THE DANGERS FACING REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENTS IN AFRICA

"Many of these governments believe that stability and economic growth “will improve” over time. It seldom does". 

Numerous people have asked me for my thoughts regarding revolutionary governments.

Indeed, Africa has seen numerous governments come to power through revolutions - some relatively peaceful, some very violent. Invariably, the scars of the revolution remain and left unattended can result in an uprising of the populace or even a counter-revolution.

Without exception, every revolutionary government I have come into contact with is already politically and economically fragile with growing security and stability challenges. Without acknowledging their fragility and taking the necessary actions to strengthen the Pillars of State, they find themselves on the road to failure.  

Some of these revolutions have been internally motivated and some inspired and motivated by foreign interests. Regardless of how they came to power, most African revolutionary governments have similar characteristics. Failure to manage these characteristics can result in the government becoming a failed state.

Many of these governments believe that stability and economic growth “will improve” over time. It seldom does.

As these governments tend to be caught up in the moment, they miss the numerous threats and challenges facing them – until it is almost too late.  This failure results in them ultimately being forced to fight several fires on numerous fronts with little if any significant impact.

The lack of substantial visible improvements to their lot is usually viewed by the populace as an inability of the government – or even a lack of interest - to provide them with much needed security and stability.  This is especially prevalent in the early days of a revolutionary government.

It is, however, the characteristics of a revolutionary government that define its initial weaknesses. I view these characteristics and weaknesses as follows:  

1.     An over optimistic view of the future

2.     A belief that the majority of the populace share their visions for the future

3.     A lack of strategic, operational and tactical intelligence

4.     Lack of – or a fractured grand strategy

5.     Lack of – or a fractured national security strategy

6.     Lack of an acceptable Constitution

7.     A weak central government

8.     Fragmented powerbases

9.     Fragmented popular support

10.  Porous borders

11.  A lack of basic services

12.  A breakdown of law and order coupled to an increase in general and organized crime

13.  The uncontrolled flow of weapons

14.  Strong militia groups, each with their own agenda

15.  Disunity of the security forces coupled to questionable loyalty

16.  The polarization of popular support that can result in assassinations, bombings, protests etc.

17.  A lack of cohesion, communication and cooperation between the security forces

18.  An increase in Internally Displaced People (IDPs)

Left unattended, these characteristics/weaknesses will result in an increase in negative media reporting, both locally and internationally as both the mainstream and social media exploit the situation. This negative perception results in a lack of inward investments, depriving the new government of much needed foreign investment and economic growth. This creates a ripple-effect across the population and often results in the populace becoming poorer than they were before the revolution.

Additionally, this creates the climate for a counter-revolution to be planned and launched by disgruntled militia groups and sectors of the previous regimes supporters. The counter-revolution will often manifest itself through acts of terror such as assassinations, bombings, an increase in violent crime, attacks against the leadership of the security forces and threats against the political and business leadership.

This volatile situation “empowers Salesmen to impersonate Statesmen” (credit to “Lionberger”s comment on my posting “The Specialists”) who simply add fuel to the fire as these salesmen- with no track record of success - dispense their bad advice at great financial and political cost to the government.  Equally unforgivable is the selling of security equipment to these governments that will have little if any use to securing the State.

Until revolutionary governments acknowledge and manage/rectify their weaknesses and find the correct people to advise and assist them, they will remain fragile and position themselves on the cusp of failure. 

Uganda:Where beauty means bleaching

"There seems to be a strong desire for browner or fairer skin,Yet at the same time, there is shame and secrecy to it."

 

 Living in Uganda, German photographer Anne Ackermann couldn't ignore the sight of light-skinned women with obviously dark feet, elbows and joints.

As someone who regularly documents issues surrounding beauty, identity and womanhood, Ackermann's natural curiosity led her to Mama Lususu.

Mama Lususu, which translates to the "mother of beautiful skin," owns popular beauty parlors across downtown Kampala and is famous for helping women to bleach and lighten their skin tone. She also helps to repair skin damaged by the improper use of bleaching chemicals or even stain removers at home.

Skin lightening, a common practice in Uganda, is something that few women will admit to even though they were willing to be photographed by Ackermann in Lususu's parlor. Some of Ackermann's subjects even tried to tell her they were born with lighter skin.

 

 

 

"There seems to be a strong desire for browner or fairer skin," Ackermann said. "Yet at the same time, there is shame and secrecy to it."

 

The ideal skin tone in Uganda appears to be caramel, Ackermann said. One client told her "brown women shine brighter in the dark night." Women are willing to apply harsh chemicals and carcinogens to lighten their skin, which surprised Ackermann because the process is also so harmful.

"I am learning that there seems to be a serious pressure for women to fit into dominant beauty stereotypes in a society based on the belief that the fairer and lighter is associated with beauty and wealth," she said.

Besides photographs for her ongoing series, the experience at Lususu's has also afforded Ackermann with new memories and a unique perspective of Kampala.

 

 Photographer Ackermann.

