United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

4 August 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Obama "heartbroken" by Zimbabwe's decline (Reuters)

(Zimbabwe) President Barack Obama criticized Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe on
Tuesday and warned Africa not to repeat the mistakes that betrayed the hopes of an
"independence generation," which included his own father.

Diplomats won't apologize for Mugabe walkout (Associated Press)

(Zimbabwe) American and European diplomats say they were summoned to
Zimbabwe's foreign ministry and asked to apologize for walking out of a speech in
which President Robert Mugabe attacked the West.

Obama, African Youth Leaders to Discuss Challenges (Voice of America)

(Pan Africa) U.S. President Barack Obama greeted 115 young leaders from 46 sub-
Saharan African nations on Tuesday, in the first Young African Leaders Forum at the
White House. The president addressed the questions and concerns of young people
from across the continent.

How NGOs Became Pawns in the War on Terrorism (The New Republic)
Independent humanitarian action, commonly if not entirely accurately thought to have
begun with the so-called ‘French Doctors’ in Biafra in the late-'60s, was never as
independent as either relief groups like Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, or the
International Rescue Committee, themselves liked to claim or as the general public
assumed them to be.

Liberia recalls ambassador to U.S. (Xinhua)

(Liberia) Ambassador Nathaniel Barnes was ordered by Liberian President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf to immediately return from the United States to Liberia, presidential
spokesman Cyrus Wleh Badio told reporters late on Monday.

Stopping flow of conflict minerals from Congo to your cell phone (CNN)
(Pan Africa) Quietly, over the past four presidential administrations, a powerful and
deep bipartisan consensus has developed in Congress in support of a stronger U.S.
policy toward Africa.

More troops in Somalia not a solution, experts say (Associated Press)

(Somalia) Somalia experts who have watched violence spin in circles for nearly 20 years
are warning that more troops will not bring peace, and will encounter fierce resistance
from the dangerous militant group that claimed deadly twin bombings in Uganda last
month.

Kenya holds its breath on eve of vote on new constitution (Washington Post)
(Kenya) Kenya's new constitution is designed to redress long-standing imbalances of
power among Kenya's tribes, which triggered the spasms of post-election violence that
killed more than 1,000 people across the country. And Wednesday's referendum will
serve as a litmus test of whether this key U.S. ally in East Africa can bridge its
communal divides.

Rwanda's Paul Kagame Center of Controversial Election (Voice of America)

(Rwanda) A long-standing ally of successive U.S. governments, Rwandan President
Paul Kagame is finding himself in the middle of a controversial election campaign,
marked by media repression, jailings of opposition leaders, threats of war, attempted
assassinations and several killings of political opponents.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Efforts to ease tensions at Darfur camp continue, UN-African Union mission
reports
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UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, Department of Defense

Civilian Personnel Management Service
WHAT: Conference on Forming an Interagency Community
WHO: National Security Professionals Symposium
Info: http://www.cpms.osd.mil/lpdd/nspd/NSP_Symposium.aspx
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FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Obama "heartbroken" by Zimbabwe's decline (Reuters)

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama criticized Zimbabwean leader Robert

Mugabe on Tuesday and warned Africa not to repeat the mistakes that betrayed the
hopes of an "independence generation," which included his own father.

"I'll be honest with you. I am heartbroken when I see what has happened in Zimbabwe,"
he said at a White House event to discuss the continent's future.
Obama invited 115 young Africans, selected as the region's future leaders, to take part
in a three-day forum marking the 50th anniversary of independence in many of their
countries, while looking toward the next 50 years.

As America's first black president whose father was Kenyan, Obama's words carry
special weight in Africa and he did not mince them. He urged greater press freedom,
said corruption sapped support for foreign aid, and aimed harsh criticism at
Zimbabwe's long-serving president.

"I think Mugabe is an example of a leader who came in as a liberation fighter and, I'm
just going to be very blunt, I do not see him serving his people well," Obama told the
meeting in response to a question about sanctions.

The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe nearly a
decade ago and the restrictions still chafe, with Mugabe demanding that they be lifted.
Obama made plain conditions were still not ripe for this to happen.

"In order to do that we've got to see some signal it will not simply entrench the same
past abuses, but will rather move us in a new direction that will help the people," he
told the audience, many of whom were clad in traditional African garb.

Mugabe was forced into a power-sharing deal last year with opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai that has stabilized the economy after a decade of decline. But his policies are
still deterring foreign aid and investment, and Obama sounded skeptical that the
power-sharing pact was yielding results.

