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Let us talk about Africa. Africa is a big place and lots of things are happening, so to get things started a brief overview of some of the major stories, most of them ongoing conflicts involving multiple nations, grabbing international headlines:  Boko Haram Insurgency: Nigeria continues it's operations against the jihadist insurgent group Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. Now backed by a Multinational force made up of troops from Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Boko Haram have lost a significant amount of territory following the recent counter-offensive launched in January 2015. In March of 2015 Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, pledged allegiance to ISIS and has begun the process of rebranding the group as Wilayat al Sudan al Gharbi tholugh it is unclear as of posting what effect this will have on the conflict.  Operation Barkhane: The French led Operation Barkhane continues in the Sahel supporting Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Chad in operations against various jihadist groups that have become increasingly active in the region since the 2012 rebellion against the Malian government led by the Tuareg ethnic group fuelled by long standing demands for regional autonomy. Mali has now concluded a peace agreement with the Tuareg fighters involved which may prove vital in the coming months.  Somalia: The Somalian government, backed by the African Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM, continues to consolidate it's control over Somalia. Al-Shabaab continues to be a regional threat but holds little territory, shifting it's tactics largely to urban attacks in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya where it's increasingly violent campaign has triggered a controversial crackdown on Somali refugees  South Sudanese Civil War: The South Sudanese Civil War, which began in December 2013, continues with no obvious end in sight as negotiations led by Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia have failed to produce a lasting peace agreement. South Sudan celebrated it's 4th birthday on the 9th July though so Happy Birthday guys   Central African Republic Peace Process: The Central African Republic's peace process continues slowly with a transitional government, backed by the African-lead UN peacekeeping force MINUSCA, slowly working towards to disarming and reintegrating fighters. Initially triggered when a majority-muslim coalition of rebels from the North of the country called the Séléka deposed the government of François Bozizé. This triggered often brutal violence between ex-Séléka fighters and Christian militias leading to a massive internal migration and a de-facto partition between the Muslim West and Christian East. General elections and a constitutional referendum are scheduled for October 2015. Huge piece from end of 2014 here - essential reading for more info.  Burundian Presidential Election: Burundi is due to vote in a Presidential Election on July 21st that could see current President Pierre Nkurunziza returned for a controversial third term. His plans to pursue a third term have raised concern internationally as they appear to threaten the peace deal that ended Burundi's violent civil war. Since his announcement there have been increasingly bloody street protests and a failed coup bid in May of this year. The coup leader remains at large. Other Important Matters To Discuss: Wizkid or Davido? Mandatory Fela Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6yM6HLADbE
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Jul 12, 2015 22:20
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Have there been any developments in the War in Darfur for a while?
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Jul 12, 2015 22:32
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Long Post Incoming: South Sudan - What's Happening Again?  President Salva Kiir (left) & Riek Machar(right) On the 14th December 2013 members of the South Sudanese Presidential guard mutineed leading to series of running gun battles in the South Sudanese capital of Juba. Though the initial wave of fighting was quickly crushed and temporary order was restored to the capital, President Salva Kiir declared the mutiny an attempted coup organised by his political opponents within the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) - an organization which had gradually absorbed various different groups over the course of the last decade and had become riven with complex factional fueds that cut across regional and ethnic divides. Kiir ordered the arrest of several prominent government critics, including former vice-president Riek Machar (who Kiir accussed of being the leader of the coup attempt) who managed to escape the capital. According to Machar and his allies there was never a coup attempt, instead the mutiny had been triggered after Kirr ordered members of the presidential guard belonging to the Nuer ethnic group disarmed. Kiir is a member of Dinka ethnic group and the opposition insists that the current conflict is the result of Kiir's attempts to consolidate control in the hands of Dinka at the expense of the other ethnic groups in South Sudan. Fighting quickly escalated as Machar declared the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) with outbreaks of violence in the Eastern states of Jonglei, Unity and Upper-Nile - states with a hefty Nuer presence where large chunks of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) defect to Machar's cause (many of these generals were previously affiliated with militias in conflict with the SPLM who had subsequently been absorbed into the armed forces before independence).  Since then South Sudan has been trapped in a near constant Civil War between the SPLM-IO and the SPLA. Fighting has largely been concentrated to the North East of the country and much has been made of the increasing factionalisation between the Dinka and Nuer but there are increasing concerns that fighting could spread to the ethnically diverse southern provinces of Equatoria who have remained neutral in the conflict. In January of this year a new group formed following a mutiny of SLPA officers in Western Equatorial, the Revolutionary Movement for National Salvation (REMNASA). Though small at the moment it is a worrying indicator that the continuing stalemate in the conflict and the ethnic rhetoric involved may cause even further fracturing of a country struggling to hold itself together, this year also saw a high profile former rebel from the Shilluk ethnicity defect from the government and join with the SPLM-IO though they have refused to integrate fully into the SLPM-IO's command structure. Economic Woes:  To add to South Sudan's political difficulties the ongoing Civil War has brought major economic woes that are threathening to spiral out of control and have lead some commentators to warn that the country is on the brink of total finanical collapse. The South Sudanese economy is overly reliant on Oil exports, much of the fighting has been concentrated in major Oil producing states such as Unity leading to a sharp decline in output - from 350,000 barrels a day in 2011 to average of 169,000 barrels in 2015, a drop of 52%. Combined with the world decline in oil prices, South Sudan has suddenly found themselves in a precarious economic position at a time when security sector spending has unsuprisingly increased dramatically - the finance ministry has indicated that they are only able to raise one third of their annual budget and have been forced to take out proportionally massive loans to mantain spending levels. Even with direct aid increasing from foreign sources The government has increasingly turned to Oil companies and banks (specifically the Qatar National Bank) to raise the funds needed, often at arguably unfavourable interest rates. To plug the economic gap the government has also been dipping heavily into their reserves, completely depleting their local currency reserves and taking a hefty bite out of their forex reserves (the government refuses to disclose how much they have left in this regard). The South Sudanese economy relies heavily on imports and, with the government keeping a tight grip on forex reserves and exchange rates to continue to fund their military spending, it has becoming increasingly difficult to secure dollars to keep the domestic economy afloat. Increasingly South Sudanese businesses have turned to the booming parallel exchange market which offers a considerably less favourable rate which has lead to spiralling inflation (currently at over 60%) that the government has been unable to contain. Letters of Credit have proven to be near impossible to secure with many businesses complaining that the process is massivley corrupt and is being manipulated for personal gain. Corruption of course is another factor and the money being siphoned off is adding further pressure to an already fraught situation, for example the SPLA payroll alone accounts for 80% of defence expenditure (based on 2012 estimates) due to a ridiculously top heavy structure (they have over 700 generals) and a large number of "ghost soldiers" drawing pay checks. Give Peace a Chance?  