Guinea Bissau: One in the eye for multilateralism

Guinea Bissau has suffered an apparently endless cycle of assassinations and coups.  But the problems of the tiny West African country seemed attractively manageable – a  small but vociferous military; a corrupt political class; a desperately poor population.  The sights of the international community's (proxy) big guns focussed on Guinea Bissau.  Here was a conflict prone state where the international community could breeze in, preach and practice its post-conflict sermons and be successful before moving on in short order to other – more important – conflict areas like DRC, Somalia and South Sudan.

The European Union fired up a large military mission to deal with soldiers.  The United Nations established one of its Integrated Operations to deal with the politicians.  And as for the poverty…  Well, someone would get around to that when the security context was better.  What could go wrong?  With the world’s post-conflict architecture stepping in to deal with the situation, multilateralism looked to be in the ascendency.  Hooray!

But the various interventions made little headway.  Somehow, the EU’s efforts with the military never quite seemed to get off the ground.  Somehow the UN’s efforts were laudable but somehow never quite as successful as planned.  And somehow, it never quite seemed the time for the international community to sit and discuss with each other – and with the Government – exactly who would do what, how and when.  Surely, with such large and capable organisations apparently unable to make headway, the problem must be intractable indeed?

One by one, the brand names of the new world order slunk back to their bunkers.  For a while, it looked as though Guinea Bissau would continue to be a cancerous conflict in the region.

But then, Angola decided that enough was enough.  With a bit of effort and – admittedly – quite a bit of money, Angola decided to sort the problem out.  Pausing briefly to gather the odd Lusofone, Angola set about dealing with the military and the politicians.  And now, some semblance of normality seems to have set in.  Dispensing with the interminable hand wringing of the multilateral system, Angola just rolled up her sleeves and got on with the job in hand.  Her agility and decisive approach leaves the multilateral institutions looking like the maiden aunts of the international community.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  And Angola’s commercial interests in Guinea Bissau provided plenty of incentive to get ahead.  But how many Bissau-Guineans would swap their new found relative peace and stability, bought with the coinage of Angolan commercial interests, for the good old days of multilateralism?

Sharing the Nile waters

Southern Sudan is set for independence.  Baring some unforeseen upset, it will join the community of nations in July 2011 as the 154th country in the world.  It faces a number of severe challenges, but one thing it has in abundance – water.  Or does it?

The use of the Nile waters is a particularly tricky issue.  Egypt relies on Nile water as it has almost no rain fall of its own to call upon.  And by long standing convention (set in stone by a decades old treaty), Egypt has the right to the majority of the water in the river.  Essential to Egypt’s economic survival, the bulk of the water comes from other countries in the region, particularly Ethiopia.  Egypt’s insistence on its rights is an obstacle to economic development upstream – a source of extreme irritation to the countries along the Nile’s course.

From time to time, the argument over how best to share the Nile water’s threatens to turn violent.  Some of the countries in the Nile Basin have begun to collaborate in order to demand a greater share of the river’s water.  They need to generate power, reduce poverty and drive economic growth.  The negotiations have gone on for years, and seem far from close to a resolution.

But thanks to Southern Sudan’s impending independence, the balance of power amongst the countries of the Nile Basin just might be shifting.  The amount of water allocated to North and South Sudan will have to be shared by the new country in the south and its new neighbour in the north.  But perhaps more importantly, Southern Sudan seems likely to fall in with Ethiopia and the countries of East Africa.  (A glance at a map shows the dividing line between the fertile south and the desert north starkly.)  The amount of water the countries agitating for change can draw upon between them won’t change a great deal by including Southern Sudan in their group.  But it gives the group an extra member and potentially a stronger position in the negotiations. 

In many respects, this argument may not matter very much to Juba at the moment.  (After the Nile is where it has always been.)  But countries such as Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia will be keen to embrace the world’s newest country – as much for trade and regional security as for its added weight in negotiations over the use of the Nile’s waters.  Juba will need to be wary of East Africans bearing gifts if it doesn’t want to disrupt a very delicate regional security balance.  One which, given the vital importance of Nile water to Egypt’s future, offers at least the potential for violent and destructive conflict.

JAB

Southern Sudan: The party begins

Southern Sudan today begins the process of formally separating from the North. Voting in the referendum begins today and will continue for some time. Voters are almost certain to vote for eventual independence, likely to be in July 2011. At that point Southern Sudan will bring the number of nations in the world to 193.  The world is arriving for the party.  And there is no doubting the popular will to succeed peacefully.

