Politics
TANZANIA: Corruption, Democracy And The Strange Case Of John Pombe Magufuli
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – THE STRATEGY: CHANGING HEADS
JPM’s key policy concerns are tackling official waste and corruption, enhancing tax compliance, and creating large numbers of jobs through industrialisation. In the past 12 months, he has dismissed numerous senior officials in central and local government and state corporations for suspected corruption or poor performance, removed thousands of ghost workers from the government payroll, slashed unnecessary spending on out-of-office meetings, foreign travel, and official functions, increased tax compliance, and declared war on corruption and waste in the ruling party and, for good measure, the East African Community!
JPM’s strategy sees corruption as a matter of personal shortcomings rather than a systemic institutional problem. The solution is replacing corrupt with honest officials. As opposition legislator Zitto Kabwe puts it: ‘Changing heads alone means that the president is more interested in perfecting the existing system than overhauling it.’[1]
In our view, continuity rather than change characterises the engagement of the new government with rent-seeking behaviour of all kinds. The current government has moved to reduce the space for party political debate and action, passed legislation on access to information, cybercrime, and, most recently, the media, which may be enforced to limit access to information, and private freedoms.[2] Bloggers and Facebook users have been arrested for expressing ‘treasonable’ views or insulting the president. Here it is argued that moves to limit transparency and accountability predate the arrival of JPM.
CAPACITY TO DELIVER: SELECTIVE CONTROL
Opposition parties describe JPM’s governance style as ‘authoritarian.’ Impatient with due process, the president and Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa have issued countless decrees, not all of which are congruent with official policy, spending priorities, or due process. Though suspicious of the integrity of the courts, JPM still relies on the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) to investigate and prosecute grand corruption cases. In January, JPM dismissed Dr Edward Hosea, the Director General of the Bureau, ostensibly for ignoring major corruption in the port and the Tanzania Revenue Authority. His removal was supposed to clear the way for PCCB to bring some major corruption cases to court.[3] PCCB’s problem is that political pressures prevent certain cases from being investigated or prosecuted, and the most corrupt politicians and businessmen are simply untouchable. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) routinely returns files to PCCB citing ‘inadequate evidence’ to bring a case to court.
Tanzania’s longest-lasting and most ruinous corruption case, the infamous Independent Power Tanzania Ltd (IPTL) power plant and the plunder of the Tegeta Escrow Account in the Bank of Tanzania in 2013, was thoroughly investigated by PCCB but no charges were ever brought. President Magufuli has complained bitterly about the cost of procuring power from private producers such as IPTL, vowing to put an end to corrupt public-private partnerships (PPP).[4] When asked why the IPTL case was not being prosecuted, Hosea’s replacement, Valentino Mlowola, said the case was ‘still active.’
If Magufuli wanted to make an example of IPTL he would simply order Mlowola to bring charges immediately. But against whom? The Kikwete government was heavily implicated in the escrow scam, as were other ‘untouchables’ including Andrew Chenge, one of IPTL’s key supporters for two decades, and James Rugemalira, who owned the minority 30 per cent of the power plant.[5]
One of the heads that rolled as a result of the investigation of IPTL/Escrow by the Public Accounts Committee in 2014 was that of Prof Sospeter Muhongo, Kikwete’s minister of energy and minerals. Magufuli’s reappointment of Muhongo to the same ministry in December sent out the message that is was business as usual in the power sector, and IPTL, under its new owner Harbinder Singh Sethi, continues to supply overpriced electricity to power utility Tanesco, despite Magufuli’s strictures on the subject. Other examples could be cited that suggest a selective approach to corruption control.
On becoming Tanzania’s fifth post-Independence president just over a year ago, John Pombe Magufuli (JPM, aka ‘The Bulldozer’) wasted no time in attacking tax-evasion by big business and waste, corruption and laxity in government, earning him plaudits both at home and abroad. Given the entrenched cronyism in business-government relations and pervasive rent-seeking within the state apparatus, can he succeed where so many African leaders before him have failed? To succeed, Magufuli needs a clear strategy, the capacity to deliver, and sustained support from both inside and outside parliament. All are problematic
To deal with the rapidly growing number of corruption cases, the government has set up the Economic, Corruption and Organised Crime Court, which has just begun operations. Time will tell whether the ECOCC has more teeth than Tanzania’s existing courts, which are routinely manipulated by the wealthy and the corrupt to make sure that justice is rarely if ever done in prosecuting major scams such as IPTL/Escrow.
