The Kenyan refugee camp at Dadaab, the largest in the world, is full. 1300 new arrivals daily from an increasing conflict in Somali are being refused services, because there’s simply no more room, no more food, no more medicines… the money has run out.
Dadaab became the largest refugee camp in the world several years ago. It lies in far northeastern Kenya along the Somalia border. The refugees have been fleeing a growing conflict between Somali warlords, the weak UN and AU supported Somali government, and al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the horn of Africa.
Dadaab is a city in a desert. It was built after Blackhawk Down to house 90,000 refugees as Somalia began to implode. At the end of last year, they were 350,00 refugees living there, and according to Medecins sans Frontiere, there are now 30,000 people in makeshift shelters that can’t be supported by the camp. “There is nowhere for them to stay.”
CARE, Save the Children, and Medecins sans Frontiere all confirm there are 1300 new arrivals daily in the last few weeks.
The terror of the Afghanistan Taliban, of the Cambodian Khymer Rouge, of the Cultural Revolution and the Stalin Scorched Earth Policy has come to Somalia. It’s no longer just a dysfunctional state. It’s a world crisis.
The refugees flee a war relocated from Yemen, which was relocated from Afghanistan, which was relocated from Iraq, hopping around the Horn of Africa staying one step ahead of western vengeance.
I’m not sure the world is ready for this crisis. And separated by 300 miles of desert from populated areas of Kenya, even Kenyans are ignoring it.
The drought is caused by Global Warming. Global Warming is caused by accelerated levels of greenhouse gases from industrialized nations, mostly the U.S. The refugee crisis is caused by the aftermath of Blackhawk Down, a pitiful American retreat from a mess Clinton caused years ago. The inability of aid organizations to cope any longer is caused by western nations cutting back aid, led by the U.S. Aid is being cut back because of the world economic crisis. The world economic crisis was caused by greedy American capitalists.
It all comes back to us in America. And we can’t even seem to repair ourselves.
I have never sensed such despair in my life.
When my wife and I first worked for the United Nations in Paris in the early 1970s, the agencies there were worried sick that by the end of the decade there would be a million refugees for which the UN would be responsible.
That’s one-eighth of the entire population of the United States.
Nineteen American soldiers were killed in Blackhawk Down and 73 wounded. 2996 were killed in 9-11 and about 6000 others were injured. That’s about 9000 westerners killed or wounded in mired religious battles that if they hadn’t occurred would probably not have resulted in the refugee situation found today in Dadaab.
The UN estimates by year’s end there will be 450,000 refugees and wannabe refugees in Dadaab. That’s 50 for every casualty America suffered from Blackhawk Down and 9-11.
On November 9, 2010, I posted this graphic above my blog suggesting the Tanzanians would eventually back down from building a road through the Serengeti.As I’ve been suggesting for a year, the “Serengeti Highway” will not be built through the park, but will be built right up to the eastern edge, and the goal of reaching the Lake Victoria port of Mwanza will be pursued as a new southern road from Arusha.
Wednesday, the Tanzanian government released a letter to UNESCO’s World Heritage Site office, which had threatened to remove World Heritage Status from the Serengeti if it were bisected by the highway, confirming that a paved west/east road through the neck of the park had been scrapped.
This is not a total victory, but a significant one. Let me explain why it’s not total.
Right now commercial traffic does move through the Serengeti, but it’s laborious. A paved road leads to the entry to the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority (NCA), and it’s then gravel for a long way, 5-6 hours to the Serengeti’s western gate.
What is planned, now, is for a new paved road to the eastern edge of the Serengeti, which will then continue as a new (short) gravel road to the existing gravel thoroughfare that runs roughly from Lobo to the western gate. When completed this “new route” will cut down the existing travel time through the Serengeti from 5-6 hours to about 3-4 hours.
The “new route” will also be significantly easier, as it will be straighter and less hilly than the winding cloud forest road through the NCA. So there will definitely be a new incentive for commercial traffic to increase once the route is completed.
