CONTENT

● General Overview
○ Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)
○ Pan-African nationalism
○ Chinese business interests
○ Political corruption
○ Nature conservation efforts
● South Africa
○ Apartheid & Post-colonialism
■ Nelson Mandela & anti-apartheid movement
■ Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC)
■ Race politics, wealth redistribution, and national identity
○ HIV/AIDS epidemic
● Zimbabwe
○ Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF
■ 2017 Coup d’etat
○ Economic crisis
● Nigeriam
○ Christianity
○ Boko Haram
○ Economy
● Kenya
○ Election boycott 2017
● Uganda
○ Ebola crisis 2014
○ Kony 2012
● Rwanda
○ Rwandan genocide
● Democratic Republic of Congo
○ Development challenges
○ Civil war
● Sudan and South Sudan
○ Independence and civil war
● Somalia
○ International maritime terrorism (i.e. pirates)
○ Somaliland
○ Islamic terrorism (al-Shabaab)
● The African Union (AU)
○ Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA)
○ African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA)

General Overview
Africa is the second largest continent in the world after Asia– it is a region of great diversity
across economic, political, and social spectrums. Though it is most common to examine
Africa through a strictly post-colonial lens, it should be noted that individual African countries
have rich histories and cultures that exist separate from the yoke of European exploitation.
This casefile will be concerned with countries in sub-Saharan Africa (i.e. those typically
associated with ‘Africa’ as opposed to the ‘Middle East’).

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) consist of conditional loans by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to poor nations, most of which are post-colonial. SAPs
are supposed to allow the economies of the developing countries to become more market
oriented. This then forces them to concentrate more on trade and production so it can boost
their economy. Through conditions, SAPs generally implement "free market" programmes
and policy. These programs include internal changes (notably privatisation and deregulation)
as well as external ones, especially the reduction of trade barriers. Countries that fail to
enact these programmes were sometimes subjected to fiscal discipline such as a withdrawal
of foreign aid.

Conditions included balance of payments deficits reduction through government policies

such as currency devaluation, budget deficit reduction through higher taxes and lower
government spending, eliminating food subsidies and public wages, raising the price of
public services. Conditions also included trade liberalisation, focusing on economic output on
direct export and resource extraction, and the privatisation of state-owned enterprises.
These policies are also known as the Washington Consensus (see Latin America), and were
believed by neoliberal economists to be the key to development.

However, these SAPs have largely failed. While developing countries enjoyed a per capita
growth rate of more than 3% prior to the 1980s, structural adjustment cut growth in half,
down to 1.7%. When it was implemented in Sub-Saharan Africa, per capita income began to
decline at a rate of 0.7% per year. The GNP of the average country shrank by around 10 per
cent during the 1980s and 1990s, and the number of Africans living in basic poverty nearly
doubled. Though affected by other factors, many have criticised SAPs as a significant cause
of economic turmoil in sub-Saharan Africa.

Developmental economists such as Ha Joon Chang have used the example of Asia’s
development model to explain why SAPs were deeply damaging. While certain Asian
countries such as South Korea used their initial surplus of national income from
manufacturing and fishing to import sophisticated technologies with the aim of creating an
electronics industry, SAPs and free market forces corner African nations to further specialise
in their ‘comparative advantage’ (i.e. mining, manufacturing, agriculture). This disallowes
them from evolving and diversifying their production profile, and has also meant that large
blocs produce very similar goods (such as copper ore), driving down prices and creating a
race to the bottom.

Discouraging public expenditure has also meant that human capital and core infrastructure
can not be developed through investments in education, healthcare, and transport, further
debilitating African countries from participating in more complex economies.
The SAP also attempted to make sub-Saharan African states attractive to foreign direct
investment (FDI), which is often defined as acquisition of more than 10% of a company’s
shares with the intent of getting involved in management. However, over 50% of all global
FDI has been ‘brownfield investment’, meaning that they are the acquisition of a pre-existing
firm by a foreign firm, rather than ‘greenfield investment’, which creates new production
facilities. Brownfield investments in developing nations are, again, most likely to be
concentrated in the primary and secondary sector, further entrenching reliance on these
industries. Much of this capital is also from private equity funds which have no intention of
acquiring a firm for the long-term. Rather, they restructure them (often cutting wages,
sacking workers, and refraining from long-term investments) so they can sell them in 3-5
years time at a profit.

Lastly, trade liberalisation meant that infant and home-grown industries often died when
exposed to international competition, further reducing production diversity and crippling the
ability of African states to create state-owned or private companies in competitive but
lucrative industries (e.g. electronics, telecommunications, etc.)

Pan-African nationalism
Pan-Africanism is a political and cultural movement that envisions a united African nation in
which all people of African descent can live. Generally, it posits that ethnic Africans not only
have a common heritage shaped by the transnational slave trade that resulted in a large
African diaspora across the globe, but also a common destiny. It was pioneered by African
American thinkers W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, and popularised by activists such as
Martin Delany, Alexander Crummel, and Edward Blyden.

Though the pan-African movement first gained traction within the US during WW1 and WW2
when the political consciousnesses of African Americans were at their height, there was a
shift of power after the 1950s to African thinkers and advocates. Pan-Africanism itself has
played an integral role in decolonisation, decrying the crimes of Western empire and a call
for African independence, and also is significant in political activism today.

It is important to note that sentiments of pan-Africanism still resonate very strongly with
members of the African diaspora who suffer from the brutality of racism. The marginalisation
of black communities around the world shape how they view ideas of citizenship: that though
they may have been born in the West, entrenched and systemic racism has meant that they
can only truly belong to their “homeland”. Thus black people in the Americas, the Caribbean,
and West and South Africa have strong reasons to collectively fight to gain equal recognition
in the international political economy and economic independence. Each community
understands the plight of others because each face the same dilemma. And though most
have not seen their historic home, the diaspora unifies around common goals (i.e. the
elimination of derogation of the race, economic uplift, and independence), not particularly
focussed on specific ethnic, religious, or cultural differences.

The logic is that because Europeans and their descendants (including White Americans)
dominate the international political economy to acquire resources, employment, and political
power, the way to combat these problems is through transnational political activism. The
sharing of resources enables political activism on a diasporic or transnational scale. The
onset of social media has made this particularly easy– often members of the diaspora
challenge notions of Western aid and development in Africa. Examples include when charity
campaigns such as #1millionshirts and the 2012 Kony campaign came under heavy scrutiny
and criticism, as well as calls for increased collaboration and communication of aid
organisations with the African diaspora.

There are also existential reasons why black people still identify with Africa.
Consanguineous issues are intertwined with the desire to pursue their origins. This concern
is similar to those of adoptees: even if adoptees accept their present lives, they often long to
know their birth family. Such propositions can be extrapolated to explain in part African
diasporan activists’ attachment to sub-Saharan Africa, despite temporal and physical
distance from the actual traumatic separation.

Individual African states are also emphasising the need to engage their diaspora through
strategic foreign policy and development initiatives. Many networks are set up for diasporas
to engage with their country of origin, encouraging them to contribute charitably in exchange
for valuable networking opportunities. In 2003, diaspora engagement was implemented
structurally in the African Union as part of the Diaspora Division in order to set up more
formal structures in which relations between African nations and their diaspora could be
facilitated along with the mobilisation of economic capital.

Chinese business interests

In the past decade, Chinese loans and contractors have played a key role in shaping the
infrastructure of many African states, paying for and building new ports, railways, and roads.
In many cases, these investments in infrastructure have been matched with investments in
mines, manufacturing plants, shopping centers, and corner stores.

Until recently, China focused on a few resource-rich countries such as Algeria, Nigeria,
South Africa, Sudan, and Zambia. But places like Ethiopia and Congo, where minerals are
hard to extract, are starting to get more attention as Chinese businesses are branching out
to non-resource sectors. State-owned companies compete with private businesses which
are tempted by the profit margins that far surpass those found at home in China.

African governments are far from being steamrolled by Chinese business interests.
Governments have shown surprising assertiveness, not hesitating to expel companies and
people that are guilty of corruption or unsavoury business practices. Such examples include
the deportation of South Sudan’s Liu Yingcai, the local head of Petrodar (a Chinese-
Malaysian oil company and the government’s largest customer), who was allegedly
responsible for “oil theft”. Algerian courts have expelled Chinese firms from participation in
legal tender due to allegations of corruption, Gabonese officials have turned down
exploitative resource deals, and South African and Kenyan governments have pressured
China to stop the illegal trade of ivory and rhino horns.

Though Chinese businesses turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, it is not clear whether
their presence has actually eroded pre-existing democratic practices and institutions. In
Zimbabwe, China continues to work with dictator Mugabe, but has also developed relations
with the main opposition leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan
Tsvangirai, by inviting him to Beijing. Chinese leaders also accommodated the democratic
change of power in Senegal in 2012, even if it meant the loss of power of President
Abdoulaye Wade, who had switched Senegal’s diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China
in 2005.

China has also not stoked armed conflict. As South Sudan and Sudan were on the brink of
war in 2012, China’s self-interest in the stability of both countries meant that it had the
incentive to act as a diplomatic peacemaker, intervening in the crisis alongside other
countries.

Though the suspicion of China has lessened in smaller African states, which argue that
Chinese firms have created jobs, transferred skills, and injected much needed investment
and capital in local businesses, larger economies have increasingly opposed China’s
presence. In these countries, China’s involvement poses a huge competition risk to local
businesses. Thriving civil societies in more affluent states also mean that there are
challenges China’s lack of transparency and accountability for human and environmental
rights. In Senegal, residents’ organisations successfully blocked a property deal that would
have given Chinese developers a prime section of the Dakar’s real-estate. Nigeria’s former
central bank governor, Lamido Samusi, has also argued that China’s influence is a “new
form of imperialism”, in which China buys Africa’s mineral goods at deflated prices and sell
its own manufactured ones without hiring local populations. 1million Chinese workers and
businessmen now reside in Africa, a huge jump from the couple thousand a decade ago.

Chinese influence in Africa has also caused a huge spike in engagement from other Asian
countries such as India and Japan. Asian states remain cautious of China’s plans in Africa
as it grows increasingly militarised. Thousands of Chinese soldiers have donned the UN’s
blue helmets in Mali and South Sudan, where several have been killed trying to keep an
imaginary peace. Chinese warships regularly visit African ports. China maintains a naval
squadron that escorts mostly Chinese-flagged vessels through the Gulf of Aden. But some
diplomats fret that China has been using these patrols to give its navy practice in operating
far from home, including in offensive actions. India, in particularly, are concerned about the
possible construction of naval bases within the Indian Sea.

Political Corruption
Most Western conceptions of corruption in Africa is that it is the root of economic and
political underdevelopment, and that there is some unique pre-eminence of corruption in the
continent that makes it particularly entrenched. It is partly founded upon the colonial belief
that Africa is exotic in how it is governed by different moral impulses and concerns. The truth
is, however, that Africans (per capita) are less corrupt than Westerners. In terms of figures
and volumes, African corruption pale in significance to Western scandals– after all, Africa did
not produce WorldCom or Enron whose corporate corruption scandals threatened to
collapse financial markets and destroyed investments. The raw sum of Africa’s yearly capital
that is lost to corruption also does not come close to Western figures.