POLITICAL SUPPORT: RESORT TO ‘DIRECT’ RULE
One of JPM’s self-declared strengths is that he is not beholden to any network (mtandao) of wealthy businessmen and political brokers within the current ruling elite. This is at once a strength and a weakness. It is reasonable to suspect that the majority of Tanzanian politicians are uneasy with the Magufuli strategy as it threatens their own rent-seeking activities. This is also the case for many lower level central and local government officials for whom ‘rent-scraping’ assures a significant proportion of their livelihoods. JPM has also declared his intention to clean up CCM.[6] Anecdotal evidence suggests that the wheels of the bureaucracy are turning even slower than usual as senior officials try to remain under the State House radar.
JPM aspires to marginalise opposition parties and to eliminate party politics in local government. There are stories of virtual ‘direct rule’ by Regional and District Commissioners in opposition-run councils. Many new District Development Directors are said to have been recruited from among CCM cadres and ‘operatives.’ Both CCM and opposition MPs have complained about their ‘incompetence’ and the powers usurped by the new DCs and RCs, many of whom are retired army officers.[7]
Magufuli has confounded those critics who expected a much messier transition from Phase 4 to Phase 5. Still, it remains unclear how he can maintain his anti-corruption momentum in the absence of a solid base of support both inside and outside parliament and the ruling party.
BUSINESS SUPPORT: FOLLOW THE SUGAR
JPM has expressed his dislike of companies that practise state capture and tax evasion. One of his first moves was to trace more than 300 containers to inland depots that had been cleared at Dar es Salaam port without paying duty. One of the depots and some of the containers belonged to Said Bakhresa, founder of the Azam group of companies, who also had a consignment of sugar impounded.
For year, sugar imports have been a contentious issue. The local sugar industry was almost bankrupted by massive sugar imports and smuggling during 2012-13. In February this year, the government announced the suspension of sugar imports so that local producers could market unsold stocks. It was announced that further import licences would only be granted by State House. Sugar prices shot up to over Tsh2,000 (about one US dollar) a kilo, compared with the government’s ‘indicative price’ of Tsh1,800. Local importers were blamed for creating artificial shortages to sabotage the president’s initiative. The stand-off lasted until May.
JPM’s stand-off with segments of the Asian and Arab business community over smuggling and tax evasion was resolved in October, when he opened a fruit canning factory near
Dares Salaam built by Azam’s Bakhresa. His consignment of sugar was also released from the port, and JPM promised to allot him land to set up a large sugar estate.[8] Asian and Arab conglomerates are key players in Tanzania’s ambitious industrialisation plans, an issue requiring separate coverage.
POPULAR SUPPORT: SCRATCH MY BACK…
The Tanzanian voter is generally characterised as a potential ally in the fight against corruption. Certainly, polls suggest that JPM’s anti-waste and graft project has really impressed many people, after years of poor governance. But we should be wary of assuming too much. There is a widespread popular view that a politician or official who fails to ‘eat’ when the opportunity arises (or is created) is a fool who will die poor after retirement for failing to abuse his or her public office.’[9] In a 2014 Afrobarometer survey, respondents were asked: ‘In your opinion, what are the most important problems facing this country that the government should address?’ The main problem areas mentioned were health, education, agriculture, water, infrastructure/roads. Corruption ranked 7th, equal with fighting poverty.[10] In a more recent survey, Tanzanians aged 18-35 were asked whether they would be prepared to give or take a bribe: Some 44% said they would; 58% agreed that ‘It doesn’t matter how you make money as long as you don’t end up in jail’; and 39% said they would only vote for a candidate who bribed them. Finally, three-quarters said that they were ‘afraid to stand up for what is right for fear of retribution.’[11]
Though numerous NGOs have a mandate to promote transparent and accountable government, Tanzanian civil society has generally not (with a few notable exceptions) played a major role in fighting corruption, even though many ‘governance’-oriented organisations exist. The Legal and Human Rights Centre has consistently challenged JPM’s governance practices, but there has not been a popular mobilisation of support for his anti-corruption policies or against his human-rights record.