But it is still likely a toss-up for commercial traffic to take this [faster] route rather than start from Arusha in a northwesterly direction on paved roads the whole way. This and the fact all roads within the park will remain unpaved are significant disincentives to commercial travel.
So in this sense it ends at least for the time being nearly two years of the most aggressive efforts by conservationists and scientists worldwide to alter a local country’s management of its sovereign wilderness.
Don’t pop the champagne.
First, this could not have been easy for the Tanzanians to have done. They have backed down. Can anyone imagine Eric Cantor backing down? Some creative spinning and long-term vengeance is in the political forecast.
Second, the real reasons for abandoning the project may not be known for some time, and I believe the main one is economic and strictly so. If I’m right, when the economic situation improves, the issue could reemerge.
Third, there is enough ambiguity in the letter that a flipflop would be easy … at any time.
Certainly there are recent indications that foreign donors – including the United States – engaged in some hard bargaining which may result in greater foreign aid to Tanzania, and likely for the construction of that southern road.
Hillary Clinton was in a specially good bargaining position last week. She was in Dar when the al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Fazul, was killed in Somalia, and when his passport revealed that the only country which had given him safe haven was Tanzania.
What she told Tanzanian officials about Fazul’s capture is not known, and what was released instead included her reprimand about building a highway through the Serengeti.
Clinton was only the last of a long list of prominent diplomats who opposed the highway. Consortiums of scientists and wildlife organizations presented an impressive array of opposition, too. I remain seriously disappointed that our own American consortium of zoos was unable to get it together to join the impressive team.
An effort to get AZA, the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums, to join the world conservation opposition failed last year.
The first suggestions about the road came in early September, 2009, when East Africa was not yet suffering the world economic depression. What is hard for westerners to understand is that much of the developing world, and East Africa in particular, actually experienced increased growth until virtually this year.
But this year has hit East Africa very hard. Most prominently, the master road-builder China is reassessing its aid to East Africa and the world economic recession means that year after year, now, there is less to give to Africa.
Tanzanian president Kikwete is bound by a net of politics to help the Maasai in Loliondo, just to the east of the Serengeti. He linked this good, ostensible need with a bevy of corrupt components to give it a PR smile.
He can forego the corrupt goals, but the Maasai goal can’t be abandoned. This is the reason the government said, and I knew they would always have to deliver, a paved road up to the eastern edge of the park.
With less aid that will be difficult, now. But I feel that actually takes precedence over the grand scheme of linking Arusha with Mwanza, linking Tanzania’s northern heart to Lake Victoria. The priority must be the road to Loliondo.
So what happens when that is completed, but money runs out for the much more expensive southern road?
It depends. It depends upon how well tourism fairs in this down economic times. It depends upon how well Bilila Lodge (which was in the route of the old proposed highway), in which the president holds personal and substantial stock, does.
It depends upon whether the Grumeti Reserves continue to draw too much water from Lake Victoria. It depends upon whether American hedge fund traders do well enough to build the new Serengeti headquarters as they’ve promised.
It depends upon how prominent the opposition MP from Arusha, Godbless Lema, fairs in the next couple years.
All of these depends reduce to this:
If foreign donors put up the funds and build the southern road before all of the above depends play themselves out, the Serengeti is safe for another decade or two. If they don’t, it all depends.
America’s new ambassador to Kenya is a brilliant appointment that ensures U.S. goals and interests while really helping Kenya move into the new era created by its new constitution. A win-win situation the likes of which were unknown before Obama/Clinton took over world diplomacy.
Like many of Obama’s better civil servants, Maj.-General Jonathan Gration is a disenfranchised Republican. (Best example, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.) Steeped in solid conservative traditions, he quietly moved away from the receding cliff that so many Republicans fell off.