 

 "there seems to be a serious pressure for women to fit into dominant beauty stereotypes in a society based on the belief that the fairer and lighter is associated with beauty and wealth,"

 

 

Besides photographs for her ongoing series, the experience at Lususu's has also afforded Ackermann with new memories and a unique perspective of Kampala.

"Just hanging out around the tiny wooden cabins in Mama Lususu's parlor in the hustle and bustle of downtown Kampala -- the air heavy with chemicals, watching and chatting to the women that showed up there from all walks of life -- was a great experience after trying to gain access for so long," she said.

 

 Ackermann says her project is far from over, and she wants to keep documenting this process while broadening the scope to include other issues of beauty and identity. She has also started another series on beauty and plastic surgery, which is new to the region.

Ackermann has previously documented body and identity issues. Her 2009 series "Plástica" followed women after plastic surgery in Brazil.

She is now on a quest to find other projects that portray surprising and positive stories in Uganda. And she hopes her images will cause people to reflect on the undertones of identity.

"I think it's all about raising a question rather than finding all the answers," she said. "If I can make people pause their everyday routine for a moment, look at the images, stop and wonder, I think that's a lot."

 

 

Israel and Uganda,Refugees-for-arms deal

Despite this week's Ugandan media expose of an under-the-table refugee deportation agreement already challenged in Israel's Supreme Court, Kampala is still in denial. And the deportees, who sought safe haven in the Promised Land, face a bitter fate

 A leading Ugandan newspaper made a splash this week with the front page headline: "Israel sends 1,400 refugees to Uganda". The behind-the-scenes deal between Israel, Uganda and Rwanda has been exposed for some time in Israel, but Uganda officially continues to deny its existence. It’s therefore significant that Sunday Vision, a paper owned by the government, has publicized - and legitimized - the story.

The newspaper reported in its September 10 edition that it had interviewed ten refugees who said Israel had  promised to resettle them in Uganda, only for them to have been abandoned and harassed by state agents in Kampala.

"We were each promised that we would be given legal status once we landed at Entebbe. My other friends opted for Rwanda. Each one of us was given about $3,500, which they told us was an extra incentive at the departure lounge in Tel Aviv," Hebreges Tayes told the newspaper.

Israel and East Africa are thousands of miles apart, with little in common, but history has led to a series of intersections between them.

Around 1903, a slice of East Africa (the so-called "Uganda Plan") surprisingly emerged as a stop-gap homeland for persecuted Jews before present day Israel became the more obvious choice.

Then on July 4, 1976, Israeli Defence Forces' planes refuelled at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Kenya on their way to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where a daring raid ended in the rescue of mostly Israeli nationals whose Air France plane had been seized by Palestinian hijackers, backed by eccentric Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked the 40th anniversary of the rescue when he visited Uganda and Kenya last year; his brother Yonatan,the operation's commander, lost his life in the raid.

But over the last three years or so, Israel's latest rapport with East Africa has raised eyebrows in the region and within the international community. This time, it's certainly not a story of heroism.

The latest intersection concerns an unpublished agreement to facilitate the deportation of African asylum seekers and refugees in Israel to "third countries" – namely, Uganda and Rwanda. Israel's estimated 38,000 asylum seekers are mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Fleeing repression, they faced rape, torture and blackmail on their trek through the Sinai to Israel's southern border.

Persistent reports suggest that Kampala and Kigali are getting Israeli weapons, military training and other forms of aid in return, but just like their counterparts in Jerusalem, officials in both countries refuse to talk about any quid pro quo refugees-for-arms deal.

However, with NGOs and human rights activists going to court in Israel, which recently ruled that the deportations can go ahead but deportees who resist can't be held in detention for more than two months, the Israeli authorities have owned up more fully.

It took the lifting of a gag order in 2013 to first reveal the agreement in Israel. Rwanda acknowledged it in 2015 including the multi-million dollar monetary compensation involved.

 But no such transparency exists in Uganda, so the government remains adamant there's no such agreement. Since Sunday's Vision expose, there has still not been an official government response.

Indeed, only last week, government spokesman Ofwono Opondo told me point-blank that there are no Eritreans and Sudanese arriving from Israel on Ugandan soil.

"We have cross-checked that information, even with Rwanda and our Immigration Department, we don't have those people," he said. "We don't know why they [Israelis] circulate that information, we don't have an agreement with them and we don't have Eritreans or Sudanese or any other nationality [here] on the basis of an agreement with the Israelis."

Mr Opondo further said that the Ugandan authorities had challenged the Israelis to produce the list of people they have sent to Uganda but got no response.

"Uganda is welcoming to refugees, so why would we hide these ones?" he queried.

Asked about an arms deal as the possible explanation for the secrecy, Mr Opondo retorted, "Do we need to buy arms secretly? We are not under an embargo, and if we want to purchase arms from Israel, it is not under an embargo either."

Of course, the arms business is legendary for its secrecy.

Uganda and Israel have a longstanding relationship based on military procurement, with Netanyahu playing a key role. A Haaretz journalist last year revealed that Netanyahu, while working as finance minister in 2005, visited Uganda with arms manufacturer Silver Shadow Systems. The trip was paid for by the Uganda government to the tune of $57,000.