It is quite unclear how Tanzanian voters assess corruption in politics. Systemic rent-seeking in the CCM government was the main opposition political platform prior to the 2015 elections. One prime target was Monduli MP Edward Lowassa, who was forced to resign as prime minister over the Richmond power scandal during Kikwete’s first term. Nevertheless, Lowassa was by far the most popular candidate vying for the CCM nomination, perceived as a man of the people who was generous in rewarding his supporters out of his considerable fortune, however acquired. After being rejected by CCM’s Ethics Committee during the vetting process for the CCM candidature, Lowassa defected to Chadema and promptly became the opposition alliance’s[12] joint candidate for the presidency! This suggests that Lowassa’s image as a man of the people carried more weight than his reputation for corruption. He took his wealth and popularity to the opposition camp, and the opposition quickly forgot about his corruption.[13]
While polls suggest that Tanzanians are highly supportive of Magufuli’s policies to date, it is unlikely that the war on corruption will assure continued mass popular support in the absence of more material benefits to ordinary people.[14]
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS… AND CHINA
The traditional multilateral and bilateral donors are hamstrung when it comes to engaging with what they see as the authoritarian JPM approach to fighting corruption and waste. Still heavily influenced by the proposition that democracy=development, many ‘development partners’[15] continue to finance programmes and projects designed to enhance transparent and accountable government. There is a strong case to be made that donor-inspired economic and political liberalisation since the mid-1980s have contributed to the competitive money politics that characterises the current political settlement. Arguably, JPM is right to discredit oppositionist politics: Prom a developmental point of view, party politics is a costly and often frivolous distraction of no obvious public utility. Whether it is JPM’s right to decide on the issue is another matter altogether.[16]
While the influence of established donors on policy has declined significantly since the beginning of this century, the influence of China as a major trade and ‘development partner’ has increased. Unlike OECD donors, the Chinese government deals exclusively with the central government and its agencies, and does not tie aid to concerns with human rights or ‘good governance,’ JPM recently signed off on a $7.6 billion soft loan to build a new standard gauge railway (SGR) to replace the existing Central Line. This and other projects bypass public procurement laws and regulations and parliamentary perusal. Projects such as the SGR have been criticised for their cost and their economic rationale. Magufuli’s infrastructural ambitions are again a subject for another day.
Many aid agencies continue to employ a normative approach to corruption. The notion that corruption is the result of personal ethical shortcomings is implicit in the widely used definition of corruption as the abuse of official position for personal gain.[17] Defining petty corruption in terms of ‘need’ and grand corruption in terms of ‘greed’ is equally normative and judgmental. Arguably, ‘corruption’ of all kinds is largely the consequence of competitive clientelism, or patronage, where inter-personal trust is lacking and formal institutions are weak. The widespread failure of traditional ‘supply-side’ approaches to corruption control through institution and capacity building, and on the ‘demand-side’ through ‘empowering’ citizens, civil society and the media is testimony to how difficult donors find it to go beyond the ‘good governance’ paradigm.
Unfortunately, JPM’s equally normative approach to governance is unlikely to work unless it can change the underlying incentive structure governing intra-state and state-business relations. Without massive popular support and a change in the way politics is done (the ‘political settlement’), the Magufuli approach to fighting corruption is likely to disappoint its supporters. As President Obama put it: ‘Africa doesn’t need strong men, it needs strong institutions.’[18]
REGIONAL SUPPORT: BUILDING BRIDGES
Space prevents a full treatment of this dimension of ‘Magufulism,’ but East African regional relations have been changing rapidly since JPM came to power. In particular, JPM has built bridges with Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, whose relationship with the previous Tanzanian regime was particularly testy. Observers note the parallels between Kagame’s and Magufuli’s undemocratic governance styles. Those who see human rights as the basis for sound development strategies cannot accept that Kagame and Magufuli are potentially more ‘developmental’ than their fellow presidents in the region. The intricacies of inter-EAC relations are a subject for future reflection.
THE LIMITS OF THE POSSIBLE?
What some see as an apparent resort to authoritarianism continues a recent trend to unwind governance gains achieved during the Kikwete administration that had allowed parliament inter alia to address the Escrow scandal and for the Constitutional Reform Commission to produce a new draft constitution with stronger controls on executive power.[19]After the Escrow debacle in 2014, conservative elements within CCM decided that the open government business had gone far enough, and took steps to reinforce executive power at the expense of parliament. In this respect, Magufuli can be seen as part of an underlying trend to shore up the ruling elite against its opponents, including the political opposition, and the traditional and social media. The 2016-17 budget saw a 50 per cent cut in the budget of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), whose reports were frequently used by parliamentary committees to make life uncomfortable for certain senior officials.[20]
President Magufuli bears comparison with Tanzania’s first president of the competitive era, Benjamin Mkapa (1995-2005). Like Mkapa, Magufuli was a compromise candidate, not the frontrunner. Both he and Mkapa were ‘selected’ by the incumbent president to prevent other contenders from acceding to the presidency.[21] Though both were seasoned politicians, neither was particularly well-known by the public or highly networked within the ruling party. Mkapa was under pressure to clean up the mess left by his predecessor Ali Hassan Mwinyi’s casual approach to governance, just as JPM is doing in relation to Kikwete.
But there the comparison ends. Mkapa’s anti-corruption policies were strongly influenced by donors, and the path-breaking Warioba Report (1996) on the state of corruption in the country was never implemented with any conviction. By contrast, JPM hit the ground running, and has kept running, with homegrown rather than donor-driven momentum. Many of his ‘governance’ initiatives are clear indictments of his predecessor’s performance, yet there is no evidence of serious friction between the two.[22] JPM’s selective approach to anti-corruption may help explain why.