The difference then lies in the moral consequences of corruption. Western corruption is
absorbed by the sheer size of their economies. The shock of such corruption is therefore
never translated to infrastructural problems for society nor the breakdown of political
institutions. However, in Africa, the devastating consequences of corruption (e.g. a lack of
public investment in core services such as education, healthcare, transport etc.) occur
because of the small size of African economies that magnify the theft of government funds.
There are two major forms of corruption in Africa: the official (i.e. state officials appropriating
government funds), and the pedestrian (i.e. civilians participating in smaller, daily acts of
corruption such as bribing a policeman at a roadblock). The former begets the latter; the
corruption of state officials manifests as crushing poverty and an inability to access proper
institutions of accountability, then necessitates the complicity in mass corruption on the
ground for survival. For example, a lack of public transport systems necessitates individuals
paying off policemen at roadblocks to commute to work. The police are themselves driven by
an underpaying of civil servants.
There is also an endemic clientelism in many African states, meaning that government
officials retain power by catering to tribal or political elites through means such as bribery or
corrupt business practices. Again, while the West has had centuries to develop transparency
measures within their institutions to prevent the worst excesses, clientelism continues to
cripple democratic accountability.

Many economists argue that if poverty and economic insecurity, especially in countries
without welfare systems and social safety nets, fuel corruption, then wealth creation, the
provision of basic human comforts, and the ability to provide post-work financial security and
welfare benefits should minimize the incentive for bureaucratic larceny and reduce the
corruption problem to the status of a residual, tolerable, insignificant social irritant.

Nature conservation efforts

Most conservation efforts in Africa have been focused on the economic link between
conservation efforts and local communities. Since the 1980s, initiatives to encourage rural
people to become an integral part of conservation efforts have attracted wide support. The
emphasis on economic incentives for conservation stems, in part, from the linking of
conservation and development. The current focus on economic incentives for involving
communities in conservation efforts results, to a considerable extent, from the theory that
market forces will conserve and protect the environment, lessening the need for government
intervention.

Such examples include hiring locals to guard protected areas against poachers, allowing
restricted trophy hunting to help fund conservation efforts, and setting up tourist attractions.
This has been the main strategy employed by most African governments which tend to have
large bodies that work with international environmental agencies and charity organisations.
Most of them focus largely on the protection of charismatic species such as elephants since
they contribute highly to the economic value of wildlife in terms of nature-tourism. They have
shown mixed success; African states such as Botswana and South Africa are high-
performers in global ecology and conservation reviews.

However, despite the range of initiatives and investment of donor funds, it has proved
difficult to provide tangible benefits from conservation to local communities in Africa.
Although the political and economic regimes of many developing countries aggravate the
difficulties of channeling benefits to communities, most protected areas do not realise
sufficient revenue to offset the costs to communities of retaining them. Hundreds of Africa's
conservation areas are unknown, inaccessible, and lacking in charismatic species or
dramatic landscapes to attract tourists.
There has therefore been an increased effort at emphasising the cultural links between local
communities and protected areas, managing them to reflect local cultural values. People live
in environments imbued with symbolic significance because landscapes are cultural
constructions, not simply biological diversity or physical terrain.

For example, resources within Uganda's Mount Elgon National Park, have an irreplaceable
role in the lives of surrounding Bagisu communities, but regulations prevent legal access to
them. The Bagisu place special beehives in the forest during periods of social crisis. Ritual
harvesting of the honey by clan elders perpetuates links with tribal ancestors because spirits
are believed to control the bees. In another example, the diverse cuisines of many West
African cultures make wide use of wild foods, both animal and plant, which are increasingly
restricted to protected areas. Emphasising the link between conservation and the continued
availability of these food items help stimulate local and national interest in protected areas
and conservation.

South Africa
South Africa is one of the continent’s largest and most developed economies. It is a middle-
income, emerging market with an abundant supply of natural resources, such as gold,
platinum, and diamonds. It has well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy, and
transport sectors that supports an efficient distribution of goods to major urban centres
throughout the region.

Up until 1994, South Africa was ruled by a white minority government, which enforced a
separation of races with its policy called apartheid. The apartheid government eventually
negotiated itself out of power after decades of international isolation, armed opposition and
mass protests. The democratically-elected leadership encouraged reconciliation and set
about redressing social imbalances, but the economy has struggled to combat inequality and
industry development.

Apartheid & Post-colonialism

South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch in the seventeenth century. English
domination of the Dutch descendents (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the Dutch
establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal. The discovery of
diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion which sparked the
Boer War.

Following independence from England, an uneasy power-sharing between the two groups
held sway until the 1940s, when the Afrikaner National Party (NP) was able to gain a strong
majority. Strategists in the National Party invented apartheid as a means to cement their
control over the economic and social system. Initially, aim of the apartheid was to maintain
white domination while extending racial separation. Starting in the 1960s, a plan of “Grand
Apartheid” was executed, emphasizing territorial separation and police repression.
With the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination was institutionalized.

Race laws touched every aspect of social life, including a prohibition of marriage between
non-whites and whites, and the sanctioning of “white-only” jobs. In 1950, the Population
Registration Act required that all South Africans be racially classified into one of three
categories: white, black (African), or coloured (of mixed descent). The coloured category
included major subgroups of Indians and Asians. Classification into these categories was
based on appearance, social acceptance, and descent. Non-compliance with the race laws
were dealt with harshly. All blacks were required to carry “pass books” containing
fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas. In the same year, the
Group Areas Act imposed control over interracial property transactions and property
occupation throughout South Africa. It created the legal framework for varying levels of
government to establish particular neighbourhoods as 'group areas', where only people of a
particular race were able to reside. The act displaced hundreds of thousands of people;
breaking up families, friends, and communities. This was due in large part to the retroactive
application of the law, meaning that once an area was declared a group area, the GAA had
the power to demolish all the houses there and displace everyone who was not of the
designated group.

In 1951, the Bantu Authorities Act established a basis for ethnic government in African
reserves, known as “homelands.” These homelands were independent states to which each
African was assigned by the government according to the record of origin (which was
frequently inaccurate). All political rights, including voting, held by an African were restricted
to the designated homeland. The idea was that they would be citizens of the homeland,
losing their citizenship in South Africa and any right of involvement with the South African
Parliament which held complete hegemony over the homelands. From 1976 to 1981, four of
these homelands were created, denationalizing nine million South Africans. The homeland
administrations refused the nominal independence, maintaining pressure for political rights
within the country as a whole. Nevertheless, Africans living in the homelands needed
passports to enter South Africa: aliens in their own country.

In 1953, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act were passed, which
empowered the government to declare stringent states of emergency and increased
penalties for protesting against or supporting the repeal of a law. The penalties included
fines, imprisonment and whippings. In 1960, a large group of blacks in Sharpeville refused to
carry their passes; the government declared a state of emergency. The emergency lasted for
156 days, leaving 69 people dead and 187 people wounded. Wielding the Public Safety Act
and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the white regime had no intention of changing the
unjust laws of apartheid.

International relations during apartheid

Most of the international community did not condone South Africa’s apartheid regime. Large
international organisations such as the United Nations made strong calls for the end of
apartheid, and the Sharpeville massacre galvanised governments to enact economic,
political, and economic sanctions on South Africa after years of constructive dialogue had
failed. The cut of several financial ties between South Africa and the US and UK meant that
large investors diverted their capital to neighbouring countries instead.

South Africa was also subject to numerous boycotts by prestigious sporting leagues and
events such as the Olympics in 1964, and the Rugby World Cups in 1987 and 1991. These
were arguably very salient sanctions because sports such as rugby have a deep relationship
with the formation of Afrikaans national identity. It can also be argued that unlike trade, for
example, sport still operates within a set of values that retain a gloss of idealism and within a
set of rules and expectations that stress meritocracy, excellence, and fairness. The
exclusion of South Africa meant that public outcry within the white population was often a
strong driving force to end apartheid.

Internal resistance to apartheid

Internal resistance to apartheid in South Africa originated from several independent sectors
of South African society and alternatively took the form of social movements, passive
resistance, or guerrilla warfare. Mass action against the ruling National Party government,
coupled with South Africa's growing international isolation and economic sanctions, were
instrumental factors in ending racial segregation and discrimination. By the 1980s, there was
continuous interplay between violent action and non-violent action.

Though its creation predated apartheid, the African National Congress became the primary
force in opposition to the National Party’s apartheid regime after its conservative leadership
was superseded by the organisation’s Youth League. Led by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela,
and Oliver Tambo, the organisation advocated a policy of open defiance and resistance for
the first time. This unleashed the 1950s Programme of Action, instituted in 1949, which laid
emphasis on the right of the African people to freedom under the flag of African Nationalism.
It laid out plans for strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience, resulting in occasionally violent
clashes, with mass protests, stay-aways, boycotts and strikes predominating.

In 1952, the Joint Planning Council, made up of members from the ANC, the South African
Indian Congress as well as the Coloured People's Congress, agreed on a plan for the
defiance of unfair laws. By defying the laws, the organisation hoped for mass arrests that the
government wouldn't be able to cope with (e.g. Nelson Mandela led a crowd of 50 men down
the streets of a white area in Johannesburg after the 11 pm curfew that forbade black
peoples' presence, leading to their arrest but spreading mass defiance throughout the
country, resulting in more than 2500 people from 24 different towns being arrested under
varying charges). By the end of the campaign, the government arrested 8,000 people, but
was forced to temporarily relax its apartheid legislation. In addition, as a direct result of the
campaign, membership of the ANC increased and attention was drawn to apartheid's
injustices.

Once things had calmed down, however, the government by cracking down on resistance
groups with legislative action among which were the Unlawful Organisations Act, the
Suppression of Communism Act, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Procedures Act.

In 1959 a group of disenchanted ANC members broke away from the ANC and formed the
Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), saying the ANC was too strongly influenced by
white communists. First on the PAC's agenda was a series of nationwide demonstrations
against the pass laws (i.e. laws that required black individuals to carry passes containing
fingerprints, photo and information on access to non-black areas). One of the mass
demonstrations organised by the PAC took place at Sharpeville, which ended in a massacre
of peaceful protestors. The police killed 69 people and injured 186, all of which were black,
and most of them had been shot in the back. The Sharpeville Massacre helped shape ANC
policy. Before Sharpeville, those advocating the use of organised violence had been
marginalised as too radical by the ANC's leadership. After Sharpeville, Mandela was allowed
to form a military wing called ‘MK’ and launch his guerrilla struggle (called the ‘M Plan’).
Nelson Mandela, who was the commander of MK, developed the ‘M Plan’ (Mandela Plan), a
programme of controlled sabotage, launching a guerrilla war modelled upon the FLN's
struggle in Algeria. Its policy involved the targeting of state buildings for sabotage without
resorting to murder. On 16 December 1961 MK carried out its first acts of sabotage by
assaulting post offices and other structures in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Durban.
Many other acts of sabotage would take place over the next few years. In its first 18 months,
MK carried out about 200 acts of sabotage, but despite its policy of avoiding killings, some
deaths did occur. Other, more radical, militant groups were also formed under PAC and the
Black Consciousness Movement.

Subsequent arrests, exiles, and tortures of key leaders sparked even more external and
internal demands for reform. Increasing local and international pressure on the government,
as well as the realisation that apartheid could neither be maintained by force forever nor
overthrown by the opposition without considerable suffering, eventually led both sides to the
negotiating table. The additional pressure of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a war fought on
the South African-Angola border in the middle of the Angolan Civil War, also created a
window of opportunity to create the enabling conditions for a negotiated settlement.