The decline of the solid Republican Party gave Obama a real windfall of good folks. Gration was drafted into the Obama campaign early on as an African policy advisor and became our envoy to the South Sudan, where he did yeoman’s work that seems to be paying off.
Gration just replaced another fabulous ambassador in Kenya, Obama-appointed Michael Rannenberger, who like many diplomats worldwide was forced out because of embarrassing classified remarks exposed by Wikileaks.
And as should be the case of all diplomats, Gration really knows his assignment. He was born in the Congo to missionary parents. His first language was Swahili. He rose in the military as a security/terrorism expert. There can simply be no better replacement for Rannenberger.
During the Bush years diplomats were appointed usually as party favors, literally. TV personalities, big time donors and other celebrities drove the art of diplomacy into the realm of country clubs.
I remember Sam Fox’s appointment to Belgium, a man incapable of tying his shoes much less working in the country that was the center of the EU. And he had almost single-handedly funded the terrible “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” ad against Sen. Kerry.
That was typical of all of the Bush era appointments. The Republican slide that he oversaw believed international relations were mixed marriages to be avoided.
How wonderful things have changed.
Gration knows that no major policy changes are occurring with his appointment, and I think that both Kenya and those of us at home familiar with Africa are glad with that. Rannenberger was a stellar diplomat who really moved forward anti-corruption efforts as well as the implementation of the new Kenyan constitution.
I’m not familiar enough with the rest of the world, but if this is any indication of Obama/Clinton diplomacy elsewhere, we’re doing extremely well worldwide.
The Republican wave has brought a new crop of development aid bashing freshman to the fore, and even among Suzie-Q public, cutting aid is much in vogue.
U.S. citizens appear to be all sorts of messed up when it comes to foreign aid; surveys report that, on average, Americans believe 21% of the total U.S. budget goes to foreign assistance.
The real answer: only 1%.
It is no wonder that 59% of Americans want to cut foreign aid; I would too if I thought 1/5 of my tax dollars were going to programs in faraway places with dubious reporting methods and vague long term goals.
Interestingly enough, those same surveys claim that Americans feel that spending 10% of the total budget expenditure on foreign aid would be justified.
As Winston Churchill famously said, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. (I jest, I’m an average voter, please don’t ask me about tax reform or health care, I’m liable to give you just as poor an answer….)
These survey statistics have been fired off willy-nilly on Capitol Hill to justify the agenda du jour—in this case, funding cuts that Secretary Clinton claims will amount to a 16% reduction for the Department of State and a 41% decrease in funds available for humanitarian assistance.
Lets bring this discussion to Africa.
There is currently an extremely lively, and sometimes downright hostile, debate about the efficacy of foreign aid in Africa. As you have read on this blog and probably elsewhere, foreign aid’s detractors claim that most aid creates dependencies in African communities without ever boosting the communities out of poverty.
These parodies are often warranted, though totally one sided.
On the other side are the hundreds of thousands of reports and anecdotes supporting positive aid outcomes in Africa.
The problem with the these reports is two fold; one, how can donors determine if the outcome would have happened without the intervention, and two, often times the aid agencies themselves are responsible for reporting on the outcomes of their interventions.
Conflict of interest is an understatement.
An example of both fallacies:
1 (Did the intervention directly cause the outcome?):
William Easterly’s blog Aidwatch has ruthlessly gone after the Millennium Village Project (MVP) for misrepresenting the effectiveness of certain interventions.
MVP is a long term, high profile aid project that targets poor African villages with a package of interventions in health/sanitation, education and technology in an effort to accelerate their ascent from poverty.
One intervention was improving access to cell phones through financing and educational outreach.
MVP reported a significant rise in cell phone use in many of their target villages as a significant result of the project.
However, cell phone use has been rising exponentially in villages all over Africa, including tens of thousands of villages where no MVP interventions took place.
