The people’s revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the ongoing struggles for democratic change in Libya and Cote D’Ivoire, have shaken Africa’s strongmen but not stirred them enough to consider opening the field for free and fairly elected leaders in their home countries.
Some leaders, like Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda, admitted to a group of Indian journalists travelling across sub-Saharan Africa that Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi’s massacre of his own people was completely unacceptable, while others like Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, were much more circumspect.
Zenawi, a former guerilla, whose focus on “democratic development” has ensured his hold on power for the last 21 years, told the journalists the uprisings in Libya and Cote D’Ivoire were a “result of the failure of development and inclusive growth, in which many young people felt left out”.
Although Tanzania embraced multi-partyism barely 15 years ago, everyone knows that Pinda’s ruling party, the Chama cha Mapinduzi, retains tight control on power. Pinda felt confident enough to point out that Tanzania’s revered leader, Julius Nyerere, had insisted upon a term limit of 10 years for any president of the country, including himself.
“Once you’re in power, many leaders don’t want to listen to their own people,” Pinda said. Then referring to Gaddafi, added, “How does it help your country if in the process of defending your position you end up killing a few thousand others?”
A third African view on the subject of dictatorship versus democracy was heard in Sudan, where a minister in the government of President Omar al-Bashir simply refused to speak on the record on the subject. Off the record, though, the minister was frank.
“Gaddafi is absolute evil. He kills his own people and calls it a western conspiracy. He had the illusion of becoming the king of kings of Africa, which is why he pushed the creation of the African Union in his home-town Sirte, in Libya. In Sudan, we are very concerned because we believe he has played a key role in creating the mess in Darfur, as well as in southern Sudan,” the minister said.
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Al-Bashir has been in power since 1989, when, as a brigadier in the army, he led his officers in a bloodless coup. In 2008, the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted him for his role in the humanitarian tragedy in Darfur and southern Sudan.
India, which doesn’t recognise the ICC, opposed the decision along with China, Russia, the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union and the League of Arab States.
Africa’s dilemma over the pursuit of democratic norms has left it both tongue-tied and resentful. Ahead of Prime Manmohan Singh’s visit to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa next month to participate in the second India-Africa summit, the African Union did not even send its representatives to participate in the recent London conference on Libya’s future.
Certainly, the PM will make not even the most oblique reference to the lack of democracy in several African countries, acutely conscious that India is trying to get a foothold in some of Africa’s most strategic areas, such as the mineral and agriculture sectors, and that China is already far ahead in the same race.
Africa’s fabulous mineral wealth needs no introduction. The continent holds 46 per cent of the world’s diamond reserves (Botswana, Congo, South Africa), 21 per cent of its gold (South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania), 16 per cent of uranium (Namibia, Niger, South Africa), two per cent of steel (South Africa, Egypt, Libya), five per cent of aluminium (South Africa, Mozambique, Egypt), 62 per cent of platinum (South Africa), and hydrocarbons (Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria, Nigeria).
As India and China grow between seven and nine per cent annually, and between them pull the rest of the world out of the economic recession into which it had sunk, they will increasingly lean on the exploitation of Africa’s natural resources to feed their vast and hungry economies.
However, the picture is already far more complicated and nobody realises this better than the African Union. Gabon, one of three African states (the others are Nigeria and South Africa) holding non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council alongside India, was ruled by a dictator called Omar Bongo for 42 years till he died in 2009, when the presidency passed to his son, the current President Ali-Ben Bongo.
When the Security Council voted to impose a no-fly zone against Gaddafi’s Libya in late March, Gabon and the other two African nations voted in favour, alongside Western nations like France, the US and Britain.
India, along with Germany and Brazil, besides permanent powers China and Russia, abstained from the resolution.
Indian diplomats serving across Africa refused to comment on the many dictatorships littered across the continent, or even the “guided democracy” that several long-serving rulers have recently resorted to.
Perhaps the last word belonged to Salim Ahmed Salim, a former prime minister of Tanzania and the patron of the Tanzania-India Friendship Association, who pointed out that “Africa’s real dilemma” over Gaddafi actually pointed to the fact that “Africa had no real choices” in the matter.
“The Libyan leader’s attacks on his own civilian population are unacceptable. However, people also understand that a no-fly zone is really a codeword for regime change, and that is something they are uncomfortable with,” Salim said.
The African Union (AU) was divided down the middle on the Gaddafi question, Salim added. Some countries, like Rwanda, favoured a militaristic approach to the AU’s diplomatic proposal that a ceasefire in Libya be followed by a political transition, which in turn would be followed by free and fair elections.
“Question is, who will persuade Gaddafi to exit? Right now he looks like he wants to continue the fight…however, if he does, indeed, step down, which country is going to take him in?” Salim asked.