;
Katrin Kuhlman, senior fellow and director of TransFarm Africa Policy at the Aspen
Institute; Witney Schneidman, president of Schneidman and Associates International;
and Rosa Whitaker, president and CEO of the Whitaker Group
Info: www.brookings.edu

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, April 19th at 2:00 p.m.; U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: The Future of Two Sudans: A Conversation with former Presidents Thabo
Mbeki, Pierre Buyoya and Adulsalami Alhaji Abubakar
WHO: President Thabo Mbeki, Former President of South Africa, Head of the African
Union High Level Implementation Panel (Sudan); President Pierre Buyoya, Former
President of Burundi, Member, African Union High Level Implementation Panel
(Sudan); President Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar, Former President of Nigeria,
Member, African Union High Level Implementation Panel (Sudan)
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/the-future-two-sudans-conversation-former-
presidents-thabo-mbeki-pierre-buyoya-and-adulsalami

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, April 20th at 2:00 p.m.; U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: H.E. Dr. Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission
WHO: H.E. Dr. Jean Ping, Speaker, AU Commission
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/he-dr-jean-ping-chairperson-the-african-union-
commission
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

A light footprint (The Economist)

By Unattributed Author
April 14th 2011
STUTTGART - RARELY have American generals seemed less keen to claim glory on the
battlefield. Those in charge of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (Africom) are mightily
relieved to have handed control of Libya’s no-fly zone to NATO earlier this month,
before the going got tough.

The orders from Barack Obama were to end their involvement within days rather than
weeks, which they did. But the mission was never a comfortable fit. Africom is one of
the oddest creatures in the American military. Its staff of 2,000 includes no regular
troops, no “trigger-pullers”, unlike its sibling Centcom, which oversees Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Responsible for American operations in all African countries except Egypt, Africom was
set up four years ago in the toxic aftermath of the Iraq invasion to pioneer a new form of
defence, encompassing diplomacy and development. To avoid future high-profile wars,
commanders were told to focus on “smart power”: training national armies to keep the
peace and to neutralise threats before they reach the headlines.
To do this, the Americans needed good relations with African leaders, many of whom
were initially suspicious of the Pentagon. Nigeria and South Africa, the continent’s
military giants, have warmed to Africom in the past year. But the Libyan campaign has
reignited fears of American domination.

After endlessly stressing that they will not drop bombs, the Americans face a high-
pitched backlash. Things could get worse if Libya is de facto partitioned. Insecure
neighbours may blame America for unleashing a secessionist bug, not least given its
support for splitting up Sudan.

That would be unfair. America favours African stability above all else. It supported
Sudan’s partition only after all alternatives had failed. African leaders would do well to
exploit America’s new-found interest in the continent. Defence co-operation is already a
boon to a number of governments. More than three-quarters of Senegalese officers have
been to American war colleges, vastly boosting their professionalism. In the Sahara,
weaker states are receiving help from Africom to fight al-Qaeda affiliates.

Still, some African suspicions are understandable. Making armies more capable could
increase the risks of a coup, though Africom insists that greater professionalism also
makes soldiers less political. Few, however, deny that America’s role remains widely
misunderstood.

The Pentagon—rightly obsessed with Iraq at the time—should have done a better job
explaining Africom’s mission when it was set up. Instead, the issue of where to base it
dominated the debate. Many Africans wrongly assumed that America planned to build
garrisons for armoured divisions on the continent.

In the end, most of the command ended up in sleepy and dour but prosperous southern
Germany, perhaps the least African place in the world. Ensconced in manicured
barracks with pitched roofs, its leaders have struggled to turn slogans into actions.
Trained to fight rather than persuade, many are still planning responses to future
conflicts instead of studying their potential causes so as to stop them before they
become a real bother.

Yet most to blame for Africom’s problems is the American political class. Not for
assigning Africom the Libya mission and giving it troops and weapons. Combat
operations were never excluded from Africom’s mandate, merely downgraded. Rather,
the politicians have failed to provide Africom with the main resource it needs to operate
intelligently: trained civilian helpers.

