Politics
RIDING THAT TRAIN, HIGH ON COCAINE: Standard Gauge Railways In Kenya and Tanzania
Kenya has both narrow and standard gauge railways running in parallel between Mombasa and Nairobi. Tanzania is gearing up to build a standard gauge line to Morogoro and beyond while it goes ahead with rehabilitating the existing metre gauge line. The SGR is portrayed as an ambitious regional policy linking the six EAC countries, but without unprecedented cross-border cooperation and financial commitments, it is likely to end up as two costly unfinished initiatives: Luxury passenger trains from Mombasa to Nairobi and Dar to Morogoro and (maybe) Dodoma. As collateral damage, these politically driven projects sound the death knell of the existing railway networks, including moribund branch-lines, which have suffered from decades of neglect and poor management.
For better or for worse, most cross-border freight will continue to be transported by road thanks to the private fleets of trucks built up during the post-liberalisation years in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
For better or for worse, most cross-border freight will continue to be transported by road thanks to the private fleets of trucks built up during the post-liberalisation years in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The political influence of the trucking lobbies will help keep the roads in a reasonable state of repair. In theory, China’s One Belt One Road initiative includes the EAC-wide SGR, but in practice the rollout of the new railway will depend on intra-EAC politics, the availability of Chinese loans, or other funding, such as a sovereign “railway bond.” Going further down this route would be a recipe for disaster.
KENYA: A NEW ‘LUNATIC EXPRESS’?
“In terms of industrialisation and job creation, the impact of the SGR will be massive.”[1]
On May 31, President Uhuru Kenyatta inaugurated the Madaraka Express, thus fulfilling one of his 2012 election promises ahead of the 2017 election. If as seems likely, he retains the presidency, he will be looking for funds to continue the Express to Naivasha and beyond. The government has sold Kenyans the notion that SGR is preferable in all respects to the existing metre gauge. It is modern, faster, safer and capable of carrying greater loads, Kenyans are told. The country’s overused and murderous roads will be given a breather as freight and passengers revert en masse to rail.
Implausibly large increases in freight are required to justify the costs involved, particularly if the SGR is to extend beyond Nairobi. At $3.8 billion, the first section of the SGR is considered highly overpriced
More sober analysis suggests that, beyond short-term gains in terms of greater customer convenience, the SGR is likely to be economically and financially unviable. Implausibly large increases in freight are required to justify the costs involved, particularly if the SGR is to extend beyond Nairobi. At $3.8 billion, the first section of the SGR is considered highly overpriced.[2] To continue the line from Nairobi to the Ugandan border would cost an additional $7.2 billion, nearly double the cost of the Mombasa-Nairobi stretch.[3] Speed is not a key issue for freight, which is where the potential profits lie. What matters is cost, predictability and reliability.[4] For the projected freight volumes and axle loads, upgrading the metre gauge would have been quite adequate, some argue, at a fraction of the cost of SGR, and could have been entirely financed through the Railway Development Levy on imports.[5] SGR’s purported advantages over other gauges have been over-hyped: Brazil and South Africa move much more freight than the EAC is ever likely to with metre gauge and Cape Gauge respectively. As to being modern, the standard gauge has been around since the 1840s, when the US government declared it as the standard to be followed in all future railway construction for interconnectivity purposes.[6]
Currently, 95% of the freight leaving Mombasa goes by road and three-quarters of all freight is destined for Nairobi. Extending the SGR beyond Nairobi is unlikely to be economically viable. Trains cannot compete with trucks for scattered destinations in Kenya and further afield.[7] Last, anything near the cost of the Mombasa to Nairobi line ($5.6 million per kilometre) would be difficult to sell to Kenyans or potential financiers, and a more reasonable construction cost per km would lay bare the rip-off of SGR Part 1.