"Tsvangirai has tried to work -- despite the fact that he himself has been beaten, and
imprisoned -- he has now tried to work to see if there is a gradual transition that might
take place. But so far the results have not been what we would have hoped," the U.S.
president said.

NEXT GENERATION

Obama said he had deliberately reached beyond the current generation of African
leaders to talk to young people who will shape the region's future and urged they
understand corruption was the continent's enemy.

"If at a time of great constraint, we are coming up with aid, those aid dollars need to go
to countries using them effectively," he said.

In a lighter moment, Obama recalled South Africa's successful staging of the soccer
World Cup as a positive example of moving past white minority rule to democracy.
He spoke candidly of "huge opportunities" Africa had missed and urged the audience
to get it right this time.

"When my father traveled to the United States and got his degree in the early Sixties,
the GDP of Kenya was actually on par, maybe actually higher, than the GDP of South
Korea ... Now it is not even close. That is fifty years that was lost in terms of
opportunities," Obama said.

"So fifty years from now, when you look back, you want to make sure the continent
hasn't missed those opportunities as well."
--------------------
Diplomats won't apologize for Mugabe walkout (Associated Press)

HARARE, Zimbabwe – American and European diplomats say they were summoned to
Zimbabwe's foreign ministry and asked to apologize for walking out of a speech in
which President Robert Mugabe attacked the West.

U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray said Tuesday he refused to apologize for walking out of a
state funeral Sunday after Mugabe told Western nations to "go to hell" after alleging
that they interfered in Zimbabwean affairs. The U.S. is Zimbabwe's biggest aid donor.

Ray said he followed normal diplomatic protocols in attending the funeral of Mugabe's
sister Sabina, who died aged 80. But he said that when Mugabe began his invective, "we
walked away as we were very disappointed in his conduct, so we have nothing to
apologize for."
--------------------
Obama, African Youth Leaders to Discuss Challenges (Voice of America)

U.S. President Barack Obama greeted 115 young leaders from 46 sub-Saharan African
nations on Tuesday, in the first Young African Leaders Forum at the White House. The
president addressed the questions and concerns of young people from across the
continent.

President Obama spent an hour talking with some of the young leaders of African civil
society, in an unprecedented forum in the East Room of the White House.

He called Africa "the youngest continent," and said that because a large percentage of
Africans are under 30-years-old, his administration especially needs to reach the
continent's young people.

"If all you are doing is talking to old men like me, then you are not reaching the people
who are going to be providing the energy, the new initiatives, the new ideas," said
President Obama. "And so we thought that it would be very important for us to bring
the next generation of leaders together."
The president encouraged the young leaders to stand up for democracy, transparent
government and freedom of the press. He said African men need to give women a
bigger voice in the establishment of democracy.

"If you are part of an organization where you have professed democracy, but women do
not have an equal voice in your organization, then you are a hypocrite," said Mr.
Obama.

President Obama addressed questions about Africa's most troubled countries -

Zimbabwe and Somalia.

Sidney Chisi, who founded the Youth Initiative for Democracy in Zimbabwe, raised a
concern about abuses committed by his country's president.

"Robert Mugabe is still using the rhetoric of sanctions, racism, property rights abuse
and human rights abuse, in violation of the rule of law," said Sidney Chisi.

Mr. Obama said he is "heartbroken" by the situation in Zimbabwe - a country, he said,

that should be the "breadbasket of Africa."

"I think Mugabe is an example of a leader who came in as a liberation fighter, and - I am
just going to be very blunt - I do not see him serving his people well," said President
Obama.

The president said he would like to increase diplomatic and economic ties with
Zimbabwe. But he said he fears that doing so would entrench Mr. Mugabe's rule.

The leader of the Somali Youth Leadership Forum, Abdi Najma Ahmed, then asked
whether Americans are prepared to give financial and moral support to those working
for democracy in Somalia.

"And being part of the diaspora that went back to risk our lives in order to make
Somalia a better place - especially with what we are going through right now - how
much support do we expect from the U.S.," asked Abdi Najma Ahmed.

Mr. Obama responded by saying that Americans and the U.S. government desperately
want Somalia to succeed.

"I think you will have enormous support from the people of the United States when it
comes to trying to create a structure and framework in Somalia that works for the
Somali people," said Mr. Obama.
He said American and Somali interests intersect, which he also said is true of other
African nations.

Shamima Muslim, who hosts a radio program in Ghana, said her listeners sometimes
question the U.S. commitment to its relationships in Africa.

"Is America committed to ensuring a partnership that might not necessarily be

beneficial to America, but [is] truly beneficial to the sovereign interests of the countries
that we represent," asked Shamima Muslim.

