Angola
From Afro-stalinism to petro-diamond capitalism
Tony Hodges
James Currey, Oxford, 2001

Despite its laborious title, this excellent study by Tony Hodges must rank as one of the best on Angola in many years. Hodges could just as well have called his book ‘Corruption and oil’, since most of it deals with how the US $2 billion oil wealth that Angola receives per year is used almost entirely for non-productive purposes, largely military expenditure and consumption. Hodges is an acknowledged Angolan expert and has written extensively on the country. He first visited Angola in 1975 and worked there for United Nations agencies from 1994 to 1998. His is an insider’s account in a number of ways, benefiting from a multitude of detailed studies by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other agencies. According to Hodges, Angola presents a terrible, shocking paradox. Few countries present such a stark contrast between economic potential and the state of their populace. His book explains this contrast in a logical, succinct and accessible manner.

Although primarily an economic-political analysis, Hodges presents a convincing and detailed case study of the massive mismanagement of the Angolan economy to the ultimate benefit of a small number of "closely inter-related Luanda-based creole families who were active in or identified with the MPLA [and] to a limited extent a wider layer of the urban population, through such mechanisms as state or parastatal employment and subsidies for fuel, water and electricity" (p 169).

Apart from a short introduction and conclusion, successive chapters provide:

an overview of the last four decades of war and upheaval;



the associated social changes that have transformed the country during the same period;



the nature of the Angolan state and its relationship with civil society;



the nature of the economic crisis;



the nature of the oil industry - designated as part of a Bermuda triangle where accountability, oversight and money disappear; and finally



how access to the diamond resources in the north-east enables UNITA to sustain its capacity for war and how diamond concessions have become a key mechanism in patronage for the ruling élite.

Throughout, the book is richly complemented by graphs, maps, diagrams and tables, including some 13 pages of statistical data included as an appendix. The combination of sober prose and analytical data in an accessible form provides a depth of analysis and rigour and makes for a compact study.

The author partly bases his analysis on a stalled and incomplete transition between a centralised Stalinist political model imposed upon the already highly centralised and authoritarian political system inherited from the Portuguese. These ambitions were thwarted by the exodus of skilled persons prior to independence and, subsequently, by decades of war, external intervention and debt until the early 1990s when the prospects for an internationally supervised peace agreement with UNITA brought about radical changes in governance, including the introduction of a nominal multiparty system, the liberalisation of the economy and even of the media. The resumption of the war soon thereafter and the historical weight of past traditions and methods would neither reverse nor allow the institutionalisation of these changes, "leaving governance in an ambiguous state of frozen transition" (p 43).

The post-independence political system also displayed a strong tendency towards presidentialism from the outset, a trend that accelerated after the death of Agostinho Neto, in tandem with growing militarisation as the country sought to counter the growing military threats from UNITA and South Africa. By the time President Eduardo dos Santos consolidated his position as successor to Neto in the mid-1980s, power had become increasingly personalised around the Futungo de Belas, the presidential compound on the outskirts of Luanda from where Dos Santos runs his imperial rule, "impervious to the protracted economic crisis, the pauperisation of the population and the failure to restore a lasting peace" (p 52). In the process, Hodges details Dos Santos’ shrewd ability to distance himself from the economic failures of his administration, while extending patronage in the form of diamond concessions, annual Christmas bonuses, the granting of land titles and other economic favours to buy the loyalty of military officers and the urban élite.

Hodges argues that the war has not been solely responsible for Angola’s poor economic performance. A second factor is the shortage of skilled human resources and a third, poor economic management. Implicit in his analysis is a fourth reason - the greed of the Angolan political élite. Similar to the stalled political and governance transition that was attempted in the early 1990s, Hodges argues that the period of economic reform that started in 1987, intended to bring about a transition to a market economy, has been halting and incomplete, resulting in large budgetary and balance-of-payments deficits, high rates of inflation, heavy external indebtedness and the loss of creditworthiness in international financial markets. Frequent changes in direction have punctuated the economic reform process. Nine different economic programmes have been announced in the 13 years from 1987 to 2000, some seeking to reverse the limited gains of earlier programmes. With eight changes to the position of finance minister between 1990 and 1999, three changes of the currency, and the tendency of the primary responsibility for economic policymaking to shift back and forth between the planning and finance ministers, he argues that the key decisions on economic issues are not taken by ministers, or by the governors of the National Bank, but by the head of state.

