KENYA Ocampo names six suspects 17th December 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site President Mwai Kibaki’s government is in turmoil following the naming of some of its ministers as responsible for the post-election violence in 2008 Two days before the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, named the six men he wants to prosecute for their role in the political violence, President Mwai Kibaki convened an emergency cabinet meeting to chart a common position on the looming announcement. The cabinet was split down the middle. Pro-Kibaki politicians pushed for a denunciation of the Court and the creation of a local tribunal as an alternative. Some wanted to send Attorney General Amos Wako and Chief Justice Johnson Evan Gicheru to the Hague to try to stop the ICC from proceeding. Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s allies rejected such proposals, dismissing them as a pointless attempt to protect the suspects: all of them bar one are political foes of the Premier.
KENYA Don’t be vague, let’s go to the Hague 17th December 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site A day after Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s 15 December naming of the six people wanted by the International Criminal Court, Kenya’s Parliament was debating a private member’s bill...
SOMALIA New guns on the block 17th December 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site A military company run by President Museveni’s brother and some South African mercenaries is being financed by a mystery donor in the Gulf Saracen International, a Ugandan-based private security firm, is the latest armed party to intervene in Somalia’s civil war. Speculation abounds about its true role. Just as intr...
Former United States Vice-President Dick Cheney’s brush with Nigerian justice and the ensuing desperate plea bargain negotiations over the past week are unlikely to end the great gas scandal, acknowledged by the US Department of Justice to be its biggest ever international corruption case. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission filed charges in the Nigerian courts against Cheney, the former Chairman and Chief Executive of the USA-based Halliburton, and eight others over ... Former United States Vice-President Dick Cheney’s brush with Nigerian justice and the ensuing desperate plea bargain negotiations over the past week are unlikely to end the great gas scandal, acknowledged by the US Department of Justice to be its biggest ever international corruption case. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission filed charges in the Nigerian courts against Cheney, the former Chairman and Chief Executive of the USA-based Halliburton, and eight others over corrupt procurement contracts for a US$7 billion gas export plant in the Niger Delta. In a plea bargain in September 2008, Halliburton subsidiary KBR paid fines of $579 mn to the DoJ after its Chief Executive Albert Jack Stanley, appointed by Cheney, admitted to organising corrupt payments linked to the gas contract. France’s Technip and Italy’s Snamprogetti – in the consortium with Halliburton – have also paid the USA hundreds of millions of dollars in plea bargain deals. After Nigeria filed charges against Cheney, Halliburton offered to pay $120 mn. in fines and repatriate another $130 mn. of corrupt payments from Switzerland. However, investigators estimate the consortium may have siphoned another billion dollars out of the procurement contract. They also claim that Nigeria is exporting the gas at well below world prices through a third party entity in which both Nigerian and Western officials have a highly profitable stake. Read more
NIGERIA The war against the amnesty 17th December 2010 The presidential election, the oil trade and community peace deals are at risk in the latest Niger Delta conflicts Leaders of the Ayakoroma community in Delta State saw the violence coming. They warned the military Joint Task Force in mid-November that their town was in the crossfire between t...
ZIMBABWE The wiles of a crocodile, the memory of an elephant 17th December 2010 The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front will put on a show of unity and loyalty to President Mugabe at this week’s congress in Mutare. Despite the protestations, the party is divided over who should succeed eventually Mugabe as leader. Most activists support Vice-President Mujuru but the securocrats back Defence Minister Mnangagwa. Mugabe, however, knows that he will be the party’s presidential candidate yet again in the 2011 elections. The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has assembled in Mutare in full battle array for its annual party congress on 15-18 December. General mobilisations, once starte...
SUDAN The bombing of Kiir Adem 17th December 2010 Khartoum’s deadly bombardment of a border village shows growing desperation at the prospects of Southern succession next year Three weeks before the referendum on Southern Sudan, it is clear that the scheduled simultaneous vote on the Abyei area’s future will not go ahead on 9 January. This is a significa...
NIGERIA General John Togo and all his enemies 17th December 2010 The self-styled General of the Niger Delta struggle, warlord John Togo, emerged from the Itsekiri/Ijaw ethnic war of 2003, when rival tribal groups from Delta State spawned death, ...
ZIMBABWE One farm good, four farms better 17th December 2010 The 2011 elections are billed as the fourth and final Chimurenga (revolutionary struggle) to consolidate the gains of the revolutionary process. Nowhere have the gains been more su...
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Amid the chaos, a sort of vote 17th December 2010 Rebels, dissidents and their allies from across the region could turn the coming elections into a protracted battle for power Seven months late, national elections are due on 23 January, amid accusations of cheating and fraud, and with insecurity bringing hunger to more than half the country. The capital,...
SIERRA LEONEMINING Iron constitutions required 17th December 2010 A Chinese-British consortium exploiting massive iron ore reserves at Tonkolili prompts opposition from villagers and anti-corruption campaigners One of the wealthiest and most controversial businessmen in Britain, Vasile Frank Timis, has brought over $300 million of Chinese finance to Sierra Leone’s Tonkolili district to e...
CÔTE D'IVOIRE Two presidents, one crisis 17th December 2010 Violent clashes on the streets of Abidjan for control of state broadcasting escalate the post-election conflict Whether Côte d’Ivoire erupts into a fresh conflict or joins a new world of parliamentary democracy depends mainly on money, the military and regional solidarity. As Africa Confiden...
UNITED STATESAFRICA Diplomacy overheard 17th December 2010 Stripped of polite posturing, the leaked cables offer both predictable assessments and occasional insights into US thinking on the continent Of the 251,287 United States State Department cables leaked to Wikileaks, 1700 or so have been published, most through The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel but some onl...
UNITED STATESAFRICA Careless cables cost lives 17th December 2010 Wikileaks, or its helpers in the mainstream press, have failed in at least five instances to protect sensitive sources quoted by United States’ diplomats in cables that they have p...
