Politics

Is Africa slowly turning the rhetoric of democracy into action? The Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU), which introduced to the continental body the values of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism, is 13 years old. And its prohibition of seizing power unconstitutionally goes back even earlier to 2000, preceding the AU.
But the AU created a two-tier ranking of values, as Solomon Ayele Dersso, Head of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) programme at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), pointed out at a seminar in Addis Ababa this week. The AU implicitly ranked the prohibition against unconstitutional changes of government as a higher value by enforcing it with the sanction of suspension from membership of the AU. It attached no sanction at all to undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional behaviour more generally. The ban on unconstitutional changes of government was almost entirely interpreted as a prohibition on illegitimate means of seizing or retaining power, such as coups. This hierarchy of values raised the strong suspicion that Africa’s incumbents had just found a more sophisticated way of protecting themselves against usurpers. And many of them continued to behave in the sort of undemocratic and unconstitutional fashion that often triggered coups and rebellions – or mass protests, as was the case in Egypt and Burkina Faso.

But, as Dersso pointed out, the 2007 Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance also contains a clause which says that tampering with the constitution in a way that thwarts the will of the people – for instance, by removing limits on presidential terms – can also be construed as unconstitutional change of power. This clause is coming into sharp focus this year when 18 elections are scheduled to take place across Africa, 12 of which the AU considers very sensitive and where it is engaging in active quiet diplomacy to prevent instability, the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Aisha Abdullahi, said at the AU this week. In several of these polls and in some more elections next year, the trigger of instability is that incumbents are trying to amend their countries’ constitutionally enshrined terms limits, to remain in power. Burkina Faso was perhaps the prologue last year to a potentially explosive drama in several acts that looks set to unfold around the continent over this period. There President Blaise Compaoré, until then seemingly a member in good standing of Africa’s elite club of presidents-for-life, was unexpectedly toppled in a popular uprising sparked by his attempts to remove the two-term limit from the constitution (he had, of course, been in power much longer than two terms, but the constitution was more recent).

As Dersso pointed out, the AU hesitated over Burkina Faso. It did not condemn Compaoré’s tampering with the constitution as an infringement of the AU’s prohibition against unconstitutional change/maintenance of government. But it didn’t condemn the popular uprising as such either, thus implicitly acknowledging that Compaoré had tried to use legal and constitutional methods for an inherently undemocratic and unconstitutional purpose. Stephanie Wolters, Head of the ISS Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, described how similar attempts to remove constitutional term limits in the two Congos and in Burundi are also provoking instability and distracting these countries from attending to major problems. In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza is trying to stand for a third term this year, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila and Dénis Sassou Nguesso are respectively hoping to do so, despite official denials, in 2016. In the Republic of Congo’s 2002 constitution the two-term limit is completely entrenched, and so Wolters said Sassou Nguesso and his ruling party were now trying to change the entire constitution, arguing that it was a post-conflict compromise document, which does not answer to today’s demands. Across the Congo River a similar drama is playing out. Wolters said it was pretty obvious to everyone that Kabila wants to run for a third term next year, though, like Sassou Nguesso, he has not publicly said so. The DRC constitution also entrenches a two-term limit though, and Wolters said Kabila’s aides have already begun to insinuate into the public discourse that the constitution should be replaced entirely to adjust to modern realities.

In all three countries, though, the people – mostly young – are fighting back, dismayed and infuriated by what they rightly see as efforts by their leaders to drag them back to old Africa, which all of their countries have fought so hard to escape over the last decade or so. Opposition political parties and civil society are joining forces to mount courageous protests, as they did in Burkina Faso. The governments are hitting back, arresting opposition leaders on trumped up charges and violently suppressing street protests as Kabila’s forces did this month, evidently killing scores of them. Wolters said these attempts of the leaders to cling to power were destabilising the countries and focusing all their political energies on this one issue, neglecting the business of running the state. Yet the people are also registering important victories for democracy. In Burundi, Parliament defeated Nkurunziza’s draft bill to amend the constitution, by one vote, though Wolters said she was sure he would find another way to stay in power. In the DRC last week, Parliament finally withdrew a government bill that would have postponed elections until after a new census had been conducted. This was seen by the opposition as a ruse to keep Kabila in power indefinitely as properly counting all of Congo’s people would have taken years. Is the AU helping the people to resist these efforts by die-hard incumbents to cling to power at all costs? Indirectly, at least, yes. As Dersso pointed out, the opponents of Compaoré’s attempt to amend the constitution were inspired by that clause in the Charter on Democracy, Election, and Governance, which deems tampering with the constitution to cling to power a form of unconstitutional change of government.