Attempts to mediate a resolution to the conflict began almost as soon as it started but have beared little fruit. The main regional players (Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya) have co-ordinated negotiations between the beligerents through the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and have chaired numerous peace talks in Addis Ababa since early 2014. Numerous temporary cease-fires have come out of the talks but without fail these have collapsed amid mutual accusations of deception from both parties - the two camps have refused to compromise on key points (Kiir refuses to establish a formal power-sharing government with the SPLM-IO and Machar refuses to allow Kiir to remain president). After the collapse of the last round of talks there have been increasing calls for a so-called "IGAD Plus" to bring other international actors with interests in the region to the negotiating table to force a resolution - namely China (who is heavily invested in the South Sudan Oil Industry), the USA (a major funder and early supporter of the South Sudanese government) and the wider AU. Part of the reason for this may lie with one of the IGAD states - Uganda. Since the outbreak of the conflict Uganda has supported Kiir's government both diplomatically and with actual troops, diverting troops placed in the country to combat Joseph Kony's LRA to assist the government in driving back the rebels from Juba near the start of the conflict. Although Uganda initially denied their involvement, they eventually admitted their assistance to the government after repeated rumours circulated of Ugandan air force jets bombing rebel position. Repeated international calls have been made for Uganda to withdraw their troops which they have repeatedly ignored, even going as far as extending their presence in the country in Feburary of this year even when the rebel faction indicated that such an extension would lead to a breakdown in the peace talks. With Uganda being one of the major members of IGAD it's not hard to see why some observers have little faith in their ability to extract a meaningful peace deal. China has also, much to a lot of people's suprise, waded into the negotiations in an attempt to resolve the conflict. As I mentioned a bit earlier China has major interests in the Oil producing provinces currently under rebel control and the shut-down in production is doing them no favours. While the traditional understanding of China's African policy is that they refrane from intervening in domestic political situations it seems that they have made an exception with South Sudan - mediating talks between the two factions outside of the IGAD negotations. There have also been reports that China have moved to stop the flow of Chinese made arms into the country, thought others have thrown doubt on this and insist China are still arming government forces. Any stealth arming program would most likely be to counter any Sudanese support for the SPLM-IO who have reportedly recieved small arms from the Sudanese army, a possible continuation of the pre-independence dynamics that saw the Sudanese army provide material support to militias aligned against the SPLM to destablise the region. On a wider international front the EU imposed personal sanctions on various figures within the SPLA and the SPLM-IO last year in an attempt to force a peace deal. The UNSC has also given the green light to possible personal sanctions after the collapse of the last round of peace talks earlier this year. Much more detail on sanctions here The pressure is on both sides to come to some kind of peaceful agreement but whether or not this is possible has yet to be seen kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 22:44
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Jagchosis posted:Have there been any developments in the War in Darfur for a while? If I remember correctly the government launched an offensive earlier in the year with the Rapid Support Force, which is basically the Janjaweed reformed with a new coat of paint. I think they've been having difficulties keeping their former allies on side, a bunch of former Janjaweed volunteers split of and formed their own party a while back and have been vocally criticising the government.
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Jul 12, 2015 22:54
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What's Sudan's role in all of this? I can't imagine them staying completely on the sidelines.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:01
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Is Somalia still a
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Jul 12, 2015 23:12
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R. Mute posted:What's Sudan's role in all of this? I can't imagine them staying completely on the sidelines. Kiir's government have repeatedly accused Sudan of arming and supporting Machar, something which they have consistently denied though some research has indicated that this may not be true: Small arms ammunition documented at Bentiu mosque by Conflict Armament Research posted:Two of the mosque-site cartridge cases, with features suggesting Sudanese manufacture, were manufactured in 2014.Irrespective of its origins or supply vector, this 2014 ammunition is indicative of extremely recent supply to its user, and with a comparatively direct supply chain. If this ammunition’s markings accurately reflect its date of manufacture, it cannot have been supplied to its user earlier than January 2014, after the defection of SPLM-IO forces from the SPLA in mid-December 2013. This makes it unlikely that the ammunition originated in SPLA stocks taken by defecting SPLM-IO forces, and likely that it was obtained by its user (SPLM-IO or another armed group) from an external source since the start of the current conflict. Machar was previously involved in a controversial peace deal with the Sudanese government pre-independence that favoured a federal resolution as opposed to partition, he subsequently changed this position and joined the SPLM before independence but Kiir's government has continually pointed to this as a sign that he is still on Khartoum's payroll. It is possible that this is the case but Khartoum does make hefty profits from charging fees on South Sudan for using their oil transport infrastructure, they still rely on Sudan to transport their oil to the North for export as South Sudan has not yet developed a separate pipe-line to take the Oil to the South (though there is a lot of eagerness from neighbouring East African states for this to happen). The fall in Oil production is hurting Sudan's pockets as well so it seems slightly counter-productive for them to back the rebels - that's not to say they aren't though. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Jul 12, 2015 |
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Jul 12, 2015 23:26
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Klaus88 posted:Is Somalia still a Normalcy is starting to return to the areas under control of the government, particularly in Mogadishu and the overall security situation is much better. Shabaab is still quite active though, just a couple of days ago they struck a hotel in Mogadishu. A lot of members of al Shabaab have defected since last year as well, so they're desperately trying to stay relevant through more brazen attacks. Somaliland is currently under pressure from a Yemeni refugee crisis (caused by Saudi Arabia's dumb war there), which is leading to more food scarcity in the normally stable region in the north. Somali piracy has been almost completely eradicated following Western military intervention. So Somalia has a ways to go to stability, but its still better than being in Yemen apparently.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:36
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I've been on the internet too long since I'm actually visualizing libertarian style demagogues writing long winded rants about how a return to relative peace and stability is a bad thing for everyone who actually lives in Somalia. Those fuckers should be dropped naked in the bad regions for a year until their opinion changes or until they get ransomed back to their home country, whichever happens first. 