Mr. Obama replied that the interests of the United States and Africa often overlap, and
that America has a huge interest in seeing development across Africa.

"We are a more mature economy and Africa is a young and growing economy," he said.
"And if you can buy more iPods and buy more products and buy more services and buy
more tractors from us, that we can sell to a fast-growing continent, that creates jobs here
in the United States of America."

The president also took questions from young leaders from Mali, Liberia, Mozambique
and Malawi.

He said that while corruption is still widespread in some African countries, the
continent is on the move, thanks to its inspiring young people.
--------------------
How NGOs Became Pawns in the War on Terrorism (The New Republic)

Independent humanitarian action, commonly if not entirely accurately thought to have

begun with the so-called ‘French Doctors’ in Biafra in the late-'60s, was never as
independent as either relief groups like Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, or the
International Rescue Committee, themselves liked to claim or as the general public
assumed them to be.

U.S. organizations in particular, despite their efforts to develop an individual donor

base, were always and remain too dependent on American government funding for the
claim to stand up to scrutiny. Nor were the actions of relief groups ever as apolitical as
many of them liked to pretend (often including to themselves, I think). To the contrary,
the formative Biafra experience itself was an exercise in the NGOs taking sides, and
following their own government’s agenda in the process. Bernard Kouchner, who
would go on to be one of the co-founders of Doctors Without Borders and is now the
(increasingly marginalized) French foreign minister, was as pro-Biafran secession as
General De Gaulle’s government in Paris. Indeed, Kouchner’s original idea was not for
Doctors Without Borders to be an independent group, but rather that it stand ready as a
resource at the service of governments in times of relief ‘emergencies.’
And even in the so-called ‘golden age’ of humanitarianism, the identification of NGOs
with military action dates back at least to the support relief groups gave to the Afghan
mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan between 1978 and 1989. In the 1990s,
as Kouchner’s doctrine of so-called humanitarian intervention gained adherents in the
capitals of the major NATO member states, aid in places like Somalia, Kurdistan
(during and in the aftermath of the First Gulf War), and Kosovo was linked to Western
political and military aims.

But not all linkage is created equal. Between the end of the Vietnam war, during which,
the Quaker American Friends Service Committee apart, the mainline U.S. relief groups
were largely instrumentalized to provide the ‘hearts and minds’ dimension to U.S.
counterinsurgency operations, and September 11, 2001, it was not unreasonable to
assume that there had been at least some shift toward an interaction between
governments and NGOs that was both more nuanced and more ambiguous. But in late
2001, after the invasion of Afghanistan, then Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a speech
to NGO representatives, articulated a view of their role, at least in conflict zones where
U.S. forces were fighting and areas where the country had a strong national interest,
that were straight out of the civil affairs-oriented counterinsurgency strategy pioneered
by General Edward Lansdale in the Philippines in the 1950s and Vietnam in the early
'60s. The NGOs, Powell said, were a tremendous “force multiplier” for the U.S. military,
and, by extending the reach of the U.S. government, would do much to help accomplish
the intervention’s goals.

As with Afghanistan, so with Iraq. In June 2003, in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad,
the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios,
instructed another audience of NGO officials that if they wanted to continue to be
funded by the U.S. government they needed to emphasize their links to the
government, and that, if they were not willing to do this, he would find other NGOs or
for profit contractors that were, and fund them instead. Their work in the country was
inextricably linked to America’s strategic goals, he said. In fairness, Natsios was not
offering this Faustian bargain on a global basis–only in the theater of war, and, by
extension, where the U.S. government had crucial strategic interests. Natsios did not say
or even imply USAID funding for programs in places where much, if not most, of the
core of relief work takes place–countries like Niger, Congo, Bangladesh, or Kyrgyzstan–
would be contingent on NGOs participating in Iraq, and, indeed, the IRC pulled out of
Iraq at the end of the so-called ‘emergency phase,’ having decided not to participate in
further development efforts. (It was almost alone among the mainline U.S. relief
agencies in this: Mercy Corps and Save the Children/U.S. both signed on.) And it was
not penalized in any way.

The problem is that the terms of the so-called global war on terrorism are such that the
conflict zones–that is the areas that either now are or are likely to soon become places
where NGOs will be expected to further U.S. policy aims–are constantly expanding. The
war zone itself is now commonly assumed to include Yemen, Somalia, Mauretania,
Chad, and Mali, as the extensive deployments of U.S. military trainers in these countries
(in the case of the Sahelian countries, since the launching in 2005 by the U.S. military’s
European Command of its Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, now
administered by the new Africa Command) amply demonstrates.

