International:
CHINA'S PRESIDENT VISITS ...
[© 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.
Vulnerable on Darfur issue ...
G8 partners but not China ...
RELATED DEVELOPMENTS
International:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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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CENTRAL AFRICA
Congo:
[© 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.
Conflict in the East ...
MONUC still needed ...
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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS
Congo:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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.
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RELATED DEVELOPMENTS
Zimbabwe:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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.
RELATED DEVELOPMENTS
Region:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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:
[© 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.