A quarter of Africom’s staff is meant to be made up of linguists, historians and other

specialists. Yet 99.5% of Africom personnel are Pentagon employees. The State
Department and other government agencies are too stretched to send experts. Congress
happily pays for weapons but despises weaselly diplomats and woolly development
aid, yet they are vital to ensuring that arms stay sheathed.
-----------------------------
Allies Vow to Push Libya Campaign Until Gadhafi Goes (VOA)
By Unattributed Author
April 14, 2011
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States say the NATO coalition will
continue its military campaign in Libya until Moammar Gadhafi leaves power, while
rebels said loyalist attacks killed 23 people in the besieged city of Misrata.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S.
President Barack Obama said Friday that leaving Mr. Gadhafi in power would be an
"unconscionable betrayal" of the Libyan people.

In a joint article published in several international newspapers, The Times of London,

France's Le Figaro and The Washington Post , the leaders wrote it is "unthinkable that
someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future
government."

Mr. Gadhafi, meanwhile, gave no sign he is willing to relent. His forces pounded
Misrata with dozens of rockets for several hours Thursday. Anti-government rebels
said at least 23 people were killed and many more wounded in what they called a
"massacre" in Libya's third-largest city.

The main target of the assault was Misrata's port, the only lifeline for rebels to the
outside world. Residential neighborhoods near the port were also shelled.

Meanwhile, Libyan state television reported that NATO warplanes had launched air
strikes Thursday on targets in Tripoli. Witnesses in the capital said a series of
explosions rocked the area shortly after NATO warplanes flew overhead.

Despite the bombing, Mr. Gadhafi was shown on state television Thursday, defiantly
cruising through the streets of Tripoli, pumping his fists and waving from an open-top
vehicle.

In Washington, State Department acting spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. remains
confident in NATO's ability to oversee air operations in Libya. He commented after
France asked for the United States to resume air raids.

France made the request on Thursday at a NATO meeting in Berlin. NATO chief
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, however, told alliance members that their forces have
maintained a "high operational tempo" against legitimate targets in Libya. He said
NATO needs more high-precision attack aircraft for the mission.
Another conference about Libya took place in Cairo. United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said the African and Arab and European delegates attending that meeting
had agreed on a unified approach to finding a "lasting solution" to Libya's turmoil.

The talks in Berlin and Cairo occurred a day after an international contact group of U.S.,
European and Arab partners pledged more monetary and political support for the
Libyan opposition at a meeting in Doha. In its final statement, the group called on Mr.
Gadhafi to leave power, saying he and his government had "lost all legitimacy."

In Brussels, the European Union announced Thursday that it has removed former
Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa from a sanctions list, in an apparent bid to
entice other Libyan officials to break ranks with the government. Koussa is the most
senior official to flee Libya.
--------------------
Obama praises Emir of Qatar over Libya (AFP)
By Unattributed Author
April 13, 2011
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama Thursday poured praise on the emir of
Qatar, saying in Oval Office talks that the international coalition in Libya would have
been impossible but for his leadership.

Obama also thanked Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani for his role in supporting
democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, in a sign of an increasing convergence of
interests between Washington and Doha.

"I expressed to him my appreciation of the leadership that the emir has shown when it
comes to democracy in the Middle East," Obama said.

"We would not have been able to shape the kind of broad-based international coalition
that includes not only our NATO members and also includes Arab states without the
emir's leadership," he said.

"He is motivated by a belief that the Libyan people should have the rights and freedoms
of all people."

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were the only Arab states to participate in military
operations in Libya despite the Arab League's support for a no-fly zone to prevent
Moamer Kadhafi from harming civilians.

On Wednesday, Qatar hosted a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya,

and attracted a riposte from the Tripoli government, which accused the emirate of
supplying anti-tank missiles to rebels.
Obama also said the emir had offered him insight on the wave of political revolt in the
Middle East and that they also discussed joint efforts to end the humanitarian crisis in
Darfur.

The president also joked that though he would be an ex-president by then, he hoped he
could get good seats for the 2022 World Cup Finals, which will be hosted by Qatar.

The emir told Obama that his priority was "the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and how to
find a way to establish a Palestinian state.

"We do understand your position Mr President in supporting the existence of two states
living side by side and we support your position."

The emir and Obama discussed the Middle East as pressure mounts on Obama to make
a new attempt to unblock Israeli-Palestinian talks which broke down last year due to a
row over settlements.

Separately, House of Representatives speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that he

had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give an address to a joint
session of Congress in May.