It would also seem the African street is inspired by a concomitant shift in the AU’s attitude towards popular uprisings, though it is still wrestling with the concept. When it drew up the draft list of crimes that the African Court could prosecute, it originally included unconstitutional changes of government but with an exception – inspired by the Arab Spring – for popular uprisings against oppressive, undemocratic governments. So it did not condemn the popular uprising that toppled Egypt’s long-time president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and distinguished that from the forced removal of Mohammed Morsi in 2012, which it defined as a coup. Dersso said the AU had also learnt lessons from Burkina Faso, and so was engaging in more energetic preventative diplomacy in other countries, like Togo, where incumbents are also clinging to power – as Commissioner Abdullahi suggested. So maybe that’s evolution: though clearly the AU should be much more upfront and proactive in jumping on and publicly condemning any efforts to change constitutions to cling to power. And what message will it sending this week by electing the continent’s third-longest-serving and, at 90, certainly the oldest, leader, President Robert Mugabe as its chairperson for 2015? AU Commission Deputy Chair, Erastus Mwencha, defended the decision this week, saying it was democratic because the AU chooses its leaders on a regional rotation system, and Mugabe is the Southern African Development Community’s nominee. The AU has declined such nominees before, though – or at least one, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. The real reason that it won’t decline Mugabe, though, as one South African official admitted is that because he is the West’s pariah, he is Africa’s hero. Africa is evolving politically. But for now, at least, the background music of colonialism is still drowning out the foreground music of democracy.

Culled from DefenceWeb

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jan.2015

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Is Africa slowly turning the rhetoric of democracy into action? The Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU), which introduced to the continental body the values of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism, is 13 years old. And its prohibition of seizing power unconstitutionally goes back even earlier to 2000, preceding the AU.
But the AU created a two-tier ranking of values, as Solomon Ayele Dersso, Head of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) programme at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), pointed out at a seminar in Addis Ababa this week. The AU implicitly ranked the prohibition against unconstitutional changes of government as a higher value by enforcing it with the sanction of suspension from membership of the AU. It attached no sanction at all to undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional behaviour more generally. The ban on unconstitutional changes of government was almost entirely interpreted as a prohibition on illegitimate means of seizing or retaining power, such as coups. This hierarchy of values raised the strong suspicion that Africa’s incumbents had just found a more sophisticated way of protecting themselves against usurpers. And many of them continued to behave in the sort of undemocratic and unconstitutional fashion that often triggered coups and rebellions – or mass protests, as was the case in Egypt and Burkina Faso.

But, as Dersso pointed out, the 2007 Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance also contains a clause which says that tampering with the constitution in a way that thwarts the will of the people – for instance, by removing limits on presidential terms – can also be construed as unconstitutional change of power. This clause is coming into sharp focus this year when 18 elections are scheduled to take place across Africa, 12 of which the AU considers very sensitive and where it is engaging in active quiet diplomacy to prevent instability, the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Aisha Abdullahi, said at the AU this week. In several of these polls and in some more elections next year, the trigger of instability is that incumbents are trying to amend their countries’ constitutionally enshrined terms limits, to remain in power. Burkina Faso was perhaps the prologue last year to a potentially explosive drama in several acts that looks set to unfold around the continent over this period. There President Blaise Compaoré, until then seemingly a member in good standing of Africa’s elite club of presidents-for-life, was unexpectedly toppled in a popular uprising sparked by his attempts to remove the two-term limit from the constitution (he had, of course, been in power much longer than two terms, but the constitution was more recent).

