Africa Archive

Delegations from India and Brazil toured South Africa’s defense industry in November to explore possibilities for defense cooperation among the three IBSA countries. In an email interview, Daniel Flemes, a researcher in the Institute of Latin American Studies at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, discussed IBSA defense cooperation. WPR: What is the recent history of defense cooperation within IBSA in terms of defense industry collaboration and military-to-military cooperation? Daniel Flemes: As yet, most of IBSA’s ambitious agenda for defense cooperation has not been put into action. Increasing military personnel exchanges and joint exercises have been the most […]

As much as any country, the Democratic Republic of Congo has reason to blame its woes on outsiders. From the plunder of its rubber and ivory by Belgium’s King Leopold II to the West’s Cold War coziness with the notorious dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, the history of sub-Saharan Africa’s third-most-populous state is largely a tale of abuse by foreign powers. Today, the most relevant outside actor is arguably neighboring Rwanda, which has sponsored several rebellions on Congolese soil since it engineered Mobutu’s overthrow in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It’s no surprise, then, that after the M23 rebel […]

The New Patriotic Party, the Ghanaian opposition party whose candidate lost to incumbent President John Dramani Mahama in presidential elections held last Friday, said this week it plans to challenge the results of the poll. While international observers deemed the elections free and fair, the opposition insists the ruling party rigged the vote. This has led to fears that the opposition’s failure to concede defeat could destabilize one of West Africa’s secure democracies. “What this election means for Ghanaian democracy depends largely on whether the NPP is able to provide hard evidence to back up its allegations of deliberate electoral […]

An African Union treaty to protect internally displaced persons, known as the Kampala Convention, came into effect last week following its ratification by a 15th state. In an email interview, Megan Bradley, a fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, discussed the convention. WPR: What are the Kampala Convention’s main provisions? Megan Bradley: As the world’s first binding agreement on internally displaced persons (IDPs), the Kampala Convention is a human rights milestone. It takes a comprehensive approach, addressing multiple causes of displacement, such as conflict, human rights violations, natural disasters and development projects such as dams. Its provisions tackle […]

Soldiers who carried out a coup in Mali earlier this year ousted Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra on Tuesday, placing Diarra under house arrest and forcing his resignation. While the interim president has named a new prime minister, this abrupt change in leadership has drawn international attention to the military’s continuing grip on the country and called into question plans for an intervention to retake northern Mali from radical Islamists. In an email interview, Paul Melly, an associate fellow in the Africa Program at Chatham House, told Trend Lines the ouster “undermines the constitutional legitimacy and political cover for intervention” […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Widely thought to possess the best military hardware in East Africa but little experience in conventional warfare, the Kenyan military had its moment in the sun after ejecting the al-Shabab terrorist group from neighboring southern Somalia. Now a backlash is in the works, as the region’s biggest economy contemplates a homegrown terrorist threat from sympathizers of the al-Qaida-linked group. After a string of kidnappings along their shared border, Kenyan forces crossed into Somalia in October 2011 as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a military grouping of five African states. By late-September 2012, the […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s long-serving president, has emerged as the central mediator of the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, orchestrating the withdrawal of rebel troops from the key Congolese city of Goma and hosting peace talks between the rebel leaders and the Congolese government. By coordinating all stages of the process, Museveni has reaffirmed his position as East Africa’s key power broker — a status that until recently appeared to be slipping. In October, Reuters published details of a leaked U.N. Security Council Group of Experts report alleging Ugandan and Rwandan support for M23, the […]

The British government withheld a $34 million aid payment to Rwanda at the end of November, citing charges in a U.N. report that Rwanda is backing rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. In an email interview, Pamela Abbott, the acting director of research at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research in Rwanda, reviewed the state of development aid to Rwanda. WPR: Who are Rwanda’s main aid partners, and how steady has this been over the years? Pamela Abbott: Rwanda’s main aid partners are the World Bank, the U.S., the Global Fund, the European Union, the U.K., Belgium, […]

A meeting of the Kimberley Process in New York last week concluded without agreement on redefining the term “conflict diamond.” But if the American chairwoman, Gillian Milovanovic, failed in this key endeavor, she can at least claim some measure of success in ensuring that the process was not completely derailed by its persistent and deep divisions. The World Diamond Council estimates the world’s diamond trade to be worth $13 billion annually, employing approximately 10 million people. The Kimberley Process was established in 2003 in response to diamond-funded conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to […]

In 2006, the United Nations created the Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights. Among the numerous mechanisms the U.N. gave the council to promote and protect human rights is the ability to call ad-hoc special sessions when needed. These special sessions, when used against states, are an important tool for “naming and shaming” perpetrators of human rights violations and may, on occasion, precipitate movement at the Security Council. Through the first five years of its existence, the council held 18 special sessions, or almost four per year. That pace slowed down in 2012, however, during […]