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International:

CHINA'S PRESIDENT VISITS ...

SA seeks to bring Hu into Nepad camp as he starts his African tour

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] At the end of China's annus mirabilis in Africa a realistic note has begun to creep into official pronouncements about the new relationship. SA's President Thabo Mbeki has warned against a new colonialism. And on the eve of an important visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao, SA Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said that it was important to "harmonise, synchronise and align FOCAC [the Forum for China Africa Co-operation through which much of China's activities in Africa are conducted] with Nepad and to leverage FOCAC to the benefit of Nepad".

Up till now most South African and other African discussions about the explosion of Chinese trade, aid and investment onto the scene last year have been descriptive, but there has been little attempt to locate the new deals in the context of Nepad, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or the other institutions of the African Union, over which Mbeki and other African leaders have for years been labouring.

The danger, said analysts, was that China would bypass and undermine the institutionalization of Africa by not 'interfering' in African affairs or setting conditions for its aid. Conditionality has been built into the development deals that Mbeki, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo and other African leaders made with the Western G8 countries, but China has purposely avoided this and African leaders have rapidly succumbed.

  • Mbeki warned against a "colonial relationship" with China and "a replication" of Africa's historical relationship with its former colonial powers.
  • China, which expects annual trade with Africa to total $100bn by 2010, has long said that it wants its growing trade relationship with Africa to equally benefit both sides.
  • Mbeki appears now to be setting a marker for a changed relationship. However, he may have to battle with other African leaders.
  • Some in the African elites who are unhappy with the G8-linked 'good governance' model are starting to refer to the 'Chinese model' of authoritarian rule mixed with free-wheeling capitalism as the best development road for Africa, too.

Vulnerable on Darfur issue ...

  • Hu Jintao will seek to dispel the idea that China is in an exploitative relationship on his eight-state tour of Africa beginning January 30, with stops in Cameroon, Liberia, Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Seychelles.
  • He has been most vulnerable on the issue of Darfur. There the Chinese side has since November been engaging with the Sudanese government to get it to allow a credible joint UN-AU force into Darfur.
  • China is one of Sudan's biggest customers for oil, and has repeated its opposition to imposing sanctions and that peacekeepers should only be deployed with the consent of the government.

G8 partners but not China ...

  • Germany, currently heading the European Union and with the rotating presidency of the G8, has proposed that SA and the other middle level 'South' economies be given a regular place at G8 meetings. But Germany is adamant there is "no chance of agreeing on enlarging" the G8 to include China.
  • It wants a reprise of the Nepad deal that successive G8 summits have agreed on, and will again seek to lock the African side into its obligations, mainly on improving governance.

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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

International:

Capacity building is key says Mbeki at Davos

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Discussions at the Davos meeting focused again on the need to build African capacity. The theme will top the G8 agenda for the third year in a row.

Analysts are concerned that China's project-building will litter Africa with white elephants, unmanaged and unsustained, as happened in the early post-independence years.

International:

China will drive conflict in Africa says SA analyst

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] The benign view of Chinese engagement with Africa, that it is opening the way to massive development through peaceful economic engagement has been questioned in South Africa.

Instead it should be seen as "an increasingly present military danger to Africa, the Middle East and the world", in a continent that will become a zone of conflict over resources, according to a leading South African researcher and nuclear expert in a paper delivered to the country's intelligence agency.

Zambia:

Mwanawasa seeks to keep Hu's visit low-key

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Zambia, the country that has made the loudest noice against Chinese engagement in Africa, is hosting President Chinese Hu Jintao next week on his tour. But the government is seeking to keep it low profile and is making few announcement about the visit.

The biggest public concern in Lusaka is the 'dumping' of Chinese nationals who come in as investors and remain to set up in competition to local traders.

Chinese investment in Zambia keeps rising. However, the list of complaints about Chinese investors mistreating Zambians and violating Zambia's labour laws is also growing.

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BRIEFINGS 2007
12 jan 26 jan 9 feb
23 feb 9 mar 23 mar
6 apr 20apr 4 may
18 may 1 june 15 june
29 june 13 july 27 july
10 aug 24 aug 7 sept
21 sept 5 oct 19 oct
2 nov 16 nov 30 nov
14 dec

CENTRAL AFRICA

Congo:

International attention deficit threatens post-election situation

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Concern is growing that the success of the elections in the DR Congo will result in international attention shifting while internal threats to stability remain. Already it is apparent that President Joseph Kabila and his allies will resist the close attention of the UN's Security Council members and other regional and international actors whom he has said were behaving like 'conquistadores'. Instead he wants bilateral relations with donors.

  • There are also signs that Kabila is rejecting inclusive solutions and is moving to reward his political allies while marginalizing his opponents.
  • To accommodate the many groups in his winning alliance Kabila will have to set in place a large cabinet, which will mean a less effective government, especially since the institutions it manages are weak and corrupt.
  • Senate elections were held on January 19 and of the 108 senate seats, the 'Alliance of Presidential Majority' (Kabila's Alliance) won 68, and the 'Union for the Nation' (former Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba's alliance) won 21 seats. The remaining seats are shared between smaller parties and independent candidates.
  • Bemba himself was duly elected as a senator for Kinshasa - this will give him parliamentary immunity from charges hanging over him for the conduct of his troops in Ituri in 2002. His support base remains in Kinshasa and among the thousands of demobilised combatants in Equateur province.

Conflict in the East ...

  • Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda agreed to allow his forces to be reintegrated into the national army. But  there are signs that the announcement was premature as fighting broke out among his troops.

MONUC still needed ...

  • The internecine fighting in Kivu will buttress arguments that the UN's force MONUC should remain there for the foreseeable future and not have its mandate restricted. The MONUC mandate renewal comes up in February.