[1]Zitto Kabwe 2016. ‘Will the real opposition emerge under Magufuli’s presidency?’ Citizen on Sunday, August 7.
[2] Stakeholders are urging the president not to sign the Media Bill.
[3]PCCB prosecutes very few large corruption cases and loses most of the cases it initiates, including the small ones, which are the majority. See www.policyforum.or.tz for details.
[4] PPP has also been dubbed ‘Personal and Political Preferences’. The PPP model is uncritically embraced by most policymakers. IPTL was one of Tanzania’s first PPPs.
[5]In late 2014, Mr Rugemalira received $70m (in local currency) for his company’s 30 per cent share in IPTL. See: http://www.policyforum-tz.org/sites/default/files/TGR2014OnlineVersion.pdffor details.
[6]Polycarp Machira 2016. ‘JPM now to cleanse CCM’, Guardian on Sunday, Dar es Salaam, 24 July.
[7]Athuman Mtulya 2016. ‘Lawmakers criticise ’incompetent’ DEDs’, Citizen, Dar es Salaam, 11 November.
[8]Mohamed Enterprises, another Asian conglomerate, has also announced plans to open a large sugar estate.
[9]Mwassa Jingi 2016. ‘Setting leadership integrity pace’, Citizen, 24 January.
[10]REPOA interviewed a nationally representative, random, stratified probability sample of 2,386 respondents. The question cited was open-ended. Respondents were asked to list three problem areas. All three responses were weighted equally in calculating the ranking. See: afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/…/tan_r6_sor_en.pdf.
[11]Aga Khan University 2016.‘The Tanzania Youth Survey Report’ October. Only a third of 18-35 year olds (34%) thought it was important to pay taxes.
[12] The UKAWA/Umoja alliance was made up of four opposition parties, the most important being Chadema and CUF.
[13] Rumours that Lowassa bought the opposition candidature are circumstantial, though figures for who got how much are bandied about in social media. Only two senior opposition leaders resigned on principle upon Lowassa’s move to the opposition, Chadema’s Dr Wilbrod Slaa and CUF’s Prof Ibrahim Lipumba, both former presidential candidates.
[14]A recent Twaweza poll revealed that 58% of respondents did not consider Magufuli a dictator, while 60% supported the ban on political rallies. See: http://twaweza.org/uploads/files/DemonstrationsFinal-EN-web.pdf
[15] Including UN agencies, the IFIs, the EU, other multilateral and bilateral donors, international NGOs, presidential/state initiatives (Feed the Future, PEPFAR, Power Africa), private foundations (Gates, Soros, Aga Khan), and others.
[16]Many criticised the termination of full-time coverage of parliamentary sessions as undemocratic.
[17]This definition has been used by Transparency International, the World Bank, and many other international development agencies for the past two decades.
[18]http://www.sundaytimes.lk/090712/International/sundaytimesinternational-03.html
[19]See Policy Forum 2016. ‘Tanzania Governance Review 2014: the Year of Escrow’, July, Chapter 1.
[20] Some committee members abused their oversight role and accepted or demanded bribes. Rosina John 2016. ‘3 MPs arraigned over Tsh30m bribe request’, Citizen, Dar es Salaam, 1 April.
[21]Nyerere thought Mkapa was the least bad of a rather mediocre group of candidates. Kikwete was bent on preventing his former prime minister from replacing him, preferring his minister of foreign affairs, Bernard Membe, for the job. Kikwete had to sacrifice Membe in order to block Lowassa.
[22]JPM’s accession to the CCM Chairmanship in July took place without incident.
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Politics
Being Black in Argentina
What does Javier Milei’s presidential victory mean for Argentina’s black and indigenous minorities?
On November 19, Javier Milei secured the presidency of the Republic of Argentina with 56% of the vote. However, his victory is expected to significantly impact a specific segment of the country.
During my six-month exchange in Argentina’s Venado Tuerto (pop. 75,000) in 2016, I encountered someone of shared Black ethnicity on the street only once. A person whom many locals incidentally mistook for me—along with a Cuban Black girl, the only black person like me in the whole high school. As insignificant as a census of this small city’s population may seem, it effectively illustrates a sobering reality: the presence of Black people in Argentina is sparse, and their numbers have dwindled over time.
“Hay más por otros lados, acá no llegaron” (There are more of them elsewhere, they have not arrived here) is a rhetoric prevalent among many Argentines, but the reality is quite dissimilar. Contacts between Argentina and Black people, particularly of African descent, date back to the 16th century transatlantic slave trade, when West and Central Africa people were brought by Spanish and Portuguese settlers to the coastal city of Buenos Aires, only to be sold and moved mostly within the Río de la Plata, present-day Argentina and Uruguay. In “Hiding in Plain Sight, Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic,” Erika Denise Edwards reports that between 1587 and 1640 approximately 45,000 African slaves disembarked in Buenos Aires. By the end of the 18th century, one-third of Argentina’s population was Black.