The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of negotiations between
1990 and 1993 and through unilateral steps by the de Klerk government. These negotiations
took place between the governing National Party, the African National Congress, and a wide
variety of other political organisations. Negotiations took place against a backdrop of political
violence in the country, including allegations of a state-sponsored third force destabilising
the country. The negotiations resulted in South Africa's first non-racial election in 1994,
which was won by the African National Congress with a majority of 62%.

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC)

Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa (TRC), courtlike body established by the
new South African government in 1995 to help heal the country and bring about a
reconciliation of its people by uncovering the truth about human rights violations that had
occurred during the period of apartheid. Its emphasis was on gathering evidence and
uncovering information—from both victims and perpetrators—and not on prosecuting
individuals for past crimes.

In the negotiations leading to the end of apartheid, a major obstacle to finalising the interim
constitution was the question of accountability for those guilty of gross human rights
violations during the years of apartheid. It became clear during the negotiations that the
political right and many in the security forces who were not loyal to President de Klerk posed
a major threat to stability in the country. They demanded that President de Klerk issue them
a blanket amnesty for past actions. The dominant view among the liberation movements at
the time, however, was that there should be accountability for past crimes, along the lines of
the Nuremberg trials.

To resolve these conflicts, the TRC was born. It was made up of 17 commissioners. The
commission was tasked with investigating human rights abuses committed from 1960 to
1994, including the circumstances, factors, and context of such violations; allowing victims
the opportunity to tell their story; granting amnesty; constructing an impartial historical record
of the past; and drafting a reparations policy. Finally, the TRC would compile a final report,
providing comprehensive accounts of the activities and findings of the commission together
with recommendations of measures to prevent future violations of human rights. An
important feature of the TRC was its openness and transparency. The public hearings held
by the TRC ensured that South Africans became aware of the atrocities that had been
committed during the apartheid years. The commissioners were selected through an open
countrywide nomination process and publicly interviewed by an independent selection panel
comprising representatives of all the political parties, civil society, and the religious bodies in
the country. Nelson Mandela, then president of South Africa, appointed Archbishop
Desmond Tutu as the chair of the commission and Alex Boraine as the deputy chair.

The primary focus of the commission was on victims. It received more than 22,000
statements from victims and held public hearings at which victims gave testimony about
gross violations of human rights, defined in the Act as torture, killings, disappearances and
abductions, and severe ill treatment suffered at the hands of the apartheid state. Those who
had suffered violations at the hands of the liberation movements, by members and leaders of
such groups as the African National Congress, the Inkatha Freedom Party, and the Pan-
Africanist Congress, also appeared before the commission. The commission received more
than 7,000 amnesty applications, held more than 2,500 amnesty hearings, and granted
1,500 amnesties for thousands of crimes committed during the apartheid years.

However, the TRC was confronted by a number of challenges as it was not accepted by all
parties to the conflict. The top echelons of the military did not cooperate with the
commission. It was mainly the foot soldiers in the security forces and those who were
already imprisoned or were facing charges who applied for amnesty. Senior politicians in the
former government and senior leaders in the security forces did not apply. The TRC also did
not focus sufficiently on the policies or political economy of apartheid. The failure to examine
the effect and impact of apartheid policies resulted in the need for the perpetrators, or the
“trigger-pullers”, to bear the collective shame of the nation and let those who benefited from
apartheid to escape responsibility. The link between racialized power and racialized privilege
became obscured. The failure to prosecute individuals who failed to apply for amnesty or
who were refused amnesty by the TRC also encouraged the view that the government had
strengthened impunity and that the beneficiaries of apartheid had escaped accountability for
their actions.

Race politics, wealth redistribution, and national identity

Since the end of apartheid, the ANC has instituted numerous redistributive socio-economic
policies such as the Land Reform, the Reconstruction and Development Programme, and
the Black Economic Empowerment Act, which broadly attempted to increase business,
education, and employment opportunities for black South Africans while increasing their
access to public service. The results have been mixed– while the economy has grown from
1994 and GDP per capita and living standards have jumped considerably, inequality in land
ownership as well as income have not improved significantly.

Even though racial differences in living standards have narrowed, South Africa has ranked
as the country with the worst inequality out of the 154 that were surveyed by the World Bank
in 2017.
Improvement in racial economic inequality can be seen: In 2004, whites (who are 8% of the
population) made up 86% of those in the top bracket of living standards. By 2015 that share
had fallen to 49%, and blacks made up 30%. That is partly because more blacks have been
able to move into government jobs, which often pay well. But business and education have
opened up, too. One survey of firms found that whereas in 1996 blacks made up just 8% of
company executives, by 2015 they made up 41%. Before the end of apartheid, South African
universities produced 44 white engineering graduates for every black one; by 2014, there
were two blacks for every white.
Even so, income inequality has not fallen. Many argue it is because economic growth has
benefitted mainly the middle-class black population (who were the best-educated), while
neglecting the less-educated or those who lived in more rural parts of South Africa. Between
2001 and 2015, the number of social grants given to the poor increased from 4m to almost
17m. Some 10.6m people receive such grants—more than the number who have formal
jobs.

Land ownership still shows racial disparity. The predominance of white ownership of land is
emblematic, to many South Africans, of the persistence of apartheid injustice. A contentious
state audit found that 72% of land is still held by whites and 4% by the black majority.
However, the audit did not include land owned by the state or held in trust by white
individuals, which may be sizeable– the lack of data and misrepresentation clouds the
debate over controversial land reforms. The Land Reform attempts to expropriate land from
white landowners with compensation and transfer it to black stakeholders. However, the
process has been sluggish due to difficulty in arbitrating land claims and possible economic
impacts (since much of this land is used for agricultural output and requires large amounts of
technological capital).
Land reform is an emotional and symbolic issue, especially in rural areas that have
entrenched rates of poverty, and it is easily exploited as an issue by populist politicians.
Where the practical need for land reform is most pressing is in urban and suburban areas,
where there is substantial pressure from people leaving rural areas to look for work. State-
owned land and tribal trust lands provide a possible venue for land redistribution without an
impact on investor confidence or agricultural production. By and large, however, tribal chiefs
would not like that approach because their control of tribal lands is basic to their local power.
These chiefs were an important political constituency of former president Jacob Zuma,
whom Ramaphosa has driven from office. This could spell an end to vetoes on land
redistribution by tribal chiefs.

Due to their ineffectiveness in combatting black poverty as well as their race-based policies,
the ANC faces threats from both from their main political opposition: the mostly white
Democratic Alliance, as well as from within. Ex-President Jacob Zuma was forced to resign
from his position due to allegations of rape, racketeering, and corruption, as well as repeated
motions of no confidence by his own party. He was replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa, who
survived attempts by Zuma to leak personal documents and spread rumours in the media.
This kind of in-fighting and power struggles have been common in the ANC since the end of
Nelson Mandela’s term, breeding distrust in their voter base as well as party factionalism.
Voting is also highly racialised: white and mixed-race voters vote for the Democratic Alliance
based on their fear of increased state intervention on racial affairs (which has been
exacerbated by the forced expropriation of white-owned land without compensation in
Zimbabwe).
HIV/AIDs
South Africa has biggest HIV epidemic in the world at 7.1million people (18.9% of the
population) living with HIV. South Africa has the largest antiretroviral treatment (ART)
programme in the world and these efforts have been largely financed from its own domestic
resources. In 2015, the country was investing more than $1.34 billion annually to run its HIV
programmes. Groups in South Africa that are prone to HIV infections include sex workers,
men that have sex with men (MSM), transgender women, drug-users, and young women or
adolescent girls.

Certain factors increase HIV risk for South African sex workers, including poverty, the
number of dependents they have, and lack of alternative career opportunities. Injecting drug
use is also common among sex workers, exacerbating their vulnerability to HIV infection.
Studies have also found that understanding of HIV risk is often low among female sex
workers; in Durban, it was reported that only 4.6% of female sex workers could correctly
identify HIV transmission risks and reject myths. In 2015, it was found that only 19% of
female sex workers living with HIV in Johannesburg were accessing treatment. These rates
are well below the national average, possibly stemming from the stigma and criminalisation
they face. Educational organisations have reported difficulties in delivering HIV prevention
services to sex workers due to ongoing police harassment. One study found that up to 70%
of female sex workers had experienced abuse by the authorities.

HIV prevalence among MSM in South Africa is now estimated at 26.8%. This varies
geographically but it is reported to have risen by more than 10% in Johannesburg, Cape
Town and Durban since 2008. Despite a constitution that protects the rights of LGBT
communities, many men who have sex with men face high levels of social stigma and
homophobic violence as a result of traditional and conservative attitudes within the general
population. There is also a lack of knowledge around the issues that face men who have sex
with men, making it difficult for these men to disclose their sexuality to healthcare workers
and get the healthcare they need.

Transgender women are twice as likely to have HIV as MSM. They have often been
neglected by both policy and research in South Africa, and have either been excluded from
participating in studies or been categorised as men who have sex with men. The social
stigma they face in society are often correlated with poverty and a denial of key healthcare
services, both of which are factors that exacerbate rates of undiagnosed and untreated HIV
infection.

HIV prevalence among young women in South Africa is nearly four times greater than that of
men their age. Young women between the ages of 15 and 24 made up 37% of new
infections in South Africa in 2016. Poverty, the low social status of women, and gender-
based violence (GBV) have all been cited as reasons for the disparity in HIV prevalence
between genders. Also, intergenerational relationships between older men and younger
women are understood to be driving a cycle of infections. Exploitative sexual partnering
between young women and older men, who might have acquired HIV from women of a
similar age, is a key factor driving transmission.

South Africa has rolled out numerous policies to combat HIV infection and increase rates of
early diagnosis, treatment, and viral suppression. They include distributing condoms,
administering both pre-exposure (PrEP) and post-exposure antiviral drugs, and conducting
educational and awareness programs. The country has made great strides in tackling its HIV
epidemic in recent years and now has the biggest HIV treatment programme in the world.
Moreover, these efforts are now largely funded from South Africa's own resources. HIV
prevention initiatives are having a significant impact on mother-to-child transmission rates in
particular, which are falling dramatically. New HIV infections overall have fallen by half in the
last decade, however, there are still too many. While the short term financing of South
Africa's HIV epidemic is secure, in the longer term, the government needs to explore other
strategies in order to sustain and expand its progress.

Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is bordered by Zambia to the northwest,
Mozambique to the east, South Africa to the south, and Botswana to the southwest. The
United Kingdom annexed it as Southern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Company in
1923, and it obtained its independence in 1980.

Since the Zimbabwe dollar (ZWD) was demonetarised in April 2009, there is no official
currency in Zimbabwe. The main currency being used (amongst a basket of eight
international currencies) is the United States dollar (USD). This is followed by the South
African rand (ZAR), especially used in the southern part of the country that borders on South
Africa. Zimbabwe has struggled to feed its own people due to severe droughts and the
effects of a land reform programme which saw the seizure of white-owned farms
redistributed to landless black Zimbabweans which led to sharp falls in production. Cash-
strapped and impoverished, Zimbabwe's economy faces severe challenges. Unemployment
and poverty are endemic and political strife and repression commonplace. Many
Zimbabweans have left the country in search of work in South Africa.

Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF

Robert Mugabe has been the leader of Zimbabwe since its independence in 1980. He is one
of the longest-serving, and in the latter years of his reign, most infamous African rulers. Born
to a Shona mother, he originally worked as a school teacher in Southern Rhodesia, Northern
Rhodesia, and Ghana. Angered that Southern Rhodesia was a British colony governed by a
white minority, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalist protests calling for
an independent black-led state. After making anti-government comments, he was convicted
of sedition and imprisoned between 1964 and 1974. On release, he fled to Mozambique,
established his leadership of a nationalist party, the Zimbabwe African National Union
(ZANU), and oversaw ZANU's role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith's
predominantly white government.

The war led to peace negotiations brokered by the United Kingdom that resulted in the
Lancaster House Agreement. The agreement dismantled white minority rule and resulted in
the 1980 general election, at which Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory. Elected prime minister
and later president, he embraced conciliation with the country’s white minority but sidelined
his rivals through politics and force. After winning new elections on March 4, 1980, Mugabe
worked to convince the new country’s 200,000 whites, including 4,500 commercial farmers,
to stay.

However, during the Rhodesian Bush War, two rival nationalist parties, Robert Mugabe's
ZANU and Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), had emerged to
challenge Rhodesia's predominantly white government. ZANU recruited mainly from the
majority Shona people, whereas the ZAPU had its greatest support among the minority
Ndebele. In 1982 Mugabe sent his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade to the ZAPU
stronghold of Matabeleland to smash dissent. Over five years, 20,000 Ndebele civilians were
killed as part of a campaign of alleged political genocide. In 1987, Mugabe switched tactics,
inviting ZAPU to be merged with the ruling ZANU-PF and creating a de facto one-party
authoritarian state with himself as the ruling president.

During the 1990s Mugabe was re-elected twice, became a widower and remarried. In 1998
he sent Zimbabwean troops to intervene in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war—a
move many viewed as a grab for the country’s diamonds and valuable minerals.

In 2000 Mugabe organized a referendum on a new Zimbabwean constitution that would

expand the powers of the presidency and allow the government to seize white-owned land.
Groups opposed to the constitution formed the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
which successfully campaigned for a “no” vote in the referendum. That same year, groups of
individuals calling themselves “war veterans”—though many were not old enough to have
been part of Zimbabwe’s independence struggle—began invading white-owned farms.
Violence caused many of Zimbabwe’s whites to flee the country. Zimbabwe’s commercial
farming collapsed, triggering years of hyperinflation and food shortages that created a nation
of impoverished billionaires.

After a 2008 election marred by ZANU-PF-sponsored violence, Mugabe was pressured by

his regional allies to form an inclusive government with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as
vice president. Even while implementing the accord, Mugabe kept up the pressure,
subjecting MDC parliamentarians to arrest, imprisonment and torture.

Having dominated Zimbabwe's politics for nearly four decades, Mugabe has been a
controversial and divisive figure. He has been praised as a revolutionary hero of the African
liberation struggle who helped to free Zimbabwe from British colonialism, imperialism and
white minority rule. Conversely, he has been accused of being a dictator responsible for
economic mismanagement, widespread corruption, anti-white racism, human rights abuses
and crimes against humanity.

2017 Coup d'etat

In 2015, Mugabe announced that he’d run for another term as the ZANU-PF candidate for
the 2018 general election despite the fact that he would have been 94. Zimbabwe is at a
tipping point– the persistence of Mugabe’s reign is uncertain for the future considering his
poor health and old age. This has sparked a large power struggle within his party between
the two most likely successors: the old guard lead by Mugabe’s vice-president Emmerson
Mnangagwa, and Mugabe’s wife Grace Mugabe.

On November 6 2017, Robert Mugabe fired Mnangagwa as vice-president, signalling that he

most likely favoured his wife as his anointed successor despite her being unpopular with the
old guard and having faced assault and corruption allegations. On 19 November, the military
(known as the Zimbabwe Defence Force) supported Emmerson Mnangagwa and placed
Mugabe and his family under house arrest that forced his eventual resignation. Mnangagwa
replaced Mugabe as the leader and candidate of the ZANU-PF in the upcoming election.
Mnangagwa, like Mugabe, fought for Zimbabwe’s independence but has a dark past that
include human rights abuses against political opponents and ethnic minorities during his time
in office.

The election is scheduled to be held on 30 July 2018.

Economic crisis
Mugabe inherited a well-diversified economy that had the potential of being one of the
largest markets in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, real income per capita is down by 15% since
the nation’s independence in 1980. There is widespread poverty and a 95% unemployment
rate, symptomatic of the nation’s two most pressing causes of the economic crisis:
hyperinflation and land expropriation.

The hyperinflation in Zimbabwe is rooted in the concept that money has no firm basis to give
its value; it only has the value that people ascribe to it that symbolise people’s confidence in
the state to honour economic transactions as well as achieve economic growth (thus giving a
profitable return for those looking to speculate). Crucial to this component is the
government’s discipline over the creation of additional money (i.e. creating artificial scarcity).
However, the Mugabe government was printing money to finance involvement in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and, in 2000, in the Second Congo War, including higher
salaries for army and government officials. Zimbabwe was under-reporting its war spending
to the International Monetary Fund by perhaps $23 million a month.

A loss of confidence in the currency also results from Zimbabwe’s lack of economic growth
and legal accountability. The prevalence of insitutionalised corruption as well as the use of
violence to perpetrate ethnic and political violence by the state has lowered confidence in the
future. Poor economic policies have also meant that key industries like agriculture are
harmed, especially tobacco, which accounted for one-third of Zimbabwe's foreign-exchange
earnings. Manufacturing and mining also declined due to the forced nationalisation of land
and corporations, further undermining property security.

Lack of confidence in government to practiсe fiscal restraint feeds on itself. In Zimbabwe,

neither the issuance of banknotes of higher denominations nor proclamation of new currency
regimes led holders of the currency to expect that the new money would be more stable than
the old. Remedies announced by the government never included a believable basis for
monetary stability. Thus, one reason the currency continued to lose value, causing
hyperinflation, is that so many people expected it to.

At the other side of the problem is land reform in Zimbabwe which officially began in 1980
with the signing of the Lancaster House Agreement, as an effort to more equitably distribute
land between black subsistence farmers and white Zimbabweans of European ancestry, who
had traditionally enjoyed superior political and economic status. The programme's targets
were intended to alter the ethnic balance of land ownership. Inequalities in land ownership
were inflated by a growing overpopulation problem, depletion of over-utilised tracts, and
escalating poverty in subsistence areas parallel with the under-utilisation of land on
commercial farms.However, the predominantly white commercial sector also provided a
livelihood for over 30% of the paid workforce and accounted for some 40% of exports. Its
principal crops included sugarcane, coffee, cotton, tobacco and several varieties of high-
yield hybrid maize.

The Zimbabwe government began forcibly seizing white-owned land in the 1990s without
compensation to landowners. By 2013, every white-owned farm had either been
expropriated or confirmed for future redistribution. This land reform had devastating effects
on agricultural output. Before 2000, land-owning farmers had large tracts of land and used
economies of scale to raise capital, borrow money when necessary, and purchase modern
mechanised farm equipment to increase productivity on their land. Because the primary
beneficiaries of the land reform were members of the Government and their families, despite
the fact that most had no experience in running a farm, the drop in total farm output has
been tremendous and has even produced starvation and famine.

Export crops have suffered tremendously in this period. Whereas Zimbabwe was the world's
sixth-largest producer of tobacco in 2001, in 2005 it produced less than a third the amount
produced before. The main everyday food for Zimbabweans, maize, has been reduced by
31%, while small grains production has grown by 163%. Zimbabwe now struggles to feed its
own population: about 45 per cent of the population is now considered malnourished.
The mismanagement of agriculturally-productive land caused Zimbabwe’s economy to shrink
considerably, further perpetuating hyperinflation until the country was forced to abandon the
Zimbabwean dollar and adopt the US dollar as its main currency.

Nigeria
Nigeria, a country located in West Africa along the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean, is a
federal constitutional republic comprised of 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
English is the official language of Nigeria, and its currency is the Nigerian naira (NGN).

Nigeria became the largest economy in Africa after rebasing in 2014. The gross domestic
product (GDP) is estimated at 373 billion United States dollars (USD) for 2017. As a
developing country, Nigeria has been recognised by prominent members of the global
investment community and economists as an up-and-coming market with tremendous
growth potential over the next decades. A member of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) since 1971, Nigeria ranks as the largest oil producer in Africa
and the 11th largest in the world. In addition to oil and gas, Nigeria has vast underexploited
mineral resources, including coal, bauxite, gold, and iron ore.

Christianity
Christians make up roughly 50% of Nigeria’s population, and are dominant mostly in the
central and southern regions of the country. Nigeria has one of the largest (if not, the largest)
Christian populations in Africa with more than 90 million people belonging to the church in
different denominations including Roman Catholicism, the Anglican Church, Presbyterianism
etc.

Churches are a large part of Nigeria’s unseen economy: an untaxed but huge sector that
aren’t obliged to open their books to the government making it difficult to assess just how
huge it is. The surging popularity of Christian megachurches have propelled their preachers
into some of the richest people in Africa. One such pastor is Oyedepo with an estimated net
worth of $150 million USD. Oyedepo has an entire 4250-hectare campus called
‘Canaanland’ outside the commercial capital of Lagos. It comprises a university, two halls of
accommodation, restaurants and a church seating 50,000 people, with a total overflow
capacity of five times that. Other pastors such as “Pastor Chris” Oyakhilome of Believers’
LoveWorld Incorporated (net worth $30 million to $50 million), and TB Joshua, pastor of the
Synagogue Church of All Nations (net worth $10 million to $15 million) have diversified other
means of spreading gospel including magazines, newspapers, a 24-hour TV station, and
holy water that has been blessed to cure otherwise incurable ailments such as HIV/AIDS.

Many of the pastors, Like U.S. televangelists, preach the “prosperity gospel” that faith in
Jesus Christ lifts people out of poverty, and that message partly explains the explosion of the
Pentecostal movement in sub-Saharan Africa, where misfortune and poverty are often seen
as having supernatural causes. Local pastors often peddle slightly different versions of
Christianity, and have wildly different interpretations of the Bible.

The other 50% of the population is Muslim, which dominate the central and north of Nigeria.
These two Abrahamic religions often do not coexist peacefully with bouts of sectarian
violence erupting in the 1960s, especially in certain central and northern areas that are
under sharia law. Christian minorities are often heavily discriminated and persecuted in
these areas. This tension has affected Nigerian politics as well. Elections often pit politicians
of different faiths against each other. Parties often play up the importance of religious loyalty,
allowing for the potential of violent bloodshed. In 2015, Nigeria’s main opposition party, the
All Progressives Congress (APC) with the candidate Muhammadu Buhari, a septuagenarian
Muslim from the north, went up against Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner. That
campaign was among Nigeria’s bloodiest, with more than 800 people killed in sectarian
fighting.