2 (Conflict of interest in reporting data of aid effectiveness):
In December of 2010 the Academy for Educational Development (AED), a prominent D.C. based non-profit, was suspended with immediate effect from bidding on USAID contracts because of allegations of exaggerated reporting and other forms of corporate misconduct.
AED was previously a key contractor in Afghanistan and Pakistan, executing over $150 million in contracts across multiple sectors.
The D.C. rumor mill, fueled by former AED employees, claims that the organization’s reporting hadn’t been on the level for years.
This case got so much press because catching this type of misconduct is unfortunately quite rare.
I am sympathetic to aid’s detractors in so far as I believe that aid agencies are guilty of these fallacies quite often.
I also believe that altering international aid incentives, such as who gathers data and reports on outcomes, could transform development assistance into a more transparent, effective instrument of poverty alleviation and U.S. foreign policy.
Guns — and guns not wanted by the military at that — instead of food. That’s America’s message to the world.
Republican successes in The House over the last two days are ruinous for the developing world, especially Africa. That’s not to say it will ultimately become law, but it sure doesn’t look good with our weak-minded president not directing any defense.
The House, the White House and the Senate are so far apart from each other right now it’s hard to imagine where this is all going to end up. But it doesn’t look good.
So instead of taxing a wee bit little more the rich and mighty, we’re going to starve Africa?
The House bill slashes the Food for Peace program by 40 percent, reducing and sometimes eliminating altogether food for 15 million people in places including East Africa, especially Ethiopian and The Sudan.
The McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program, which currently provides meals to about 4.5 million schoolchildren in poor countries, would be halved.
So, after we starve Africa, we’re going to build an extra jet engine for a plane the Pentagon has pleaded with Congress that it doesn’t want.
The $6 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter extra engine that the Pentagon doesn’t want is being pushed through Congress, in part because the General Electric plant that builds the engine is near Speaker Boehner’s constituency.
That $6 billion is more than three years of all the food aid programs to Africa put together. In fact, we could raise our food aid to Africa if we didn’t have that program!
This is nuts!
Here’s the problem. In my life time we’ve lost a sense of community, to anywhere. I don’t mean just to the rest of the world, but even to our own communities. We have replaced caring for others with caring for the corporation.
The American has been brainwashed into not just thinking the greatest opportunities occur exclusively in the private sector, but only in the private sector without any community regulation or other involvement.
Here’s another problem. We think of security as guns, and often as weapons that are so sophisticated they are the be-all and end-all of our engineering genius and private sector job creation programs. The youth of Africa starting in Tunisia and Egypt have discarded this ancient concept. So should we.
Finally, to the battle that looms:
Our failed “progressive” president lost the initiative when he proposed a reasonable budget rather than defining a starting position that could be negotiated down. We go down any further and we’ll all drown. And that’s after we sink Africa and the rest of the world.
Tomorrow’s presidential election in Uganda will either be the most unread news story in Africa, or the start of Twevolution in East Africa.
The current autocrat is expected to win handily, despite election fraud, unfair international support and his highly undemocratic style of overlording that is often brutal. But if he doesn’t … win handily … CNN might have another place for Anderson Cooper to visit.
The election battle is down to Uganda’s two most famous politicians and arch rivals, Dr. Kizza Besigye, otherwise known as the perpetual loser, against the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, otherwise known as dictator.
If Museveni wins he will be starting his fifth term and heading towards his 26th year of ruling Uganda. If he wins it’s in part because of long-term support of the American Right. (Get this: his campaign slogan right out of the dimwits of CStreet is, “No Change!”)
Here’s the problem. Kids don’t like grownups telling them what they can and can’t do when they reach their mid twenties.
This is essentially the reason for the Twevolution that’s sweeping the continent. African youth today are sharp, educated and infinitely more connected with the world than the old folks overlording them. That’s particularly true of Uganda.
I’m not saying that youth inherently believe in term limits, but they viscerally know how not changing political rule impedes and inhibits development.
