by Richard Gowan | Mar 5, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
Just after making light of incidents on Kosovo’s periphery below, I’ve been alerted to much nastier events on the Chad/Darfur border. An French EU soldier has been killed and another wounded, having strayed into Sudan (I’m sure there are already conspiracy theories out there about how this happened, but let’s not pursue them). As if this wasn’t bad enough, the EU Force in Chad has apologized for entering Sudanese territory – that may have been necessary to defuse tensions and get the body back, but it leaves a sour taste. I don’t recall Sudan grovelling after its forces apparently backed the rebellion in Chad at the start of February, or after any number of other recent cross-border clashes.
This is not the first time an EU mission has lost personnel to a hostile act (that happened in the Balkans in the 1990s) but none of it previous military missions to Africa had suffered a fatality. I’ve addressed the potential impact of something like this on EU security policy before: there are obviously far worse scenarios involving greater losses, but it feels like a grim turning-point all the same. By unhappy chance, I have a new article* out on the meaning of last month’s fighting in Chad, calling it a “predictable crisis”. Here’s the core of the argument:
Three things are already clear. One is that, for the first time, an EU military deployment is not only encountering significant violence (that has happened elsewhere, as in earlier operations in the Congo) but is fuelling violence in its own right. The second is that the consensus underpinning EU security cooperation is being severely strained by the experience. The third is that this combination of events was all too predictable.
This doesn’t just mean there were concrete warnings that Chad could turn ugly, although doubts were raised about the mission from very early on. The UN Secretariat – now responsible for over 55,000 peacekeepers in Africa, many of them in highly volatile situations – had resisted getting involved in Chad as there was “no peace to keep”. In private, European officials complained the mission’s proposed deployment (one year) was too short and its personnel far too few (analysts called for 10,000 troops or more).
But, whatever the specifics of this crisis, the generic threat that an operation in Africa turning bad could harm European security cooperation has been present for far longer. That is because there has never been a real consensus on the need for such operations.
Today’s events probably won’t show up this lack of consensus too badly, as the dead man is French – had he been from one of the other contributors to the mission (Ireland, say, or Austria) there would probably have been an uproar. But this is a sad day for the EU.
* Eagle-eyed Europhile readers may note an error in the article: I claim that the 2003 European Security Strategy doesn’t refer to Africa. It does, and I knew that – sorry!
by Richard Gowan | Mar 5, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
Exciting news from Kosovo. As I reported on Monday, Serbia tried to strengthen its claim to to the province by “reclaiming” a railway there – i.e. it sent two trains down the line. Well, information just in proves that you can burn border posts and/or the U.S. embassy, but nobody messes with UNMIK Railways:
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) today reasserted control of a rail line in northern Kosovo, a day after Serbian Railways had challenged its authority over the stretch. Joachim Rücker, the head of UNMIK and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said that the intervention of UNMIK Border Police “reverses the challenge to UNMIK’s authority that occurred yesterday when Serbian Railways illegally sent two of its trains south of Leshak/Lešak.”
In a statement issued in Pristina, Mr. Rücker noted that about 9.35 a.m. today UNMIK Border Police at the Leshak/Lešak train station informed a representative of Serbian Railways that their train would not be allowed to travel south, and Serbian Railways complied. The envoy stressed that “any movement south of Leshak/Lešak by Serbian Railways is a clear challenge to UNMIK’s authority . . . and will not be tolerated.”
I know this is important really, but I’m left wondering what would happen if Scotland were to declare UDI and Gordon Brown attempted to assert his authority by sending a Virgin Express north of the border. It would doubtless be stuck in Manchester due to leaves and Britain would fragment accordingly…
by Alex Evans | Mar 5, 2008 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
“If you see people throwing stones, it means if they had guns, they would have been shooting”, observes Frederick, an economics grad who drives a motorcycle taxi in Douala, Cameroon.
