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20th October 2006

Vol 47 N0 21

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Kenya KENYA

The anti-corruption collapse

The failure of Justice Ringera's investigations reinforces the growing criminalisation of the state

Attorney General Amos Wako's dismissal of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission's (KACC) investigation into five state contracts will effectively block the cases until after next year's national elections. It was clear that these contracts and the Anglo-Leasing passport scandal, which prompted the di...

KENYA

Brothers in Armenia

The report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the activities of the so-called Armenian brothers - Artur Marg...

ZAMBIA

The Titanic sails at dawn

The opposition offered its voters refuge on Noah's Ark, but it sank and Mwanawasa is back

BLUE LINES

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THE INSIDE VIEW

Welcome to the new 12-page Africa Confidential. The time is right for expansion. Elections and key party congresses are due in many of Africa’s biggest countries in the next 18 months, and the outcomes will decide the shape of the continent’s leadership over the next five years. The current boost to African growth, the strongest since the late 1970s, is fuelled by commodity demand from India and China, which are establishing new trade and investment routes. Africa is also attracting fast-growing private funds, which are buying equities and treasury bills in what some see as the emerging markets’ last frontier. The USA’s war on terror – with deployments in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and along West Africa’s seaboard – and the new economic power of Asia echo the Cold War era, when African regimes played off one side against the other. One positive sign is the new political activism that demands more accountability and better governance. For every anti-corruption movement that is closed down, more spring up, determined to check commercial and political abuses. Whatever their successes, our pages will be full of the inside stories.

NIGERIA

All for one, not yet

As the net closes in on those state governors accused of corruption and fraud, President Olusegun Obasanjo's position has strengthened markedly against his Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and most other would-be presidential candidates in next year's national elections. The impeachment of Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose (AC Vol 47 No 20) is the third since Obasanjo became President in 1999. Two more states have begun impeachment proceedings against their governors, Joshua Dariye (Plateau State) and Peter Obi (Anambra State).The swoop up is set to continue. Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu insists that he has 31 governors in his sights.

SOUTH AFRICA

The ANC's toughest election yet

Even the most conservative African National Congress activists admit that a schism has developed in the party between supporters of President Thabo Mbeki and those of sacked Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Yet they cannot agree about why the schism has developed and whose fault it is. Zuma's fans are the usual opponents of President Mbeki's conventional economic policies: the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP). He also attracts support from the poor and working class, frustrated by the slow pace of service delivery, growing unemployment and rising crime.

SOUTH AFRICA

The road to the ANC's 2007 National Conference

Preparatory conferences 1.The African National Congress Provincial Conferences will be fiercely lobbied by Jacob Zuma's and Thabo Mbeki's camps. The Provincial Conferences will be held after Mbeki delivers his 8 January statement and State of the Nation address in February 2007, and before July, allowing about six months of campaigning before the National Conference in December . . .

SOUTH AFRICA

Who is eligible to vote?

The African National Congress strictly determines eligibility to vote at national conferences. Branches usually nominate two delegates, more in large urban branches . . .

CÔTE D'IVOIRE

Diamonds, gold and guns

Another round of regional negotiations has failed, a credible election is impossible by the deadline of 31 October and the international and regional organisations look increasingly ineffectual. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has endorsed an extension of President Laurent Gbagbo's time in office by another year and nothing useful is expected from the African Union's crisis meeting on Côte d'Ivoire which started on 17 October.

CÔTE D'IVOIRE

Diamond dollars

Diamonds slip through the export ban imposed on Côte d'Ivoire last year. Many are now routed through Ghana. Production is estimated at between 114,000 and 214,000 carats, compared with 300,000 carats pre-war.

EAST AFRICA

No EASSY rider

Kenya and South Africa are in heated dispute over the control and cost of a crucial African development project - a fibre-optic cable to surround the continent and link it to the world by 2008. One of its main components, the East African Submarine System (EASSy), would place 9,900 kilometres of fibre beneath the sea, between Port Sudan in the north and Mtunzini in South Africa; it would link up with the SAT3 cable which starts in Portugal and connects West, Central and Southern Africa with Madagascar, India and Malaysia.

BLUE LINES

THE INSIDE VIEW

Welcome to the new 12-page Africa Confidential. The time is right for expansion. Elections and key party congresses are due in many of Africa’s biggest countries in the next 18 months, and the outcomes will decide the shape of the continent’s leadership over the next five years. The current boost to African growth, the strongest since the late 1970s, is fuelled by commodity demand from India and China, which are establishing new trade and investment routes. Africa is also attracting fast-g...

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EQUATORIAL GUINEA | GABON

No man an island

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan wanted to resolve a 35-year old territorial dispute between Equatorial Guinea and Gabon before his tenure ends. That looks doubtful. The minuscule, uninhabited islands of Mbanié, Cocotiers and Conga are probably rich in oil and gas, and their territorial waters towards São Tomé e Príncipe contain richer known reserves. The conflict lay dormant in the 1970s and restarted when President Omar Bongo Ondimba's son, Ali Ben Bongo, visited the islands in February 2003. Gabon has granted exploration rights in two areas of the disputed territory: Royal Dutch Shell through its Igoumou license and Anadarko in Agali. Neither company will explore until legal title is settled. Both governments have wavered over creating a joint exploitation zone for the islands in Corsico Bay.

Pointers  

SUDAN | SAUDI ARABIA

Signal from Saudi

An astonishing attack on Sudanese President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir in the Saudi press signals a crack in Arab solidarity over Khartoum's policy on Darfur.

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