With both Uganda and Rwanda led by former guerrilla leaders who today boast of two of Africa's most competent armies, it is difficult to see beyond arms as the main factor behind the East African countries' readiness to host Israel's "infiltrators", as its right-wing ministers are wont to call asylum-seekers.

If Uganda, for instance, was taking them in on humanitarian grounds, rather than deny it, government officials would have made it a point to trumpet the gesture and invoke the spirit of pan-Africanism, just as it has done with theone million or so South Sudan refugees in the north of the country.

But with the Sunday Vision expose, which nevertheless incorporates more denial by government officials, there's nowhere to hide any more. According to Sunday Vision, the refugees live in a "stateless limbo" in Kampala while those who get fed up are tempted to make illegal border crossings that expose them to blackmail and abuse at the hands of smugglers and security forces.

Uganda's vehement denial notwithstanding, if Israel and its East African partners had succeeded in keeping this arrangement under wraps, NGOs and human rights groups would not have found the ammunition needed to take to Israel's Supreme Court to challenge it at all. Rights groups argues that, for African refugees in Israel, choosing between detention in Israel, a return to potentially life-threatening Eritrea or relocation to Uganda with $3,500 in hand, is no choice at all.

Therefore, the quiet agreement, contrary to what the Uganda government spokesman claims, is for all intents and purposes an unholy alliance created to deliver mutual benefits.

Israel desperately wants to uproot 38,000 African refugees from its territory and in Uganda and Rwanda it has found governments that will do anything to lay their hands on Israeli arms, hence the vow of secrecy and conspiracy of silence.

Unfortunately, the danger with such a secretive arrangement is that after Israel has achieved its objective and Uganda and Rwanda have got theirweapons, no one really cares about the deportees.

Uganda might have won international acclaim for its generous refugee policy, but that is with regard to well documented refugees arriving from warring neighboring countries who come with low, if any, expectations.

According to a story published by Al Jazeera, the deported individuals have no legal status in Uganda and have to fend for themselves.

The Sunday Vision article adds that some refugees, having failed to settle in Uganda, have attempted to relocate to Europe by way of the treacherous and often fatal boat routes operated by people smugglers across the Mediterranean Sea.

For the young men who braved the torturous Sinai desert trek in search of a better life in the Holy Land, it's been  a rude awakening. But the luckless, desperate deportees won't find their Promised Land in Uganda, either.

WHERE IS EAST AFRICA'S OIL

IS IT POLITICS OR JUST FINANCE THAT'S DELAYING THE DEVELOPMENT OF EAST AFRICA'S OIL 

Delays and disagreements have slowed down the extraction and exportation of new oil discoveries in Kenya and Uganda.

It was not long ago that East Africa was the shining frontier of the continent’s oil scene. Uganda sparked the rush in 2006 after wildcatters ventured deep inland and made Africa’s largest onshore discoveries in decades. And Kenya’s north­western Turkana region continued the run with new oilfields found in 2012.
With crude prices averag­ing almost $112 per barrel at that time, it was hoped these fresh discoveries could be linked up with a new regional pipeline network stretching from South Sudan to the coast. It was believed that oil could economically transform the East African region.
Yet a decade on, little progress has been made on the pipeline, while Uganda and Ken­ya’s oil remains trapped far from interna­tional markets.
Security risks have hindered developments, while the steep drop in crude prices from late-2014 has slowed things down. However, politics – both domestic and regional – have also been central to the delays.

Domestic politics

Uganda

 

         Museveni says he’s “not excited” about Uganda’s oil. Is anyone anymore?

In Uganda, where government estimates suggest reserves of 6.5 billion barrels, a consensus has now been reached to develop an export pipeline by the early-2020s . But this has only come after various disagreements deferred developments.
It took years, for example, for Presi­dent Yoweri Museveni to back down from his original idea of meeting East Africa’s petroleum needs through a large-scale oil refinery. This was widely regarded as an uneco­nomic proposition and a smaller-scale option has now been accepted.
Progress was also stalled by a series of drawn out tax disputes in Ugandan and London courts. However, it was Museveni’s hard bargaining with international oil companies over the terms of production licenses that brought things to a crawl, with the two sides finally reaching an agreement in August 2016.
To his credit, Museveni has provided Uganda with a relatively favourable deal. But it came at the cost of delaying oil production for several years.

Kenya

In Kenya, after much fanfare following its first oil discovery, there have only been mar­ginal exploration gains of late. Estimates of recoverable oil in the South Lokichar Basin of the Turkana region have now risen to 750 million barrels according to operator Tullow.
Nevertheless, low-cost onshore oil continues to draw in big players from the global energy industry. Just this week, the French oil major Total entered the scene after acquiring Maersk Oil and Gas, along with its Kenyan assets. Alongside partners Tullow and Africa Oil, it will look to bring Kenyan oil to international markets.
However, an unhealthy relationship between local and national politicians could present an impedi­ment to production. This was most recently demonstrated in the August 2017 elections. During the campaign, President Uhuru Kenyatta sparred with Turkana governor Joseph Nanok over the president’s refusal to sign a bill that would grant the county a high share of oil revenues.
Turkana been neglected by Nairobi for decades, and local politicians are now wrestling to control new resources brought in by oil develop­ment. This led to a suspension of oper­ations for several weeks in 2013 due to local protect, and again in June this year as locals blocked roads and seized oil company assets.
In Turkana, grievances over a lack of jobs and development will not go away because the election season is over. Kenyatta will need to work towards a compromise with county politicians and local communities if the industry is to make further progress.