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Jul 12, 2015 23:52
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Another factor to the South Sudanese Civil War which is worth mentioning is something I cheekily call The Actvisit Front. The outbreak of violence in 2013 triggered a massive argument among people involved in Sudan in the policy arena which can be broadly separated into two camps, the Alex De Waal camp and the John Prendergast camp. Alex De Waal is a British academic heavily involved in with the mediation efforts in Darfur and is generally considered one of, if not the, pre-eminent experts on Sudan. He has vocally criticised the ICC for seeking an arrest warrant for al Bashir, supported the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur's findings that the targeted killings in the region did not constitute a genocide and (arguably) opposed the partition. To some he has become to close to Khartoum in his positions but he is still a highly respected, if not somewhat controversial, figure. John Prendergast is an American activist and former advisor to Susan Rice during the Clinton administration. As founder and director of the Enough Project he has become on of the leading figures in applying pressure on successive administrations in regards to Sudan, South Sudan and the DRC - his shadow is cast long over American and international activism in Africa. He played a prominent role in lobbying for American support in South Sudan and has consistently pressed for a more bullish attitude to Sudan, naturally pitting him against De Waal. There has been a none too polite war of words between the two camps, probably best summarised with an extract from a recent interview with De Waal explaining his position: Al-Jazeera posted:How did the U.S. and the rest of the international community get drawn into the situation in Sudan? Prendergast has been keeping mum on the criticisms, largely spending his time attempting to build support for sanctions and an expanding UN mission to stabilise the region (he's also been facing down another Academic revolt over his Conflict Minerals policy in the DRC - I will effort post about this some other time so bare with me on that one). There is one little quote that did float up though in a piece defending Clooney (singled out by De Waal for obvious reasons) who is closely associated with Prendergast's various groups and often is the "face" of his campaigns: The Daily Beast posted:Moreover, Clooney and other pro-referendum activists were always careful to caution that South Sudan’s early years might well be chaotic, but the chance of a peaceful separation was far preferable to a new civil war. And while Clooney observed the referendum, he declined invitations to attend the independence ceremony seven months later and the inauguration of President Salva Kiir. His top Africa policy pal, John Prendergast of the Enough Project, recounts Clooney explaining his concerns along the lines I heard as well: “We don't know how this new government in Juba is going to be. Remember how the U.S. liked Robert Mugabe and Charles Taylor in the early going? Supporting the South Sudanese people is one thing, but supporting the government is another. Our work is to promote human rights and peace, not support one group or another."
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Jul 13, 2015 00:20
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More South Sudan stuff, this time something a little bit more detailed that explores the military situation and a possible significant development. A long piece about the recent SPLA offensive in Unity State that ended in June, there's a lot of detail in it about the interplay between different factions but it's got some interesting stuff in it: quote:By the end of May, SPLA forces had seemingly won a consummate military victory, driving the SPLA-IO from southern Unity. However, the southern campaign was noticeable for its lack of actual military battles. The SPLA-IO troops tended to withdraw into the bush before the advance of the SPLA, and Simon Maguek Gai, the SPLA-IO commander of the 4th Division in Unity state (which the SPLA-IO call Lich state), reportedly restrained the Nuer youth of southern Unity, who were angry about the offensive and prepared to attack the SPLA. Militarily, this means that southern Unity is full of SPLA-IO forces that will now be able to wage a guerrilla war against the SPLA during the rainy season. Indeed, as of the end of June, there is an SPLA-IO presence in Guit, Koch, and Leer counties. For this reason, despite the thoroughness of the SPLA offensive, it has not substantively changed the balance of power in the state: the government forces are still militarily dominant, but the SPLA-IO control the rural areas of southern Unity once again. The only substantive changes wrought by the offensive are the resources extracted from the region and the massive disruption to civilian life caused by the SPLA’s movement. Slightly more optimistic that some reports I've read. Regarding Pagan Amum, here's an article explaining his recent (and unlikely) rehabilitation from treasonous coup plotter to party grandee: Pa’gan Amum’s return to the SPLM posted:President Salva Kiir watched, motionless, as Pa’gan Amum was sworn in, and then the two men shook hands as the cameras flashed, before ululations and the customary celebratory chants of ‘SPLM Oyee’ filled the room. Shortly afterwards thunderclaps rumbled above SPLM House in Juba, and the rains began to fall: a blessing, or so many believe.
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Jul 13, 2015 21:24
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South Africa appears to be intentionally loving up it's tourism sector with new harsh visa application rules that require long form birth certificates and apparently for India specifically, biometric data? KKK can you provide any insight into the impetus behind these changes?