Boko Haram
Boko Haram began life in the early 2000s in northern Nigeria which, unlike the
predominantly Christian south of the country, is dominated by Muslims. Its name, which
translates as “Western education is sinful”, gives a flavour of its ideology. Few people paid it
much attention until 2009 when its leader, a young cleric called Mohammed Yusuf, was
killed while in police custody after fighting broke out between his supporters and the Nigerian
army. Since then it has targeted policemen and members of the army, as well as bombing
churches and a UN building in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

Religion may be Boko Haram’s rallying cry but it would be wrong to consider it a Nigerian
imitator of al-Qaeda. The group calls for the implementation of sharia law across Nigeria, a
frequent demand of Muslims around the world. But it does not seem to want a universal
caliphate, which is one hallmark of Islamist jihadi groups. In fact quite what Boko Haram
wants is not clear (it varies from the dismantlement of democracy to the eradication of
Christianity from Nigeria). Self-appointed spokespeople for the group occasionally make
pronouncements on its behalf but may have no authority to do so. All that can be said for
sure is that it justifies its attacks against the Nigerian state using the language of religious
struggle.

Using women and girls in terrorist actions is a common tactic that Boko Haram uses. The
kidnapping of some 300 girls in April 2014, from a school in Nigeria, was a social media
phenomenon (#bringbackourgirls). Since then, hundreds of women and girls were abducted,
forcefully trained and used in terrorist attacks. The results were almost immediate. Since the
2014 kidnapping, Boko Haram used at least 100 women and girls in suicide attacks carried
out in public places such as markets, schools, river docks or even refugee camps for
internally displaced people. Also, out of the 34 suicide bombings perpetrated in the
neighbouring Cameroon, 80% involved girls and women aged 14 to 24 years.

Other tactics include conducting raids on villages where terrorists perpetuate indiscriminate
killings, robberies, and abductions. In most of the raids, serious damage is inflicted on the
critical infrastructures of the communities, and the damages generate an even heavier strain
on the overall state of security of those affected communities. Boko Haram also takes control
of towns and villages where large numbers of terrorists assault the communities, initially
targeting police or military institutions and facilities; after, government forces are neutralized
or forced to abandon their posts, and the terrorists capture the arms and ammunition left
behind; then they target civilians, either gunning them down as they try to escape or execute
them in their own homes while simultaneously looting shops and homes.

Boko Haram is funded predominantly by lucrative ransoms they get from kidnappings and
hostage situations, as well as regional bank robberies and selling captured women and girls
on the black market. Even though the Nigerian Defence Forces claimed to have defeated
Boko Haram, and there have been significant steps forward in reducing Boko Haram’s
revenue stream, local influence and territory, there is terrorist presence in the north. The
fighting between the jihadists of Boko Haram and the Nigerian government has uprooted
almost 2m people in north-eastern Nigeria; and more than 5 million are left vulnerable to
regular suicide bombings, food insecurity, and exploitation by government security forces.

One of the main challenges is intelligence gathering as well as countering Boko Haram’s
convoluted hierarchical structure. The poverty and instability in the places it targets also
means that the terrorist organisation has no shortage of young, vulnerable recruits that are
almost indistinguishable from everyday civilians.

Economy
Nigeria became sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy in a single night when its GDP was
revised from 42.4 trillion naira to 80.2 trillion naira ($509 billion USD), surpassing South
Africa. Previous to this re-assessment, staticians had failed to consider Nigeria’s growing
telecommunications and manufacturing industries (which had been given little statistical
weight) as well as the country’s small and informal businesses which accounted for the bulk
of retail and trade.

Nigeria remains heavily dependent on oil. Crude sales are the source of up to 70% of
government revenue and more than 90% of the country's export earnings. Oil prices have
sharply declined over the past few years and the lack of diversity in Nigeria's economy has
become a major problem, causing a plummet in national income. Many domestic oil
producers are struggling to pay back interest on the steep loans they took to purchase oil
fields (20% of Nigeria’s banks loans were to gas and oil producers), and the smaller ones
have declared bankruptcy.

Cheap oil has also caused a huge currency crisis– previously, Nigeria has attempted to
protect against volatility by pegging their currency, the naira, to the American dollar using
hard currency reserves. However, as their capital reserves dwindled, the Buhari government
attempted to stop the naira for devaluing by banning a list of foreign imports from shovels to
toothpicks to rice in the hopes of maintaining reserves and stimulating domestic production.
However, in June of 2016, the central bank changed tack and removed the currency peg.
Overnight, the naira immediately plunged by 30%. With a global market still not favourable to
oil, Nigeria has struggled to recover the strength of its currency and economy.

Kenya
Post-independence in 1963, Kenya became a de facto one-party state in its early years,
ruled by the sole legal party Kenya African National Union (KANU). After liberalisation in late
1991, the ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in the next two
elections which were marred by violence and fraud. Eventually, Mwai Kibaki, the leader of an
multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, managed to replace
Daniel Moi (who had been president since 1978) following a campaign centered on an anti-
corruption platform. However, his reelection in 2007 brought charges of vote rigging and
unleashed two months of violence in which approximately 1100 people died. This prompted
African Union-sponsored mediation that resulted in a power-sharing accord and
constitutional reform that introduced additional checks and balances to executive power and
significant devolution of power and resources. This amended constitution was passed with
an overwhelming majority in a national referendum in 2008.

In the present day, Kenya's ethnic diversity has produced a vibrant culture but is also a
source of conflict. The Islamist militant Al-Shabab movement, active in Somalia, has also
been launching a growing number of attacks in Kenya, including the 2013 Westgate
shopping mall in Nairobi and the 2015 attack on Garissa University College in northwest
Kenya.

Despite Kenya’s robust economic performance, it has struggled to recover from the 2008
economic crisis. Other pressing challenges include high unemployment, crime and poverty,
and droughts frequently put millions of people at risk.

Election boycott 2017

On August 8th 2017, Kenyans were scheduled to go to the polls to elect their new president,
governors, MPs, and senators. However, the excitement that many Kenyans felt was
matched only by the amount of terror of the violence that had erupted. A week before the
election, Chris Msando, the chief technician in charge of the electronic voting system, was
found dead in Nairobi, the capital, his arm broken and his body displaying signs of torture.
The opposition blamed the government and attempting to intimidate against fair and
transparent political participation, though the chairman of the electoral commission said that
the voting system would be tamper-proof, and the government announced extra security
measures to protect election officials.

Kenya’s democracy is one of the most vibrant and competitive in Africa, but is accompanied
with a price. Elections are bitterly fought and often violent and rife with ethnic tension. The
results are nearly always disputed. In 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Jomo Kenyatta
(Kenya’s first president post-independence), went up against a united opposition led by Raila
Odinga, the son of another independence-era stalwart Oginga Odinga. Kenyatta won the
presidency in 2013, the first election post-reform, by making a pact with William Ruto, a
populist politician from the Rift Valley. After the 2007 election the pair were investigated and
indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Kenyatta, who belongs to Kenya’s biggest
tribe, the Kikuyu, was accused of organising the mass killing of people from other tribes;
Ruto, who is from the Kalenjin, the third-biggest group, was accused of organising the
murder of Kikuyus. Yet in 2013 they fought a joint campaign in which they claimed that the
charges were part of a Western-led plot to take over Kenya. They won easily even after
accusations of election rigging, and the ICC charges were later dropped after key witnesses
vanished.

During Kenyatta’s term, a new Chinese-built railway connecting the coast to Nairobi opened
in May of 2017; new roads have stretched across the country; electrification and internet
access have spread quickly. But corruption was still endemic; Kenya remained tied up in a
vicious war in next-door Somalia, and growth had not created many formal jobs. The cost of
food had also spiked due to a drought, and as a result, though most polls still put Kenyatta
ahead, the two candidates were a lot closer than expected, which heightened tensions.

In Kenya, policy differences matter less than ethnic politics. Kenyans tend to vote along tribal
lines, hoping that politicians from their kin will be more likely to deliver government spending
or help their businesses. Kenyatta belongs to the Kikuyu, Kenya’s biggest tribe, who have
supplied three out of four of the country’s presidents, and whose elite members control much
of the economy. Odinga is a Luo, a tribe from Western Kenya that has long been
marginalised from Kenya’s politics (and the spoils that come with it).

The election ended with Kenyetta winning by a handy margin. However, it was quickly
followed by Kenya’s high court annulling the results after the judges were persuaded that
irregularities in the transmission of the results from polling stations to the electoral
commission were important enough that the election should be repeated. This decision
caused massive controversy. Despite its flaws, the overturned election was actually probably
one of Kenya’s most credible. In contrast to previous votes, violence was relatively limited
and expensive electronic equipment was used to check voters against a biometric database
to stop vote totals from being padded. International observers gave the election generally
positive reviews.

60 days later, a re-election was held and Kenyetta once again emerged victorious with an
astounding 98% of the vote with 30% turnout. A few days before the actual re-election,
Odinga withdrew from the race and attempted to call for an election boycott. However, many
speculate that with dwindling campaign funds, Odinga’s boycott was a desperate attempt to
avoid an election he would probably have lost anyway. The fresh election in October
became even more farcical when two of the seven Supreme Court judges arrived at work to
hear a last-ditch plea to delay the election even further. Many have believed Odinga’s
accusations that Kenyatta tampers with results (despite there being little evidence that he
does). With armed police roaming the streets and tear gas being used against protestors
disillusioned with Kenya’s ability to hold fair elections, Kenyatta may have emerged
victorious but with very little legitimacy.

Uganda
Uganda is a landlocked country situated in East Africa, with neighbours Kenya and Tanzania
to the east and south, respectively. It also shares a border with Rwanda to the south, the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the west and South Sudan to the north.

Since its independence from Britain in 1962, Uganda has endured a military coup, followed
by a brutal military dictatorship which ended in 1979, disputed elections in 1980 and a five-
year war that brought current President Yoweri Museveni to power in 1986. The country has
also had to contend with a brutal 20-year insurgency in the north, led by the Lord's
Resistance Army. In 2017, Uganda’s growing democracy has taken a turn for the worse
when the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) stated they planned to remove
presidential age limits from the constitution, allowing the 73-year-old leader, Yoweri
Museveni, to run again in 2021. He has won five imperfect elections since 1986, when he
seized power at the head of a rebel army.

Uganda is one of the countries with the fastest-growing populations – a growth rate is
estimated at 3.2 per cent - after Niger and Yemen. Most of its 34 million inhabitants live in
rural areas with farming as their main economic activity. Per capita income stands at $600.
Major exports include coffee, tea, vanilla, flowers, sesame and cotton. A lot of foreign
exchange also comes from tourism, and the country is beginning to pump oil in the west.
The media is very vibrant and relatively free. Several newspapers - published in English, the
official language, and Luganda, the most widely spoken language - are privately-owned and
there are dozens of radio stations. But the state also owns radio and TV stations and nearly
always dictates what is broadcast.

Ebola crisis 2014

In 2014, outbreaks of ebola were seen in Liberia and Guinea. After the virus failed to be
contained, it spread over central and west Africa, having the worst concentrations in Guinea,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda. The outbreaks caused an international scare, resulting in
multiple travel bans both within and out of central and west Africa.

Even though ebola is not an airborne disease, many African countries struggled to contain
outbreaks, especially in more rural areas that lacked core health infrastructure. Because the
early signs of ebola resemble a common cold, early diagnosis was near impossible in areas
with little availability to doctors and hospitals. Many health officials stumbled in knowing how
to effectively quarantine and treat those with ebola, and bodies were often poorly disposed
of, only exacerbating the spread of the disease. Poor health awareness also cause
conspiracy theories to be rife and while many sought out alternative treatments (a mixture of
raw onions and Nescafé is one example).