South Sudan

Since its separation from Sudan in July 2011, South Sudan’s oil industry has been severely undermined by political interven­tion and armed conflict. Oil production was around 350,000 barrels per day around the time of independence, but only 130,000 barrels per day in early-2017, accord­ing to government officials.
The government has ambitious plans to more than double the current produc­tion rate, but South Sudan needs a significant period of internal stability before oil companies will be willing to take the risk to invest in revitalising its aging oilfields. Without investments in enhanced oil recovery or significant new discoveries, output from South Sudan’s current oilfields will not reach pre-civil war highs again.
The best prospects for new oil are in Jonglei state. But the large, isolated and unstable region is hardly a desirable destination for low-cost, risk-free exploration. Total has been flirting with exploring there for decades. It was recently in fresh talks with the government, along­side partners Tullow Oil and the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC), but negotia­tions broke down in April.

Regional tensions

Uganda

Beyond ongoing domestic challenges, regional relations have also emerged as a complex challenge. In landlocked Uganda, this has centred on whether to opt for a pipeline to the coast through Kenya – via Turkana’s oil reserves – or through Tanzania.
It was only after years of wrangling with the former that Uganda recently announced construction would soon start on a pipeline through the latter. The plan is that the estimated $3.9 billion, 1,443km pipeline will run from Lake Albert down the western edge of Lake Victoria and to the Tanzanian port at Tanga.
If the decision holds, it means that East Africa may eventually have to construct two separate pipelines. Uganda could have saved the region costs by joining up with Kenya’s pipeline, but it was concerned about security and delays from land disputes in Kenya’s restive north. Kampala was also keen to avoid over-dependence on Nairobi as its dominant trade gateway.
In its bid, Tanzania offered to lower tariffs on the pipeline to competitive rates. It presented a more feasible timetable, fewer land acquisition constraints, and lower security risks.
However, this option will not necessarily be problem free. Over the 30-40 year lifespan of the oil production, politics in both countries will certainly shift, and Tanzania could take advantage of its position as Uganda’s only transit route.
The wildcard in the region’s pipeline politics will be whether Total – given its recent entry into Kenya and majority stakes in Uganda – revives the idea of building a pipeline from Lake Albert to the Kenyan coast, and ditching Tanzania altogether.

 

Kenya

Depending on how this pans out, Kenya may still need to go it alone in building its own pipeline. President Kenyatta says a route from Turkana to Lamu will spur development in the marginalised region and that new economic opportunities will dampen security con­cerns. However, others fear that political elites are looking to further enrich themselves through land grabs in the north.
In any case, the persistence of lower global oil prices means that, in absence of a new deal with Uganda on a regional pipeline, Kenya will likely need to discover more oil if investors are to see financing a Kenya-only pipeline as a fruitful ven­ture.

 

South Sudan

South Sudan may have attained political freedom in 2011, but it is still dependent on a pipeline through Sudan to export oil, the government’s main source of rev­enue.
A deal was struck late last year to extend the arrangement between Juba and Khartoum until the end of 2019. The agreement includes a sliding scale for transit fees, which will help ensure that South Sudan does not run a loss when global prices are low.

 However, the political relationship between the two Sudans is anything but stable, as the short border war in 2012 demonstrated. Khar­toum may attempt to extract new political and economic concessions from South Sudan when the current agreement expires.

       Source: Petroleum Economist.

 

It’s the politics

After years of domestic and regional political wrangling, some progress may be being made in terms of extracting and exporting East African oil. But many disputes are yet to be resolved, while others may still heighten uncertainties.
The undefined and porous borders across Africa, for instance, could lead to further quarrels. Uganda’s exploration on the borer of Lake Albert is already being protested by the Democratic Republic of Congo. Meanwhile, Kenya’s push for maritime exploration in the Indian Ocean is being contested by Somalia.
The implementation of international rulings on disputes elsewhere in Africa – for example, between Nigeria and Cameroon – could set important precedents in solving such border disagreements.
Over a decade on from the initial discoveries, East Africa’s oil is still yet to deliver on its promises. There have been many factors behind the delays, but many have been caused by domestic and regional politics, both of which will continue to be central in determining the success of new growth opportunities.

 A version of this article was originally published in the AFRICAN ARGUMENTS.

RWANDA ELECTIONS,IS IT A FAIR GAME?

"If the Rwandan Patriotic Front is so loved ... why is it that when someone like me decides to run for the presidency, they do all in their power to prevent it?" she asks. "Why are there soldiers all over the place?"