Qalaa Holdings, the main Rift Valley Railway (RVR) concessionaire, are rightly worried that the SGR will put them out of business. In 2014, RVR received a $70 million loan from a consortium of international financing agencies, as part of their $287 million financing plan for the period 2011-16. Though progress has been slow, RVR has at least increased its freight volumes, from under a million tonnes in 2012 to 1.5 million tonnes in 2014.[8] In April, Kenya Railways Corporation served RVR with a termination notice for failing to pay fees and missing performance targets.[9] Uganda is also terminating its agreement with RVR, who are likely to sue the GoK /GoU for the loss of business occasioned by the opening of the new line.[10]
By the standards of political corruption in Kenya, the SGR arguably represents considerable progress. Whereas the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scams involved simple looting of the Kenyan Treasury over largely bogus projects, the SGR gives Kenyans a spanking new railway
There is a view that KRC and Uganda Railways Corporation were never happy with the privatisation of the “lunatic express,” which was heavily leveraged by donors, and that the SGR will serve to kill it off once and for all. If this happens, there will be no freight service to Kampala until the SGR is extended. Moreover, all the narrow- gauge branch lines that could have been rehabilitated will be closed down once and for all.[11]
By the standards of political corruption in Kenya, the SGR arguably represents considerable progress. Whereas the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scams involved simple looting of the Kenyan Treasury over largely bogus projects, the SGR gives Kenyans a spanking new railway that will whizz them between Mombasa and Nairobi in double quick time with (hopefully) minimum risk to life and limb. No wonder wananchi are cheering. Even if the railway is (say) a billion dollars (Ksh100 billion) overpriced, that’s still a snip compared with the cost of Goldenberg (an estimated 10% of GNP)! Unfortunately, the cost of running uneconomic services may in the long-run exceed the cost of Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing combined.
But equally sobering is the fact that just to build the Mombasa to Kampala SGR would cost in the region of a quarter of Kenya’s 2015 GDP at present estimates. There must be other priorities.
TANZANIA: PLAYING CATCH-UP?
“The new train is expected to travel at high speed of 160 kilometres per hour…”[12]
President Magufuli’s SGR initiative is his flagship infrastructure development project, but finding finance has proven problematic.[13] In January 2014, the SGR process was endorsed enthusiastically by the Davos World Economic Forum, attended by President Jakaya Kikwete. An agreement signed in May 2015 with the China Railway Materials Group proposed a standard gauge line from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza, Kigoma and Msongati in Burundi costing $7.6 billion. China’s Exim Bank would fund 10% of the project, which was partly justified as a means of accessing large mineral deposits in Tanzania and Burundi, while Tanzania was tasked to find the balance from private sources. Rothschild, one of the world’s largest financial advisory groups, was hired as a contract advisor, and it was hinted that a consortium of private financiers was being assembled. No such consortium emerged, and there has been no more talk of private finance. [14] In February 2016, Minister of Finance Philip Mpango “set the record straight,” declaring that “Tanzania cannot afford financing the SGR project using our own funds.”[15]
Why did Tanzania decide that it too wanted to go SGR when the experts warned that it was not a good idea? In a 2009 study, Canadian Pacific Consulting Services concluded that the benefit of replacing metre gauge by standard gauge in East Africa would be ‘marginal.’
Consequently, the contract with the Chinese was cancelled over alleged irregularities in the tendering process. Seeking alternative finance, President Magufuli unsuccessfully approached South African President Jacob Zuma for a loan from the BRICS bank, and the World Bank president Dr Jim Yong Kim for an IDA credit.[16] Turkish President Recep Erdogan was also lobbied during an official visit.
In April this year, Magufuli settled for a Phase 1 SGR from Dar to Morogoro (194km) costing Tsh1 trillion ($450 million), to be financed out of the country’s development budget. The contract was awarded to a Portuguese-Turkish consortium, said to have been the only bidder.[17] Phase 2 should see the line extended from Morogoro to Dodoma (263km), for an additional Tsh1.5 trillion ($675 million).
Why did Tanzania decide that it too wanted to go SGR when the experts warned that it was not a good idea? In a 2009 study, Canadian Pacific Consulting Services concluded that the benefit of replacing metre gauge by standard gauge in East Africa would be “marginal.” The conversion of the rail backbone to standard gauge was considered “cost prohibitive” using “even the most optimistic” traffic and income projections. [18] In a 2013 study, the World Bank concluded that rehabilitating existing lines was the most promising option, with a cost of $0.18 million per km compared with $3.25 million per km for standard gauge, or 18 times more.[19] But earlier feasibility studies claimed the SGR was viable. For example, in 2003, the African Development Fund financed a feasibility study for a standard gauge line from Isaka in Tanzania to Kigali and Bujumbura (1,435km) that declared the project feasible and “attractive to private investors.” This and subsequent detailed engineering proposals costing millions of dollars were based on the assumption that the new line would be built from Dar to Isaka (953km)![20]
Like Kenya, Tanzania has a poorly performing railway linking Dar to the rest of the country.[21] In November 2016, Prof Makame Mbarawa, Minister of Works Transport and Communications, told a transport sector meeting of officials and donors that the government planned to both rehabilitate the existing Central Line and start the construction of the SGR. On June 2, Reli Assets Holding Company Ltd (Rahco), issued tender documents to rehabilitate the existing railway from Dar es Salaam to Kilosa, a distance of 283km, using funds from the World Bank’s $300m Tanzania Intermodal Rail Development Project (TIRP). Launched in 2014, TIRP has had a hard time getting off the ground. It appears that while Rahco was negotiating the rehabilitation project with the World Bank, discussions were also going on with the Chinese for an SGR loan. While rehabilitating the Central Line makes sense, and is long overdue, doing this and launching the SGR concurrently makes no sense at all.[22]
While rehabilitating Tanzania’s Central Line makes sense, and is long overdue, doing this and launching the SGR concurrently makes no sense at all
Tanzania aspires to replace Kenya as the largest economy in the region, and this rivalry spills over into reciprocal trade restrictions and disagreement over the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union that hinder rather than promote regional integration. Inter-regional trade is said to be declining.[23] It is to be hoped that the two countries will not get involved in a wasteful beggar-thy-neighbour competition over who can build the swankiest SGR to capture the modest business in the region, especially freight, including that of their landlocked neighbours.