Significantly, on the civilian side, this year alone USAID has awarded $114 million to
aid projects in Yemen for such goals as “improving the livelihood of citizens in targeted
communities and improving governance capabilities,” and assisting “the Government
of Yemen in its efforts [sic] to improve livelihoods, increase access to basic services and
broaden citizen participation and prospects for economic development in targeted
communities.”

At the same time, many of the countries, in which, in the past, American relief
organizations have pursued USAID-funded development projects with little or no
interference from Washington, have now become ‘front line’ states in the long war
against the Jihadis. Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand are only the most obvious examples
of this global shift in U.S. policy thinking–a change that will inevitably have knock-on
effects on the work of the relief NGOs.

Given such radically changed circumstances, it was probably the triumph of hope over
experience that led mainline American NGO officials to believe that, unlike its
predecessor, the Obama administration would at least lighten the policies the Bush
administration had imposed that explicitly yoked their funding to participation in what
military planners considered the essential civilian side of counter-insurgency operations
(the so-called COIN). Still, beyond the scenes the U.S. NGOs have fought hard at least
to have explicit COIN objectives removed from grant language: to no avail. If anything,
the Obama administration has tightened rather than loosened the linkage between aid
to Afghanistan and Pakistan and its political and military aims in the region.

In addition, it has taken the unprecedented step of funneling $500 million, the largest
tranche of this year’s portion of the five-year, $7.5 billion aid package to Pakistan
known as the Kerry-Lugar Berman Aid Bill, through the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad or
else directly from Washington to the Government of Pakistan rather than through
USAID and its NGO contractors. Effectively, this puts the aid budget under the control
of Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for
Afghanistan and Pakistan, and marginalizes AID and the NGOs. To paraphrase
Clausewitz, development is a continuation of war by other means.

But of course, this is not development, however the budget lines may describe it, as at
least some U.S. government officials in both Afghanistan and Pakistan privately
concede. As a USAID official in Afghanistan put it to a friend of mine, “the multi-year
aid budget here is close to four billion dollars. If we were really doing development, it
would be a hundred million. But this is not about development, it’s about national
security, and it's a priority of the highest order.” The official in question said that
President Obama participates in a monthly video-conference call and that the message
is clear: all U.S. government resources should be directed to national security interests.
USAID officials are clearly interpreting that–rightly or wrongly–as an instruction to
direct most of their money to the hottest spots.

As a result, the NGOs are seeing development priorities follow the battle space. A year
ago, in Pakistan, when the goal was to drive the Taliban out of the Swat Valley, the
development effort was focused there. Today, one NGO official told me, Swat is no
longer a priority. It’s all about Waziristan now,” he said. And, he added, “in
Afghanistan, it’s all about Kandahar.” To be clear, there is little USAID could do, even if
its leaders wanted to. The catchphrase ‘civil-military cooperation’ may read as if it were
a marriage of equals; it is anything but one. USAID officials are said to have bitterly
protested Holbrooke’s bureaucratic coup in taking much of the Pakistan development
money away from the Agency, though whether the new administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah,
thought this fight worth pursuing personally against so experienced a Washington
bruiser as Holbrooke is unclear. Shah came from the Gates Foundation, where he was a
key figure first in the philanthropy’s global health and then in its agriculture programs.
Experience like that teaches you when and when not to fight institutional battles against
past masters of the art. Of course, the past master in question, Richard Holbrooke, has
spun all this as an effort to get away from Washington contractors and indignantly
denied that there was any serious danger of the monies transferred directly to the
Pakistani authorities being misused or stolen. "There's an assumption here [that]
anything that goes to the government automatically disappears into a corrupt maze,” he
said. “That's not the case with these aid funds…There’s very good oversight.”

This hardly seems likely. If anything, the reverse is probably the case with the
Government of Pakistan, as it was with Washington’s official aid over the decades to
the innumerable dictatorships we have wanted to keep in the fold. “Very good
oversight” … in Pakistan, where corruption has always been the norm from the political
top to the village bottom? That Holbrooke could say this with a straight face is a tribute
to his thespian abilities, which have always been over-developed, but not too much else.
Or, as a friend of mine in the relief world put it, with a mixture of disgust and
resignation: “Let’s just throw a bunch of money at the Pakistan Government … that
worked so well in Zaire, Liberia, and Somalia didn’t it?”