But even Angola’s fabulous oil wealth has its limits. From the mid-1980s the government began to face difficulties in meeting its external debt-service obligations, resulting in the build-up of arrears and the loss of creditworthiness in international financial markets and among official export credit agencies. Between 1987 and 1995, external arrears soared from US $166 million to US $5.6 billion. Despite a series of bilateral rescheduling agreements with the Soviet Union, its largest creditor during the same period, amounting to a write-off of some US $4 billion of unserviced debt, new arrears were built up to a level of US $4.4 billion by the end of 1999. The acute external payment crisis that emerged in 1998-9 as a result of the collapse of international oil prices, caused a 33% fall in Angola’s petroleum exports in 1998, and followed the 38% fall in 1986 from the earlier global oil shock. Angola has yet to extract itself from the resulting debt trap. "Due to its external arrears and consequent low credit-rating in international financial markets, the country cannot obtain credit for military procurement through normal banking facilities or from official export credit agencies" (p 138). Instead, it started using current oil revenues to make cash payments, using future oil revenue as collateral for loans and, more recently, provided for equity stakes to companies with linkages in the international arms industry as alternative means of payment in kind for arms contracts. "By the late 1990s, almost all the oil physically available to the government through SONANGOL (amounting to almost half of the government’s total oil revenue) was committed to the servicing of oil-guaranteed loans" (p 142).

The pressure to gain access to the international market obliged the government to address another serious problem - the massive portions of state expenditure that bypassed the Treasury. Forced to come to terms with the IMF through a Staff Monitored Program, a precursor to any loans, if it was to alleviate its external financial constraints, the portion of extra-budgetary expenditure fell from an estimated 26% of total government expenditure in 1996 to 14% in 1998 - but still accounted for approximately half of defence and security expenditure.

From the presidency down, Hodges demonstrates the extent to which powerful interest groups have a vested interest in the maintenance of non-transparent systems and administrative mechanisms for the allocation of resources and the award of contracts, concessions and other economic opportunities. One such mechanism is privileged access to foreign exchange at artificial exchange rates, effectively subsidising round-tripping arrangements for the sale of foreign exchange on the open or even black market. A second is the system of administratively fixed interest rates at levels significantly below inflation rates and the political allocation of limited short-term credit to those with the right political connections. A third is the privatisation programme that began in the late 1980s. As part of this programme, a new land grab took place, benefiting families of the political-military élite at the expense of those peasants who had been occupying and tilling much of the former state farms that were now sold off.

Hodges lists many similar schemes, all intended to benefit few, to the detriment of many. In a chapter on ‘Oil and the Bermuda Triangle’, he investigates the complex triangular relationship between SONANGOL, the Treasury and the National Bank that has created a ‘black hole’ for the country’s oil revenues into which they disappear without trace.

Despite the enormous disparity in resources between the government and UNITA, the Forças Armadas de Angola (FAA) and the Polícia de Intervenção Rápida (PIR) have not been able to defeat UNITA, in part due to "poor morale, discipline and leadership. These debilitating weaknesses result from low pay, arrears in wage payments, the lack of a motivating cause and the preoccupation of much of the officer corps with business activities" (p 65). Another reason is the extent to which government and FAA patronage would be disturbed by the logic of military dominance of the diamond fields through which UNITA has long been able to prosecute the war.

While UNITA is generally assumed to be dependent upon diamonds to prosecute its war, the extent to which diamonds have been one of the principal avenues for enrichment of the élite and profits across political and military lines is less well known.

Quoting industry sources, Hodges estimates UNITA’s cumulative net revenue in 1992-98 at around US $2 billion, "a substantial sum and far more than the movement ever received from the US and South Africa, its main external patrons, prior to the Bicesse accords in 1991" (p 153). While illegal sales were thought to have amounted to some US $600 million a year in the period between 1992 and 1997, they have fallen "sharply to around $200 million in 1998, following the restoration of government control over many of the mining sites previously controlled by UNITA" (p 150). In recent years, sanctions have started to ‘bite’, reducing UNITA’s ability to source weapons, fuel and material from its traditional African allies, including Burkina Faso, Zambia, Togo and the former Zaïre, traditional arms suppliers such as Bulgaria, and its ability to trade freely in diamonds with Antwerp, the major world market for rough diamonds. Since 1998, states Hodges, "UNITA’s transaction costs have not only increased, but its stockpiles of diamonds has been significantly depleted" (p 158).