EAC: CO-OPERATION OR COMPETITION?
The completion of the Mombasa-Nairobi section of the SGR does not guarantee that the remainder of the Kenyan portion to Kisumu and then on to the Ugandan border will be financed, let alone the Ugandan and Rwandan sections. Though China’s Exim Bank has financed the major part of the construction to date, it appears reluctant to advance further credit without guarantees that Uganda is committed to the project.[24] Both Rwanda and Uganda are weighing up the pros and cons of the Kenyan and Tanzanian SGR options.
The early promoters of the SGR sold the project as a major step towards East African integration and economic development, including stimulating mineral exports from the EAC, DRC and elsewhere. But the above discussion suggests that, far from constituting a co-ordinated strategy to promote EAC economic integration, the two SGRs in progress are competing for much of the modest cross-border freight business. Dar and Mombasa ports compete for transit traffic. When Dar announced in 2016 that it planned to impose VAT on goods in transit, importers switched to Mombasa.[25] Realising its mistake, the Tanzanian government removed the VAT, and now hopes to attract business back from Mombasa, helped with a $150 million loan from China to upgrade the port’s handling capacity.[26]
The completion of the Mombasa-Nairobi section of the SGR does not guarantee that the remainder of the Kenyan portion to Kisumu and then on to the Ugandan border will be financed
Two-thirds of the cargo arriving in Dar port stays in Tanzania, most of the rest heads for DRC, Zambia, Burundi and Rwanda. Most Mombasa cargo stops at Nairobi, as already pointed out. Thus, given the modest volume of freight destined for landlocked countries, the justification for an EAC-wide SGR cannot be based on facilitating cross-border trade, or its likely increase in volume in the foreseeable future. SGR apologists simply ignore the economics of the huge investments required to capture such little business. If one SGR is less than obviously viable, then two can only be disastrous.
KEEP ON TRUCKING?
One key element rarely discussed in all this is the robustness of road transport throughout the region. Since trade liberalisation, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya have built up impressive fleets of trucks carrying both fuel and containers, and road haulage has largely replaced rail, reflecting the dynamism of the private trucking sector compared with the inefficiently managed and undercapitalised state railways. Pro-road policies have been lobbied for by business associations with the support of ruling elites, themselves involved in trucking. Passengers have also migrated to privately owned buses.
The question from an EAC transport policy perspective is how state-owned railways can claw back enough trade from the trucking industry to become profitable without state subsidies, the use of force, or additional taxes. In an age where commercial activities are overpoweringly undertaken by the private sector, the move to SGR looks suspiciously like an attempt to replace relatively efficient, competitive private enterprises by state-owned monopolies. Already, importers are getting ready to resist any attempts by the GOK to force traffic onto the SGR.[27] According to one commentator on Tanzania’s proposed SGR, President Magufuli will “have to deal with the truck cartels… that have succeeded for over 40 years in keeping the government out of railway construction and maintenance.”[28] Though perhaps an exaggeration, the concern is real for all three EAC giants. Arguably more important, aid agencies have poured billions of dollars into road construction and upgrading throughout the region, much of the work undertaken by Chinese contractors.
Since trade liberalisation, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya have built up impressive fleets of trucks carrying both fuel and containers, and road haulage has largely replaced rail, reflecting the dynamism of the private trucking sector
To plan implementable Community-wide infrastructure initiatives for the EAC rather than ad hoc bits and pieces would require an empowered EAC Secretariat with both technical competence and a delegated political mandate. SGR initiatives to date reveal that neither condition holds.[29] In March 2017, Fred Mbidde, the chair of the East African Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Communication, Trade and Investments, complained of “minimal collaboration between the regional projects.”[30] So we can expect more of the same: Dar competing with Kenya for transit trade and economic dominance, while the landlocked countries blow hot and cold on which rival to support, if any.