But then, given the folly of continuing to prosecute a war in Afghanistan that will either
involve our staying for decades (lest Al Qaeda return; lest the Afghans who sided with
U.S. be killed–on that logic we could very well still be in Vietnam!–the rationales go on
forever) or just cost the lives of many Americans and other NATO soldiers and an
enormous number of Afghans before we leave, our unachievable ends unachieved,
whether or not we proclaim victory as we do so, why shouldn’t we do the development
side of the counterinsurgency in the stupidest and most destructive way imaginable as
well? If the blood weren’t real, it would be the stuff of black comedy. But the blood is
real, and instead it is the stuff of tragedy.
--------------------
Liberia recalls ambassador to U.S. (Xinhua)

MONROVIA, Liberia - Liberia has announced the immediate recall of its ambassador to
the United States.

Ambassador Nathaniel Barnes was ordered by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
to immediately return from the United States to Liberia, presidential spokesman Cyrus
Wleh Badio told reporters late on Monday.

He declined to give details of the president's decision, but said it fell within the
perimeter of the president to recall or dismiss any foreign service staff and other
officials of her government.

The presidential spokesman said Ambassador Barnes has been recalled for what he
termed as consultation with the president and could face possible reassignment.
--------------------
Stopping flow of conflict minerals from Congo to your cell phone (CNN)

At a time when partisan politics are bitter, midterm election races are tight and almost
every legislative effort is stalled, who would you expect to take the boldest step in years
to address the deadliest war in the world, in the heart of Central Africa?

Congress, of course.

Quietly, over the past four presidential administrations, a powerful and deep bipartisan
consensus has developed in Congress in support of a stronger U.S. policy toward
Africa. The latest manifestation of this cooperation is a small but potent provision
addressing Congo's "conflict minerals," folded into the recently passed Wall Street
reform bill.

The trade in four conflict minerals -- tin, tantalum, tungsten (the 3Ts), as well as gold --
fuels the war in eastern Congo today. It's been the deadliest war in the world since
World War II.

We regularly travel to eastern Congo, and on our last trip, we traced the minerals from
the mines.

At the mines, we saw militiamen armed with AK-47 machine guns standing over
miners and forcing them to work and pay bribes, including child miners as young as 11.
We then crossed through army and rebel checkpoints, where smugglers paid off the
commanders in U.S. dollars, and then witnessed how these same minerals were packed
into barrels with Congolese flags on them and loaded onto planes and flown out of the
country.

We've seen how armed groups on all sides of the conflict are reaping hundreds of
millions of dollars per year by controlling mines and trading routes, selling minerals to
international traders and smelters, which in turn sell them to electronics and jewelry
companies.

By requiring that publicly listed manufacturers who use these minerals conduct
independent audits of their supply chains, this legislation will help curb the conflict
minerals trade.

Courageous members of Congress from both parties fought hard together with a
coalition of faith-based organizations, women's rights advocates and student groups for
the past two years to enact this law, standing up for what is right and bravely battling
against special-interest lobbyists.

But some companies would have you believe otherwise and are using negative tactics
to stall reform.

Some critics in the corporate world have accused those campaigning for an end to the
conflict minerals trade of advocating for a boycott of electronics companies. Some
minerals trading companies have also argued that Congress and the conflict minerals
movement will force them to pull out of Congo, creating an embargo and hurting
miners.

These statements significantly distort what human rights advocates in Congo and the
U.S. are pressing for.

Let's first be clear: The statements originate with many of the same companies that have
been knowingly purchasing conflict minerals for the past decade, according to the
United Nations, and did nothing for years to avoid them.

The bill and our campaign aim to develop a peaceful, legal minerals trade in Congo that
will be the real benefit to war-torn communities on the ground. We oppose a boycott
and, on the contrary, are asking consumers to urge their own cell phone, laptop and
jewelry companies to ensure their products are conflict-free. Companies now have an
opportunity to achieve this goal and help Congolese communities through three key
steps:

-- Tracing: Determining the precise sources of their minerals.

-- Auditing: Independently verifying these sources and trading routes.

-- Certifying: Working with the Congolese, Rwandan, U.S. and other governments to
develop a certification process that improves upon systems already created for other
exports such as blood diamonds.

These steps are complex, but they are achievable. The reality is that the bill will
accelerate this supply chain reform, and Intel and Motorola are already starting a
forward-looking audit process to purchase tantalum from legitimate mines, including
those in Congo.

Companies have at least 18 months from now to report to Congress on their audits, and
during that time they will have ample opportunity to trace, audit and certify their
supply chains.

Some companies may choose to temporarily stop buying minerals from Congo while
they reform their supply chains. In order to cushion the blow for those mining
communities affected by such a decision, a miners' livelihood fund should be created to
offer them real opportunities and help the Congolese economy through small business,
microfinance and agriculture.