Uganda is rapidly becoming the most backwards country in all of East Africa, when once upon a time, shortly after independence, it was the star. As if slapping this truth into its neighbor’s cheek last week, next-door Rwanda hosted an all-African conference that named Uganda the worst of the five regional East African nations in its capacity to develop.
In fact of all Africa’s 58 countries, Uganda was ranked 21st. That’s pretty awful when you consider that half of Africa’s countries are unstable or at war. (Tanzania, by the way, was 20th. Rwanda was 5th and Kenya was 4th. What was most startling of all, troubled little Burundi was ranked 13th!)
The report was chaired by one of the most respected Africans alive, Grace Machel, the widow of the former president of Mozambique.
Uganda’s youth knows this. And it seems that up to 85% of them are likely to vote tomorrow. In fact international observers on the ground expect a 75% turnout according to a leading newspaper in Uganda, although as many as 140,000 of those registered names may be dead, and 400,000 of them foreigners technically ineligible to vote.
So if the election is close … there is plenty of fodder for fire. The ironic thing is that it’s not expected to be close.
I’ve written before how Museveni is the darling of the American political right. They have been supporting his draconian efforts to do things America can’t, like ban abortions and make homosexuality a capital offense.
I haven’t been able to track it down carefully enough, so it simply remains a hunch right now that American Rightists along with their UK counterparts are stonewalling the World Bank from blocking aid funds that Museveni has been using to beef up his campaign.
The report that’s drawn my attention was published by a fiery, independent on-line publication in Uganda last month.
There’s no doubt that Museveni has used donor funds (including ours) for his campaign, which is one of the reasons he’ll probably win tomorrow. There has never been such a modern, expensive election in Africa before. And it’s been almost all one-sided: for Museveni. TV, ads, billboards, flyers, robocalls — you name it, right out of American campaigning.
It’s also been public that America and the UK are blocking efforts by NGOS like the World Bank from stopping this. The question is, who specifically in the U.S. is doing this?
Anyone out there that would like to prove me right, please go to work!
So with such huge funding support, with an economy that isn’t doing so badly, with enormous pride in the recent discoveries of oil and the relatively recent successful ending of the wars in the north, Museveni has the odds, even with a half million illegal voters.
But if his margin is less than the number of dead and foreign (half million) out of 7.5 million expected to vote, then watch out for Twevolution.
East Africa is booming, so many of the stories of 2010 were terrifically good news. But there were the tragedies as well like the Kampala bombings. Below I try to put the year in perspective with my top ten stories for East Africa for 2010.
1. Populace democracy grows.
2. Terrorism grows, as does the battle against it.
3. Huge stop in the mercenary purchases of Coltan.
4. Momentum for peace in the runup to establishing a new South Sudan.
5. Tourism clashes with development, especially with the proposed Serengeti Highway.
6. New discoveries of fossil fuels produces new wealth and a new relationship with China.
7. Gay Rights grow public but loses ground.
8. Rhino poaching becomes corporate.
9. Hot air ballooning’s safety newly questioned in game parks.
10. Newest early man discoveries reconfirm sub-Saharan Africa as the birthplace of man.
#1: POPULACE DEMOCRACY GROWS
Theoretically, all the East African countries have operated as “democracies” except for the torrential years of Idi Amin in Uganda. But the quality of this democracy was never very good.
Tanzania was a one-party state for its first 20 years, and that same party continues to rule although more democratically today. Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi experienced one dictator after another, even while democratic elections at regional levels challenged the executive.
But the end of the Cold War destroyed the alliances these developing countries had with super powers. Purse strings were cut, and political cow-towing ended. All of them moved towards a truly more democratic culture.
And in 2010 huge leaps were made in all the countries towards more truly representative government. The most important example by far was the overwhelming passing of the new constitution in Kenya in a national referendum where more than 75% of registered voters participated.