The FT’s Matthew Green explains:
Only a few crumbs were left on the counter at the Boulangerie du Rail delicatessen in Douala after looters swept the shelves of cake, croissants and champagne… “People are hungry, they have nothing to eat,” said Felix Djoyo, the manager, who had locked himself behind a metal door while shanty dwellers ransacked his bottles of Bordeaux.
The crisis in Cameroon might have generated few headlines abroad, but the violence shows how soaring oil and food prices on global markets are threatening the patronage systems propping up some of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. Protests linked to surging inflation have broken out in Guinea and Burkina Faso in recent months, where presidents have ruled for more than two decades. Niger, Ghana and Senegal have also seen demonstrations …
The government has agreed to a small reduction in fuel prices to placate protesters, saying it cannot afford the kinds of subsidies needed to shield the economy from global market forces. But many residents blame Mr Biya for the hardship, saying years of venal rule have skewed the economy to favour a tiny elite.
So, another point to add to the growing list of what rising food and energy prices mean for Africa: patronage systems come under increasing stress in conditions of scarcity. Look at Kenya. People at the tops of agencies are acutely aware of the problem – DFID’s Douglas Alexander and the World Bank’s Bob Zoellick both returned from Davos fired up about the political impacts of scarcity issues, for instance. Some people in country offices get it, too.
But the underlying problem is still that many donor agencies’ culture is all about disbursing cash – rather than having a really sophisticated analysis of endogenous drivers of change and a theory of influence to go with it. Neither the old problem of patronage nor the newer problem of scarcity issues is really that well understood in donor agency cultures. We’d better hope they get up to speed pretty fast…
by Charlie Edwards | Mar 5, 2008 | Global system, Influence and networks
I am sure Alex and/or David will post something about Miliband’s speech to the FCO leadership conference which happened yesterday. My advice – don’t get too carried away with the speech – it’s good and runs through a familiar set of themes, instead watch the video embedded into the speech.
Two things stand out. Miliband’s plea for a culture of creativity and challenge in the FCO and secondly, the need for the FCO to do the vision, strategy and the detail.
There is also a nice line about diplomacy no longer being solely about relations between governments but about governments and civil society.
by Jules Evans | Mar 5, 2008 | Europe and Central Asia, Influence and networks
Am back in Moscow for a week, working on a story. The impression I get from my meetings so far is that the West has underestimated the extent to which a new era has begun in Russian politics, and the extent to which Russia genuinely has a new leader, with his own agenda, in Dmitry Medvedev, who was elected president on Sunday.
The consensus Western view is that Medvedev is Putin’s stooge. The Western press were full of cartoons last week depicting Medvedev as a puppet sitting on Putin’s knee. Western politicians have been happy to parrot the same negative opinion of the new president. Hillary Clinton, for example, said the new president (whose name she couldn’t even remember – see this video. Man, that’s foreign policy experience for you!) is “someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, who has very little independence”.
Obama was similarly down on the new guy, saying “Putin will still have the strongest hand”, while John McCain, well-known Russophile, said Medvedev’s election meant that “Putin had just made himself president for life”. Nice one fellows – how to offend the new Russian president before he’s even been inaugurated!
Russians themselves are unsure how seriously to take their new president. I haven’t met anyone who’s voted for him, in fact, I haven’t met anyone who voted at all. When he appeared on stage at a rock concert with Putin on Sunday, it was Putin’s name the crowd chanted, which must have been somewhat gutting for Medvedev. The public have already given the diminutive president a nickname though: ‘nano-president’.
But we shouldn’t be too quick to write off Medvedev. Kremlinologists tell me Medvedev is his own man, with his own team, and his own agenda. And, as president, he has vast powers of appointment. In fact, the rumours from the Kremlin are that there is already tension between him and Putin over personnel changes. Medvedev wants to bring in his own team, and get rid of some of the old guard.
What can we expect from the forthcoming personnel changes? It may mean out with the spooks, in with the lawyers. (more…)