                                                                                             Diane Shima Rwigara.

A former child refugee, Paul Kagame was once a hero to the West, feted for helping to bring Rwanda's bloody genocide to an end.

But with allegations of repression, violence and politically-motivated murder dogging his rule, the military and political leader's international reputation has suffered. Undaunted, the Rwandan leader is standing for re-election on Friday.

Seventeen years into his presidency -- and with the prospect of as many as 17 more to come -- there seems little doubt Kagame will claim victory again come polling day.

"Some people have said that the result of the election is a foregone conclusion. They are not wrong," Kagame said at a rally in Ruhango district, in Rwanda's Southern Province, as the campaign kicked off on July 14.

"Rwandans made their position clear in 2015," he told crowds of supporters, referring to the 2015 referendum in which 98% of voters backed changes to the constitution, allowing him to seek a third, fourth and fifth term in office -- and potentially remain in post until 2034.

life spent in exile

Kagame, who turns 60 this year, had experienced the impact of the Tutsi-Hutu division which threatened to tear his country apart early: he was brought up in exile in neighboring Uganda following an earlier violent uprising in 1959.

Rwanda's then-Vice President Paul Kagame watches a military rally in Kigali on October 1, 1994.

His leadership credentials were forged on the battlefield, first as part of Yoweri Museveni's army which overthrew the regime of Milton Obote in Uganda.

After serving as Museveni's intelligence chief, he led the armed wing of the Rwandan Patriotic Front into Kigali to halt the 1994 genocide, in which almost a million Tutsis were murdered by rival Hutus, and up to two million people fled the country.

Once in power, first as vice president and defense minister, and then from 2000 as president, Kagame -- a Tutsi himself -- pursued those responsible for the genocide across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire), eliminating many of them.

In the years following the genocide, Rwanda's military clout belied the nation's size, helping to topple Mobutu Sese Seko in the DRC and bring Laurent Kabila to power.

After Kagame fell out with the DRC's new leader, Rwandan troops shifted their allegiance, backing rebels who were trying to overthrow Kabila. They were later accused of plundering the DRC's precious minerals -- a charge the military denied.

Kagame was also accused of arming anti-government militias such as the M23 rebels in eastern DRC. The Rwandan leader denied any involvement.

Three oppositions ruled out of race

Nude photographs purporting to show Diane Shima Rwigara were circulated online after she announced plans to stand in Rwanda's presidential election.

The Rwandan Electoral Commission later ruled that women's rights activist and Kagame critic Rwigara had not collected enough signatures to support her candidacy. It accused her of conspiring to forge voters' signatures, and listing dead people among her backers.

Rwigara says "those are false allegations. The ID numbers released by (the) NEC are different from the ID numbers we submitted to the commission."

"If the Rwandan Patriotic Front is so loved ... why is it that when someone like me decides to run for the presidency, they do all in their power to prevent it?" she asks. "Why are there soldiers all over the place?"

Rwigara says that while Kagame has been good for the country in the past, Rwanda needs a new president to lead the nation into the future.

"After the genocide, the country needed a strong man as a leader to pull the country together," she says. "But that way of leading us is no longer serving us -- on the contrary, it is suffocating us.

Diane Shima Rwigara, 35, had hoped to run for election, but within days of announcing her plans to stand against Kagame, nude photos of her -- which she says were photoshopped -- began to circulate on the internet.

 At home, Kagame is credited with modernizing a nation once at war with itself: the streets are clean, you will see no vagrants, the internet works, plastic bags are banned, and he gives cattle to the poor.

Perhaps most importantly, he has erased the bitterly divisive terms "Hutu" and "Tutsi" -- nowadays, the only accepted identity is "Rwandan."

His supporters also point to the fact that the country has 11 opposition parties, 12 TV stations and 35 radio stations.

Those numbers suggest an atmosphere of plurality and a tolerance of dissenting views, but look again: Nine of the parties have backed Kagame, and many media outlets' coverage of the election campaign has focused solely on the President, offering only his viewpoint.

And while the country boasts the highest proportion of female lawmakers in the world -- 61% of seats in Rwanda's parliament are held by women -- there was no place for a woman on the presidential ballot.

'Peace does not necessaryly mean   democracy'

Rwandan independent candidate Philippe Mpayimana in Shyrongi, north of Kigali on July 29, 2017.

With Rwigara and two other candidates ruled out of the contest by the electoral 

commission, Kagame's only opponents in the race for the presidency are independent Philippe Mpayimana, a former journalist who has spent much of his life in exile in Europe, and Frank Habineza, of the Democratic Green Party.

Habineza believes his party, founded in 2009 is growing fast. He says campaigning against the incumbent has been difficult at times, "some people prevented people from coming to our meeting" early in the campaign.

"We asked for a venue to do our campaign and we were sent to a cemetery -- we had to suspend our campaign because we could not work from a graveyard," he explains.

He says the situation stabilized after the party complained to the Ministry of Local Government and to the police, prompting the local government to take action, issuing a warning to district mayors and local authorities.