And like the U.S. election which followed shortly thereafter, and like support for national health care in the U.S. and so many other issues (like no tax cuts for the rich), Kenyan politicians dragged their feet right up to the critical moment. They tried and tried, and ultimately failed, to dissuade Kenyans from their fundamental desire to eliminate tribalism in government and more fairly distribute the huge wealth being newly created.
I see this as People vs. Politicians, and in this wonderful case, the People won!
And there was some progress as well in Tanzania’s December election, with the opposition growing and its influence today moving that country towards a more democratic constitution.
(It was not so good in Rwanda or Uganda, where stiff-arm techniques and government manipulation of the electoral process undermined any attempt at real democracy.) But the huge leap forward in Kenya, and the little hop in Tanzania, made this the absolute top story of the year.
#2: TERRORISM GROWS
Four smaller bombings in Nairobi’s central business district over the year were eclipsed by two horrible simultaneous bombings in Kampala bars on July 11 while patrons were watching the world cup. Police display an unexploded suicide vest.
Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in Somali, claimed responsibility. And throughout the year Shabaab grew increasingly visible along the Kenyan border as its power in Somali increased.
I’ve written for a long time about how the west has had its collective head in the sand as regards terrorism and Al-Qaeda in particular. Long ago I pointed out that the locus of Al-Qaeda terrorism had moved to the horn from Afghanistan, and this year proved it in spades.
The country with the most to lose and most to gain in this war on terror is Kenya, because of its long shared border with Somalia. And the year also marked a striking increase in the Kenyan government’s war on terror, and with considerable success.
With much more deftness and delicacy than us Kenya has stepped up the battle against Al-Shabaab while pursuing policies aimed at pacifying any overt threats to its security, by such brilliant moves as allowing Omar Bashir into the country and not arresting him (on an international U.N. warrant). As I said in a blog, Kenya Gets It, and the story is therefore a hopeful one.
The Dodd-Frank Act is our victory!The Congo Wars continue but are abating, and in large part because of a little known provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act which now makes it almost impossible for major corporations in the U.S. to buy the precious metal Coltan on the black market.
A black market which has funded perhaps Africa’s most horrible war for more than a generation. Hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – have been killed and raped, and more than 20,000 children conscripted into brutal wars, funded by purchases of Coltan and other precious metals by Intel, Sony and Apple.
It certainly wasn’t just this little legislative move. The U.N. peace-keeping force, fabulous diplomatic initiatives by Uganda and a real diplomatic vigilance by the U.S. all were instrumental. But the year ended with the least violence in the region in more than two decades.
#4: SOUTH SUDAN
I may be jumping the gun on this one, because the referendum to create a new country, the South Sudan, is not scheduled to occur before next month. But the runup to the referendum, including the registration process, while labored looks like it’s working.
Allied loosely with the Congo Wars, the civil war between the North and South Sudan had gone on for generations until a brokered peace deal five years ago included the ultimate end to the story: succession of the South into a new country.
The concept is rife with problems, most notably that the division line straddles important oil-producing areas. But in spite of all of this, and many other ups and downs along the way, it looks to me like there will be a South Sudan, and soon. And this year’s new U.N. presence in Juba, donor-construction of roads and airports, all points to the main global players in the controversy also thinking the same.
The creation of a new state out of a near failed one is not the be-all or end-all of the many problems of this massive and powerfully oil-rich area. But it is a giant leap forward.
#5: THE SERENGETI HIGHWAY & TOURISM
Last night NBC news aired a segment on the Serengeti Highway controversy, elevating an East African story into American prime time. Good.
But like so many reports of this controversy, the simplification ran amok. NBC’s reporter Engels claimed the motivation for the road was to facilitate rare earth metals like Coltan (see above) getting into Chinese hands more quickly.
While there may be something to this, it’s definitely not the main reason, which is much more general and harder therefore to fight. As I’ve often written, the highway as planned will be a real boon to the Maasai currently living to the east of the Serengeti, as much if not more than to the Chinese.