What, then, became of the Black African population in Argentina? Some attribute their decline to historical factors such as their active involvement in conflicts including the War of Independence against Spanish colonists (1810-1819) and the war with Paraguay (1865-1870), in which Black men often found themselves on the front lines, enduring the brunt of the attacks, or even choosing to desert and flee the country. These factors intersect with a gradual process of miscegenation and interracial mixing, leading to a progressive whitening of the population—both in terms of physical attributes and ideology.
Adding to this complex mix, political rhetoric comes into play. Influential Argentine leaders, such as Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in the 19th century, idealized white Europe not only as a model for overcoming the country’s socio-economic challenges but also as a narrative that implied the absence of Black people in Argentina, thereby erasing an integral part of the nation’s history.
Doing so has shrewdly allowed a country to avoid reckoning with its past of slavery and navigate the complexities of its presence, using the escamotage that there are no race-related issues in the country because there are no Black people. This assertion is incorrect for several reasons beyond those mentioned above. First, despite being imperceptible to the naked eye, there is a small but existing population of Afro-descendants in Argentina. Nevertheless, in my second stay in Argentina, this time in Buenos Aires, it became more apparent to me how a certain nationalistic current, in the footsteps of Sarmiento, proudly makes itself of this consistent lack of Black heritage. Comparing itself favorably to neighboring countries, this current boasts a notion of white supremacy in Argentina, which celebrates the Italian immigration from the 19th and 20th centuries as the foundation of national identity, while largely overlooking the historical legacy of African bodies that predates it.
As a result, even in a cosmopolitan capital city such as Buenos Aires, a significant portion of the white Argentine population based its identity on my opposite—not knowing that as an Afro-Italian, my Italian citizenship actually made them closer to my blackness and African roots than they wanted. Asserting that there are no racial concerns in Argentina is misleading. It amounts to the invisibilization of racial discrimination in a country where those who deviate from the preferred prototype, including Indigenous communities such as Mapuche, Quechua, Wichi, and Guarani, experience limited access to education and social services, and are disproportionately prone to experience poverty than their white counterparts.
Even within everyday discourse in Argentina, the assertion is refuted: many are labeled Black despite not matching the physical appearance associated with the term. The expression “es un negro” might refer to everyone who has darker skin tones, grouping them into a specific social category. However, beyond a mere description of physical attributes, “es un negro” delineates a person situated at various margins and lower rungs of society, whether for economic or social reasons. The appellation is also ordinarily used in jest as a nickname for a person who, of “black phenotype,” has nothing. The label “morocho” seems to be the most appropriate appellation for dark-skinned people in the country.
Argentine white supremacist identity is often matched by a certain right-wing political ideology that is classist, macho and, to make no bones about it, xenophobic. In the 2023 elections, such a systemic structure takes on the face of Javier Milei. The Argentine’s Donald Trump claimed in 2022 at the presentation of his book that he did not want to apologize for “being a white, blonde [questionable element], blue-eyed man.” With false modesty, the demagogue took on the burden of what it means in the country to have his hallmarks: privilege, status, and power.
Milei’s need for apologies should not revolve around his connotations but rather the proposals presented during his election campaign and outlined in his political program, which include the dollarization of pesos and the removal of government subsidies. Besides assessing if these actions would really benefit the vulnerable economy of the country, it’s worth questioning why it’s the middle-class, often white population that stands to suffer the least from such policies. They can afford to transact in dollars, weather an initial depreciation of their income, and provide for their children’s education without relying on government subsidies. In essence, they can do without the limited benefits offered by the Argentine state, given their already privileged positions.
The election of this politician not only adversely affects Black minorities, but also targets apparent minorities whom this divisive ideology seeks to erase, including Indigenous populations and the poorest segment of society—the current Argentinian “blacks”—who significantly enrich the Argentine populace. In such a scenario, one can only hope that the world will strive for a more consistent record of their existence.
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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.
Politics
Risks and Opportunities of Admitting Somalia Into the EAC
The process of integrating Somalia into the EAC should be undertaken with long-term success in mind rather than in the light of the situation currently prevailing in the country.
The East African Community (EAC), whose goal is to achieve economic and political federation, brings together three former British colonies – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania – and newer members Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and most recently the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Somalia first applied to join the EAC in 2012 but with fighting still ongoing on the outskirts of Mogadishu, joining the bloc was impossible at the time. Eleven years later, joining the bloc would consolidate the significant progress in governance and security and, therefore, Somalia should be admitted into the EAC without undue delay. This is for several reasons.