But voting on Sunday (or during the following week) only marks the begin of a process which is far from guaranteed to deliver safety and welfare for the new country’s citizens; or national or regional stability.  As the citizens and their guests celebrate the vote today, there is likely to be a long hangover tomorrow.

The sad truth is that those citizens of the world’s newest state who are poor, marginalised and insecure now will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.  Indeed once the unifying spirit engendered by the popular will to break away from the North dissipates, many domestic political, social, economic and security tensions which have been parked are likely to bubble up.  The morning after the night before will be fragile. 

Following a vote for independence, on the agenda are:

- reaching agreement with the North on how to address those issues necessary to separate the two states.  Currency, citizenship, land ownership, what to do about national security institutions and a host of other challenging issues need to be addressed.  Some – possibly all – of these issues can be parked until later.  But experience elsewhere in the region highlights the dangers of doing so.  Ethiopia and Eritrea parked the question of currency.  The resulting tensions arguably sparked the as yet unresolved border conflict.

- reaching agreement with the proliferating number of Southern political parties on the nature and composition of Southern Sudan’s government is not going to be easy.  There is already agreement that an interim government should include groups outside Salva Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).  But the question of which ones and who they represent is highly contested.

- At the same time, Southern Sudan needs to start delivering basic services to its citizens.  And to be seen to doing so.  In terms of need, the government in Juba is largely irrelevant to the majority of Southern Sudan’s citizens.  A de facto process of decentralisation has made State Governors more relevant to citizens than the national structures of government.  At best, this places instruments of power and resources in the hands of an individual closer to the needs of citizens.  But at worst, this creates centres of political and security power far from the centre.  Making government relevant after the vote is a key challenge.

As if these challenges were not enough, and independent Southern Sudan will radically alter the look and feel of the region.  Southern Sudan is clearly looking towards the East African Community.  And East Africa is reaching out to embrace the emerging country in a fraternal hug.  But Juba will need to be clear why its neighbours are so keen to keep it close.  Uganda and Ethiopia see Southern Sudan as an economic hinterland.  A place into which their commercial sectors can expand, helping to address domestic pressures such as rising unemployment.  Kenya and Ethiopia are keen to attract Southern Sudanese business for their ports.  (Of course, Ethiopia doesn’t have any actual ports but it has invested significantly in the transport infrastructure to both Djibouti and Berbera – both of which are closer to Juba than Mombasa.)  And Uganda and Rwanda are keen to help develop Southern Sudan’s oil refining capacity so that they are not so reliant on Kenya.  Finally, and looking much further ahead, Southern Sudan will be another significant Nile Basin state.  Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda (and to a lesser degree Eritrea and Kenya) badly want to alter the balance of power of the use of Nile waters. 

But for now, the government in Juba might also want to ask itself why they get so much attention from the United States.  It can’t just be brotherly love.  And the concerns of Southern Christian voters in the US don’t really explain it either.  Is it perhaps the case that the US have spotted the strategic potential of the country too?

So as the hangover clears, Juba will need to get to grips with the cold light of day quite quickly.  But can it?

JAB

UK/National Defence and Security Review: What about development?