Like Rwigara, Habineza concedes that Kagame's rule has had some benefits, but says those are outweighed by the challenges the country still faces.

"One thing we know is that he brought peace and stability to Rwanda, but not democracy," he says. "He failed on democracy and that is my role. He was a former rebel leader, so he has been ruling the country like a soldier."

And that is the dilemma Kagame faces. If -- or, when -- he wins on Friday, he must convince his critics that he knows another way to rule than the one that has caused both his people and his international backers so many concerns.

Uncovering the Italian mafia in Africa

 The Italian mafia has established a hidden but lethal presence in Africa. Its members own diamond mines, nightclubs and land, all with the complicity of corrupt regimes. 

  if you want to fight the mafia, you also need to fight the corruption existing in the political sphere.


The Italian mafia’s influence goes beyond borders; its multiple arms reach several countries and exploit several lucrative sectors. Well-known criminal groups like the Sicilian Cosa Nostra have been investigated for decades, but the recently published project Mafia in Africa uncovers for the first time the actual scope of the mafia’s economic power on the African continent. The team found that important members of the mafia, so-called “capos”, engage in money laundering activities and invest in land, mines or farms in South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and other countries. The same people also establish useful associations with relevant politicians and thus fuel the dynamics of corrupted regimes and unstable markets.
Working on the crossroads between investigative and data journalism, the international team behind the project researched the mafia’s activities in thirteen different countries. Their stories were published in CORRECT!V, L’Espresso, Il Fatto Quotidiano and Mail&Guardian among others. Ultimately, their aim was to show the need to fight the mafia’s criminal practices worldwide.
In order to know more about their investigation and final output, we interviewed our grantee Stefano Gurciullo, director of Quattrogatti.info and the data scientist and coordinator of the project.

What were the main goals of such an ambitious project?
The goal of the project was to find out how and in what sectors and countries the Italian mafia invests. Our investigation does not deal with drug profits, prostitution or weapons, we only deal with money laundering and financial activities. The importance of this project for us was not to just launch a nice investigative project but to spread a message: “this is happening out there, it is huge and we do not know much about it.” We want to convince the public and policy makers to start taking measures against economic infiltration of the mafia. Once we achieve this, we can say that our project has succeeded.

In the project you employ investigative and data journalism. What did you get from this combination?
Using both techniques was not an easy task, but it was very useful. Investigative journalism is usually concerned with the narrative, while data journalism primarily deals with providing the readers a bigger picture. Investigative journalism allows you to discover new data, and the data scientist can create databases and do the quantitative analysis on it. We are really happy to be an example of this.

The most telling of your case studies was South Africa. Could you briefly explain what you uncovered there?
In South Africa we focused on the stories of two Sicilian hustlers, Vito Roberto Palazzolo and Antonino Messicati Vitale. Two well-known cases, but we gave the full picture with in-depth information and big data. In the case of Vito Roberto Palazzolo we did something amazing: we managed to track a huge part of the network of companies he and his collaborators have owned in South Africa, Namibia and Angola over the past 20 years. We essentially tracked nearly his entire economical empire. The story we published is a summary of this. His economic activities were very wide; they went from ostrich farms to uranium mining. We also found that he had connections with important political actors, like the son of the first Namibian president since the independence of the country. The other story in South Africa is about Antonino Messicati Vitale, a powerful boss of the Sicilian mafia, who invested in the diamond mining industry.

After months of research and analysis, you published several long-forms paired with big and detailed infographics. What is their function?
Finding a good way to represent what we discovered was very important to us. For example, we created a map of Africa, which summarises nine months of work in just one image. In a few lines it explains our main findings. The reader can first see the big picture and then decide what story he or she wants to delve into. Our infographics make the story easily accessible.
Another example is the network that depicts Palazzolo’s huge economic empire. Again, in one graphic, you can easily see how big his influence was. This is twenty pages of story summed up in just one graph.
What are the consequences of the mafia’s economic infiltration and money laundering practices in Africa?
There are two direct consequences, one is political and the other economic. What we found out was that the Italian mafia strengthened the Politics of the Belly in Africa—a form of political governance characterised by self-aggrandisement. The mafia come as outsiders, but they have friends across the African political spectrum, which allows them to take part in high-level corrupted politics that exist in many African countries. We saw this very clearly with Vito Roberto Palazzolo, but we did not have enough resources to go more in-depth.
Another consequence is that if you have a lot of money coming from illegal funds and you decide to enter a legitimate market, this is unfair towards the other competitors. Unlike the mafia, these competitors do not engage in illegal activities. This situation just as much distorts the market as it dismantles innovation.

Did you receive any kind or pressure from actors somehow involved in the criminal network during the investigation?
We have been very careful. Minimising risk in the field means making sure to follow some protocols, such as keeping your project goals reasonably confidential and following the indications of your local colleagues, who know very well what threats might lie ahead.
We are happy to say that we did not receive any significant pressure from the actors involved. However, there always is the chance that this may change soon, as we start engaging closely with policy makers and bring the issue of financial and economic crime higher up in their agendas. We do not know what form this pressure might take. It may range from personal threats to lawsuits.