As Dersso pointed out, the AU hesitated over Burkina Faso. It did not condemn Compaoré’s tampering with the constitution as an infringement of the AU’s prohibition against unconstitutional change/maintenance of government. But it didn’t condemn the popular uprising as such either, thus implicitly acknowledging that Compaoré had tried to use legal and constitutional methods for an inherently undemocratic and unconstitutional purpose. Stephanie Wolters, Head of the ISS Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, described how similar attempts to remove constitutional term limits in the two Congos and in Burundi are also provoking instability and distracting these countries from attending to major problems. In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza is trying to stand for a third term this year, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila and Dénis Sassou Nguesso are respectively hoping to do so, despite official denials, in 2016. In the Republic of Congo’s 2002 constitution the two-term limit is completely entrenched, and so Wolters said Sassou Nguesso and his ruling party were now trying to change the entire constitution, arguing that it was a post-conflict compromise document, which does not answer to today’s demands. Across the Congo River a similar drama is playing out. Wolters said it was pretty obvious to everyone that Kabila wants to run for a third term next year, though, like Sassou Nguesso, he has not publicly said so. The DRC constitution also entrenches a two-term limit though, and Wolters said Kabila’s aides have already begun to insinuate into the public discourse that the constitution should be replaced entirely to adjust to modern realities.

In all three countries, though, the people – mostly young – are fighting back, dismayed and infuriated by what they rightly see as efforts by their leaders to drag them back to old Africa, which all of their countries have fought so hard to escape over the last decade or so. Opposition political parties and civil society are joining forces to mount courageous protests, as they did in Burkina Faso. The governments are hitting back, arresting opposition leaders on trumped up charges and violently suppressing street protests as Kabila’s forces did this month, evidently killing scores of them. Wolters said these attempts of the leaders to cling to power were destabilising the countries and focusing all their political energies on this one issue, neglecting the business of running the state. Yet the people are also registering important victories for democracy. In Burundi, Parliament defeated Nkurunziza’s draft bill to amend the constitution, by one vote, though Wolters said she was sure he would find another way to stay in power. In the DRC last week, Parliament finally withdrew a government bill that would have postponed elections until after a new census had been conducted. This was seen by the opposition as a ruse to keep Kabila in power indefinitely as properly counting all of Congo’s people would have taken years. Is the AU helping the people to resist these efforts by die-hard incumbents to cling to power at all costs? Indirectly, at least, yes. As Dersso pointed out, the opponents of Compaoré’s attempt to amend the constitution were inspired by that clause in the Charter on Democracy, Election, and Governance, which deems tampering with the constitution to cling to power a form of unconstitutional change of government.

It would also seem the African street is inspired by a concomitant shift in the AU’s attitude towards popular uprisings, though it is still wrestling with the concept. When it drew up the draft list of crimes that the African Court could prosecute, it originally included unconstitutional changes of government but with an exception – inspired by the Arab Spring – for popular uprisings against oppressive, undemocratic governments. So it did not condemn the popular uprising that toppled Egypt’s long-time president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and distinguished that from the forced removal of Mohammed Morsi in 2012, which it defined as a coup. Dersso said the AU had also learnt lessons from Burkina Faso, and so was engaging in more energetic preventative diplomacy in other countries, like Togo, where incumbents are also clinging to power – as Commissioner Abdullahi suggested. So maybe that’s evolution: though clearly the AU should be much more upfront and proactive in jumping on and publicly condemning any efforts to change constitutions to cling to power. And what message will it sending this week by electing the continent’s third-longest-serving and, at 90, certainly the oldest, leader, President Robert Mugabe as its chairperson for 2015? AU Commission Deputy Chair, Erastus Mwencha, defended the decision this week, saying it was democratic because the AU chooses its leaders on a regional rotation system, and Mugabe is the Southern African Development Community’s nominee. The AU has declined such nominees before, though – or at least one, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. The real reason that it won’t decline Mugabe, though, as one South African official admitted is that because he is the West’s pariah, he is Africa’s hero. Africa is evolving politically. But for now, at least, the background music of colonialism is still drowning out the foreground music of democracy.

Culled from DefenceWeb

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jan.2015

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Three soldiers and 123 Boko Haram militants have been killed during a series of fierce clashes between the Chadian army and members of the Nigeria-based Boko Haram Takfiri militant group in northern Cameroon. The Chadian military said in a statement on Friday that the violent clashes erupted after a large group of militants attacked an army contingent near Fotokol town in Cameroon's Far North Region.