First, Somalia’s admission would be built on an existing foundation of goodwill that the current leadership of Somalia and EAC partner states have enjoyed in the recent past. It is on the basis of this friendship that EAC states continue to play host to Somali nationals who have been forced to leave their country due to the insecurity resulting from the prolonged conflict. In addition, not only does Somalia share a border with Kenya, but it also has strong historical, linguistic, economic and socio-cultural links with all the other EAC partner states in one way or another.
Dr Hassan Khannenje of the Horn Institute for Strategic Studies said: ”Somalia is a natural member of the EAC and should have been part of it long ago.”
A scrutiny of all the EAC member states will show that there is a thriving entrepreneurial Somali diaspora population in all their economies. If indeed the EAC is keen to realise its idea of the bloc being a people-centred community as opposed to being a club of elites, then a look at the spread of Somali diaspora investment in the region would be a start. With an immense entrepreneurial diaspora, Somalia’s admission will increase trading opportunities in the region.
Second, Somalia’s 3,000 km of coastline (the longest in Africa) will give the partner states access to the Indian Ocean corridor to the Gulf of Aden. The governments of the EAC partner states consider the Indian Ocean to be a key strategic and economic theatre for their regional economic interests. Therefore, a secure and stable Somali coastline is central to the region’s maritime trade opportunities.
Despite possessing such a vast maritime resource, the continued insecurity in Somalia has limited the benefits that could accrue from it. The problem of piracy is one example that shows that continued lawlessness along the Somali coast presents a huge risk for all the states that rely on it in the region.
The importance of the maritime domain and the Indian Ocean has seen Kenya and Somalia square it out at the International Court of Justice over a maritime border dispute.
Omar Mahmood of the International Crisis Group said that ”Somalia joining the EAC then might present an opportunity to discuss deeper cooperation frameworks within the bloc, including around the Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute. The environment was not as conducive to collaboration before, and perhaps it explains why the ICJ came in. Integrating into the EAC potentially offers an opportunity to de-escalate any remaining tensions and in turn, focus on developing mechanisms that can be beneficial for the region.”
Nasong’o Muliro, a foreign policy and security specialist in the region, said: “The East African states along the East African coast are looking for opportunities to play a greater role in the maritime security to the Gulf of Aden. Therefore, Somalia joining the EAC bloc will allow them to have a greater say.”
Third, Somalia’s membership of the Arab League means that there is a strong geopolitical interest from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. However, Somalia stands to gain more in the long-term by joining the EAC rather than being under the control of the Gulf states and, to a large extent, Turkey. This is because, historically, competing interests among the Gulf states have contributed to the further balkanisation of Somalia by some members supporting breakaway regions.
On the other hand, the EAC offers a safer option that will respect Somalia’s territorial integrity. Furthermore, EAC partner states have stood in solidarity with Somalia during the difficult times of the civil conflict, unlike the Gulf states. The majority of the troop-contributing countries for the African Union Mission to Somalia came from the EAC partner states of Uganda, Kenya and Burundi. Despite having a strategic interest in Somalia, none of the Gulf states contributed troops to the mission. Therefore, with the expected drawdown of the ATMIS force in Somalia, the burden could fall on the EAC to fill in the vacuum. Building on the experience of deploying in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, it is highly likely that it could be called upon to do the same in Somalia when ATMIS exits by 2024.
The presence of the Al Shabaab group in Somalia is an albatross around its neck such that the country cannot be admitted into the EAC without factoring in the risks posed by the group.
According to a report by the International Crisis Group, the government of Somalia must move to consolidate these gains – especially in central Somalia – as it continues with its offensive in other regions. However, Somalia may not prevail over the Al Shabaab on its own; it may require a regional effort and perhaps this is the rationale some policymakers within the EAC have envisioned. If the EAC can offer assurances to Somalia’s fledgling security situation, then a collective security strategy from the bloc might be of significance.
Somalia’s admission comes with risks too. Kenya and Uganda have in the past experienced attacks perpetrated by Al Shabaab and, therefore, opening up their borders to Somalia is seen as a huge risk for these countries. The spillover effect of the group’s activities creates a lot of discomfort among EAC citizens, in particular those who believe that the region remains vulnerable to Al Shabaab attacks.
If the EAC can offer assurances to Somalia’s fledgling security situation, then a collective security strategy from the bloc might be of significance.
The EAC Treaty criteria under which a new member state may be admitted into the community include – but are not limited to – observance and practice of the principles of good governance, democracy and the rule of law. Critics believe that Somalia fulfils only one key requirement to be admitted to the bloc – sharing a border with an EAC partner state, namely, Kenya. On paper, it seems to be the least prepared when it comes to fulfilling the other requirements. The security situation remains fragile and the economy cannot support the annual payment obligations to the community.