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Jul 13, 2015 21:44
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Jagchosis posted:South Africa appears to be intentionally loving up it's tourism sector with new harsh visa application rules that require long form birth certificates and apparently for India specifically, biometric data? KKK can you provide any insight into the impetus behind these changes? They are meant to crack down on human trafficking and most of the birth certificate stuff is targeted at adults travelling with minors (proving legal guardianship etc), the biometric data push is to force individuals to apply for their own visas rather than through third parties which the government insists have been abused by people smugglers. I would like to say that it is solely motivated by a concern for human welfare but considering that some of the newer legislation is coming after the recent Xenophobic riots in April there is a concern that SA is deliberately trying to make the lives of migrant workers difficult, some of the biometric stuff pre-dates that though so It may just be a case of a completely bungled policy having massive unintended consequences - something the ANC isn't exactly unfamiliar with.
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Jul 13, 2015 22:08
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On the economic side, since the backdoor purpose of "trade" bills like the TPP and TTIP are meant to isolate China, as well as the bonkers nature of the Chinese stock market, are there any rumblings about what happens if production slows down? Doesn't China get most of it's raw materials from Africa? Angola, etc?
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Jul 14, 2015 19:56
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Has there been any recent developments on the creation of an African Monetary Union? How I remember it there's several economic regional blocs that are slowly to be overlapping with each other to one Continental currency but I'm not as familiar with the technical details.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:00
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So as noted in the OP, France is doing interventions in many of its former colonies aka Francophone West Africa:quote:Operation Barkhane: On the plus side, quite a few of these places asked for French help, and on the whole it seems to have done some good, especially in Mali. (I am open to being corrected on this.) It shows that at least France is not leaving African governments on their own with no help, and/or allowing extremists to roam around completely unchecked. On the minus side, it's basically France going back into their former colonies and picking who to support. Mali only gained independence from France in 1960, so there are still thousands of people living there who remember the country being a colony of France. Even if the governments asked for French help, it has an uneasy air of that old-school colonialism, going in to "help" the people who can't help themselves. You might even say it was a "Frenchman's burden", if you will. The third factor is economics; I know that France still imports a lot of items and materials from its former colonies, and as such they have an economic interest in having stable countries in Africa, which can be good but is sometimes quite bad, depending on the situation and what is considered "stable". fade5 fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 20:01
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Is there a major sub-saharan 'success story' that's used as a commonplace example of a model to follow in recent years, and if so, what are the politics of that.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:09
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Disinterested posted:Is there a major sub-saharan 'success story' that's used as a commonplace example of a model to follow in recent years, and if so, what are the politics of that. Ghana and Botswana aren't complete shitholes, but the latter was mostly due to a competent transitional government following independence and gently caress all resources save diamonds, and is getting worse in terms of corruption. Ghana alternated between so so democracies and military dictatorships. Ghana is pretty well settled by historical standards, so that's probably why it moved more peacefully compared to it's neighbors. The moral is, get your terrible civil wars and imperial ambitions out of the way in the 9th century.
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Jul 14, 2015 20:17
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Berke Negri posted:Has there been any recent developments on the creation of an African Monetary Union? How I remember it there's several economic regional blocs that are slowly to be overlapping with each other to one Continental currency but I'm not as familiar with the technical details. There are still paper plans to developed a common African currency but the major focus in recent years has been merging Free Trade areas to establish a unified economic community as a foundation. At the recent AU summit this year the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) was announced after years of negotiation unifying the three major Free trade zones in the Eastern/Southern half of Africa (COMESA, SADC and the EAC). To give you an idea how big the TFTA is, here's a map of the various nations covered:  Much has been made of the "Cape to Caio" factor. The EAC has also committed themselves to establishing a common currency by 2023, the relative good relations between it's members and increasing economic co-operation on big projects like Kenya's much vaunted Lamu transport corridor makes this seem increasingly more likely - there are of course still political aspirations from it's individual members that may get in the way of implementing the plan and it really isn't off the ground properly yet but it probably is one of the more realistic projects at the moment. Kenya's Lamu plan is massively ambitious and is all about developing a new deep-water port to relieve pressure from Mombasa, opening up East Africa for further Chinese maritime trade, developing regional transport infrastructure to improve the flow of goods and (very importantly) constructing a separate southern oil pipeline to transport South Sudanese crude to Lammu for export. A lot of money is riding on the project, Chinese companies have been picking up contracts left right and centre and have tossed a fair amount of capital into the project to get it off the ground and most of the regional actors are rubbing their hands in expectation - Kenyan fears of terror attacks on the Lamu development are part of the reason they have cracked down so ferociously on coastal violence. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 20:26
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Any future AMU regardless of size will naturally bring up the EMU and its problems to mind. Is there anything on paper what the actual structure of it will be is or is still kind of in a "hopefully we have this figured out by 2030" kind of stage?