Perhaps the only weakness of this comprehensive study is that it succumbs in part to the recent international tendency to gloss over the colonial, ethnic and historical roots of African struggles in favour of economic considerations of greed - pointing to the extent to which the key causal factors have changed over time and historical motivations have waned. Therefore, "the war has neither a real social basis, even in terms of ethnicity - it is a war driven by personal ambition, mutual suspicion and the prize of winning or retaining control over the state and the resources to which it gives access" (p 18). In explaining the continuation of the war, Hodges lamely emphasises "the psychological make-up of Jonas Savimbi. His role in the Angolan conflict confirms the importance of the individual in history" (p 19). By implication, the death of Savimbi would end the war. These are not views shared by all, and although not central to the book, it does distract a reader aware of the extent to which issues of class, race and ethnicity still underpin the Angolan conflict to this day, despite the obvious evolution in war motivation.

Angola presents a paradox of immense mineral-based wealth and development potential co-existing with economic collapse, social dissolution, poverty and tragedy. It is a country of heart-breaking suffering and exploitation that demands the attention of the international diplomatic community in consort with the international business community if there is to be an end to the conflict. This book by Hodges is crucial reading for anyone wishing to understand the war, its motivation and characteristics.

Jakkie Cilliers
Institute for Security Studies

Secret Intelligence and Public Policy
A dilemma of democracy
Pat M Holt
CQ Press, Washington DC, 1996

Of the diverse components of the security sector community (armed forces, police, gendarmerie, paramilitary, coast guard, protection services, intelligence and correctional services), it is the intelligence community that remains the most inscrutable and difficult to transform. Institutions such as the police services and the armed forces operate largely in the public domain, have more clearly defined command and control patterns and, when the political will pertains, are more easily crafted into defined systems of accountability and political control.

The position of the intelligence community in both established democracies and emerging democracies is inherently problematic. The nature of the profession itself defies public access and the clandestine nature of many of its operations, particularly those in the counterintelligence domain, demands a continual and almost exclusive level of secrecy. Transparency and democratic control over the intelligence community of any country are further bedevilled by the tendency of government decisionmakers either to construct intelligence services as political power bases and/or to attempt to maintain a high level of personal control over their activities. An added element of obfuscation in this regard is the tendency of government, the intelligence services and the public to mythologise the activities of the intelligence world. This renders them even more removed from the realm of public accountability and oversight than would normally be the case with other national security institutions.

Recent events in Africa have highlighted the need to initiate a robust debate on the role of intelligence services within a democracy and the extent to which enduring political and civil control over their activities can be maintained. The Meiring report issued in 1998 by the former Chief of the South African National Defence Force, General George Meiring, in which it was alleged that a group of former African National Congress generals were planning to mount a coup d’état against the new government, saw the enforced resignation of the General. Not least of the reasons for this resignation was the belief by both Mandela and Mbeki that Meiring had abused the military intelligence brief to further his own corporate interests.

Indeed, the abuse of the intelligence brief in African countries has been continual and has persisted since the colonial era. Recent allegations against the Central Intelligence Organisation in Zimbabwe about its monitoring of legitimate political activity within the country constitute an example in this regard. The same applies to elements within the Zambian, Angolan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Swazi intelligence communities.

Although literature on the conduct of intelligence and its various historical antecedents is abundant, literature on the relation between the conduct of intelligence, a necessary instrument in the hands of decisionmakers, and democracy, a necessary instrument in the hands of the citizenry, has been relatively sparse until recently. Pat Holt’s book on the relationship between the conduct of intelligence and the prerequisites of democracy is thus an invaluable primer for those policymakers attempting to balance the utilitarian need for intelligence with the immensely complex architecture of democratic accountability.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part outlines the theoretical framework within which the vexing question emerges of ensuring political control over the activities of the intelligence community. This is, inevitably and self-admittedly, the least conclusive part of the book, involving a plethora of political and philosophical issues. Given the fact that the activities of the intelligence community are secret, who decides in democracy what is in the public interest, on what basis is this judgement made, and according to which guidelines?