And as far as I know, Maasai don’t use Coltan.
Roads bring commerce and may be the single quickest way to develop a region. This region is sorely in need of development and recent Tanzania politics has aligned to the need for this regional development.
The highway is just one of many such issues which came to the fore throughout 2010 in Kenya and Tanzania. Concern that the west is just interested in East Africa as a vacation destination with no regards for the struggle for development, has governed quite a few local elections this year.
The whole concept of tourism may be changing as the debate progresses. I believe very deeply that the Serengeti highway as proposed would hinder rather than help development. But as I’ve pointed out, alternatives are in the works.
And the real story of which the highway story is only a part, is how dramatically different East Africans have begun to view tourists in 2010.
#6: NEW RESOURCE DISCOVERIES ALTER GEOPOLITICS
For years I and other African experts have referred to East Africa as “resource-poor.” Kenya, in particular, had nothing but potash. Boy, did that change this year!
Although only one proven reserve has been announced in Kenya, several have begun production in Uganda and we know many more are to come.
China has announced plans for a pipeline and oil port in northern Kenya at a cost of nearly $16 billion dollars, that’s more than twice the entire annual budget for the Kenya government! Deep earth techniques have matured, and China knows how to use them.
More gold has been found in Tanzania, new coal deposits in Uganda, more precious metals in Rwanda… East Africa is turning into the world’s rare earth commodities market.
A lot of these new discoveries are a result of technology improving: going deeper into the earth. But 2010 freed East Africa from the shackle of being “resource-poor” and that’s a very big deal.
#7: GAY RIGHTS ON THE HOOK
African societies have never embraced gay rights but as they rapidly develop, until now there was none of the gay bashing of the sort the rightest backlash produces in the U.S. U.S. Righties manipulating East Africa.
That changed this year, and in large part because of the meddling of U.S. rightest groups.
In what appears to now have been a concerted many year effort, support from U.S. righties is leading to a vote in Uganda’s parliament that would make homosexuality a capital offense, and would jail for long terms those who failed to out known gays.
This extreme is not African, it is American. Mostly an insidious attempt by those unable to evince such insanity in their own society to go to some more manipulative place. The story isn’t over as the vote has yet to occur, but it emerged and reached a crescendo this year.
#8: RHINO POACHING EXPLODES
Poaching is a constant problem in wildlife reserves worldwide and Africa in particular. Rhino are particularly vulnerable, and efforts to ensure safe, wild habitats have been decades in the making. Dagger from rhino horn.
This year, they seemed to come apart. It’s not clear if the economic downturn has something to do with this, but the poaching seems to have morphed this year from individual crimes to corporate business plans.
This leap in criminal sophistication must be explained by wealth opportunities that haven’t existed previously. And whether that was the depressing of financial goals caused by the economic downturn, increased wealth in the Horn of Africa where so much of the rhino horn is destined, or reduced law enforcement, we don’t yet know. But 2010 was the sad year that this poaching exploded.
#9: IS HOT AIR BALLOONING SAFE?
Hot air ballooning in Africa’s two great wildernesses of the Maasai Mara (Kenya) and the Serengeti (Tanzania) has been a staple of exciting options to visiting tourists for nearly 30 years. That might be changing. Is it Safe?
A terrible accident in the Serengeti in early October that killed two passengers and injured others opened a hornet’s nest of new questions.
After working on this story for some time I’ve personally concluded 2010 was the year I learned I should not step into a hot air balloon in East Africa, at least for the time being!
#10: EARLY MAN WONDERS
There were not quite as many spectacular discoveries or announcements about early man this year as in years previously, but one really did stand out as outstanding and you might wonder what it has to do with East Africa! Representation by Tomislan Maricic.
DNA testing of Neanderthal proved that early man from Africa didn’t wipe them out after all, but absorbed them into the ever-evolving homin species.