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Jul 14, 2015 20:41
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kustomkarkommando posted:
 This is a map of Africa as of 1913, and which European countries controlled the various parts of it. I've listed some of the major places for reference. Yellow: Belgian (The infamous "Belgian Congo") Red: British (Very close to stretching from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt) Blue: French (Francophone West Africa, plus a couple other places) Sea Green: German (Tanzania aka the one country preventing Britain's "Cape to Cairo", Namibia, and Cameroon) Bright Green: Italian (Part of Libya, Eritrea, and Italian Somalia) Purple: Portuguese (Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau) Pinkish-Purple: Spanish (Western Sahara, parts of Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, and the Canary Islands) White: Independent (Liberia, the US colony/nation made by freed US slaves and Ethiopia, the only place to somehow not be colonized) Notice how the old colonial borders almost always match up to the modern countries. A little shorthand description I've heard for the "strategy" in who took what parts of the continent is that that British tried to go North-South and the French tried to go West-East. In addition, after WW1 Germany lost their African colonies, which were handed over to the other European nations: quote:In Africa, Britain and France divided German Kamerun (Cameroons) and Togoland. Belgium gained Rwanda-Burundi in northwestern German East Africa, Great Britain obtained by far the greater landmass of this colony, thus gaining the "missing link" in the chain of British possessions stretching from South Africa to Egypt (Cape to Cairo), Portugal received the Kionga Triangle, a sliver of German East Africa. German South West Africa was taken under mandate by the Union of South Africa. For a couple interesting places, Eritrea was annexed by Ethiopia and gained independence in 1993 (there's way more to the story than that, obviously), Namibia broke off from the rest of South Africa and became independent in 1990, and what used to be British Somalia is now a sub-part of Somalia named "Somaliland", and it's more stable than the rest of Somalia aka former Italian Somalia. fade5 fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 20:58
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fade5 posted:So as noted in the OP, France is doing interventions in many of its former colonies aka Francophone West Africa: That OP is baller BTW KKK I've been reading about the French intervention and it mostly seems.... positive? I haven't caught anything about people sour about them refusing to help, but it does seem that when they do go in they are actually helpful. I'm pretty ignorant of the whole thing but it seems like France is currently one of the most positive European contributors in Africa right now (willing to be corrected on this too).
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Jul 14, 2015 21:14
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Hey KKK, I visited Tanzania a few years a go and it seemed like a really lovely place. Is there anything interesting going on there right now and how is it doing as a whole?
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Jul 14, 2015 21:26
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Berke Negri posted:Any future AMU regardless of size will naturally bring up the EMU and its problems to mind. Is there anything on paper what the actual structure of it will be is or is still kind of in a "hopefully we have this figured out by 2030" kind of stage? All I've seen is some "Wouldn't it be wonderful if..." statement papers, actual proper white papers may be out there but I've never encountered them - but monetary policy really is not my forte so even If I did I doubt I would understand them. If someone else has any idea maybe they can chime in? Foppery posted:Hey KKK, I visited Tanzania a few years a go and it seemed like a really lovely place. Is there anything interesting going on there right now and how is it doing as a whole? There are elections due in October which will pretty much rubber-stamp the ruling party's candidate (they've just selected a fellow over the weekend who I don't know much about, think he's considered a bit of an outsider?). There was meant to be a referendum on a new constitution that would radically overhaul how the government currently works, as is Zanzibar has it's own devolved government and can legislate for any issue that is deemed not to effect the Union as a whole while the Mainland assembly legislates for the Union and matters reserved from Zanzibar - this has been heavily criticised by Zanzibar opposition groups (though the ruling party still dominates politics on the Island) as increasingly more and more matters have been declared to be Union issues putting them beyond the scope of the Zanzibar assembly. The new constitution is meant to shift things to a more federal system with a Zanzibar Assembly, a Mainland Assembly and a National Assembly that would deal exclusively with Union matters appointed in a federal manner. There has been some resistance to this from within the ruling party, though the current President has pushed for it. When he steps down it's not clear how the reforms are going to progress - if at all. The big issue is about the opening up of trade, specifically with China. Tanzania has been slowly privatizing for over a decade and China has taken a noted interest in the country, practically throwing money at them and committing to massive transportation projects and development schemes. Tanzania has been experiencing a bit of an investment boom that has seen it become one of the richest East African Countries. However much of the wealth is not filtering down and Tanzania still has extremely high poverty levels and immense inequality, the boom hasn't seemed to have helped a great deal to alleviate this issue. Corruption has been a problem and I know there have been some very public drives to tackle it tapping into Nyerere's repeated attacks on personal self-enrichment, how successfully they've been is another thing. It's also looking like Tanzania may have hit a natural gas bonanza that will only exacerbate the problem as the government tries to juggle keeping foreign investors happy with trying to tackle endemic poverty. Frankly, the relative boringness of Tanzania is a pretty good thing. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jul 14, 2015 |
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Jul 14, 2015 23:06
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fade5 posted:So, if you want to ask "why does [x] country in Africa look like that" the answer is Europe. I thought it was also because in the post colonial era the various african countries specifically decided to focus on nation-state building in the existing borders instead of opening the likely pandora's box of 'fixing' borders to something more 'natural'.
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Jul 14, 2015 23:16
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Phone posting placeholder until I can add more later. Anyone who knows more feel free to correct any details I get wrong. After asking my question earlier I decided to start reading up on the various proposed or in development Monetary unions in Africa. First I'll touch on is the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) which currently is planned to consist of Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Ultimately the WAMZ would see the introduction of the proposed Eco as a single currency replacing the CFA franc (which is pegged to the euro). Here is the taste of necessary criteria for future member governments: 1) single digit inflation rate end of each fiscal year 2 ) deficit no larger than four percent gdp 3) central bank financing of no more than 10% of prev years tax revenue 4) gross external reserves that can give import cover for a minimum of three months
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Jul 15, 2015 00:10
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I hadn't seen this thread yet. Loving the picture of the Boko Haram dude holding up an ISIS flag with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:18
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Volkerball posted:I hadn't seen this thread yet. Loving the picture of the Boko Haram dude holding up an ISIS flag with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Those are Nigerian soldiers showing off the spoils of war.