In amongst all the hullabaloo over future funding for the UK military, we have learnt that the UK estimates – probably rightly – that there are a number of “Tier 1” threats to the UK’s security.  One of these threats is the possibility of conventional warfare with another state.  But in the same group lies the threat of terrorism, cyber crime and natural disaster.
At first sight, these threats are diverse – almost improbably so.  But on close inspection, they seem to have a number of common denominators.  One of these common denominators is that none lend themselves to purely military action.  Even the threat of conventional warfare is not something that the Ministry of Defence can counter alone.  Whilst undoubtedly a overwhelmingly military affair, modern conventional warfare would also have a great deal to do with diplomacy and economic muscle.
With the possible exception of natural disaster, the Tier 1 threats are all likely to involve an enemy.  But countering that enemy sustainably is highly unlikely to be something which the military can do alone.  A much more complex – or multidimensional – response is required from the British Government.  It is for this reason that the new Government in the UK has established a National Security Council.  The idea is to anticipate, prevent and manage potential threats before they actually have the chance to target the UK’s welfare.
So what do the major threats have in common?  One possible answer is poverty and social, economic and political exclusion.  Whilst there is no doubt that the UK has some determined enemies, it is equally clear that these enemies are not, for the most part, other states.  The threats facing the UK are so-called asymmetric.  And to a large degree, poverty and exclusion are their recruiting sergeants.
So why has the the UK’s new national threat assessment centred so much on the symptoms – terror attacks and the like – and to a lesser degree on tackling the causes?  Perhaps the answer lies more in a desire on the part of the UK military to protect itself from vicious spending cuts.  But military personnel involved in countering the Tier 1 threats to the UK on the ground are very clear that military action alone is not the answer.  They perceive a need to combine hard and soft security measures with development and humanitarian action.  They point to the so-called “three block war” as evidence for the kinds of integrated capabilities that the UK needs to counter the threats it faces effectively.
So the simple approach is to identify where the threats faced by the UK originate, and to focus both military and development effort on them.  But the evidence is that this does not work.  For a start, the mere presence of foreign military forces probably promotes the fear of external overlordship.  And as military personnel well know, the enemy in an asymmetric conflict won’t sit still – they run and hide, exploiting irritating minor concerns like national sovereignty and borders.  Is the answer therefore to deploy development assistance where military force leads?  Probably not.  But there is a a good argument for ensuring that non-military means are fully integrated into UK military endeavour.  The lessons of Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan seem not to stay learnt, despite numerous after action reviews and lesson identification processes. 
By tackling social, economic and political exclusion generally, UK development interventions are directly targeting one if not two of the Tier 1 threats to the UK. But as with military action, they are not doing so alone.  At present the UK seems to be tied up in a form of government defined by the interests of its constituent parts rather than by a higher order strategic direction.  What is needed is  what the military might term “effects based government”. 
In order to be able to tackle poverty, the UK development programme needs to be able to work where the military does not; in countries and regions that do not – perhaps yet – pose a direct threat to the UK.  The UK is safest in a world which values and acknowledges diversity.  So we need to ensure that DFID is acknowledged as a vital contributor to UK national security interest; and its analysis and voice needs to be influential on the National Security Council. 
After all, DFID is countering the future threats that the UK doesn’t yet know it faces.  Development is a security issue; and security is a development issue.  Now we just need a Whitehall that understands that tackling both is a short and long term game involving a wide range of actors - not just the boys and their toys.
JAB

South Africa/UN Security Council: Rise of the BRICS

South Africa has just been elected to serve a second two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council.  This is a welcome development, and provides South Africa – and the Continent – with another opportunity to demonstrate Africa’s capacity to take part in global decision making; and to shape discussion and choices at the highest level.  It also provides South Africa with an opportunity to make up for the perceived shortcomings of its last stint on the Council.  Many observers found the Rainbow Nation’s democratic origins to be at odds with some of their statements and votes.  Criticism of South Africa’s refusal to allow Zimbabwe to be debated in detail at the Council still rankles – both within the country and globally.  But there was a good reason for this – Zimbabwe was apparently being handled as an African issue at the time.  Three years on and it will be harder for South Africa to make the same claim with very much credibility.  This will leave Pretoria’s political strategists with a problem.  There are much bigger prizes to be won whilst serving on the Security Council.  The prizes are especially clear when one sees who else will be on the Council – at least during 2011.

 

Including permanent and non-permanent members 2011 offers the prospect of a BRICS Security Council.  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will all be on the Council together.  This offers a real prospect for issues that matter to the BRICS countries to be debated – and perhaps resolved.  Perhaps we might finally see real reform of the Security Council during this time.  Certainly the western permanent members will find it very hard to argue against a well made case, backed by the countries – and the economies – in which they all want to invest.  But the challenge to the BRICS countries will be to keep their demands in proportion – and within the bounds of political possibility.  Too much band standing for the sake of scoring political points with other African leaders will quickly backfire on South Africa.  Better to use well founded principle to back up their Security Council action.  They have experience of this – the vote on human rights in Burma is a case in point.  South Africa had good cause to vote against – but it handled the politic and the PR very poorly.  These days, “good” service on the Security Council is a lot more transparent and demanding.  Pretoria will need to bring their own population along, and provide wise counsel with the other BRICS.

 

JAB

Sudan: Sleepwalking

Whilst his fellow members of the clergy worry about the day-to-day niceties of ecclesiastical life, such as the prospect of female or gay bishops in the Church of England, Archbishop Rowan Williams is distracting himself with smaller issues in far off places.  Sharing a platform with the Episcopal Archbishop of Southern Sudan, Daniel Deng Bul, he worried that Sudan was “sleepwalking towards disaster”.  The two Archbishops clearly share an understanding of both the problem and the potential ramifications.  But they are perhaps too diplomatic when it comes to the international community.  It is welcome that Hilary Clinton now expects a “full court press” on Sudan.  But the sad truth is that the international community have proved remarkably ineffective during the life of the Comprehensive peace Agreement.  It is almost as though the world could only handle one crisis at a time in Sudan, and Darfur – terrible tragedy that it continues to be – proved sexier than the boring old CPA.