Qatar and the United States have growing diplomatic and economic links and there is a
large US airbase in the Qatari desert.
---------------------
EU lifts sanctions on Libyan defector (CNN)
By Unattributed Author
April 14, 2011
(CNN) -- The European Union has lifted sanctions on Libya's highest-profile defector,
allowing him to travel freely in Europe and access his money.

The EU unfroze the assets of former Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa and lifted
a visa ban that had been imposed on him.

The sanctions were lifted Tuesday but made public Thursday.

Koussa, a Gadhafi confidant and former intelligence chief, left his foreign ministry post
in Libya and flew into a small airport in London last month. His arrival raised eyebrows
-- and hopes of a breakthrough on many fronts.

He was the highest-ranking Libyan official to defect. NATO coalition officials hoped it
indicated lagging support for Gadhafi in his inner circle.

He traveled to Qatar on Tuesday for an international meeting on Libya. It was unclear

whether he met with Libyan opposition members.
--------------------
Amateur Videos from Libya Show Frustration (VOA)
By Carolyn Presutti
April 14, 2011
Government restrictions on the media in the parts of Libya controlled by Moammar
Gadhafi make it difficult to get uncensored news out of Tripoli. But a VOA
correspondent has contacts in Libya and has received videos over the Internet that
apparently show examples of government repression. We want to to share these videos
with you and dissect what it is they show.

This is just a sample of the amateur videos sent to a correspondent's email account at
Voice of America. The sender is a source I trust, and have used before. This source says
the video shows forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi abusing volunteer
soldiers and rebel prisoners.

This interview comes from a different source. Both he and the woman are risking their
lives in Green Square in Tripoli where Gadhafi supporters typically gather for
demonstrations.

"We are the people who are fighting for the Libyan people," she said.

Media experts say these videos are typical of what now comes out of conflict zones.

Susan Moeller is director of the International Center for Media at the University of
Maryland. She says together the videos are persuasive.

"Here we are seeing little snippets of individual pixilated people who are saying ‘I’m
against Gadhafi, in favor of outside intervention,'" said Moeller. "But they want us to
see them all and say, 'Oh, okay the full picture we get is there's a lot of people who see
this and maybe we should think this too.'"

Some of the interviews are accompanied by accurate English translations. This man is
joking about Libya's government, while several people record him on their mobile
phones.

"Our killed people will end up in paradise, but your killed people will go to hell," he
said.

In another video, the same man is lying in a truck, purportedly captured by Gadhafi
loyalists.

"You dare to insult Moammar, you dog. You are a traitor," yells a male voice.
The Gadhafi government restricts journalists to one hotel in Tripoli. They cannot leave
without an official escort and are only allowed to cover events sanctioned by the
government. That's why these videos are so rare. But their rarity also makes them
suspect.

Christine Fair with Georgetown University says you - the viewer - need to decide if
Internet videos are authentic.

"Once these videos go viral, they move very quickly and they are very powerful," said
Fair. "This also means however that it's somewhat easy to fabricate somewhat dodgy
[shaky] looking video from a phone."

"It's definitely not normal life," said a Libyan woman.

This woman from Tripoli is being interviewed in front of what the shooter says is the
naval barrack on the outskirts of the capital.

"It's safe, it's just frustrating not being able to say what we want to," she said. "I never
really thought I'd be happy to have my country bombed by anybody. You find yourself
saying a new prayer for the pilots' safety."

Most of these opposition fighters agree on the fate of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi,
including this man from Tripoli.

"He will not stay. Impossible. If he stays it means that we will die. All of Libya will
die," he said.

Government soldiers disagree:

"Lift your head, you dog. Long live Moammar," says a man's voice.

The senders of these videos say many Libyan cities have an acute communication crisis.
They have occasional Internet access and can only speak through satellite phones. Or,
through smuggled images like these.
-----------------
China's interests in Gaddafi (Aljazeera)
By Pepe Escobar
April 14, 2011
What a sight. Chinese president Hu Jintao pulling a vintage John Lennon performance
in Beijing and telling self-styled Arab liberator and French neo-Napoleonic president
Nicolas Sarkozy to "give peace a chance" in Libya.