And that absorption, and not massacre, happened outside Africa to be sure. But it finally helps smooth out the story that began in Africa: It’s likely that Neanderthal were earlier migrants from Africa, and absorption was therefore easier, physiologically and biologically.
It’s a wonderful story, and fresh and exciting, unlike the only other major African early man announcement about Ardi which was really a much older story, anyway.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR to all my loyal readers, with a giant thank you from me for your attention but especially your wonderful comments throughout the year. See you next year!
America in Africa...or...China in Africa?The U.S. is finally realizing that Somali is the center of the world’s “War on Terror.” And so now we’re all ready to do exactly the wrong thing. Again.
I’ve written often — and spoken in public — about the growing power that Al-Shabaab has in Somalia. Al-Shabaab is Al-Qaeda in The Horn. Western preoccupation with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq has allowed them to spread and regroup into the Horn of Africa.
Al-Shabaab has been fighting along Kenya’s long northeastern border with Somalia for more than three years. Much of this has been hit-and-run, kidnapping and petty theft of food and military equipment, but more and more the gun battles with Kenyans begin to assume real engagement.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombings in Kampala. That seemed to do the trick: The U.S. has finally noticed.
First we heard from General William Ward who heads the U.S. Africa Command, that the U.S. would increase its military support to the TFG in Somalia. (Transitional Federal Government).
Then, a much more elaborate policy was detailed by the U.S.’ main diplomat in the region, Johnnie Carson.
I don’t like what I’m hearing.
What I’m hearing is that the U.S. is going to step up its military aid while lecturing a weak and futile puppet Somali government that it “should do more” for its people.
Here are my excerpts from Carson’s interview with All Africa published, today:
“I think [military assistance] is the correct policy… We have provided [Uganda & Burundi soldiers in Somalia] with military equipment… We have supported the training of TFG forces…We have supported specialized training in dealing with improvised explosive devices and training for the protection of ports and airports… There is no question that the TFG has to do more than it’s done in the past….
“We have not done enough on Somalia, which, for far too long, has been the subject of benign neglect by the United States…Given the magnitude of the problems …now is the time for the international community to recognize that this problem will only get worse for all of us if we do not come together to find a solution.”
Military assistance is NOT the correct policy. Providing military equipment and training to Ugandan soldiers who are famous for raping and pillaging in The Congo is NOT the correct policy. The TFG is an useless entity. We should NOT support the TFG.
I like Johnnie Carson, and I more or less like the Obama administration’s overall foreign policy, but they seem stuck in American imperialism. It’s just so dastardly how good guys get corrupted by power. I wonder if we elected Mahatma Ghandi U.S. President if he would then start new wars that we’d lose.
My lifetime has been characterized by failed U.S. wars and failed U.S. policies that I see as contributing to if not outright causing world terrorism.
Bruton’s formula is not new. Learned men have been espousing active, nonmilitary engagement in troubled parts of the world for decades as the ONLY solution to the world’s instabilities. We just don’t seem to get it.
Military action by a foreign power cannot eradicate a local guerrilla force. Period.
Military support of puppet regimes put in power by outside foreign powers is a black hole. Period.
Puppet regimes don’t last. Period.
And the most salient point is that the cost of military action is dozens if not hundreds of times greater than nonmilitary assistance.
In today’s Africa China’s got it right and America’s got it wrong. China is spending billions on roads, resource development and city planning. The U.S. is, too, but many more billions on military.
China’s spending on African military? 0. Zip. Not a penny.
I don’t mean to frame this as a contest between China and America, I mean to point out that China’s got policy orientation right and is contributing to African development. And that America’s obsession with military will destroy African development.
We must end our roles as policeman, schoolmarm, parent and pastor for the rest of the world. We can perform a role as a benefactor, but no longer as a soldier.
The Kenyan refugee camp at Dadaab, the largest in the world, is full. 1300 new arrivals daily from an increasing conflict in Somali are being refused services, because there’s simply no more room, no more food, no more medicines… the money has run out.