Electronics, jewelry and minerals companies should partner with donors to set up this
program as soon as possible.

Congress has taken the first step, but we still have a long way to go in ending the
conflict minerals trade and the war in Congo. Now the Obama administration must
come through and partner with the Congolese government to help create a process for
conflict minerals that builds on the lessons of the process that excluded blood diamonds
from the marketplace, as well as addressing wider issues of army and governance
reform.

And electronics and jewelry companies should support these processes with a fraction
of the profits they've earned from these conflict minerals over the past dozen years.
Consumers, companies and governments can all play a part in ending this deadly trade
and cutting off the fuel for the deadliest war in the world.
--------------------
More troops in Somalia not a solution, experts say (Associated Press)

NAIROBI, Kenya — It's been almost two decades since U.S troops were forced out of
Somalia after the "Black Hawk Down" battle. Troops from neighboring Ethiopia spent
more than two years trying to restore order before withdrawing last year. Now, the U.S.
is backing a push by African states to add troops to combat Somali militants.

But Somalia experts who have watched violence spin in circles for nearly 20 years are
warning that more troops will not bring peace, and will encounter fierce resistance from
the dangerous militant group that claimed deadly twin bombings in Uganda last
month.

Last week African heads of state who met in the Ugandan capital — the site of the July
11 blasts that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final on TV — pledged to add
4,000 new troops in Mogadishu. Those troops will add to the 6,000 peacekeepers from
Uganda and Burundi now stationed in Somalia's capital to protect the transitional
government there.

Somalia has been mired in chaos since warlords overthrew the country's autocratic
president in 1991. While few good answers have been found to end near-continuous
violence, analysts say the solution does not lie in sending foreign troops to battle the
country's most dangerous militant group, al-Shabab.

"African leaders are daydreaming. You can't solve Somalia's problems by sending in
more troops," said Zakaria Mohamud Haji Abdi of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of
Somalia, a group established to oppose Ethiopia's recent foray into Somalia. "With its
devastating effects, the culture of using military might has been tried but failed. Now it
is the time to nurture the culture of dialogue."

Violence in Somalia has raged for so long that the conflict rarely grabs the world's
attention. Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government has made little progress
expanding its power or winning over the Somali people.

But the July bombings focused renewed attention on the Horn of Africa nation. The U.S.
pledged to financially support any newly deployed African Union troops. Uganda,
angered by the attacks, sought an increased mandate for troops to hunt down terrorists.

"A guerrilla war is rarely won militarily. A political solution should be envisioned," said
Roland Marchal, a Somalia expert at the Center for International Studies and Research
in Paris.

"This does not mean by itself a cease-fire or the wish to get a power-sharing agreement
with al-Shabab. But one should move from the current context where progresses are
measured by an increased number of trained soldiers and militants killed," he said.

Somalis, even those from different clans and ideological affiliations, are known to unite
when foreign troops arrive. Al-Shabab recently vowed that new AU troops will be
"annihilated." The militant group also urged Somalis to fight the peacekeepers.

The U.S. sent troops to Somalia in the early 1990s but withdrew shortly after the
military battle chronicled in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down." Ethiopia sent
forces over the border in late 2006, but withdrew them in early 2009 claiming they had
defeated al-Shabab, a growing militant force that now counts militants from the
Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts among its ranks.

Today the Somali government is confined to a small slice of Mogadishu, and al-Shabab
attacks are encroaching in on the government's foothold. But al-Shabab is unlikely to
topple the thousands of well-armed AU troops there.

Analysts say the stalemate should be used to kick-start a locally driven reconciliation
that allows Somalis to find peace, like administrations in two northern regions —
Somaliland and Puntland — did in the 1990s.

Marchal recommends establishing a panel of senior Muslim politicians and Westerners

who can try to coax the militants into a reconciliation conference. He says the current
transitional government is not the right channel for reconciliation.

Kisiangani Emmanuel, a researcher at the South Africa-based Institute for Global

Dialogue, said the international community needs to signal a willingness to accept any
government that is acceptable to Somalis — including insurgents — regardless of the
affiliations of its leaders.

"Military approaches have only helped to radicalize more youths and exacerbate
fundamentalism in Somalia," he said. "The international community needs to realize
that its current and previous policies on Somalia have largely strengthened religious
extremism and Somalis' distrust of the West."
--------------------
Kenya holds its breath on eve of vote on new constitution (Washington Post)

David Ngendo can't forget the day, after Kenya's disputed 2007 elections, when his
neighbors stormed his village church with machetes and torched it. Nor can he forget
the screams of the women and children who had sought refuge inside. His
grandmother and 35 other members of his Kikuyu tribe died, most burned to ashes.