You wrote that this first project was like discovering the tip of the iceberg. What do you plan to do next?
This was only the first step. It is part of a broader project through which we encourage policymakers to pay attention to the mafia’s global business. If we get enough funding, the next step will be to find reliable information to track the mafia’s practices in other countries, also outside of Africa. Africa is just one part of the story. For instance, we also found connections between Vito Roberto Palazzolo and the biggest diamond mining in Russia. Few people knew about it before. It would be really interesting to conduct the same research we did on the African continent in Asia, the Caucasus area or Latin America, for example.

What was the most surprising finding for you?
I think that each team member would give you a different answer. To me, the most striking thing was the value of the diamond deposit Vito Roberto Palazzolo had in Russia. The total value of them was 12 billion dollars. Palazzolo, together with another entrepreneur owned 17%. He also had diamond mines in Namibia. I was really shocked that they had control over these huge sources of money.
The second surprising finding was to see, with my own eyes, how well connected these people were with very important political figures, how they always had a partnership with whoever was in power, especially in Namibia. This fact gave us the confirmation that if you want to fight the mafia, you also
  need to fight the corruption existing in the political sphere.

 The Italian mafia has established a hidden but lethal presence in Africa. Its members own diamond mines, nightclubs and land, all with the complicity of corrupt regimes.


Italian anti-mafia authorities estimate that organised crime groups earn €26 billion a year in Italy alone. But the figure only scratches the surface of its economic power. Mafia Inc. is more than ever a global business, infiltrating legitimate economies worldwide. And the extent of the empire is unknown.
An international team of reporters from the non-profit investigative journalism centres IRPI and ANCIR (with the Investigative Dashboard Africa) partnered with the data analysts of QUATTROGATTI and the production room of CORRECT!V to uncover for the first time the Italian mafia's grip on Africa.

Supported by two working grants for independent journalism, the Innovative Journalism Grant of the EJC and Journalism Fund, the work took seven months, and included trips to Sicily, Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Lombardy, in Italy and South Africa, Namibia, Senegal and Kenya, in Africa.
Ten investigative reporters from six different countries, one data-journalist and a data-scientist, three editors, one cross-examiner and a bunch of lawyers joined the effort in producing in-depth research into the mafia's involvement in 13 countries.
Mafia in Africa draws a bleak picture and highlights the need for the international community to reforms its policies, to monitor and fight the economic infiltration by criminals and prevent the dire consequences on unstable African societies.

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DR Congo’s would-be president,Moïse Katumbi

“The same people who betrayed Mobutu are now with Kabila, telling him he’s God, telling him he’s whatever. It’s bullshit.”

 

Moïse Katumbi:credit NYUMBA

 

For a man many see as the natural heir to the presidency of the vast and populous Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Moïse Katumbi cuts a fairly reserved figure. A gentle and sometimes bashful tycoon-turned-politician, one gets the sense that if he were his biblical namesake, his instinct would be to strike a behind-the-scenes deal with the Red Sea rather than command it to part with a booming authority.
Whatever his approach, however, it has put him in good stead. The son of a Jewish father from Greece and a Congolese mother, Katumbi, now a youthful 52,  first made his mark in business. He inherited a role in the already-successful family company in Katanga province, but expanded its activities in mining and logistics. All of which helped make him one of the Congo’s richest people.
From 2007 to 2015, he was  governor of Katanga, which saw impressive economic growth and development. Under his presidency of the Lubumbashi football team TP Mazembe, the club has won the African Champions League three times.
Now Katumbi wants to be president of the country. If free and fair elections were held, he probably would be. He has significant popularity and the support of much of the opposition. But when he’ll get a chance to test this hypothesis is anyone’s guess.
President Joseph Kabila, who has led the DRC since 2001, was meant to step down when his second mandated term expired on 19 December 2016. But he simply failed to organise elections. Protests escalated until an agreement was made on 31 December that a transitional government would be established − with Kabila still as president − and that elections would be held in 2017. Yet more than halfway through the year, the polls are no closer and the electoral commission recently announced that they have been delayed indefinitely.
Moreover, in 2016, Katumbi was sentenced to 36 months in absentia for selling a property illegally. The charges are widely considered to be politically-motivated, but they mean he is stuck in exile in Brussels.
African Arguments caught up with the wannabe Congolese president:

You’ve said repeatedly now that you’ll be returning to the DRC shortly. Do you know when yet?
  I’m going as quick as possible. I went with my lawyer to the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and got a good answer, so I’m definitely going back. I miss my country and my people.

Do you have a date?
The date is soon. I’m like a general. I need to plan everything properly.
You have much support in the DRC, but many also distrust you, including various grassroots movements that are doing much of the mobilising on the ground today. They see you as someone who’s always lived in luxury, eating at expensive restaurants and flying in private jets, while two-thirds of Congolese live in poverty. Why should they believe in you?
In a democracy, not everyone will love you. The majority would like me to run as president. I was first a businessman. 95-97% know the true story about Moïse Katumbi. I was a hardworking person, 30 years in business, a successful businessman. I didn’t go bankrupt.
When I started as governor of Katanga, the province was sending $150 million to the national level per annum. After one year, it went to $3 billion because I fought corruption. When I am president, all the people will see the change. They can look on my website, they can talk to Katangese people to see my contribution.