The top four BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) all abstained at the voting of
UN Security Council Resolution 1973. In his subtle address to Sarkozy, Hu also implied
his displeasure that the African Union, which was overwhelmingly against a foreign
intervention in Libya, had their proposals totally sidelined by the West.

Only three days before UN Resolution 1973 was voted on, Gaddafi met with the
ambassadors of BRICS members China, Russia and India, and told them, according to
the JANA news agency: "We are ready to bring Chinese and Indian companies to
replace Western ones." That may go a long way to explain the BRICS abstentions.

It would be tempting to see the Beijing leadership merrily watching Washington walk
into another open-ended quagmire in a Muslim nation – part of a Chinese grand
strategy of letting the US be distracted in peripheral Muslim countries in the arc from
northern Africa to Central Asia.

Well, it is slightly more complicated than that.

Shopping for suppliers

China has 50 large-scale projects in Libya, but still invests less than in Angola and
Zambia. From a Libyan point of view, China is a major Gaddafi financial partner – the
third-largest buyer of Libyan oil behind Italy and France, with the added bonus of
following its world-famous "non-interventionism" policy.

Yet in energy terms, China's top African oil suppliers are Angola, Sudan and Nigeria –
all ahead of Libya.

Around 80 per cent of Libya's oil reserves, of roughly 44 billion barrels, are in the Sirte
basin – spread out between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, a great deal of it under on and
off rebel control.

Some 70 per cent of Libya's GDP is connected to oil. Beijing would hate to contemplate
a balkanisation of Libya along Korea's lines – an impoverished, oil-less, Gaddafi-ruled
west/North Korea opposed to an affluent, oil-rich, Western-aligned Cyrenaica/South
Korea.

Beijing never really worried about a Western embargo on Libyan oil. Who would dare
strike a tanker navigating under the Chinese flag?

What Beijing wanted was for the rebels to collapse, with Gaddafi back in charge of the
whole country and no "regime change".

Now with a Libyan stalemate as the most possible scenario, Beijing is factoring its
influence in the price of oil. Oil consumption in China is about 4 per cent of GDP. Each
$10 increase in the price of a barrel dangerously increases that proportion by 0.4 per
cent.
Then there's Washington's response to the AU via the Pentagon's Africom – created by
the Bush administration in late 2007, but now already in its first African war. Africom
innocuously brands itself as "advising and training" military forces.

Only five African countries are not associated with Africom in some way – among them
Libya.

Africom holds the paltry record of coordinating a botched Ethiopian invasion of

Somalia that ended up with a great deal of the country embracing the hardcore al-
Shabab militia. Africom also war-gamed a full-scale conflict in the Gulf of Guinea.
Angola, China's top oil supplier in Africa, happens to be in the Gulf of Guinea.

So no wonder the leitmotiv in the influential People's Daily is something like: "Libya
has been attacked because of oil", with the corollary of this anti-China power play in
Libya mirroring Western interference in Sudan.

Oil or jasmine?

Chinese reaction to the complex Sunni/Shia tumult in Bahrain has been silence. Why?
That may be a good question for Saudi foreign minister Saud bin Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz,
who repositioned the House of Saud post-Cold War to a preferential footing with
China.

Saudi Arabia is China's top oil supplier (1.1 million barrels a day; the Middle East as a
whole exports a total of 2.9 million); that limits Beijing's leverage to really influence the
Arab world.

Africa is absolutely crucial for China's energy strategy. Let's take a look at China's top
oil suppliers: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Russia, Oman and Sudan.

At the strait of Hormuz – through which transits Saudi, Iranian and Omani oil – China
is hostage of the local policeman, the US 5th Fleet, which also patrols the Bab el-
Mandeb, the gateway to the Red Sea and the naval highway for Sudan's oil to reach the
Indian Ocean.

Then there's the strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, patrolled
by the US 7th Fleet – the key chokepoint for oil navigating towards China.

China also has to worry about Iran, its number two supplier (of oil and also natural
gas), under severe sanctions that have shrunk its energy production.
So it is no surprise Beijing has connected the dots between Libya being bombed and
Bahrain and Yemen getting away with repression of pro-democracy protests. The 5th
Fleet calls Bahrain home, and Aden, in Yemen, is the key to the Red Sea.

Whichever the latitude, Beijing finds the Pentagon's mighty machine interfering with
most of its key sources of energy; half of China's oil imports in 2011 came from MENA
(Middle East/ Northern Africa). The threat is graphic, as Beijing sees it.