But at one level, if North and South manage to part reasonably amicably, so what?  Whilst the nation state is of great importance to many of the people within it, the truth is that in an increasingly globalised world, state boundaries are not the be all and end all of national identity, stability or wealth.  If Southern Sudan votes for independence, then so be it.  But the key question is not so much, what will become of an independent South, but what will become of the Horn of Africa?  To date the Horn of Africa has achieved a surprising level of stability thanks to being a single regional security complex.  Although this has left the region unstable and insecure, it has meant that guessing the implications of each development has been within the bounds of possibility on the basis that in the Horn of Africa every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  If Juba secedes, the relative comfort of being able to think of the Horn of Africa as a single – diverse and awkward – entity will be gone.  We will almost certainly have two regional security complexes to contend with.  The centrifugal tensions of these two dynamics will make managing the security of the whole area increasingly difficult.  Politically, the risk exists that the region will split broadly north/south – like Sudan; and enlarge to the west and south.  East Africa will probably embrace Juba and seek to integrate it into their economies and infrastructure.  The North of Sudan will inevitably gravitate northwards, favouring alliances that look and feel more Sahelian than anything else. 

This might all seem like natural evolution – the plate tectonics of nationhood.  But the dangers of accidental conflict sparked in the former Horn of Africa will have even more far reaching and damaging consequences.  And it is all so unnecessary – had someone set out to make unity attractive to the South, perhaps Sudan would not be likely to form a new fissure in the Great African (Political) Rift Valley.

Memo to the Archbishop: Call it what it is – we are sleepwalking towards more and wider conflict in the region.  And these conflicts will be much harder to set aside as being “issues about which we know little and care less”.

JAB

Zimbabwe: Sticks and stones...

What’s going on in Zimbabwe?  The war of words between ZANU and its opponents seems to be increasing in intensity.  Since re-discovering his backbone, Tsvangari seems to be determined to land more and more punches on ZANU and Mugabe.  Perhaps he thinks that it is best to get a few hits in first before the inevitable violent response. 

 

Recently he has taken exception (rightly) to Mugabe’s appointees as Ambassadors and separately Governors.   He seems to have abandoned his earlier conciliatory tone and now – finally – seems to be speaking up for his constituency.  No doubt Tendai Biti is – at least in part – responsible for this.  Although part of Tsvangari’s strategy in playing the faithful Prime Minister to Mugabe’s Presidential Machiavelli was designed to re-assure ZANU that the MDC was not automatically a bad thing, he was probably also seeking to keep SADC on board in support of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).  But SADC seems to be wilfully looking the wrong way.  They are apparently blind to Mugabe’s excesses whilst careless of the corner in which Tsvangarai and his allies increasingly find themselves trapped.  Instead of working to ensure that elections are held in Zimbabwe which reflect the will of the many and not just the (elite) few, SADC seems to have rallied around a call to remove the restrictive measures placed on about 100 of Zimbabwe’s most prolific cleptocrats. 

 

Previously, the focus of wider frustration was Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s former President and SADC’s Zimbabwe mediator.  His strategy of quiet diplomacy was widely thought to have failed, but perhaps more accurately might be best accused of serving South African interests first and everyone else’s last or not at all (surely at least partly in the job description for a President of an independent state).  He has been replaced by his successor in the Union Buildings, Jacob Zuma, but the effect seems pretty much the same.  Zuma’s only major success on Zimbabwe was to win agreement amongst the Harare political elites for elections in 2011.  But now officials close to the election process in Zimbabwe say that the chances of successful elections being held in 2011 are slim.  Better, they seem to say to wait until 2012 – although what will be different then is not very clear.

 

What will it take to avoid the next round of credibility sapping political upheaval in Zimbabwe?  Probably not more words from outside Africa, but real pressure – that hurts – on SADC member states.  The trouble is that the EU is trying very hard not to upset the South Africans at the moment, and all the countries of the region have alternatives partners waiting to mark their cards and lead them to the dance floor.  So an increase in righteous indignation looks likely to matched by a decrease in any form of effective action.

 

Whilst ordinary Zimbabweans are preparing for a pre-election period (which already seems to have started) characterised by an increasing level of “sticks and stones”, perhaps the main problem is going to be that unlike in the much repeated rhyme, the words will hurt a great deal too.

 

JAB