Politics trumps economics, as is often the case
Our presidential ruling elites are not driven to endorse major investment decisions involving private or state capital on the basis of techno-economic arguments. Their decisions are driven by short-term political considerations. When people like Kiriro wa Ngugi,[31] David Ndii[32] and John Githongo[33] blow large holes in the claims of the SGR apologists on technical, fiscal/financial and governance/corruption grounds, they are met with threats, not evidence-based counter-arguments. “No one and nothing will stop us from building the railway…” stormed Deputy President William Ruto in response to critics.[34]
For the most part, our ruling elites think short-term. Long-term concessional finance for large capital investments is attractive because the current incumbents will be retired by the time the bill arrives for the reckless projects they are committing us to today
For the most part, our ruling elites think short-term. Long-term concessional finance for large capital investments is attractive because the current incumbents will be retired by the time the bill arrives for the reckless projects they are committing us to today.[35] This helps explain why mobilising state power behind the SGR may even appear to undermine the elite’s own business interests in trucking. As long as politics is in control, elites and their supporters are confident that their trucking interests will not be threatened.
WHITE ELEPHANTS IN A CHINA SHOP?
As part of its One Belt One Road initiative, China is busy funding infrastructure, including railways, across Asia, worth up to a trillion dollars. East Africa’s SGRs are perhaps the end of the One Belt line. Beyond this, China is building long-haul and urban railway systems in 35 African countries.[36] Is China overreaching itself? The strict conditions placed on further loans for the Kenya-Uganda line suggest that China is becoming increasingly circumspect in its lending practices, worried perhaps that borrowers will start defaulting on their loans. For Africa, this wouldn’t be the first time. The Africa-wide debt crisis at the end of the last century was the result of decades of borrowing from the World Bank, IMF and other official sources, much of it on uneconomic and unsustainable projects. The debts currently piling up through soft loans from China and other sources are potentially fuelling a second debt crisis that will in turn trigger another round of debt relief. But the Chinese terms for a bail-out are unlikely to be as generous as those of the donors at the end of the last century.[37] Tying debt rescheduling to commodity exports to China, including food, is one imaginable scenario should defaults become an issue.
East Africa’s enthusiasm for the SGR solution to infrastructural constraints, for which China ultimately bears responsibility, is not going to significantly improve the region’s overall transport system or competitiveness, and at tremendous cost
Without an efficient “intermodal’” transport system in place in the region – including ports, roads, and railways – economic dynamism is seriously compromised. East Africa’s enthusiasm for the SGR solution to infrastructural constraints, for which China ultimately bears responsibility, is not going to significantly improve the region’s overall transport system or competitiveness, and at tremendous cost.
The challenge is how to temper politically motivated, short-term decision-making with a strong dose of economic and financial rationality. In this respect, for the moment, the EAC, and most of its external supporters, are failing badly.
By Boyce Sarokin
Mr Sarokin is an independent researcher based in Arusha, Tanzania
ENDNOTES
[1] Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure James Macharia quoted ahead of the opening of the SGR from Mombasa to Nairobi. See: Xinhua 2017. “Kenyans upbeat ahead of new railway launch,” Guardian, 31 May.
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40171095.
[3] Allan Olingo 2017. “Through Beijing, East Africa is upgrading its roads, railway and ports,” The EastAfrican, May 20. Different sources give different cost estimates.
[4] ‘Freight traffic operations are much more dependent on price and service delivery (predictability of time of arrival at the destination) than on actual speed between stations. The extra speed capabilities of SGR therefore provide limited advantage over a metre gauge operation.’ Africon Ltd 2011. “The East African Trade and Transport Facilitation Project, Part II: Transport Strategy,” East African Trade and Transport Facilitation Project, EAC, November, page 61. The estimated cost (EARMP 2009) of upgrading the entire EAC railway network to SGR was between $13 billion and $29 billion.
[5] See Kiriro wa Ngugi at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbARMS1pyY.
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMUP_XMi434. The first commercial train, George Stephenson’s Rocket (1824), ran on what was to become the US standard gauge. http://www.custom-qr-codes.net/history-steam-locomotive.html
[7] Rail costs need to be 15-20% lower than trucks to compete. Unlike trains, trucks provide door to door services on demand.
[8] http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/freight/rail-freight-traffic-increases-in-kenya.html?channel=000.
At its peak in 1973, the railway transported 4.4 million tonnes.