After the crisis, the World Health Organisation (WHO) admitted its failure in responding
effectively at containing medium and small sized outbreaks despite calls for immediate aid
by multiple charity organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Calls to improve
core capacities in all countries to detect, report and respond rapidly to small outbreaks in
order to prevent them from becoming large-scale emergencies were met with key reform
proposals such as the creation of a unified WHO center with clear responsibility, adequate
capacity, and strong lines of accountability for outbreak response, and for a transparent,
politically-protected standing emergency committee to take on responsibility for declaring
emergencies.
Kony 2012
Joseph Rao Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a guerrilla group that
formerly operated in Uganda. While initially purporting to fight against government
oppression, the LRA allegedly turned against Kony's own supporters, supposedly to "purify"
the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy. Kony proclaims himself the
spokesperson of God and a spirit medium and claims he is visited by a multinational host of
13 spirits. Ideologically, the group is a mix of mysticism, Acholi nationalism, and Christian
fundamentalism, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten
Commandments and local Acholi tradition.

Kony has been indicted by government entities for ordering the abduction of children to
become child soldiers and sex slaves. Due to the LRA, 66,000 children became soldiers,
and 2 million people were displaced internally from 1986 to 2009. In 2005, Kony was indicted
war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has
evaded capture. Since the Juba peace talks in 2006, the LRA no longer operate in Uganda.
Sources claim that they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central
African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan.

Kony is perhaps most infamous from the 30-minute documentary, ‘Kony 2012’ made by
Invisible Children Inc., which became a social media phenomenon in the year it was
released. It prompted a large global response, raising awareness about Kony’s crimes,
though the reception was mixed. Many applaud the fact the it mobilised people from over the
world and created great political momentum to accelerate efforts to capture Kony. However,
the film was also criticised for selling a reductionist narrative around a single individual when
in reality, the circumstances behind his worst crimes as well as the reasons behind why he is
continuously able to evade capture are far more complex. Often Kony is able to use states
with poor governance, rural poverty, corruption, as well as violent conflict to veil his activities
as well as a recruitment ground for child soldiers.

Rwanda
Rwanda, a small landlocked country in east-central Africa, is trying to recover from the ethnic
strife that culminated in government-sponsored genocide in the mid-1990s. Its current
political climate is mixed. Its current government is led by Paul Kagame who, in his past,
helped topple the government of Uganda, overthrow the government of Rwanda, and oust
the government of Congo (which was then called Zaire). Kagame is perhaps the most
successful general alive, and this is only part of his claim to renown. He has now ruled
Rwanda for 23 years, during which the country has been transformed from a blood-spattered
wreck to an orderly society with robust economic growth, falling poverty and declining
inequality. Many African leaders see him as a model to emulate.

First impressions of President Kagame’s Rwanda are often excellent. The streets are clean
and safe. Officials welcome foreign investors and innovators. There is a growing discourse
around the empowerment of women, and 56% of Rwanda’s MPs are female, the highest
share in the world. Kagame has also rolled out basic health insurance and held cabinet
ministers accountable for measurable targets in data-driven policymaking. However, the
media are stifled. Members of opposition parties are harassed and occasionally murdered.
Senior defectors from the regime typically flee abroad, where they are still not safe. An
example is a former intelligence chief who was strangled in a luxury hotel room in South
Africa, and a former interior minister was shot dead in Kenya.

His tight hold of power is most likely rooted in a fear that the Tutsi minority and elite will be
overthrown and persecuted without his government in the seat of power. In his past Kagame
led an army of Tutsi exiles after a childhood as a refugee, and fought his way to power with
one aim—to prevent a repeat of the genocide. When the genocidal Hutu militias fled into
Congo, he hunted and slaughtered them. When the Congolese government abetted the
genocides, he overthrew it. When the next Congolese government made the same mistake,
he tried to overthrow it, too, sparking a many-sided war in Congo that killed millions.

Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a genocidal
mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. An
estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from 7
April to mid-July 1994,constituting as many as 70% of the Tutsi population. Additionally, 30%
of the Pygmy Batwa were killed. The genocide and widespread slaughter of Rwandans
ended when the Tutsi-backed and heavily armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul
Kagame took control of the country. An estimated 2,000,000 Rwandans, mostly Hutus, were
displaced and became refugees.

The genocide took place in the context of the Rwandan Civil War, a conflict beginning in
1990 between the Hutu-led government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which
largely consisted of Tutsi refugees whose families had fled to Uganda after the 1959 Hutu
revolt against colonial rule. Waves of Hutu violence against the RPF and Tutsi followed
Rwandan independence in 1962. International pressure on the Hutu government of Juvénal
Habyarimana resulted in a ceasefire in 1993, with a road-map to implement the Arusha
Accords, which would create a power-sharing government with the RPF. This agreement
was not acceptable to a number of conservative Hutu, who viewed it as conceding to enemy
demands.

On 6 April 1994, an airplane carrying Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien

Ntaryamira was shot down on its descent into Kigali. The assassination of Habyarimana
ended the peace accords. Genocidal killings began the following day. Radios and TVs
constantly aired hate-fuelled rhetoric against Tutsis, such as the death of Habyarimana as a
Tutsi conspiracy and Tutsi collaboration with Belgian powers to enslave Hutus during
Rwanda’s colonial period, as well as instructions for Hutus to systematically kill them.
Soldiers, police, and militia quickly executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and
political leaders who could have assumed control in the ensuing power vacuum.
Checkpoints and barricades were erected to screen all holders of the national ID card of
Rwanda (which contained ethnic classification information introduced by the Belgian colonial
government in 1933) in order to systematically identify and kill Tutsis. These forces recruited
and pressured Hutu civilians to arm themselves with machetes, clubs, blunt objects, and
other weapons to rape, maim, and kill their Tutsi neighbors and to destroy or steal their
property.
The breakdown of the peace accords led the RPF to restart its offensive and rapidly seize
control of the northern part of the country, bringing an end to the genocide. During these
events and in the aftermath, the United Nations (UN) and countries including the United
States, the United Kingdom, and Belgium were criticized for their inaction and failure to
strengthen the force and mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR)
peacekeepers. Other observers criticized the government of France for alleged support of
the Hutu government after the genocide had begun.

The systematic destruction of the judicial system during the genocide and civil war was a
major problem. Of 750 judges, 506 did not remain after the genocide – many were murdered
and most of the survivors fled Rwanda. By 1997, Rwanda only had fifty lawyers in its judicial
system. These barriers caused the trials to proceed very slowly… After the genocide, over
one million people were potentially culpable for a role in the genocide, nearly one-fifth of the
population remaining after the summer of 1994. After the genocide, the RPF pursued a
policy of mass arrests for the genocide, jailing over 100,000 in the two years after the
genocide. The pace of arrests overwhelmed the physical capacity of the Rwandan prison
system. The country’s nineteen prisons were designed to hold about eighteen thousand
inmates, but at their peak in 1998 there were 100,000 people in detention facilities across
the country. It was calculated that it would take 200 years to trial everyone (not including
those who were at large).

Though ethnic tensions still linger, Rwanda has shown relative success in the many policies
it enacted to held rebuild national identity post-genocide such as community court systems
(the ‘Gacaca’). Local level elected judges heard the trials of genocide suspects accused of
all crimes. The courts gave lower sentences if the person was repentant and sought
reconciliation with the community and often, confessing prisoners returned home without
further penalty or received community service orders. More than 12,000 community-based
courts tried more than 1.2 million cases throughout the country. The Gacaca trials also
served to promote reconciliation by providing a means for victims to learn the truth about the
death of their family members and relatives. They also gave perpetrators the opportunity to
confess their crimes, show remorse and ask for forgiveness in front of their community.
Many Rwandans now feel a strong sense of patriotism as well as faith in their government
that aims aims to unite people behind the common cause of progress.

Democratic Republic of Congo

The recent history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been one of civil war and
corruption. The DRC is a vast country with immense economic resources and, until recently,
has been at the centre of what some observers call "Africa's world war", with widespread
civilian suffering the result. The war claimed an up to six million lives, either as a direct result
of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. The war had an economic as well as a
political side. Fighting was fuelled by the country's vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking
advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources. Some militia fight on in the east,
where a big United Nations force is trying to keep the peace.

The DRC faces huge issues with economic development, consistently showing up in global
rankings of the high poverty rates.

Development challenges
War-torn and lacking stable educational, health, and transport infrastructure, the DRC has
ranked as either the second-poorest or the poorest country in the world. The DRC is highly
dependent on its mineral wealth and agriculture, lacking diversity in its production profile.
The country has also been historically afflicted with kleptocratic governments who rely on a
corrupt system of clientelism to maintain their hold on power. Much of the DRC’s earlier
wealth during the global copper boom and Mobutu's government was lost through
corruption.

After sharply increasing to almost 9% in the 2013-2014 period, the DRC’s GDP growth rate
(excluding inflation) decelerated to 6.9% in 2015, then to 2.4% in 2016, its lowest point since
2001. This slump is mainly due to declining prices and a shrinking global demand for raw
materials exported by the country, particularly of copper and cobalt, which account for 80%
of its export revenue. The government failed to re-invest income during times of high GDP
growth, instead focusing on macro-economic stability and investment in high-profile prestige
projects such as Congo Airways, a new government building, airports, and roads in the
wealthier parts of Kinshasa.

The economic shock led to a deterioration in external accounts and a downturn in the
country’s exchange rate in 2016, as well as a 31% drop in the exchange rate of the
Congolese franc against the dollar, which fueled runaway inflation of almost 24%. Lacking
access to domestic and international financial markets, the government had to drastically
reduce public expenditure to contain the deficit and limit monetary financing by the Central
Bank of the Congo.

Civil war
No conflict since the 1940s has been bloodier, yet few have been more completely ignored.
Estimates of the death toll in Congo between 1998 and 2003 range from roughly 1m to more
than 5m. Taking the midpoint, the cost in lives was higher than that in Syria, Iraq, Vietnam or
Korea.

Congo’s civil wars have a long and complex history, roughly starting with Belgium’s granting
of Congolese independence in 1960. Belgium negotiated post-colonial mining rights in the
DRC, causing soldiers of the Congolese army to mutiny, demanding increased pay and the
removal of white officers from their ranks. When Belgium intervened militarily, more soldiers
rebelled. The conflict escalated when Belgium aided the conditional secession of the
mineral-rich Katanga province in the south. The war also became the site of another
dangerous proxy war between western powers led by the US and the Soviet Union, which
supported different militant groups. After several violent struggles for power as well as a
coup d’etat, Mobutu set up a one-party dictatorship, controlling the nation until 1997.

In 1997, the First Congo War was sparked by the Rwandan genocide. During and after the
genocide, an estimated 2 million refugees, mostly Hutu, poured over Rwanda’s western
border into the Congo. The refugee camps in eastern Congo served as de facto army bases
for the exiled Interhamwe and Army for the Liberation of Rwanda, or ALiR, genocidaires.
They terrorized and robbed the local population with impunity until October 1996, when
eastern Congolese Banyamulenge (Tutsi) led an uprising to force the Rwandans out of the
Congo, sparking the First Congo War. In response, Rwandan and Ugandan armies backing
Laurent-Désiré Kabila invaded the Congo, partly in response to Mobutu’s government
abetting the Rwandan genocide. By December they controlled eastern Congo, and in May
1997 they marched into Kinshasa and overthrew Mobutu’s government. The country was re-
named the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kabila took over as president in September
1997.