At least 12 soldiers were also wounded in attacks carried out by the militant group on Thursday and Friday in the troubled region, the statement added.The N'Djamena government has sent a convoy of troops and 400 military vehicles into neighboring Cameroon to deal with the growing threat of militancy.Cameroon’s President Paul Biya had announced on January 15 that neighboring Chad was going to send military troops to help Cameroonian forces fight the Boko Haram militants.

On January 12, the Cameroonian army killed 143 Boko Haram militants as they mounted an offensive on a military camp in the northern border town of Kolofata. Cameroon also launched airstrikes against Boko Haram on December 28, after nearly 1,000 militants from the group assaulted a military camp located near the northern border. The Cameroonian troops in the camp were forced to flee. However, the base was retaken later. Since last May, when President Biya declared war on Boko Haram, thousands of Cameroonian troops have been deployed to defend the Far North Region.

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jan.2015

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An Iranian deputy foreign minister says the Islamic Republic is ready to cooperate with the African countries in the fight against Boko Haram Takfiri militant group. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, said on Saturday that Tehran supports African countries’ fight against the militant group. The Iranian official made the remarks during a press conference on the sidelines of the 24th Summit of the African Union (AU) in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, ISNA reported.

Amir-Abdollahian condemned terrorist attacks by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria and said Iran, which has already shouldered heavy responsibilities in the fight against terrorist groups in the Middle East, is ready to cooperate with the AU against terrorism.  On Friday, the African Union called for a regional five-nation force of 7,500 troops to fight Nigeria-based Boko Haram militants. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” controls large parts of northeastern Nigeria. Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria are the four African countries which have been directly affected by the growing threat of Boko Haram.More than 13,000 people have been killed and over a million made homeless as a result of Boko Haram violence since 2009.

Amir-Abdollahian called the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group in the Middle East as a malicious phenomenon which has destabilized Syria and Iraq, saying that Boko Haram and ISIL Takfiri terrorist groups are two sides of the same coin. ISIL militants control some parts of Iraq, including the northern city of Mosul, as well as areas of neighboring Syria. The terrorist group has committed gross human rights violations and violence against many groups in Iraq including Christians, Izadi Kurds, Sunnis and Shias.

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Ngwa Bertrand

31.Jan.2015

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More aggressive tactics by authoritarian regimes and an upsurge in terrorist attacks contributed to a disturbing decline in global freedom in 2014, according to the Freedom in the World 2015 report, compiled by Freedom House on the condition of political rights and civil liberties. “Acceptance of democracy as the world’s dominant form of government—and of an international system built on democratic ideals—is under greater threat than at any other point in the last 25 years,” said Arch Puddington, vice president for research. “Until recently, most authoritarian regimes claimed to respect international agreements and paid lip service to the norms of competitive elections and human rights. Today they argue for the superiority of what amounts to one-party rule, and seek to throw off the constraints of fundamental diplomatic principles.”

Nearly twice as many countries suffered declines as registered gains—61 to 33—and the number of countries with improvements hit its lowest point since the nine-year erosion began.  The report cites Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a rollback of democratic gains by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s intensified campaign against press freedom and civil society, and further centralisation of authority in China as evidence of a growing disdain for democratic standards that was found in nearly all regions of the world. The report also singled out terrorism for its impact on freedom in 2014. From West Africa through the Middle East to South Asia, radical jihadist forces plagued local governments and populations. Their impact on countries such as Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria was devastating, as they massacred security forces and civilians alike, took foreigners hostage, and killed or enslaved religious minorities, including Muslims they deemed apostates.