Africa, in the periphery of Eurasia, is also a key battlefield of the New Great Game – as
the global geo-economy is rearranged, and the competition between the US and China
for energy resources is emphasised.

Beijing's position is crystal clear in the words of Lin Zhiyuan, a deputy office director of
the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences.

Writing in People's Daily, Zhiyuan stresses how "the US global military redeployment
centres mainly on an instable arc zone", and how "the African continent is taken as a
strong point to prop up the US global strategy", with Africom facilitating the US
"advancing on the African continent, taking control of the Eurasian Continent and
proceeding to take the helm of the entire globe".

And then there is the social volcano inside the Middle Kingdom. Moving at lightning
speed to curb the ultra-sensitive political reverberations of the great 2011 Arab Revolt –
the "harmonious society" collides with the prospect of a "jasmine revolution" – the
Beijing leadership condemned what it dubbed "street corner politics" which can only
lead to "social chaos" and "stagnate" Chinese society.

In a nutshell; China is not the Middle East, and Middle East "turmoil" does not apply to
China. Instead, "happiness" has been set as the new national goal – replacing GDP
growth (and, hopefully, making everyone forget about inflation, social inequality and
corruption).

Bob Dylan, who turns 70 next month, played his first concert ever in China this week, at
a packed Workers' Gymnasium in Beijing.

In China, Dylan is considered a sheng ren – a sage. He did play "A Hard Rain's Gonna
Fall". The Chinese translation may have sent shivers down the spine of many a Middle
Kingdom strategist.
------------------------
Ivory Coast, Libya highlight growing rift between Africa and the West (Christian
Science Monitor
By Scott Baldauf
April 14, 2011
Johannesburg, South Africa - If ever there was doubt of a growing rift between African
and Western leaders, it was made clear with the recent conflicts of Libya and Ivory
Coast.

In both countries – where strongmen rulers unleashed their armies and police against
opponents – Western leaders quickly called for international intervention to protect
civilians, while many African leaders preferred mediation and complained of African
sovereignty being trampled.

In Ivory Coast, African Union-led mediation failed miserably as renegade President

Laurent Gbagbo plunged his country back into civil war before the United Nations
asked French forces to intervene, leading to Mr. Gbagbo's capture on Monday. And
while Western allies continued to bomb forces loyal to Libyan dictator Muammar
Qaddafi this week, the AU sent a five-nation team to Tripoli to hash out "road map" for
peace that rebels have rejected.

Five key reasons Ivory Coast's election led to civil war

The tensions resulting from the two approaches, though, are not merely between bossy
rich Western nations on one side and African nationalists on the other. They exist
within every African country, in a debate that poses the question: Can modern African
societies be open enough to allow democracy, but strong enough to resist external
political or economic domination?

“It is a very interesting conflict going on. The Ivory Coast issue has divided African
public opinion quite sharply,” says Achille Mbembe, professor of history and politics at
Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

African anger at the West reached its sharpest point at the beginning of a French-led air
attack on heavy weapons belonging to Gbagbo’s forces in Ivory Coast's main city of
Abidjan on April 4.

Think you know Africa? Take our geography quiz.

African Union chief Teodoro Obiang Nguema – who is also president of Equatorial
Guinea – told a gathering of reporters in Geneva, “Africa does not need any external
influence. Africa must manage its own affairs.”

Not only was UN action unwanted in Ivory Coast, it was also undermining AU efforts
at mediation in Libya, Mr. Obiang said.

"I believe that the problems in Libya should be resolved in an internal fashion and not
through an intervention that could appear to resemble an humanitarian intervention,"
Obiang said. "We have already seen this in Iraq.”
Colonialism looms large
Yet the larger debate between democracy on one hand and nationalism on the other is
an old one, Mr. Mbembe says, dating to the colonial period, when Africans were
fighting for self-determination.

“Africans wanted elections, but they also wanted to be free from foreign intervention,”
he says. Freedom movements combined both of these two goals into a larger project to
push out Western colonial powers. But once the colonial powers left, the liberal goal of
democratic freedom gave way as newly formed African governments adopted an
authoritarian style.

This authoritarian style has lasted until today, through strongmen Presidents such as
Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi,
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Angola’s Eduardo Dos Santos, and Gabon’s Ali Bongo.