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Jul 15, 2015 00:40
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awwwww 
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Jul 15, 2015 00:42
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Communist Zombie posted:I thought it was also because in the post colonial era the various african countries specifically decided to focus on nation-state building in the existing borders instead of opening the likely pandora's box of 'fixing' borders to something more 'natural'. E: So while searching for stuff about France's intervention in Mali for he sub-Saharan Africa thread, I found this, and I thought I'd share it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/salymfayad/8439257498/    So yeah, looks like the people of Mali are generally happy that France intervened; I'd heard that sentiment before, but I didn't want just assume it was true. Looks like it is though, I mean I can't really argue with a dude who's holding up the flags of France and Mali and who painted "Bienvenue Le Sauveur François Hollande" and the French flag on himself. However, as pointed out by Disinterested in the chat thread, people did this with America in Iraq before years of horrifying recrimination and civil strife. It's not that there aren't people in the world aren't receptive to rich and powerful nations helping them, they're just not thrilled about them doing it open-endedly, horrifyingly incompetently, etc. And it's also very different when the government of the country asks for the help. fade5 fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jul 15, 2015 |
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Jul 15, 2015 00:46
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Major stuff happening in the next week to keep your eye on. Number 1 being the Burundian presidential election on Tuesday. So here's a bit of a primer If you have somehow avoided hearing about it all together: First a bit of background: Burundi's post-independence history has many similarities with neighbouring Rwanda. Like Rwanda, Burundi is seen to have three major ethnic groups - the agrarian Hutus, the pastoral Tutsis (comprising between 13-14% of the population) and the minority hunter-gatherer Twa (about 1% of the population). The degree to which these groups should be considered ethnicities or castes is a complicated question much debated by historians - Belgian pseudo-scientific racialism interpreted what many believe was largely a caste-based system along racial lines and divided the population cleanly into Tutsis and Hutus, often using bizarre identifiers such as height or the amount of cattle an individual owned as racial signifiers. This created a rigidity in a system which previously had a great amount of fluidity, Hutus could 'become' Tutsi and vice versa. Power was largely concentrated in the a third princely caste called the ganwa who served under a single monarch, viewed as Tutsi using Western definitions but traditionally considered a distinct group who drew support from Tutsi and Hutu alike. Like Rwanda land ownership was a major issue, land was largely concentrated in the hands of the Tutsi and princely caste who presided over an almost feudal system of complex allegiance. As Burundi entered the post-colonial period ethnic tensions between Tutsis and Hutus crystalised into a back and forth jockeying for political power through the multi-ethnic UPRONA party which had won 90% of the seats in the 1961 election. In 1965 the king dismissed a Tutsi prime minister for his perceived closeness to China and replaced him with a Hutu, Pierre Ngendandumwe, who was assassinated days later by a Rwandan Tutusi refugee. With ethnic tensions increasing an election was called in 1965 which saw UPRONA returned to power with a distinct Hutu majority in the Assembly, however rather than appoint a Hutu candidate as Prime Minister the King chose to appoint a princely Tutsi/Ganwa politician from the powerful Bezi clan. The Hutu were enraged and Hutu members of the armed forces launched a coup (allegedly with the intention of toppling the monarchy), killing the Prime Minister in the process. However the coup was ultimately crushed by army loyalists and the subsequent reprisals saw the armed forces purged of Hutus and every major Hutu political figure was either arrested or executed, ultimately consolidating Tutsi control of the both the military and the political apparatus. This brought to a head rivalries within the Tutsi political establishment who subsequently turned on the Crown and lead several decades of successive Tutsi-dominated miltiary governments that only exacerbated Hutu-Tutsi tensions leading to often brutal violence, including a failed Hutu uprising in 1972 that was brutally suppressed killing hundreds of thousands by some estimates. In 1987 Pierre Buyoyo came to power through another military coup and, following another outbreak of violence in 1988 and the outbreak of the Rwandan Civil War over the border, decided to embark on a gradual policy of reform to increase Hutu participation in the government. Elections where held in 1993 and Melchior Ndadaye became the first elected Hutu President, quickly moving to build an inter-ethnic government. However extremists within the military moved against him and he was murdered in a subsequent coup that triggering uprisings brutally supressed by the military. Attempts where made to stem the tide of violence by appointing another Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira, who was also ultimately killed in the same plane crash that killed the Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana - the event considered the trigger for the Rwandan genocide. With a massive influx of refugees from Rwanda and the attempts at political liberalisation seemingly in tatters Burundi descended into a brutal Civil War that killed approximately 300,000 people. Pressure from the international community eventually lead to an agreement for a transitional government and a limited ceasefire in 2000, though many groups rejected the compromise and there where attempts from within the military to seize power once again. Ultimately a sense of progress came in 2003 when Buyoyo, who had been made the president of the transitional government, stood down and allowed Pierre Nkurunziza (a Hutu) to replace him - kick starting a new round of ceasefire talks and paving the way for relatively peaceful elections in 2005 that saw Nkurunziza's political party, the CNDD–FDD, win a commanding majority and Nkurunziza himself become president. The current crisis  President Pierre Nkurunziza On April 25th of this year Nkurunziza announced that he would be seeking a third term in office. Almost immediately protesters took to the streets in opposition, the Burundian constitutional only allows for a maximum of two terms in office but the CNDD-FDD argued that Nkurunziza's first term in office does not count as he was not directly elected by the people - instead he was nominated and elected by the Senate and Assembly. As protests turned bloody and hundreds where detained, opposition politicians announced a boycott of the upcoming elections. In response the government refereed the issue to the Constitutional Court asking them to rule on the legality of a third term. Things took a violent turn when on May 1st a grenade attack killed two police officers. The president quickly denounced the protests as containing terrorist elements working to overthrow the government and launched a huge crackdown attempting to bring them to an end through mass arrests. Attempts where made by organisers to try to bring calm to the streets and opposition politicians made repeatedly calls for peaceful protests. However, these calls largely fell on deaf ears when on May 5th the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the CNDD-FDD and gave a green light for Nkurunziza to run for a third term. However, the Vice-President of the court fled the country shortly before the judgement was delivered and denounced the government, accusing them of strong-arming the courts to rubber-stamp Nkurunzia's bid. Reports have indicated at least four of the other seven judges had also fled the country in fear of their lives following government pressure. COUP!  