Of the 195 countries assessed, 89 (46%) were rated Free, 55 (28%) Partly Free, and 51 (26%) Not Free. According to Freedom House, a troubling number of large, economically powerful, or regionally influential countries moved backward: Azerbaijan, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. Continuing a recent trend, the worst reversals affected freedom of expression, civil society, and the rule of law. In a new and disquieting development, a number of countries lost ground due to state surveillance, restrictions on internet communications, and curbs on personal autonomy. Ratings for the Middle East and North Africa region were the worst in the world, followed by Eurasia. Syria, a dictatorship mired in civil war and ethnic division and facing uncontrolled terrorism, received the lowest Freedom in the World score of any country in over a decade. A notable exception to the negative trend was Tunisia, which became the first Arab country to hold the status of Free since Lebanon was gripped by civil war 40 years ago.

Of the 51 countries and territories designated as Not Free, 12 have been given the worst-possible rating of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties. The Worst of the Worst countries are the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Worst of the Worst territories are Tibet and Western Sahara. For the Middle East and North Africa, Freedom House found that Tunisia became the Arab world’s only Free country and the sole success story of the Arab Spring after holding democratic elections under a new constitution. The rest of the Middle East and North Africa was racked by violence and tragedy, including the Syrian civil war, the expansion of the Islamic State and other extremist militant factions, and new internal conflict in Libya. Egypt solidified its return to autocracy with sham elections, summary mass trials, and a crackdown on all forms of dissent.

News from sub-Saharan Africa was dominated by the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and a sharp rise in violence by Islamist militants in Nigeria and Kenya. Uganda fell from Partly Free to Not Free after a series of recent laws targeting the opposition, civil society, the LGBT community and women led to serious rights abuses and increased suppression of dissent. In South Sudan, civil conflict fuelled widespread ethnic violence and displacement, and the rival factions failed to agree on a peace deal that would allow the country to hold elections. In Burkina Faso, President Blaise Compaoré was forced to resign amid popular protests, leading the military to dissolve the parliament and take charge of the country. Improvements were seen in Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau, which held their first elections during late 2013 and 2014 following coups in previous years.

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Ngwa Bertrand

30.Jan.2015

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The 24th session of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the African Union which held in Addis Ababa and whose big issue was the fight against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram has come, passed and gone with the Cameroonian dictator President Paul Biya not in attendance. Interestingly, not even an announcement on state radio and television indicating the participation of a member of the Cameroon government in the summit was made. You cannot be leading a people and you do not represent them where it matters.

This summit was not like any other!! It was indeed a Cameroonian summit for our chief executive to make his case as concerns Boko Haram incursion into our territory. It provided an international platform for President Biya to have told the world the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform and above all, it was an opportunity for Biya to have demonstrated to the world that diplomacy works and to make his vision and determination to combat Boko Haram a global issue. Biya and Cameroon lost it!! It is indeed difficult to tell what manner of a leader is President Paul Biya?

For a man who has worked extra-ordinarily hard towards keeping the homeland safe, Biya successfully brought the Republic of Chad with its dubious leadership to join the war on terror. He had a very intensive and productive meeting with Nikolay Ratsiborinski the Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Cameroon with Russia promising to help our military. The African Union Summit in Addis Ababa provided the best forum for President Biya to have said a goodbye blessing and informed the world that his score sheet was not staggering as his detractors have claimed. This is not to say President Biya has been attending African Union Heads of State Summits! But his absence from this edition was one final coup-de-grace.

Cameroon Concord has gathered intelligence that Biya drives regularly from Mvomeka’a to Yaoundé these days-a journey historically made by air using an helicopter. It is abundantly clear that at 82, you are medically advised to keep away from flying. This was also true with the Holy Father Pope Benedict. Our intelligence officers in Yaoundé have also hinted that leadership fatigue and boring French politics has prompted Biya not to meet with Pierre Lellouche and Philip Baumel, the two French deputies who rushed to Yaoundé in midweek to speak of "development and profitable growth."

President Biya’s recent anti French moves is preventing him from travelling out of Yaoundé and even from the country. His insistence that only Cameroonian army Generals loyal to him: Rene Meka and Tumenta should head the coalition troops in the Far North fighting against Boko Haram and the UN forces in Central African Republic, indicates that Biya and the French are no longer an item. However, an 82 year old man who has seen and done it all should not be sleeping with his eyes open! We of this publication feel President Biya should think and rethink things and go ahead and do the right thing by handing over to the new generation. A stitch in time saves nine

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Ngwa Bertrand

30.Jan.2015

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