At a time when foreign investment is flooding into Africa – particularly from China,
India, and Russia, but also from Britain, France, and the US – this authoritarian style,
mixed with a touch of populist nationalism, can sometimes ring warning bells, as when
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) contemplates new rules to limit
press freedom, and when ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema recently called for
nationalization of all the country’s privately operated mines.

The power of nationalism

But nationalism is a powerful force in Africa because it is popular, Mbembe says, and
the UN is not helped by the fact that “the history of foreign intervention has been
negative throughout Africa, from the tragedy of [the killing of former Congolese
President Patrice Lumumba in 1961] to the indifference shown during the Rwandan
genocide to the UN force bombing the military in Abidjan.”

Indeed, Mbembe says, resistance to UN intervention in Africa is growing.

Even when African leaders are charged with human rights crimes – as Sudan President
Omar al-Bashir and a half dozen Kenyan politicians are, in separate cases currently
before the International Criminal Court – their fellow African leaders increasingly
protest against an “unfair” intervention of “rich Western nations” in African domestic
affairs, instead of standing firm for the principles of universal human rights and justice.

Yet there is no reason that democracy and self-determination have to remain at odds,
Mbembe adds.

A false choice?
“It’s a false choice," says Mbembe. "From 1960 to the end of the century, authoritarian
governments in Africa have tried to convince people that these two things are not
doable, and we should favor authoritarianism over democracy. But what we are seeing
is people are going back to the original project in which democracy and self-
determination shared equal space.”

Here in South Africa, the continent’s largest economy, the ruling ANC retains a firm
nationalism at its ideological core, and it has pointedly marked out a foreign policy that
is at odds with the West, and the US in particular.

While serving on the UN Security Council, South Africa used its vote to defeat a
censure vote against the military regime in Myanmar (Burma) back in 2009, a move that
horrified human rights activists.

During both the Ivory Coast and Libyan conflicts, South African President Jacob Zuma
has personally traveled to both countries as part of AU fact-finding missions to explore
possibilities for mediation, including power-sharing deals that would allow unpopular
leaders to remain in power.

“At its core, the ANC saw nationalism as more important than human rights,” says
Adam Habib, a political scientist and deputy vice chancellor of University of
Johannesburg. But like Mbembe, Mr. Habib says “there needs to be a new alliance
between human rights and nationalists. We get this question of development or
democracy. It is not possible to have one without the other.”
------------------
UN Expects Swift Economic Recovery in Ivory Coast (VOA)
By Scott Stearns
April 14, 2011
Abidjan - Forces loyal to Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara have taken control of
the presidential palace in downtown Abidjan. It was one of the last places where
fighters backing the former president were holding out after months of political
violence. The United Nations expects a swift economic recovery for the country once
security is restored.

Ouattara forces took control of the presidential palace after U.N. peacekeepers arranged
the surrender of former government troops there and cleared out a basement arsenal
that included more than 500 rockets for BM-21 mobile rocket launchers.

Ouattara officials are now preparing the palace for an official inauguration, which could
come in the next few days.

Mr. Ouattara came to power following Monday's capture of former president Laurent
Gbagbo, who was holding out in an underground bunker refusing to recognize that he
lost November's vote.
With most of Mr. Gbagbo's senior military officials now pledging their support for
President Ouattara, the new government is moving quickly to restore security in
Abidjan.

The U.N. Secretary General's Special Representative in Ivory Coast, Young-jin Choi,
says security has improved faster than he expected, and he may soon allow U.N. staff to
return to their homes after sleeping for months at the UNOCI headquarters.

"UNOCI cars were forbidden to go out because Gbgabo's people distributed all the
plate numbers and gave orders to burn UNOCI cars wherever they see them," said
Choi. "But I think it is secure enough that we can show the way by going home
beginning in several days."

With security, President Ouattara says he wants to get the economy back on track by
resuming cocoa exports, restarting Abidjan's refinery, and reopening banks.

Buses and taxis are back on the road. Shops in most neighborhoods are open. A car
dealership in the Marcory neighborhood had several customers Thursday. Furniture
makers are back at work as two men pulled peach-colored upholstery across the frame
of a couch.