Coup leader Godefroid Niyombare on his way to officially announce the coup On May 13th Major General Godefroid Niyombare, a Hutu military figure who had publically opposed Nkurunziza's bid for a third term and lost his position because of it, took to the airwaves and announced a military coup had dismissed Nkurunziza, who was visiting Tanzania at the time. This is where things get a let bit hard to follow, a lot of claims about fighting in and around the capital spread like wildfire but what is certain is that there were intense battles to seize control of the state broadcaster - government troops and loyalists had descended on (and in some cases burnt to the ground) independent radio stations accused of being aligned with the plotters. One by one radio stations went silent and the trickle of news concerning the coup dried up. None the less people took to the streets to celebrate what they saw as a victory. The jubilation did not last long however as later that evening the head of military announced on the state broadcaster that the coup had been crushed and the leaders had been placed under arrest, except Niyombare who appears to have escaped and remains at large. In the days that followed the coup the independent radio stations remained silent, a situation that continues to this day with government controlled mouthpieces remaining the only source of news in the capital (and the country at large). There's a longer Al-Jazeera piece on this here if you're interested. Since then violence has continued on a slow boil. Nkurunziza promptly returned to the capital and drew comparisons between the coup plotters and al-Shabaab. He immediately moved to dismiss several key ministers and ordered the army onto the streets to restore order. The international community attempted to step in and mediate an agreement between the CNDD-FDD and opposition politicians, requesting that the assembly elections be pushed back and the presidential election be postponed. However, these talks hit a significant snag when Zedi Feruzi- an opposition politician - was shot dead. Opposition parties broke off mediations with the government and again reiterated their boycott of the Assembly election. Nkurunziza refused to back down and pressed ahead with the elections on June 29th, even after AU and EU monitors withdrew from the country and the UN denounced the elections as neither free or fair. Unsurprisingly the government won a hefty majority. The Presidential elections themselves are scheduled for this coming Tuesday (21st July). Last minute crisis talks attempting to mediate a solution appear to be collapsing with opposition politicians formally withdrawing from the election. The international community is pretty united in their condemnation of the elections progressing as planned but it doesn't seem to have dissuaded the CNDD-FDD. Spectres of War The current crisis did not come out of the blue though. Since 2014 there has been increasingly alarm among rights groups active in the country and international observers about a growing atmosphere of political repression under Nkurunziza that was linked to the coming elections. Much of the concern has focused on the CNDD-FDD's "Youth Wing", the Imbonerakure.  Imbonerakure members Formed in 2010 from members of the parties former Civil War era militia, the Imbonerakure (meaning "those who see far") have effectively continued their role as a party militia and have become increasingly prominent in the country - working alongside the police at the local level and becoming one of the most visible security forces in many parts of the country. In 2014 a confidiental UN cable was leaked that demonstrated the deep concerns about the Imbonerakure's activity: UN Envoy Parfait Onanga-Anyanga posted:After information gathered from key informants, there was distribution of weapons and outfits military and police during the months of January and February for youth affiliated to the CNDD-FDD (IMBONERAKURE) party and the demobilized AIMP Rumonge... Parallels with the infamous Rwandan Interahamwe have been drawn by some observers - there have even been some unsubstantiated reports that some members of the Imbonerakure may have been sent to the DRC for training from the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu armed group in exile that includes/included former members of the Interahamwe in it's ranks (none of this is really beyond rumour level though). This may seem extreme but some of the language being used at the street level are a chilling reminder of the Civil War: IRIN posted:For those who lived through the civil war, the Kirundi word “kumesa,” used to issue a threat, is nothing new. Survivors of kidnappings and atrocities by rebels and soldiers alike recall armed men shouting “mumese!” an imperative form of the same verb meaning “kill him!” Regional Players:  Museveni (In the hat) alongside Nkurunziza Burundi of course does not exist in a vacuum and the influx of refugees to neighbouring countries is a significant crisis on it's own and has prompted a drive from neighbouring states to attempt to mediate a resolution in Burundi. This week Uganda's Yoweri Museveni stepped into the breach and chaired a series of interparty talks attempting to reach a peaceful solution. The irony of sending Museveni, a man currently preparing to run for his fifth term in office who amended the constitution of Uganda to allow him to extend his stay in office beyond two terms, was not lost on some international observers. He left the country on Wednesday with nothing, though he did indicate the government had agreed to disarm the Imbonerakure. This appears to be a commitment in principle though as so far there have been no reports of Imbonerakure militias being disarmed in the run-up to the coming vote. The choice of Uganda, a powerful regional militarly player, is a wise one due to their close relationship with Burundi's neighbour who is watching the events unfolding along their Southern border very closely - Rwanda Rwanda under Paul Kagame has increasingly become something of a concern. Their support for the Congolese rebel group M23 and their occasional exchanges of fire with the Congolese military have demonstrated that they are not afraid to flex their military muscles even if it means Western condemnation. Their rather public assassinatin campaign targetting former members of Kagame's inner circle abroad has been rather hard to sweep under the carpet for Western government's who intialy weclomed Kagame when he assumed power following the Rwandan genocide. With Burundi teetering on the brink of a political crisis there are worries Kagame will step into the fray to restore order and prevent a flare up of Tutsi-Hutu violence that could spill into Rwanda. The accusations of FDLR involvement have circulated widely in Rwanda and any sign they may be active in Burundi will enrage Kagame. The FDLR themselves are currently under pressure from the Congolese government who launched a new offensive against the group earlier this year after an amnesty program expired, the possibility they may shift over the border to escape the renewed miltiary campaign does exist if the security situation in Burundi continues to unravel. This is a bit of a hypothetical of course so I wouldn't be too concerned. On July 10th a mysterious armed group launched an attack against Burundi Defence Force positions near the Northern Border with Rwanda. The attack was immediately claimed by Leonard Ngendakumana (here speaking with the Kenya news agency KTN), a former deputy to the Coup Leader Niyombare who he insisted he was still in communication with, who announced the beginning of an insurgency against the government - claiming not only the border attack but the wave of grenade attacks that had been ongoing for months. Although he denied foreign involvement and insisted their troops where still in Burundi, this seems unlikely because of the sheer size of the country. Eyes are glancing nervously at Rwanda, eye-witness reports claimed the attackers at Kayanza came from the Rwandan side of the border - the possibility that Rwanda is allowing Burundian exiles to use their territory as a staging ground for attacks into the country is deeply worrying. So all we can really do is sit back and see what happens in the next few days. If the election goes ahead as planned on tuesday Nkurunziza will most likely win. What happens next though is anyone's guess. If you like moving pictures VICE has done some video dispatches that are worth a gander: https://news.vice.com/topic/burundi kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Jul 18, 2015 |