[9] http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/news/Kenya-to-review-RVR-termination-notice/539546-3884948-xjptjf/index.html.
[10] The concession gave RVR a 25-year monopoly of railway services.
[11] Claims to the contrary by the GOK notwithstanding. See: Allan Olingo 2017. “Kenya to maintain sections of metre gauge rail linking old stations with SGR,” The EastAfrican, June 10.
[12] Florence Mugarula 2017. ‘Far reaching socio-economic benefits of SGR’, Business Standard, 18 April.
[13] Samuel Kamndaya 2015. ‘Sh60tr needed for mega projects’, Citizen, 3 September.
[14] Brian Cooksey 2016. ‘Railway rivalry in the East African Community’, GREAT Insights Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 4. July/August 2016 http://search.ecdpm.org/?q=*&fld_posttype=GREAT+insights+magazine&fld_author=Brian+Cooksey
[15] Christopher Majaliwa 2016. ‘High costs stymie standard gauge plan’, Daily News, 6 February.
[16] http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Tanzania-struggles-to-finance-SGR/2560-3935412-rggugq/index.html
[17] Athuman Mtulya 2017. ‘Issue sovereign bond to fund railway project, govt advised’, Citizen, 30 April.
[18] CPCS 2009 ‘East Africa Railways Master Plan Study’, East African Community Secretariat.
[19] World Bank 2013. ‘The Economics of Rail , Gauge in the East African Community, Africa Transport Unit, August.
[20] Craig Mathieson 2016. ‘The political economy of regional integration in Africa: the East African Community’, ECDPM, January, http://ecdpm.org/peria/eac.
[21] Managed separately, the Chinese-built and heavily indebted TAZARA railway from Dar to Zambia uses the 3ft 6in Cape Gauge. Jointly owned and managed by Tanzania and Zambia, TAZARA had accumulated debts of USD787m in 2016, blamed on ‘weaknesses in management’. See: Jaston Binala 2016. ‘Plans underway to revamp Tazara railway’, East African, 14 May.
[22] To prepare the way for the SGR, many legal commercial structures and over 250 houses in Dar es Salaam worth billions of shillings have been summarily demolished without warning or compensation. See Hellen Nachilongo 2017. ‘Tears, heartbreak as houses near railway line demolished’, Citizen, 12 March; Mwassa Jingi 2017. ‘Why the latest demolitions in Dar were illegal’, Citizen on Sunday, 19 March.
[23] James Anyanzwa 2017. ‘EA states looking outward for trading patners as local ties sour’, East African, 1 July.
[24] Frederic Musisi 2017. ‘Tanzania Starts Construction of Railway Line Link to Uganda’, Monitor, 16 April
[25] Abduel Elinaza 2016. ‘Dar Port in massive transit cargo traffic volume slump’, Daily News, 3 April.
[26] https://eblnews.com/…/china-inks-multimillion-dollar-deal-expand-dar-es-salaam-port
[27] ‘Cargo transportation should be based on what the importer wants, not what the government wants.’ See: Njiraini Muchira 2017. ‘Mandatory SGR use causes unease among importers’, East African, 11 March.
[28] Attilio Tagalile 2015. Blessing and hatred from Chinese aid’, Guardian, 13 December.
[29] Craig Mathieson 2016, op. cit.
[30] Zephania Ubwani 2017. ‘EA states faulted on railway project’, Citizen, 11 March.
[31] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgbARMS1pyY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk4lJKgB4RU.
[32] https://www.kenya-today.com/politics/david-ndii-jubilee-spent-sh4-5b-19th-century-old-school-chinese-locomotives.
[33] https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000218960/eurobond-sgr-heists-to-finance-2017-election-campaigns-claims-githongo.
[34] Quoted in Cooksey op. cit. In Tanzania, neither civil society nor the media has challenged SGR decision-making.
[35] ‘The loan … from EXIM Bank of China comprised of a concessional loan of USD 1.6 billion and a commercial loan of USD 1.63 billion. The concessional loan is for 20 years and has a grace period of 7 years and an interest rate of 2% per annum while the commercial loan is for 10 years and grace period of 5 years…’ http://bankelele.co.ke/2017/05/funding-the-sgr.html.
[36] According to SMARTRAIL WORLD: ‘the most crucial factor in the developing African rail industry is … the influence of China, who despite warnings on their own domestic economy, are continuing to invest huge sums in the continent.’ See: Smartrail World 2016. ‘Special report: How five major African rail projects are supported by China’, 10 November. https://www.smartrailworld.com/five-major-african-projects-supported-by-china.
[37] That is, prepare and implement Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, underwritten with more aid.
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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.
–
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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