In essence, the book argues that there is no easy answer to this dilemma. The existence of two factors best ensures that such conduct is generally supportive of the public good. The first is the character of the decisionmakers themselves - hopefully people of astute political judgement and relatively solid ethical conviction. The second factor relates to the capacity of decisionmakers to make cogent situational judgements prior to employing the intelligence services in support of broader national objectives. This requires a ‘seat-of-the-pants’ judgement that strives, as far as possible, to ensure that actions are as consistent with the public and political groundswell as is feasibly possible.

The second part of the book is devoted to the structure of the intelligence community in the United States, and the determination of roles and tasks within and between the different structures of these agencies. It also provides a critical overview of the intelligence cycle itself. The sections dealing with the structure, roles and responsibilities of the US intelligence community (chapters 3) may be of interest to African intelligence practitioners in particular, but they are of little more than descriptive interest to African policymakers in general.

Of somewhat more interest in the second part of the book are the chapters that critique the intelligence cycle itself - most notably the collection, analysis, counterintelligence and covert action processes (chapters 4 to 7). Attempts to demarcate and control what intelligence agencies can and cannot collect remains immensely difficult to enforce (chapter 4). More often than not this is a problem of bureaucratic politics - the bureaucratic inclination of organisations to justify themselves and the natural tendency of professionals to optimise their performances — and not of a lack of political oversight.

Analysis, particularly if it is timely and objective, remains one of the most important tools of the intelligence trade craft (chapter 5). Intelligence, the author notes, is more than the art of making projections, but should also include a critical description of the political system or organisational set-up under consideration in order to allow decisionmakers an understanding of the limits of what might be expected from a country. Much of the virtue of solid analysis, he cogently demonstrates, lies in its ability to counter conventional ‘group-think’ and thereby provide decisionmakers with a series of alternatives that may have been overlooked previously. The wry observations of the author regarding the over-classification of analytical products will strike a receptive note among many former and serving intelligence officers. More often than not the secrecy regarding the content and dissemination of analytical products has more to do with bureaucratic inflexibility and the mythologisation of the practise of intelligence than it has to do with the inherent secrecy of such products.

Perhaps one of the most difficult disciplines to control within the intelligence community remains that of counterintelligence (chapter 6). Although this chapter provides some interesting case studies of how counterintelligence does and does not work in supporting national objectives, it fails to problematise the inherent contradictions that lie at the heart of the counterintelligence discipline - contradictions of which many African activists are only too powerfully aware.

Any counterintelligence function remains entrusted with the preservation of the nation’s secrets, yet, this mandate too often becomes abused for political and even party-political gain. Problems of methodology and epistemology abound within the counterintelligence community. The ideal counterintelligence operative is someone who can provide a dispassionate analysis of real and perceived threats to the sovereign, yet is also a person who should be inherently distrustful of others. This continual methodological tension between objectivity and inherent distrust, and the ever-present temptation to use the powerful innuendoes of counterintelligence in personal and political battles, persistently bedevils the management of the counterintelligence brief.

In essence, the answer to the dilemma posed above lies partially in the provision of decisive and aggressive leadership but also, and perhaps more importantly, in the development of an ethical culture of intelligence wherein the restraint and control over the activities of intelligence operatives lie within their own corporate identity and moral framework.

The third part of the book (chapters 8 to 10) examines the importance and efficacy of those public institutions entrusted to oversee the intelligence function. This includes both the constitutional and legally mandated de jure institutions, as well as those non-executive mechanisms such as the media whose de facto power renders them powerful enough to play an oversight role in the management of the national intelligence function.

The author highlights some of the real problems that pervade the institution of effective mechanisms of civilian oversight - lack of political will, insufficient expertise and ineffective co-ordination between the different oversight agencies. He provides compelling examples of how oversight has failed to materialise not because of the shenanigans of the intelligence community, but because of the complicity of those executive agencies entrusted with the task of oversight. Ultimately, however, this section of the book fails to provide a more dynamic overview of those processes that ensure the creation of an effective culture of oversight and transparency.

