By Paul D. Williams
In January 2007, the African Union launched its fourth peacekeeping operation, the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Now approximately two and a half years old, AMISOM’s short life has not been a happy one. It was deployed to Mogadishu essentially in support of the Ethiopian government’s preferred faction in Somalia’s ongoing civil war. Not surprisingly, and like the three UN-authorized peace operations deployed to Somalia during the early 1990s, AMISOM faced serious challenges which severely restricted its ability to operate. In January 2009 the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces, the election of Somalia’s new transitional government led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and the arrival of Barrack Obama’s administration in the United States renewed the debate over how AMISOM should relate to the new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and how the mission might be brought to an end. read the rest of this entry… »
By Michael Weinstein
As the coalition of Western donor powers, the United Nations, the African Union, and regional African states, such as Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda and Burundi, see it, the narrative of Somalia’s contemporary political history pits the country’s new and expanded Transitional Federal Government (TFG) against an armed “insurgency” composed of “spoilers,” “extremists,” or “terrorists” operating under the banner of “radical Islamism.” read the rest of this entry… »
By Jennifer Cooke and J. Stephen Morrison
**The following is the opening, pre-publication draft, chapter in the forthcoming CSIS Africa Program publication, ”Beyond the Bush Administration’s Africa Policy: Critical Choices for the Obama Administration.” Pre-publication drafts of the other chapters are available on the CSIS Africa Program website or by clicking here. Final print publication will occur in mid–March.
The Bush Era: a Powerful Legacy
During President George W. Bush’s eight-year tenure, U.S. policy towards Africa underwent a dramatic enlargement, marked by an expansion of U.S. interests, a high-level diplomatic push on Sudan, unprecedented resource flows, and the establishment of several historic initiatives. This unfolded in an era in which security, energy, and health emerged as new, near-strategic U.S. interests in Africa, and in which U.S. Africa policy ascended to a position far closer to mainstream foreign policy than ever before. The U.S. constituency for an activist Africa policy broadened considerably to include public health institutions, powerful new foundations, vocal religious groups, and a more active corporate sector. U.S. Africa policy attracted consistently strong bipartisan support. But it was also criticized for approaches that were imbalanced, unsustained, underpowered, and inconsistent. read the rest of this entry… »
By Eddie Thomas
Sudan’s center is in the Nile Valley around the capital Khartoum—a middle-income enclave surrounded by some of the poorest societies on earth. The powerful, rich central government has a weak grip on its vast territory, but it may be losing its grip. It is fighting a war in Darfur; the neighboring region of Kordofan is being drawn in; and there is a huge military build-up on the oil-rich internal border between Northern Sudan and the newly autonomous South, which has recently emerged from decades of war. A rebellion in Eastern Sudan has come to an uneasy end; and in the far north, people are being thrown off riverain lands to make way for dams. read the rest of this entry… »
By Christian Hennemeyer
The world of 35 years ago was a dramatically different place, and nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa. In the early 1970s, Portugal still clung to its colonies in Angola and Mozambique, South Africa was under the heavy hand of apartheid, and Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then called, was run by the white minority regime of Ian Smith. The domination of Africa by Europe and people of European descent was intact, albeit showing signs of stress. read the rest of this entry… »
By Omer Ismail and Maggie Fick
As the rainy season comes to an end in Chad, the recent détente between Chadian and Sudanese governments will not last. “Rebellion season” is on the horizon. Violence in the volatile East is again on the rise, and civilians are once again at grave risk. A high-ranking official in the Chadian government recently told us: “We know the rebels are just across the border [in Sudan]. They are coming as soon as the roads are accessible, but we are ready for them, because we monitor their moves.” Indeed, flooded roads along the Chad-Sudan border are becoming passable once more; treacherous armed bandits known as zaraguinas are menacing Darfurian refugees and internally displaced Chadians; and tensions are escalating between pastoralists and farmers competing for land. The upsurge in violence has forced aid agencies to suspend assistance to tens of thousands of civilians. read the rest of this entry… »
By Bronwyn Bruton
The clock has run out on the current international engagement in Somalia, and the United States faces a dearth of realistic policy options.
The ability of the United States, the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) to influence political events in Somalia is almost wholly dependant on the presence of Ethiopian military forces. It was the Ethiopian invasion that ended the promising reign of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) over Somalia’s unruly capital city, Mogadishu; and the Ethiopian army, albeit with some assistance from the small African Union peacekeeping mission, is the coercive force that has allowed the unpopular Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to remain in power. But the TFG cannot retain power without the support of Ethiopian troops. read the rest of this entry… »
By Roland Henwood
The African National Congress (ANC) recalled the President of the Republic of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, on September 27, 2008. This is a very unusual step in the politics of South Africa (and of Africa) where sitting presidents are seldom removed from office, and more rarely in a peaceful way. What makes this all the more intriguing is that President Mbeki was a mere eight or nine months away from the end of his term in office. Although the effect of this decision was immediate, the consequences will probably have long term ramifications for the politics of South Africa and possibly for the southern African region. Two questions to be reflected on are why he was removed as president at this late stage and what the consequences of this will be. read the rest of this entry… »
By John Makumbe
The agreement signed between the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on September 15 2008 has proved to be defective in several ways. Only a few days after the signing ceremony in Harare, the three parties to the agreement held several meetings seeking to allocate the 31 portfolio ministries among themselves. The principals of the three parties failed to agree on the allocation of the ministries, with Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party insisting on holding on to such key ministries as defense, finance, foreign affairs, lands and agriculture, local government, and home affairs. The President of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai, felt that apart from the defense portfolio, all the other ministries should be allocated to the two MDC formations, especially given the damage that Mugabe and ZANU-PF have wreaked on these ministries over the years. In typical ZANU-PF style, Mugabe would have none of that argument, contending that the two MDC formations had no experience of running such important line ministries. The result of all that squabbling was a deadlock and a delay in the implementation of the signed agreement, now expected to be implemented during the first week of October 2008. read the rest of this entry… »
By Abdoulaye W. Dukulé
For the first time in almost a decade, Côte d’Ivoire faces the possibility of reaching a peaceful resolution of a civil crisis that has wracked this once stable country.
From the Parisian suburb of Linas-Marcoussis, where they first met at the outbreak of the war, to Pretoria, Accra, and Lomé, Ivorian negotiators ended their long search for peaceful resolution in Ouagadougou, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire’s northern neighbor Burkina Faso. The Ouagadougou Peace Accord, signed between the Ivorian rebels led by Guillaume Soro and the embattled government of Laurent Gbagbo, may have opened the way to peace for the first time since the outbreak of violence.
If no new major crisis develops and if all technical issues are resolved on time, Ivorians could head to the polls on November 30, 2008, to elect a new president, holding the first free and multiparty democratic elections since independence in 1960.
The opportunity is laced with challenges, including the disarmament and demobilization of former rebels and government militias, the delivery of voting cards to millions of disenfranchised Ivorians, and the capacity of the government of President Laurent Gbagbo to manage and conduct a free and fair electoral process in a peaceful environment.
read the rest of this entry… »