According to the Fragility State Index, Somalia is ranked as one of the poorest among the 179 countries assessed. Among the key pending issues is the continued insecurity situation caused by decades of civil war and violent extremism. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch ranks Somalia low on human rights and justice – a breakdown of government institutions has rendered them ineffective in upholding the human rights of its citizens.
Somalia’s citizens have faced various forms of discrimination due to activities beyond their control back in their country. This has led to increasingly negative and suspicious attitudes towards Somalis and social media reactions to the possibility of Somalia joining the EAC have seen a spike in hostility towards citizens of Somalia. The country’s admission into the bloc could be met with hostility from the citizens of other partner states.
Dr Nicodemus Minde, an academic on peace and security, agrees that indeed citizens’ perceptions and attitudes will shape their behaviour towards Somalia’s integration. He argues that ”the admission of Somalia is a rushed process because it does not address the continued suspicion and negative perception among the EAC citizens towards the Somali people. Many citizens cite the admission of fragile states like South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo as a gateway of instability to an already unstable region”.
Indeed, the biggest challenge facing the EAC has been how to involve the citizens in their activities and agenda. To address this challenge, Dr Minde says that ’’the EAC needs to conduct a lot of sensitisation around the importance of integration because to a large extent many EAC citizens have no clue on what regional integration is all about”. The idea of the EAC being a people-centred organisation as envisioned in the Treaty has not been actualised. The integration process remains very elitist as it is the heads of state that determine and set the agenda.
The country’s admission into the bloc could be met with hostility from the citizens of other partner states.
Dr Khannenje offers a counter-narrative, arguing that public perception is not a major point of divergence since “as the economies integrate deeper, some of these issues will become easy to solve”. There are also those who believe that the reality within the EAC is that every member state has issues with one or the other partner state and, therefore, Somalia will be in perfect company.
A report by the Economic Policy Research Centre outlines the various avenues through which both the EAC and Somalia can benefit from the integration process and observes that there is therefore a need to fast-track the process because the benefits far outweigh the risks.
EAC integration is built around the spirit of good neighbourliness. It is against this backdrop that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has extended the goodwill to join the EAC and therefore, it should not be vilified and condemned, but rather embraced. As Onyango Obbo has observed, Somalia is not joining the EAC – Somalia is already part of the EAC and does not need any formal welcoming.
Many critics have argued that the EAC has not learnt from the previous rush to admit conflict-plagued South Sudan and the DRC. However, the reality is that Somalia will not be in conflict forever; at some point, there will be tranquillity and peace. Furthermore, a keen look at the history of the EAC member states shows that a number of them have experienced cycles of conflict in the past.
Somalia is, therefore, not unique. Internal contradictions and conflict are some of the key features that Somalia shares with most of the EAC member states. The process of integrating Somalia into the EAC should, therefore, be undertaken with long-term success in mind rather than in the light of the situation currently prevailing in the country.
Politics
The Repression of Palestine Solidarity in Kenya
Kenya is one of Israel’s closest allies in Africa. But the Ruto-led government isn’t alone in silencing pro-Palestinian speech.
Israel has been committing genocide against the people of Occupied Palestine for 75 years and this has intensified over the last 30 days with the merciless carpet bombing of Gaza, along with raids and state-sanctioned settler violence in the West Bank. In the last month of this intensified genocide, the Kenyan government has pledged its solidarity to Israel, even as the African Union released a statement in support of Palestinian liberation. While peaceful marches have been successfully held in Kisumu and Mombasa, in Nairobi, Palestine solidarity organizers were forced to cancel a peaceful march that was to be held at the US Embassy on October 22. Police threatened that if they saw groups of more than two people outside the Embassy, they would arrest them. The march was moved to a private compound, Cheche Bookshop, where police still illegally arrested three people, one for draping the Palestinian flag around his shoulders. Signs held by children were snatched by these same officers.
When Boniface Mwangi took to Twitter denouncing the arrest, the response by Kenyans spoke of the success of years of propaganda by Israel through Kenyan churches. To the Kenyan populous, Palestine and Palestinians are synonymous with terrorism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine is its right. However, this Islamophobia and xenophobia from Kenyans did not spring from the eternal waters of nowhere. They are part of the larger US/Israel sponsored and greedy politician-backed campaign to ensure Kenyans do not start connecting the dots on Israel’s occupation of Palestine with the extra-judicial killings by Kenyan police, the current occupation of indigenous people’s land by the British, the cost-of-living crisis and the IMF debts citizens are paying to fund politician’s lavish lifestyles.