Despite the new government, the eastern Congo continued to be an unstable war zone.
Kabila turned on his former backers (Rwanda and Uganda) and allowed Hutu armies to
regroup in eastern Congo. This resulted in a Rwandan/Ugandan joint invasion in 1998.
Neighboring countries came to Kabila’s rescue and temporarily halted the Rwandan and
Ugandan troops. The five-year conflict pitted Congolese government forces, supported by
Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, against rebels and soldiers backed by Uganda and
Rwanda. In July 1999, the seven countries involved signed the Lusaka Peace Accord and
5,000 U.N. peacekeepers (the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
or MONUC) were sent to monitor the situation.

In January 2001, President Kabila was assassinated by his bodyguard, and his son, Joseph
Kabila, succeeded him. Joseph Kabila proved to be an adept negotiator and in 2002, he
completed successful peace deals that finally saw Rwanda’s and Uganda’s withdrawal from
the Congo. In addition, Kabila negotiated a peace deal with internal rebel groups, promising
them a power-sharing interim government. This deal became official when Kabila signed a
transitional constitution in April 2003.

In 2016, Kabila announced that he would not be hosting elections thereby extending his term
in office. Numerous protests erupted over the country and Kabila subsequently cracked
down both in rural and urban areas. In rural areas, more than 70 rebel groups trade bullets
with the army or, more commonly, prey on civilians. The security forces are equally vicious.
Some 2m people fled their homes in 2017, bringing the total internally displaced to 4.3m.
The UN predicts that an army offensive launched last month against Islamist guerrillas near
the border with Uganda will drive another 370,000 from their homes. At least ten of Congo’s
26 provinces are in the grip of armed conflict. Refugees are flocking into Uganda, Tanzania,
Angola and Zambia.

Sudan and South Sudan

Sudan, once the largest and one of the most geographically diverse states in Africa, split into
two countries in July 2011 after the people of the south voted for independence. The
government of Sudan gave its blessing for an independent South Sudan, where the mainly
Christian and Animist people had for decades been struggling against rule by the Arab
Muslim north.

However, various outstanding issues - especially the question of shared oil revenues and
border demarcation - have continued to create tensions between the two successor states
as both states are heavily reliant on oil. However, both countries have had American
sanctions lifted in 2018, creating optimism for the future. In 1997, the US imposed
comprehensive economic, trade, and financial sanctions against the Sudan for their links
with international terrorist organisations such sheltering terrorist leaders like Osama bin
Laden and manufacturing chemical weapons. Though Sudan publicly supported the
international coalition against al Qaeda and the Taliban, their complicity in the violence
occurring in Darfur during Bush’s war on terror increased the number of sanctions, further
crippling the nation and harming civilians.

Independence and civil war

Sudan has long been beset by conflict. Two rounds of north-south civil war cost the lives of
1.5 million people, and a continuing conflict in the western region of Darfur has driven two
million people from their homes and killed more than 200,000.

Between 9 and 15 January 2011, a referendum was held to determine whether South Sudan
should become an independent country and separate from Sudan. 98.83% of the population
voted for independence. South Sudan formally became independent from Sudan on 9 July,
although certain disputes still remained, including the division of oil revenues, as 75% of all
the former Sudan's oil reserves are in South Sudan. The region of Abyei still remains
disputed and a separate referendum will be held in Abyei on whether they want to join
Sudan or South Sudan.

However, two years after independence in 2013, a civil war erupted between President Kiir
and his former deputy Riek Machar, as the president accused Machar of planning a coup.
Ugandan troops were deployed to help fight the rebels, and the United Nations
peacekeeping force were also stationed (though many of them have been found to be guilty
of operating human trafficking and prostitution rings in the Republic of Congo, the Central
African Republic, and in Sudan).

After many failed ceasefires, conflict is ongoing and has escalated to include ethnic violence
between different militant groups and tribes. Up to 300,000 people are estimated to have
been killed in the war, including notable atrocities such as the 2014 Bentiu massacre.
Although both Kiir and Machar have supporters from across South Sudan's ethnic divides,
subsequent fighting has been communal, with rebels targeting members of Kiir's Dinka
ethnic group and government soldiers attacking Nuers. About 3 million people have been
displaced in a country of 12 million, with about 2 million internally displaced and about 1
million having fled to neighboring countries, especially Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda.

Somalia
Somalia is arguably Africa’s most-failed state. It was born in 1960, when British Somaliland
and what had formerly been Italian Somaliland united and declared independence. In 1969,
General Mohamed Siad Barre took control in a coup and formed a socialist state backed by
the Soviet Union. But when Barre invaded the Ogaden, an ethnically Somali region of
Ethiopia, a coalition of Ethiopian, Soviet, and Cuban troops forced the Somalis out. Barre
then discarded his allegiance to the Soviets and began to receive funding from the United
States.

Armed opposition groups overthrew Barre’s regime in 1991, and Somalia descended into
civil war and anarchy. A UN peacekeeping mission failed to bring stability.

In 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control of much of central and southern
Somalia, imposing a strict interpretation of sharia law over the areas it ruled. The embattled
transitional federal government was relegated to control over only a small part of Mogadishu,
the capital. Ethiopian troops intervened later that year to fight ICU forces. Officials from
Mogadishu cannot safely visit much of the country, let alone govern it (even excluding
Somaliland, a region in the north that has been de facto independent since 1991).
In 2011, a severe drought exacerbated by ongoing civil strife, famine, and terrorism have
prompted legions of Somalis to flee to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya. A sixth of them—
2m out of a population of perhaps 12m—now live abroad. For those who remain, life
expectancy is just 55 years, and barely a third can read.

A radical offshoot of the ICU called al-Shabab, now affiliated with al-Qaeda, controls much of
southern Somalia, although African Union troops have recently seen major victories against
al-Shabaab.

However, compared with a decade ago, Somalia’s problems are more contained. Piracy has
all but stopped; al-Shabab are a guerrilla army, but not a conventional one. People are
generally not starving despite the 2011 famine. The country also held their first elections in
2016, officially replacing the UN’s transitional federal government. Even though universal
suffrage was not possible due to the civil strife, over 14,000 delegates appointed by clan
leaders managed to elect the current president: Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. There is still
a heavy dependence on foreign soldiers and a functioning Somalian state with safe streets is
still a ways off.

International maritime terrorism (i.e. pirates)

Between 2008 and 2011, the waters off the coast of Somalia were the most treacherous
shipping lanes in the world. The country lacked a coastguard or functioning state machinery,
which allowed heavily armed pirates to sail up to huge cargo vessels in speedboats before
boarding and taking crew and ship hostage. As a result, more than 700 attacks on vessels
took place in this period. In early 2011, 758 seafarers were being held hostage by pirates,
and hijackings cost the shipping industry and governments as much as $7 billion in 2012
(hijacking a single large ship could earn pirates as much as $1 million through ransoming
hostages and valuable cargo).

After scores of kidnaps and hijackings, the world launched a huge naval anti-piracy effort in
2008. For the first time since WW2, all five permanent members of the UN Security Council
deployed forces together, with the aim of countering the threat and patrolling the Somali
coastline. Along with the introduction of armed guards, barbed wire and evasive-manoeuvre
training on merchant ships, this campaign has slashed the number of successful boarding
incidents off Somalia. Rocketing insurance premiums also meant shipping companies were
forced to invest in armed guards, and to chart longer, safer routes far from the Somali coast.
Since armed guards first started crewing ships as protection against Somali pirates, none of
their charges have been successfully hijacked.

However, the same gangs still operate, much like the clan-based militias that plague
Somalia on land. Many remain involved in other forms of criminal activity, such as drugs
smuggling. While the Aris 13 was the first large merchant vessel to be hijacked in four years,
smaller ones, most often local fishings boats, have continued to be targeted. It is suspected
that many more incidents go unreported.

Somaliland
Somaliland is a slim slice of Somali-inhabited territory on the southern shore of the Gulf of
Aden. It announced its secession from Somalia in 1991 and has operated as a more or less
independent country ever since. It has its own president, parliament and constitution, and
even boasts a central bank that prints its own currency, the Somaliland shilling. The peaceful
existence of its three million mostly Muslim, but secular, residents contrasts sharply with the
disorder and instability of Somalia.

Somaliland boasts its own military, police force, and a reasonably effective bureaucracy. The
government, located in the capital city of Hargeisa, maintains a respectable degree of control
over its territory: the country is, by and large, peaceful, in stark contrast to Somalia to the
south where regular eruptions of violence and terrorism are deadly. Its democracy evolved
out of a series of mass public consultations—clan conferences—which endowed its
government with an unusual degree of legitimacy. The system’s most striking feature is the
upper house of clan elders, known as the “Guurti”, which ensures broadly representative
government and underpins much of the country’s consensual political culture. However,
Somaliland’s democracy is by no means perfect– corruption is endemic, and the media are
seldom critical. The influence of the clans has been muted but not eradicated; elections are
repeatedly delayed; all branches of government have now outlived their mandates (the lower
house has sat for 12 years and counting) and the Guurti has sat unelected since it was
formed in 1993.

Though Somaliland often enters into legal contracts (signing, for example, oil-exploration
licences with foreign corporations), and engages in diplomatic operations with the United
Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and nations such as Britain, America, and
Denmark, it has not received official recognition from a single foreign government in the
years since it declared independence. The reason for this lies in and around Mogadishu.
Somalia’s civil war has raged for two and a half decades, and despite the introduction of a
new constitution in 2012, the federal government’s claim to territorial authority is precarious.
Many fear that the apparent creation of a new state in the region, which might embolden
Somalia’s other secessionist provinces (Puntland, Jubbaland and Hiranland), and hence
lead to the balkanisation of Somalia along clan lines, reigniting old regional tensions
(between Somalis and Ethiopians, for example). Moreover, by disregarding federal
government which is heavily set on a unified Somali state, the international community could
trigger a resumption of hostilities between north and south, and render peace negotiations
nearly impossible.

Compared to the lobby for an independent South Sudan, which was highly vocal in
America’s Congress and elsewhere, the advocates for Somaliland’s independence maintain
a relatively low profile.

Islamic terrorism (al-Shabaab)

Since 2007 Somalia has been occupied by armies from neighbouring countries, who—
beginning with the Ethiopians in 2006—invaded to eject an incipient Islamist government in
Mogadishu. The result was the creation of a Western-backed Somali transitional
government, and a new enemy, al-Shabaab, a splinter group from the Islamists. Al-Shabaab
immediately resorted to guerrilla war. In an effort to keep the jihadists at bay, Western
governments pay for AMISOM, a force of 22,000 foreign soldiers operating in Somalia under
a joint UN and African Union mandate.
Today, the Islamists control little in the way of towns, but is believed to still have between
7,000 and 9,000 fighters. In the areas under its control, al-Shabaab imposes a strict version
of Sharia, including stoning to death women accused of adultery and amputating the hands
of thieves. Somalia remains deeply insecure. In Mogadishu, fearing kidnap or worse,
foreigners generally confine themselves to the international airport—a sprawling compound
protected by thick fortifications and Ugandan soldiers. Travel outside means taking a risk in
a taxi or enlisting an armoured car. In other parts of the country, especially in the south,
AMISOM troops live in fortified camps with thin supply lines, while al-Shabaab wander into
villages and operate as they please.