How will you convince the doubters?
Kabila is attacking me – only me – because he knows in the first round I will win the elections. When I arrived as governor of Katanga, Congo was producing just 8,000 tonnes of copper per annum. I stopped exports of unprocessed material and told people to build new factories. We went from 8,000 tonnes to 1.3 million tonnes.  My province was the size of France, with 4.5 million people. Within one year, the population doubled as people came from their provinces to look for good governance and jobs.

You criticise Kabila now, but you were very close to him for many years. How are substantively different from him? What specific policy changes would you make if you were president tomorrow?
I can’t deny I worked with Kabila. The constitution allowed me two terms, which I did. President Kabila today is illegal. He finished his mandate in 2016. The difference between us first is that I respected the constitution. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t jail anyone.
What is important is the future. I would first establish the authority of government and law. I’d fight corruption. Create jobs. We need to have a strong economy. How? First, you need energy. Congo has a lot of water and no energy. I would call the private sector and all partners to help us and use money you have locally to improve energy.
You need to create the middle-class. Also transparency, which is very important in the mining sector and all sectors. You’ve got the best place for tourism. You have to develop this. And develop education. The future of Congo is not mining but the brains of our young people. And develop agriculture. At the moment, our money is going to other countries for imports. We need to create jobs in agriculture. And the money must go to the central government and be published. You must not violate the budget. The president is going over the budget sometimes by 700%.

Surely everyone, including Kabila, would largely agree that all these things are important. What specifically would you do?
What I say is that I’ve done it when I was the governor. It’s not just theory. Take education. When I started, we had 300,000 students at school and less than 10% were girls. I built good infrastructure and paid teachers well. We went to over 3 million children after 9 years, 50% of whom were girls. When I began, we were importing 98% of our agriculture. When I left office, we were importing 25%, because I put everyone to work on agriculture.

The main difference you emphasise between you and Kabila seems to be that he violated the constitution. If he’d stepped down last year, would he have been a good president?
Kabila missed the train. He was supposed to leave on time, not kill the people. If he left, the international community and Congolese would be happy. No matter what he did wrong, people would respect him as the first president to bring democracy.
He did good things, he did bad things. Now everything has become very bad because of the killing.

From Kabila’s perspective, his strategies have worked. The elections are no closer, while the opposition’s divided. Veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi has passed away. You’re in exile. And the wealthy businessman and recent critic of Kabila, Sindika Dokolo, has just been sentenced to a year in prison. What’s your plan to change things?
These are short manoeuvres. You think Sindika Dokolo can steal $1 million? His father was the first black banker in the country. Because Dokolo is telling Kabila to step down, the president’s only strategy is to take him down with fake charges, like he did with me. He thinks this is successful, but this is a short road.

And how will you bring that road to an end?
We are bringing it to an end because our constitution gives us the right to remove him. At the moment, he doesn’t have any legal frame. The people are going to chase Kabila because Article 64 of our constitution allows us. We’re going to say “Mr President, the game is over”. In life, you have to always be true. You can’t be clever to more than 80 million people. The end is sure to come this year. Kabila will no longer be president.

Yes, but how will you bring this about? At the moment, he seems to hold all the cards.
Killings is not a card, killing is evil.
But it helps keep him in power.
It works for some time. You have read widely. All the people who killed, what is their end? Their end is very bad.

Perhaps, but sometimes only after decades of rule.
For us, it is not going to take decades. Congo is not other countries. 80 million people need change. Kabila should wake up.

Ok, so would you encourage people to go onto the streets to force this change?
Yes. I’m also going on the streets and will encourage the people, because today people are dying and no serious investors have come to the country since 2016.

Going back to Dokolo, there are rumours the two of you are forming a political alliance. Is this true?
Sindika is a Congolese brother first. He’s a businessman and just inaugurated a cement factory in Angola. He works hard. He wants to contribute to change in Congo. You see how they are killing pregnant women and children in the Kasai. Sindika wants change in the country like any Congolese person.

Given you share that goal, does it make sense to join forces?
Not just the two of us. I was with Sidika Dokolo and Félix Tshisekedi. It’s all the Congolese people, civil society, everyone. We need real change. Congolese people today are determined. I have met a lot of Congolese children born in Europe who want to go back and contribute.

Before you resigned from the ruling coalition, you talked to President Kabila. He offered you something, but you declined. What happened in that meeting?
I went to see the president to tell him “Mr President, in life there is a time to come to office and a time to go”. I said Congo is not about you, it’s about 80 million people. It’s not about Moïse Katumbi, it’s about the people.
I advised him not to continue, but to have the first peaceful democratic transition. The same people who betrayed Mobutu are now with Kabila, telling him he’s God, telling him he’s whatever. It’s bullshit. He should look at how Mobutu was finished because the people of Congo at that time needed change.

This interview has been condensed and edited.