The final part of the book contains a series of policy recommendations to ensure that the activities of the intelligence community in the US and its oversight are both strengthened and deepened in future decades. The book, in general, and the final part, in particular, provide a useful account of the perennial tension that exists between the maintenance of a culture of secrecy within the context of a democratic dispensation. It provides a host of practical examples to highlight the dilemmas faced by the intelligence community and these, although almost exclusively drawn from the US experience, range over the past five decades. Its limitations are, however, twofold - both of which can be rectified by more detailed research in future.

The first is the focus of the book. The author’s cogent US case studies would have been immensely enriched through the addition of other examples - a comparative overview that would have extended both the relevance and the audience of the book considerably. The second lies in the recommendations made in the book itself. The author is himself a former staff member of one of the congressional committees that feature prominently in the book - and in this experience lies most of the practical utility of the book.

It is necessary to develop a greater analytical and conceptual sophistication and construct a more rigorous account of the theory of intelligence oversight. Some suggestions are made in this regard. When discussing the institution of appropriate and effective systems of intelligence oversight, for example, it is important to be cognisant of the formal and informal dimensions of such processes. The limitations of civilian control and oversight in any society are basically threefold:

Formal legalistic measures tend to operate retroactively and only address a small area of organisational behaviour. They are designed more to prevent an abuse of power than to contain the security forces within their legitimate sphere of action.



Formal legalistic measures are largely externally focused and do not address the behavioural patterns of intelligence officers themselves, the way they view their mission and responsibilities, and the way their seniors view their role orientation towards the political leaders of the day.



To be effective, political control mechanisms require the political will to make them work. Given the lack of familiarity displayed by many political leaders of the world with covert operations, and the fact that political leaders often depend on the assessments of intelligence and security structures for their political career, there is often a reluctance to utilise these structures fully.

To enhance the capacity of civilian oversight mechanisms to perform their duly mandated tasks, it is important to institute and manage carefully, a range of other informal interfaces between the civil authorities and the intelligence community (all of which are essential to and supportive of the broader civilian oversight role of government). These include:

Sufficient levels of trust between the intelligence services and the political and civil élite must be established. This will be the highest when there is mutual respect for one another’s roles and tasks and the lowest when there is undue penetration and interference in one another’s affairs.



The roles and tasks of the intelligence services must be agreed to. While this should be enshrined in legislation, it should also be recognised practically by the political and civil élites.



There must be acknowledgement by the political and civil élites of the resource requirements of the intelligence community.



The intelligence community must acknowledge the political requirements for oversight as articulated by parliament.



Working criteria must be established upon which a healthy balance is achieved between the needs for public transparency and the need for institutional confidentiality.

It is the normative component, the ethical dimension, that ensures that intelligence operatives, more so than any other component of the security sector, will truly respect the parameters of the democratic environment within which they operate. Values are transmitted via a complex web of institutions, social structures and traditions. A specific institution, in itself, cannot provide the basis for instilling the values essential for the democratic and accountable conduct of covert operations (although they have an important role to play in this regard). This will depend on the political culture of the country concerned, the extent to which those values are accepted among the broader public, and the extent to which other apparatuses of the state ensemble exercise a similar normative disposition. It is this ethical matrix that best guarantees Africans an accountable and appropriate intelligence community in the decades to come.

This book is recommended for all African policy makers and intelligence practitioners who want to ensure that intelligence in an open society is conducted in a professional manner consistent with the attainment of the public good.

Rocky Williams
Institute for Security Studies

Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?
The World Bank, Washington DC, April 2000

Can Africa Claim the 21st century? is the collaborative product of five institutions — the World Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the Global Coalition for Africa, the African Economic Research Consortium and the African Development Bank. Under the supervision of a steering committee, the full report was made available in early 2000, following a process in which background papers were first presented at research workshops, and the draft report was discussed at two workshops soliciting views from African practitioners, policy makers and researchers.

The authors seek to answer this oddly phrased question indirectly by implying that it is possible for Africa to claim the 21st century if African states realise their potential to accelerate development and break free of poverty. There is no attempt at explaining in what way this will enable Africa to ‘claim’ the 21st century, nor quite what is meant by ‘claim’, by implication a right denied Africa.