Choi believes Ivory Coast's economy will recover quickly from more than four months
of political violence because there was little damage to infrastructure.

"Destruction was really minimum," he said. "The airport is intact. It is operating now.
The seaport is intact and ready to operate. The sanctions are lifted. Bridges were never
broken or damaged. All the roads are there. Electricity, no damage at all. Water, no
damage at all to the supply."

The European Union and France are giving Ivory Coast $840 million for emergency
spending to restart essential public services and meet overdue payments.
-------------------
Sudanese leaders to discuss Abyei (UPI)
By Unattributed Author
April 14, 2011 at 11:50 AM
KHARTOUM, Sudan - A decision by parties in Sudan to discuss solutions to simmering
disputes in the border region of Abyei is a welcome measure, the U.N. Mission in
Sudan said.

Both sides in the disputed area of Abyei agreed to form a joint committee to oversee the
deployment of forces from North and South Sudan. The agreement follows a January
move that calls for the withdrawal of illegal forces in the area.
Fighting between rival Sudanese nomad groups killed at least 10 people in the oil-rich
region of Abyei during the first week of March. Both sides blame the other for the
dispute. The Dinka Ngok tribe claims the region belongs to the south while Khartoum-
backed Misseriya nomads pledge allegiance to the north. They are fighting over grazing
rights for cattle.

UNMIS said in a statement it welcomed the decision to back earlier agreements for
peace in the disputed region.

Abyei was to take part in a January referendum for South Sudan's secession, but the
matter was delayed over voting rights.

The joint committee holds its first meeting Monday.

----------------------
South Sudan army says it is capable of providing adequate security (Sudan Tribune)
By Ngor Arol Garang
April 14, 2011
The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said on Thursday it is capable of
providing adequate security to all its citizens and their properties, across the ten states
and in the surrounding areas.

Chief of General Staff of the SPLA, James Hoth MaiUnder the 2005 Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA), in which north and south Sudan signed to end more than two
decades of civil war in which an estimated 2 million people were killed. The SPLA, a
military wing of the south Sudan’s governing party; the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement (SPLM) became the official regional army.

In January 2011, the oil producing region conducted a referendum on self-

determination in which majority of the South Sudanese voted in favour of secession
from the rest of Sudan, several years after repeated attempts including armed rebellions
aimed at putting a pressure on central government to endorse division of one of the
biggest countries on the African soil into two states.

However, following conduct of the 2010 general elections and the January vote, the
region appears facing immense challenges as it prepares to become the world’s newest
nation on 9 July 2011.

Pessimists expressed concerns and fears indicating that the rivals would turn the region
into a tribal state and that corruption will spiral out of control, returning its people to
further suffering and abject poverty. Reports from the UN indicate that more than 800
people were killed at the beginning of the year in increasing incidents of violence in the
three states of the greater Upper Nile Region following the rebellion of some of the
senior military officers in the regional army.
General James Hoth Mai, Chief of General Staff of the SPLA dismissed fears that the
region would slip into a tribal and lawless state after attaining independence in July,
saying his army is capable of providing what he described as "adequate security" to
protect lives and properties of the ordinary citizens across the ten states and their
surroundings.

"The SPLA is capable of providing adequate security by protecting lives and properties
of all citizens across south Sudan and their surroundings," said Mai while responding to
a question by Sudan Tribune on a similar statement he made on South Sudan Television
last week while officiating a graduation ceremony of senior SPLA officers passing out
from financial management training at Malou Military Academy in Rumbek, Lakes
State, Bahr el Ghazal.

"We in the SPLA had faced of a lot of challenges but we managed to overcome them.
This is part of the history into which the SPLA was born. It is not a new phenomenon.
The history of the SPLA has always been either sad or smile. There has never been
absolute happiness or sadness. We have had both smiling and sad days," explained
General Mai in a telephone interview with Sudan Tribune on Thursday.

He accused the Khartoum based government of supporting political opponents of the

Government of South Sudan (GoSS) while training and arming military dissidents.

"As you may have followed recent events, the SPLA forces have been engaging George
Athor until he was uprooted from his base in the north western part of Jonglei State in
Khorfulus. He [Athor] is now on the run like Osman Bin laden and hiding somewhere
but we will get him," said General Mai.