Today, Ngendo and other Kikuyus in this hamlet nestled in the lush Rift Valley are
afraid again. On Wednesday, they plan to vote in favor of a proposed new constitution.
But his neighbors, from the rival Kalenjin tribe, are against it.

"They may attack us again," Ngendo said.

Kenya's new constitution is designed to redress long-standing imbalances of power

among Kenya's tribes, which triggered the spasms of post-election violence that killed
more than 1,000 people across the country. And Wednesday's referendum will serve as
a litmus test of whether this key U.S. ally in East Africa can bridge its communal
divides.
If the new draft is approved -- as most polls suggest it will be -- it would also represent
Kenya's most significant break from the era of former president Daniel arap Moi, whose
24-year-rule extended the political domination of his Kalenjin tribe through autocratic
measures that deepened Kenya's ethnic fissures.

3 divisive issues

The run-up to the referendum has polarized the nation along tribal, religious and
regional lines over three contentious issues: land rights, inclusion of Muslim courts and
perceptions that the new constitution supports abortion.

Nowhere are the divisions more visible than in the Rift Valley, where opposition to the
new constitution is the loudest, particularly among the Kalenjin, the dominant ethnic
group here.

In some areas, Kikuyus, as well as members of less influential tribes, have received
veiled threats, including anonymous letters, urging them to leave their homes. Scores of
families have done just that willingly, heading to nearby towns to avoid a potential
eruption of violence after the vote. Kenyan authorities have dispatched 18,000
additional police officers to the Rift Valley.

In places such as Kiambaa, a deeper malaise has set in, grounded in history and
resentment. A new constitution, many Kikuyus say, could radically alter the political
landscape. But it will do little to change their relationship with the Kalenjin.

"We can't trust them," said Grace Wangoyi, 22, who clutched her 5-year-old son,
Frederick, at the edge of the compound where their church used to stand.

They were both inside the church that New Year's Day in 2008. Violence had erupted a
day earlier after President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, had been declared the winner of the
elections amid allegations of fraud. Outside, Wangoyi recalled, Kalenjin mobs were
pelting the church with rocks, urging Kikuyus to leave their lands.

"Inside, people were on the floor praying," Wangoyi recalled. Minutes later, the church
was set ablaze. She shattered a window and escaped with her son.

In other areas, Kalenjin were killed and displaced by Kikuyus and other tribes. But here,
it is the memory of violence by the Kalenjin that dominates.

Kipkorir Menjo, a local Kalenjin leader, said that the name of the community has been
"soiled" and that suspicions persist between Kalenjin and Kikuyus.

The tensions have existed since Kenya's independence from Great Britain in 1963. The
nation's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, allocated communal land in Kiambaa and other
areas of the Rift Valley to his Kikuyu tribesman. That bred resentment amongst the
Kalenjin.

When Moi came to power in 1978, he gerrymandered districts and handed out land to
his tribesmen, turning the Rift Valley into a political stronghold of the Kalenjin.
Kikuyus were forcibly evicted and killed in previous elections as well. In 2002, Moi
stepped down, opening the way for Kibaki to be elected.

A power-sharing deal between Kibaki and his main rival, Raila Odinga, whose party
was supported by influential Kalenjin, brought an end to the 2008 violence. The pact
included rewriting the nation's constitution and holding a referendum.

The new constitution curbs presidential power to reduce domination by one tribe. It
also weakens regional power centers, paving the way for more equitable distribution of
resources. And it permits the central government to take back land that was distributed
for political gains.

The chief opponents of the constitution include top Kalenjin leaders and Moi, who has
stepped out of retirement to campaign against the draft charter.

'They will beat me up'

The U.S. government has publicly urged Kenyans to vote in favor of the new
constitution. But conservative U.S. Christian groups reject the inclusion in the document
of family courts that administer Islamic law to Kenya's Muslim minority. They have
also joined Kenya's Christian clergy to denounce the proposed constitution's language
on abortion, which would prohibit the procedure except in cases in which a physician
or nurse determined that bearing the child could endanger the life or health of the
woman. Abortion foes say that language could be manipulated.

Kibaki and Odinga, now Kenya's prime minister, support passage of the new
constitution. For this reason, many observers believe that the nation will not experience
the sort of violent upheaval seen in 2008.