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Jul 18, 2015 22:26
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kustomkarkommando posted:The EAC has also committed themselves to establishing a common currency by 2023 i hope it's called the Afro fade5 posted:White: Independent (Liberia, the US colony/nation made by freed US slaves and Ethiopia, the only place to somehow not be colonized) as i recall it, ethiopia was unusually organized and large for an african nation and stone cold defeated a european power (italy) in a fair fight
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Jul 19, 2015 07:05
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Disinterested posted:Is there a major sub-saharan 'success story' that's used as a commonplace example of a model to follow in recent years, and if so, what are the politics of that. Botswana got off pretty well. It was basically just a huge patch of land with a tiny population and a bunch of wildlife; they petitioned the British for independence and got it fairly smoothly because nobody had any real interests there. Soon after they discovered the largest diamond mines in the world which gave their economy a strong boost. The average Botswanan is by no means wealthy but they have a very strong banking system and a lot of the diamond revenue has gone back into improving the country's social services. They've managed to stay out of most major violent conflicts as far as I'm aware, and the country has a fairly homogeneous tribal makeup, which has kept internal conflicts from occurring. It's not perfect of course; the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit Botswana really hard. But other than that major issue, the country is stable, peaceful, economically strong, and is in fact the least corrupt country in Africa (not a high bar to set, but still)
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Jul 19, 2015 07:45
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Disinterested posted:Is there a major sub-saharan 'success story' that's used as a commonplace example of a model to follow in recent years, and if so, what are the politics of that. I think Namibia isn't doing too bad but they also have a giant desert to keep people away.
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Jul 19, 2015 07:52
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Popular Thug Drink posted:as i recall it, ethiopia was unusually organized and large for an african nation and stone cold defeated a european power (italy) in a fair fight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Economy So Eritrea: North Korea of Africa?
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Jul 19, 2015 08:49
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kustomkarkommando posted:The EAC has also committed themselves to establishing a common currency by 2023, the relative good relations between it's members and increasing economic co-operation on big projects like Kenya's much vaunted Lamu transport corridor makes this seem increasingly more likely - there are of course still political aspirations from it's individual members that may get in the way of implementing the plan and it really isn't off the ground properly yet but it probably is one of the more realistic projects at the moment. How is this plan responding to the Euro's problems?
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Jul 19, 2015 11:31
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Popular Thug Drink posted:i hope it's called the Afro Rather boringly it will be called the East African Shilling (a thing that used to exist pre-independence).
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Jul 19, 2015 13:05
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Peel posted:How is this plan responding to the Euro's problems? After looking up some more detailed policy docs there seems to be a great emphasis on enforcing fiscal discipline bearing the Eurozone issues in mind For the record the current convergence targets for the EAC common currency are: Headline inflation <8% Fiscal deficit (including grants) <3% of GDP Gross public debt at <50% of GDP Reserve coverage of 4.5 months of imports These need to be reached and maintained for three years, I think Kenya is the closest to achieving them off the top of my head but they are the strongest economy in the region - it seems massively unlikely Burundi could ever hit targets like that. There are also three "indicative criteria" which don't appear to be prerequisites and are pretty out there: Ceilings on core inflation <5% Fiscal deficit (excluding grants) <6% of GDP A tax-to-GDP ratio floor of 25%
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Jul 19, 2015 13:14
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kustomkarkommando posted:Rwanda under Paul Kagame has increasingly become something of a concern. Their support for the Congolese rebel group M23 and their occasional exchanges of fire with the Congolese military have demonstrated that they are not afraid to flex their military muscles even if it means Western condemnation. Their rather public assassinatin campaign targetting former members of Kagame's inner circle abroad has been rather hard to sweep under the carpet for Western government's who intialy weclomed Kagame when he assumed power following the Rwandan genocide. With Burundi teetering on the brink of a political crisis there are worries Kagame will step into the fray to restore order and prevent a flare up of Tutsi-Hutu violence that could spill into Rwanda. Also because the donor countries are all cynical bastards, but that's a given.
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Jul 19, 2015 13:43
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kustomkarkommando posted:After looking up some more detailed policy docs there seems to be a great emphasis on enforcing fiscal discipline bearing the Eurozone issues in mind This is actually worrying. A lack of fiscal discipline isn't the problem with the Eurozone, and the ability of unified currencies to compel fiscal discipline is the cause of its dismal economic performance since 2010. Fiscal discipline is central to the EU establishment's line but, without going into too much detail in the wrong thread, that line is designed to protect European political interests and is largely false. If single currency work elsewhere is still working from that playbook they're setting countries up for the same problems the Eurozone has had. However, 2023 is a long way off, and it could just be a strategic rhetorical focus or an out of date holdover. They have plenty of time to work out just how it will work. If they add structures to deal with different rates of economic development and the need for deficit spending in recessions, they should do better than the Euro.
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Jul 19, 2015 14:09
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