The top military officer said the SPLA forces were also engaged in fighting in Unity
state against forces he said were loyal to Gatluak Gai and other groups whom he said
were later dislodged to northern territories. "The SPLA forces fought against these
forces which are trained and armed by Khartoum and sent to the South with intention
to create instability. They were fought and sent back to the north. They are currently in
areas around Heglig," said the SPLA Chief of General Staff.

Mai made the statement just a day after the UN broke their silence by saying 151
incidents across nine of the South’s ten states have killed 801 people and displaced
nearly 94,000 more since the year began.

"The violence has crippled developmental activities. We are worried, with at least seven
militia that are active, with inter-communal violence continuing, with the LRA [Lord’s
Resistance Army] active in Western Equatoria. This is not a good picture," said Lise
Grande, the UN’s senior humanitarian official in the south at a press conference held in
the regional capital of Juba on Wednesday.
Grande said the wave of conflict in the last two months had stalled the progress needed
to build the new African nation, starting almost from scratch, and the imminent rainy
season would soon make much of the region inaccessible. "We can’t start winding down
an emergency operation if 100,000 people have been displaced," she said in a news
conference, adding that emergency relief was now underway in about half of the
South’s counties.

Grande singled out Uganda’s LRA rebels as posing a persistent threat to any hope of
the south feeding itself. "LRA attacks occur every couple of weeks and when it happens
people become terrorised, they don’t plant ... this has a big impact on food security
around the south as a whole."

Last year the UN said almost half the southern population was short of food. Militia
groups have clashed with the southern army including a February massacre in which
over 200 lives were lost. Long-standing tribal rivalries have reignited, leading to 31
deaths in the first two weeks of April.

These crises are compounded by the hundreds of thousands of southerners returning to

the region from the north and elsewhere, before the looming independence. Some
264,000 have returned since October and another 300,000 are still expected to arrive,
according to the UN.

Many hope July’s independence celebrations could become a rallying cry for peace and
unity. However, some analysts believe the unity will be short-lived given how quickly
southern tensions re-emerged after the euphoria of the referendum.
--------------------
World sea attacks surge with more violent pirates (AP)
By Unattributed Author
April 13, 2011
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Sea piracy worldwide hit a record high of 142 attacks in
the first quarter this year as Somali pirates become more violent and aggressive, a
global maritime watchdog said Thursday.

Nearly 70 percent or 97 of the attacks occurred off the coast of Somalia, up sharply from
35 in the same period last year, the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting
center in Kuala Lumpur said in a statement.

Attackers seized 18 vessels worldwide, including three big tankers, in the January-
March period and captured 344 crew members, it said. Pirates also murdered seven
crew members and injured 34 during the quarter.

"Figures for piracy and armed robbery at sea in the past three months are higher than
we've ever recorded in the first quarter of any past year," said the bureau's director
Pottengal Mukundan.
He said there was a "dramatic increase in the violence and techniques" used by Somali
pirates to counter increased patrols by international navies, putting large tankers
carrying oil and other flammable chemicals at highest risk to firearm attacks.

Of the 97 vessels attacked off Somalia, he said 37 were tankers including 20 with more
than 100,000 deadweight tonnes.

International navies have taken a tougher stance against pirates, with the Indian navy
alone arresting 120 mostly Somalian pirates over the past few months. The U.S. and
other nations have also prosecuted suspects caught by their militaries, although some
were released as countries weigh legal issues and other factors.

Mukundan said the positions of some of the attackers' mother ships were known and
called for stronger action to be taken against these mother ships to prevent further
hijackings. Pirates held some 28 ships and nearly 600 hostages as of end-March, the
bureau said.

Elsewhere, nine attacks were reported off Malaysia and five in Nigeria in the first
quarter.
------------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Côte d’Ivoire stand-off over but humanitarian crisis continues, UN and partners warn
14 April – Although the political stand-off in Côte d’Ivoire ended earlier this week, the
humanitarian crisis spawned by months of violence continues, United Nations agencies
and their partners stressed today as they appeal for $160 million to scale up aid to
affected populations inside the country.

UN agencies in Namibia appeal for funds to respond to flood emergency

14 April – United Nations agencies in Namibia today requested $2.3 million to support
the southern African country’s efforts to assist an estimated 60,000 people who have
been displaced by severe floods, which have claimed the lives of 65 people in the north
and submerged many rural