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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

Congo:

One and a half million still displaced by wars

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Almost one and a half million people remain displaced from their homes in the DR Congo, more than three years after the last war, the UN refugee agency announced last week.

A million people are internally displaced. Of the 410,000 refugees in neighbouring countries, 130,000 are in Tanzania, 73,000 in Uganda and 59,700 in Zambia.

 

Congo:

Thousands attend funeral of outspoken archbishop

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Thousands of mourners last week attended the funeral of the Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Frederic Esau. who died in hospital in Brussels on January 6. He was outspoken about corruption.

Among the mourners were President Joseph Kabila and President Denis Sassou Nguesso of neighbouring Congo Republic.

 

Congo:

Internet publicity persuades rebels to stop killing gorillas

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Rebels in the eastern DR Congo have agreed to stop killing rare mountain gorillas after sparking outrage by slaughtering two this month.

Richard Leakey, the Kenyan conservationist who founded Wildlife Direct, said the rebel pledge was a direct result of publicity generated about the killings through the Internet.

Region:

Climate of fear in Burundi

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] The head of Burundi's ruling party took refuge in the SA embassy on Monday because he thought an assassination was being planned.

Hussein Radjabu, leader of the ruling 'Forces for the Defence of Democracy' (CNDD-FDD), entered the embassy after his bodyguard detail was changed without his knowledge. SA government officials have expressed concern about "a worrying change in Burundian politics".

Radjabu's opponents say he has set up a parallel power network (SouthScan v21/22). Local observers say President Pierre Nkurunziza sees him as a competitor and is seeking to get rid of him.

 

SOUTHERN AFRICA

Zimbabwe:

Matabeleland memorial may fill opposition vacuum

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Political protests at the ongoing social and economic crisis have failed to take off, despite sporadic attempts from the opposition to mobilize support. But a revival of demands for an official apology and compensation for the massacres of Ndebele-speakers in the early 1980s has taken off in Matabeleland.

  • By breaking the taboo on the issue organisers have raised the possibility that the political opposition vacuum will be filled by ethnic Ndebele groups.
  • Into the gap has also come the opportunist politician Jonathan Moyo, formerly outspokenly pro-Mugabe information minister before he attempted a palace coup and was ousted.
  • Former Zapu leaders in the ruling party have decried his move, but in Matabeleland there has been applause for Moyo's initiative.

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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

Zimbabwe:

Opposition protest again threatened

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] The Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai said last week he would lead a mass campaign against plans to extend Mugabe's rule by another two years.

Zimbabwe:

Publisher wins court passport battle

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Top Zimbabwe newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube this week won his Harare High Court battle to uphold his citizenship following attempts by the authorities to block the renewal of his passport.

Zimbabwe:

SA sends 10,000 Zimbabweans back each month

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] South Africa deported 80,000 illegal Zimbabwean immigrants between May and December of 2006, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

But the generally quoted estimate for Zimbabweans living legally and illegally in South Africa as three million has been challenged.

 

International:

US ban on SA Muslims spoils Security Council entry

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] The SA government has sharply criticised the US and other Western countries for barring Muslim South Africans suspected of terrorism links.

The US Treasury on Friday set out detailed charges against two prominent South African Muslims, saying they were supporters of al-Qaeda, but the SA government said it would hold the names from being added to the UN Security Council terrorism watch list, where it is now sitting as a member.

  • Denying entry to South Africans of Islamic faith was becoming a matter of concern to the government, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said.
  • The issue, together with SA's vote to stop sanctions against Burma, where it sided with Russia and China, has soured its two-year accession to the UN Security Council.
  • Earlier SA's President Thabo Mbeki said that SA would take up its UNSC seat to represent the interests of Africa in the world.
  • The unexpectedly loud South African criticism could have been catalysed by the US barring in October last year of prominent South African academic Adam Habib.

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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS

Region:

SA will not send troops to Somalia

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] SA has said it cannot commit troops to the mooted African Union contingent for Somalia because its forces are overextended, though it may offer technical support (SouthScan v22/01). Ethiopian troops have started withdrawing from the country.

AU chief Alpha Oumar Konare said troops, funding and other resources like aircraft were needed to ensure peacekeepers could be deployed as soon as possible. Nigeria is readying a battalion of about 600 troops for deployment. Uganda and Malawi are also willing to send troops. Mozambique is reconsidering. Defence Minister Maj-Gen.Tobias Dai said, "We need to know the region, the nature of the conflict and its evolution and also understand different efforts that we would propose." Earlier Mozambique had said a military contingent was training intensely in preparation for deployment.

 

WATCHING BRIEF ...

Malawi:

Combined elections scheduled for 2009

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Malawi it to hold general, provincial and municipal elections together in 2009, after postponing local government polls because of famine and funding difficulties. It has had only one local election, in 2000, after the introduction of multi-party politics in 1994.

Zimbabwe:

Debt blamed for power outages

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] Electricity power supplies are becoming increasingly erratic in Zimbabwe. The acting chairman of the Zimbabwe Electicity Supply Authority (ZESA) Christopher Chetsanga said this week that the utility had run up a ZD105 billion (US$420m) debt, which he blamed on low tariffs.

Neighbouring countries are also cutting their exports. Last week South Africa suffered countrywide power outages. The entire region is facing a power crisis.

Region:

SA telecoms giant expands in Nigeria

[© SouthScan v22/02 26 Jan 07] The Nigerian subsidiary of South African telecommunications group MTN has acquired another firm as part of its expansion programme.

The 100 percent acquisition of VGC Telecommunications, itself a subsidiary of another SA group, Globe International Holdings, was part of a convergence strategy. MTN is Nigeria's largest mobile firm with more than 20 million subscribers.