Still, in Kiambaa on Sunday, Dennis Maoga, 28, spoke in whispers. A few steps away,
his workers -- mostly Kalenjin -- were filling bags with charcoal. Maoga, who is from
the Kissi tribe, said, "Most people in Kiambaa fear even talking about the constitution."
He pointed at his men and added that he would never tell them that he was voting in
favor of the charter. "They will beat me up," he said.

One of his Kalenjin workers, William Murkoman, 39, predicted that almost every
Kalenjin would vote against the constitution. And what if it passes?
"Our future generation will be oppressed if this constitution is passed," Murkoman said.
"There will be problems later."

Inside the church compound, 36 graves are lined up in two rows. Nobody has tended to
the graves in months.

Many Kikuyus have fled Kiambaa. Those who remain are too poor to leave. As he stood
near his grandmother's grave, Ngendo said he was pleased to see a heavier police
presence in recent days.

"But I fear what will happen when they leave," he said.

Nearby, Frederick was grabbing his mother's leg. Wangoyi has explained to him how
he got the burn scar on his head, why hair won't grow there. Whenever he sees a
Kalenjin walk through Kiambaa, he makes an ugly face. He calls them "bad people."

"The scar will be there throughout his life," his father, Isaac Njeroge, said.
--------------------
Rwanda's Paul Kagame Center of Controversial Election (Voice of America)

A long-standing ally of successive U.S. governments, Rwandan President Paul Kagame

is finding himself in the middle of a controversial election campaign, marked by media
repression, jailings of opposition leaders, threats of war, attempted assassinations and
several killings of political opponents.

The United Nations and U.S.-based Human Rights Watch have called for a full
investigation into one of the recent killings, the near decapitation of an opposition
leader.

One of those jailed in the run-up to the August 9 presidential vote was American
lawyer Peter Erlinder. He had gone to Rwanda to defend an opposition leader jailed for
allegedly disagreeing with the government's official version of the 1994 genocide. He
was then also jailed for three weeks on a charge of what Rwandan authorities call
genocide ideology.

Erlinder said he would have never gone to Rwanda if he had known what the political
climate was like.

"I thought with the election coming up and with the many nice things that the United
States government has said about the Rwandan government recently and the progress
that it has made ... Unfortunately what is happening now raises serious questions
about whether that progress was real or whether we really do have a military
dictatorship that is being supported by our government. It raises a lot of very difficult
questions," Erlinder said.
Following the arrest of Erlinder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she understood
the anxiety of Rwanda's leadership over what they view as genocide denial, but she
urged Rwanda not to undermine its remarkable progress by beginning to move away
from positive actions.

Analyst Steve McDonald, with the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International

Center for Scholars, recently returned from Rwanda and was also disturbed by what he
experienced.

"The fear is palpable, the nervousness, the feeling that there is no freedom of speech and
association and gathering in the society and I think this could be disastrous," he said.

He says he believes President Kagame is refusing post-genocide reconciliation as a

means to exert his authority. But McDonald is not surprised he has received praise and
many awards in the United States, including the Clinton Global Citizen Award last
year, from former President Bill Clinton.

"Kagame is an extremely energetic, extremely intelligent man who has fully taken
advantage of many of the hot buttons that he knows the West cares about, that is
economic progress, that is environmental concern, that is furthering information
technology," Mcdonald said. "He is taking the lead on the international stage that
originally put him among these new African leaders during the Clinton administration,
including Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, and [Yoweri] Museveni in Uganda."

He says since then he believes these leaders have failed their countries in terms of
democracy and human rights.

President Kagame himself has denied his government has been behind any of the
killings.

"Why would government be that stupid? I never knew I would be in a government that
would be seen as that stupid, that would kill journalists, opposition leaders, one after
another, you kill and you kill, as if there is anything to gain from it," said Kagame.

He won the last presidential election in 2003 with more than 95 percent of the vote, but
there has been growing dissension among his former political allies. The former
Rwandan intelligence chief, Patrick Karegeya, was quoted Monday as saying "dictators
like Mr. Kagame do not step down, but can only be brought down."

Africa advocacy groups holding a protest conference Tuesday in Washington say

foreign election observers in Rwanda will be a waste of money.
Earlier this year, the senior U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said the political
environment in Rwanda was in his words "riddled by a series of worrying actions."

A spokeswoman for Rwanda's government said that was what she called "an out-of-
Rwanda reading of the situation in Rwanda, with added election hype."
-------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Efforts to ease tensions at Darfur camp continue, UN-African Union mission reports
3 August – A senior official with the joint United Nations-African Union mission in
Darfur is again visiting a camp for displaced persons in a bid to ease recent tensions
there following deadly violence between supporters and opponents of the ongoing
peace process.