Kenya’s repression of Palestine organizing reflects Kenya’s long-standing allyship with Israel. The Kenyan Government has been one of Israel’s A-star pupils of repression and is considered to be Israel’s “gateway” to Africa. Kenya has received military funding and training from Israel since the 60s, and our illegal military occupation of Somalia has been funded and fueled by Israel along with Britain and the US. Repression, like violence, is not one dimensional; repression does not just destabilize and scatter organizers, it aims to break the spirit and replace it instead with apathy, or worse, a deep-seated belief in the rightness of oppression. In Israel’s architecture of oppression through repression, the Apartheid state has created agents of repression across many facets of Kenyan life, enacting propaganda, violence, race, and religion as tools of repression of Palestine solidarity organizing.
When I meet with Naomi Barasa, the Chair of the Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement, she begins by placing Kenya’s repression of Palestine solidarity organizing in the context of Kenya as a capitalist state. “Imperialism is surrounded and buffered by capitalistic interest,” she states, then lists on her fingers the economic connections Israel has created with Kenya in the name of “technical cooperation.” These are in agriculture, security, business, and health; the list is alarming. It reminds me of my first memory of Israel (after the nonsense of the promised land that is)—about how Israel was a leader in agricultural and irrigation technologies. A dessert that flowed with milk and honey.
Here we see how propaganda represses, even before the idea of descent is born: Kenyans born in the 1990s grew up with an image of a benign, prosperous, and generous Christian Israel that just so happened to be unfortunate enough to be surrounded by Muslim states. Israel’s PR machine has spent 60 years convincing Kenyan Christians of the legitimacy of the nation-state of Israel, drawing false equivalences between Christianity and Zionism. This Janus-faced ideology was expounded upon by Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Michel Lotem, when he said “Religiously, Kenyans are attached to Israel … Israel is the holy land and they feel close to Israel.” The cog dizzy of it all is that Kenyan Christians, fresh from colonialism, are now Africa’s foremost supporters of colonialism and Apartheid in Israel. Never mind the irony that in 1902, Kenya was the first territory the British floated as a potential site for the resettlement of Jewish people fleeing the pogroms in Europe. This fact has retreated from public memory and public knowledge. Today, churches in Kenya facilitate pilgrimages to the holy land and wield Islamophobia as a weapon against any Christian who questions the inhumanity of Israel’s 75-year Occupation and ongoing genocide.
Another instrument of repression of pro-Palestine organizing in Kenya is the pressure put on Western government-funded event spaces to decline hosting pro-Palestine events. Zahid Rajan, a cultural practitioner and organizer, tells me of his experiences trying to find spaces to host events dedicated to educating Kenyans on the Palestinian liberation struggle. He recalls the first event he organized at Alliance Français, Nairobi in 2011. Alliance Français is one of Nairobi’s cultural hubs and regularly hosts art and cultural events at the space. When Zahid first approached Alliance to host a film festival for Palestinian films, they told him that they could not host this event as they already had (to this day) an Israeli film week. Eventually, they agreed to host the event with many restrictions on what could be discussed and showcased. Unsurprisingly they refused to host the event again. The Goethe Institute, another cultural hub in Kenya that offers its large hall for free for cultural events, has refused to host the Palestinian film festival or any other pro-Palestine event. Both Alliance and Goethe are funded by their parent countries, France and Germany respectively (which both have pro-Israel governments). There are other spaces and businesses that Zahid has reached out to host pro-Palestine education events that have, in the end, backtracked on their agreement to do so. Here, we see the evolution of state-sponsored repression to the private sphere—a public-private partnership on repression, if you will.
Kenya’s members of parliament took to heckling and mocking as a tool of repression when MP Farah Maalim wore an “Arafat” to Parliament on October 25. The Speaker asked him to take it off stating that it depicted “the colors of a particular country.” When Maalim stood to speak he asked: “Tell me which republic,” and an MP in the background could be heard shouting “Hamas” and heckling Maalim, such that he was unable to speak on the current genocide in Gaza. This event, seen in the context of Ambassador Michael Lotem’s charm offensive at the county and constituency level, is chilling. His most recent documented visit was to the MP of Kiharu, Ndindi Nyoro, on November 2. The Israeli propaganda machine has understood the importance of County Governors and MPs in consolidating power in Kenya.
Yet, in the face of this repression, we have seen what Naomi Barasa describes as “many pockets of ad hoc solidarity,” as well as organized solidarity with the Palestinian cause. We have seen Muslim communities gather for many years to march for Palestine, we have seen student movements such as the Nairobi University Student Caucus release statements for Palestine, and we have seen social justice centers such as Mathare Social Justice Centre host education and screening events on Palestinian liberation. Even as state repression of Palestine solidarity organizing has intensified in line with the deepening of state relations with Apartheid Israel, more Kenyans are beginning to connect the dots and see the reality that, as Mandela told us all those years ago, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.”
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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site every week.
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