Recruiters target disillusioned men in Somalia as well as Kenya. Due to their links with al-
Qaeda, the US’ brutal counter-terrorist programmes have also been implemented in
Somalia, which have often exacerbated resentment towards foreigners and sown seeds of
resentment. Young men who emerge after years of being held in unlawful detention often
seek out justice through jihadism. Others simply see it as a means of exercising power and
survival in a war-torn and broken state.

Other than finance from crime (e.g. piracy, drug trafficking, arms smuggling), al-Shabaab
also extorts thousands of dollars per day through road blocks and taxes on merchants
attempting to transport food and supplies to sell to internally displaced people in towns
where they are concentrated. Somalia’s refugee and famine crisis has meant that vulnerable
communities are targeted for extortion. Foreign aid companies are also forced to give up
large sums of money in order to get safe access to refugee camps. Alternative lines of
funding also come from al-Qaeda and Somalia’s multiple secessionist movements who don’t
recognise the federal government.

The Somali National Army (SNA) is meant to keep people safe and hold the country
together. Most independent observers agree that the SNA doesn’t exist as a cohesive force
(as most conventional armies). British instructors brought in to train SNA soldiers have
ended up training AMISOM instead; SNA commanders cannot say who or where their troops
are, let alone what they are doing. Though there are soldiers, they often desert and mostly
owe their loyalty to clan leaders, not to the Mogadishu federal government, only prolonging
the conflict.

The African Union (AU)

The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of all 55 countries on the African
continent, extending slightly into geographical Asia via the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. In a
move spearheaded by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, the AU was established
on 26 May 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and launched on 9 July 2002 in South Africa, with
the aim of replacing the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The African Union was to be
more economic in nature, similar to the European Union, and would contain a central bank, a
court of justice, and an all-Africa parliament.

The most important decisions of the AU are made by the Assembly of the African Union, a
semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states. The AU's
secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa.
 The mandate of the African Union is many-layered, often delving into economic integration
and the development of military infrastructure as well as democratic institutions in its
member states. Its organs (most of which have specialised sub-committees) include the:

Assembly of the The Assembly of the African Union is one of The AU Assembly consists of
African Union several decision-making bodies within the the 54 heads of state and
AU. The other bodies are the Pan-African government of the member
Parliament, the Executive Council countries.
(consisting of foreign ministers of the AU
members states), and the African Union The Assembly meets once a
Commission. year at the AU Summit.

The Assembly has nine basic functions: 1) The current Chairman of the
set policies of the AU, 2) decide on what Assembly is President Paul
action to take after consideration of reports Kagame of Rwanda.
and recommendations from the other organs
of the Union, 3) consider membership
requests into the Union 4) create bodies for
the Union, 5) monitor the implementation of
policies and decisions of the Union as well
ensure compliance by all Member States, 6)
create a budget of the Union, 7) provide
direction to the Executive Council on
conflicts, war and other emergency
situations and the restoration of peace, 8)
select judges for and withdraw judges of the
Court of Justice, 9) appoint the Chairman of
the Commission, Commissioners of the
Commission, all respective deputies and
determine how long they will serve and what
duties they will perform.

Pan-African The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) is the
Parliament legislative body of the African Union. The
PAP exercises oversight, and has advisory
and consultative powers, lasting for the first
five years.
With the aim of implementing AU policies
and objectives, as well as cultivating human
rights and democracy in Africa, it has the
power to: consult on any matter either by its
own initiative or at the request of any AU
policy organ, discuss AU budgets, work
towards the coordination of the laws of
member states.
Its long term goal is to realise full legislative
powers though its current mandate is purely
advisory/consultative.
The Parliament has up to 250
members representing the 50
AU Member States that have
ratified the Protocol
establishing it (five members
per Member State).
PAP representatives are
elected by the legislatures of
their Member State, rather than
being elected directly by the
people. In addition to the full
Assembly of Parliament, the
PAP has 10 permanent
committees.

African Court of The African Court of Justice and Human The Court consists of 11 judges
Justice Rights is an international and regional court who are nationals of member
in Africa. It is the primary judicial agency of states, with no 2 judges being
 the African Union.
It is responsible for adjudicating justice in
large-scale or transnational conflicts referred
to it by other AU organs or third parties.
Examples include the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda.
The court has two chambers, one for
general legal matters and one for rulings on
the human rights treaties. Within this the
court has both an advisory opinion role and
adjudicative role. The court is competent to
interpret its own judgments in an appellate
chamber.
Commission The Commission of the African Union acts
as the executive/administrative branch or
secretariat of the AU (and is somewhat
analogous to the European Commission). It
consists of a number of Commissioners
dealing with different areas of policy.
The Commission develops broader AU
objectives into clear goals and strategies,
guided by data-driven results, feasibility, as
well as close cooperation with regional
economic communities.
Peace and Security The Peace and Security Council is the organ
Council of the African Union in charge of enforcing
union decisions. It is patterned somewhat
after the United Nations Security Council.
With AU mandate and authorisation, the
Peace and Security Council can deploy
peace or intervention missions in its member union, political will to do so.
states. It can also help coordinate and give The council is composed of
resources to military efforts between
member states to help strengthen national
defence and counter-terrorism infrastructure. and ten to two-year terms.
It has several armed bodies such as the
African Standby Force (ASF), as well as
peacekeeping forces and missions (e.g.
from the same country. Each
region of Africa must be
represented by no less than 2
judges.
The Court is composed of
impartial and independent
judges who possess the
necessary qualifications
required in their respective
countries for appointment to the
highest judicial offices, or are
jurists of recognized
competence in international
law. Member states in the
Assembly appoint candidates
from their country, and the
Assembly elects them by secret
ballot. Those with a ⅔ majority
become judges.
Judges serve a tenure of 6
years and may only be re-
elected once.
The Commission is composed
of 10 officials: a Chairperson, a
Deputy Chairperson, 8
Commissioners and Staff
members. The structure
represents the Union and
protects its interest under the
auspices of the Assembly of
Heads of State and
Government as well as the
Executive Committee.
Members are elected by the
Assembly of the African Union
so as to reflect regional
balance within Africa, as well
as a variety of other criteria,
including capacity to contribute
militarily and financially to the
fifteen countries, of which five
are elected to three-year terms,
Countries are immediately re-
eligible upon the expiration of
their terms.
 AMISOM, AMIS, MISCA).
Financial Institutions The AU has three specific financial organs:
the African Central Bank (ACB), African
Investment Bank (AIB), and African
Monetary Fund (AMF). The role of these
institutions is to implement the economic
integration called for in the
1991 Treaty Establishing the African
Economic Community (Abuja Treaty). These
financial institutions aimed to foster
economic growth and accelerate economic
integration through providing technical and
financial assistance, promoting private and
public investment activity, coordinating
monetary policies, etc.
Economic, Social, The Economic, Social and Cultural Council
and Cultural (ECOSOCC) is an advisory body of the
Institutions African Union designed to give civil society
organizations (CSOs) a voice within the AU
institutions and decision-making processes.
ECOSOCC is made up of civil society
organizations from a wide range of sectors
including labour, business and professional
groups, service providers and policy think
tanks, both from within Africa and the
African diaspora.
Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA)
The Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) is an initiative with the goal to create a single
continental market for goods and services in Africa, with free movement of business persons
and investments, eventually leading to the establishment of the Continental Customs Union
and the African customs union. In 2018, 44 signatories signed this free-trade deal and have
proceeded into negotiations.
Like most financial institutions,
most key officials in the ACB,
AIB, and AMF are not elected
through democratic consensus,
but instead are more discretely
hired and promoted based on
job-related performance.
However, the President is
elected through nominations by
the Assembly.
ECOSOCC statutes provide for
4 main bodies:
1) 150-member general
assembly made up of 144
elected representatives (two
from each Member State, ten
operating at regional level,
eight at continental level and 20
from the diaspora) and six
representatives of CSOs
nominated by the AU
Commission.
2) 15-member standing
committee with representatives
from the five regions of Africa
to coordinate the work of the
organ.
3) 10 sectoral cluster
committees for feeding opinion
and inputs into the policies and
programmes of the AU.
4) A five-person credentials
committee for determining the
eligibility of CSO
representatives to contest
elections or participate in the
processes of the organ.
The economic integration of African states is not a new concept. The Abuja Treaty passed in
1991 by the OAU called for the economic integration and coordination of trade between
African states. It has culminated in the African Economic Community (AEC), which is an
organization of African Union states establishing grounds for mutual economic development
among the majority of African states. The stated goals of the organization include the
creation of free trade areas, customs unions, a single market, a central bank, and a common
currency (see African Monetary Union) thus establishing an economic and monetary union.
Currently there are multiple regional blocs in Africa, also known as Regional Economic
Communities (RECs), many of which have overlapping memberships. The RECs consist
primarily of trade blocs and, in some cases, some political and military cooperation.
Examples include the East African Community and the Economic Community of West
African States. The CFTA aims to resolve the challenges of multiple and overlapping
memberships and expedite the regional and continental integration processes. It also hopes
to enhance competitiveness at the industry and enterprise level through exploiting
opportunities for scale production, continental market access and better reallocation of
resources.

However, one notable non-signatory of the CFTA agreement was Nigeria, Africa’s largest
economy. Many worry that jobs and industries will be lost without the protectionist measures
that many African nations have relied upon. Other challenges include the heterogeneous
size of African economies, the existence of numerous bilateral trade agreements with the
rest of the world, overlapping REC memberships, divergent levels of industrial development,
standardising regulations and licensences, and varying degrees of openness.

African Peace and Security Architecture (ASPA)

The African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is built around structures, objectives,
principles and values, as well as decision-making processes relating to the prevention,
management and resolution of crises and conflicts, post-conflict reconstruction and
development in the continent.

The APSA evolved in the late 1990s, when the African continent was confronted with severe
crises such as the civil war in Somalia and the genocide in Rwanda. The signature of the
constitutive act of the AU marked a turning point of intra-African relations, allowing AU
member states to intervene in a third state even against the will of the respective
government in case of crimes against humanity, such as war crimes and genocide.
Therefore, the AU constitutive act is the first treaty under international law, which includes
the right to militarily intervene in a third state based on humanitarian reasons. The AU also
adopted later protocols that defined a broad agenda for peace and security, including central
elements such as conflict prevention, early warning, preventive diplomacy, conflict
management, and peacemaking as well as support for and development of democratic
policies, humanitarian actions and conflict management.

Since it first met in 2004, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) has been active in relation
to the crisis in Darfur, Comoros, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Côte
d'Ivoire and other countries. It has adopted resolutions creating the AU peacekeeping
operations in Somalia and Darfur, and imposing sanctions against persons undermining
peace and security (such as travel bans and asset freezes against the leaders of the
rebellion in Comoros). The PSC has access to the African Standby Force (ASF), which can
be deployed in emergencies. Peacekeeping missions are deployed for more long-term
missions (such as the ones in Darfur and Somalia).