What they successfully do, in a structured format, is to pose questions about the reasons why Africa continues to become poorer, and then to identify the strategies and concrete actions required for African states to realise their potential. Through the use of statistics, they present a clear picture of the direction and dimension of economic movements in Africa, looking specifically at what Africa is doing and can do to own and solve the problem of the continent’s growing poverty.

The book’s perspective is premised on the fundamental belief that the new century provides unique opportunities for Africa, and that Africa has the - as yet unfulfilled - potential to overcome the development traps that have "kept it confined to a vicious cycle of underdevelopment, conflict and untold human suffering for most of the twentieth century" (p x). It is assumed that the opportunities arise from three emerging positive factors: growing evidence of increasing political participation in Africa, the end of the Cold War, and the opportunities offered by globalisation and information and communications technology. But this is not a naive, ‘we feel good about Africa’s future’ perspective. While stating that there can be no blueprint, the authors make their conviction clear that Africa is not operating at full potential and, to overcome the daunting challenges facing it, radical changes are needed. Progress must be made on four crucial fronts, and the concrete solutions that are developed should be conceived, owned and implemented by accountable governments, anchored in broad national consensus, and supported by Africa’s development partners.

The authors start by highlighting the immense and multifaceted development challenge facing Africa, for example, citing that Africa’s share of world trade in 1970 was little more than 4% and, by 2000, had fallen to an estimated 2% with little sign of improvement. The first two chapters of the book in which the opportunities and challenges facing Africa are detailed, define the overall thrust of the book. Perspectives on current debates around Africa’s lack of development (exogenous and endogenous) are presented that, drawing on statistical data, spell out where Africa has come from, where it is now, and the need for an agenda for the future. The bulk of the book is devoted to explore the four focus areas — the circles of cumulative causation - which are seen to be critical in breaking the cycle of poverty:

the need to improve governance and resolve conflict;

investing in people for accelerated poverty reduction;

increasing competition and diversifying economies; and

reducing aid dependence and strengthen-ing partnerships.

Within each theme, the authors examine the current position in Africa, explore causal factors and their complexities, highlight areas of unexploited potential, provide examples and case studies of success stories, and then provide a range of concrete solutions and development strategies. Recommendations are not prescriptive. Rather, the uniqueness of each country developing its own solutions is emphasised, although the need for an integrated approach to development is repeatedly stressed. The interrelatedness of issues of security, political stability and development is a theme throughout the book.

This is essentially a positive and encouraging book about Africa realising its potential. While providing concrete strategies and policies to meet challenges, the authors are at pains to point out the importance of homegrown solutions and the strengthening of civil society. Interesting perspectives are presented, for example, on the need for decentralised service delivery, built on partnerships, to be more appropriate to Africa’s political development.

But the report must be read with circumspection as it is evident that the authors have made a number of assumptions which smack of naivety and reveal the bias of the international perspective from which they are writing. For example, conflict is viewed primarily as the product of the absence of democratic politics, failing to recognise the role of the international community and the linkages between conflict and resources such as diamonds and oil. Globalisation by its very nature is assumed to present a window of opportunity, whereas the west continues to place its own national agendas first in reality. There is growing world inequality in the face of the continuing discrimination by developed countries, despite all the talk of debt-forgiving.

The entire report is built on proposing solutions at national and local level. The question ‘Can Africa claim the 21st century?’ is not postulated at an Africa-wide level. What is needed is not only reforms at nation-state level, but also for African states to increase their power by becoming part of a collective whole in order to bring about transformation at a pan-African level in power relations. The authors fail to promote the role of pan-African governance — for so long as it exists only as a theoretical construct, the need for radical and urgent change in Africa will be constrained by national level reform only. Over and above the recommendations put forward, the imperative should be for Africa to operate as Africa, as driven by the African Initiative (MAP) - change the world view of Africa, and change the way Africa view itself.

To return to the opening comment, what do the authors mean by asking whether Africa can claim the 21st century, and is there an underlying fear that Africa could potentially remain impotent and marginalised? The question of what this means for Africa and for the world, in the end remains unanswered by the authors.

This report, nevertheless, has considerable value for policy makers in government, local government officials and development agencies implementing development programmes, as well as for Africa’s partners - the local funding agencies and the international community. Africa needs, now more than ever, to develop a coherent position on the issues that are key to economic development across the continent. For regional economic bodies seeking to push forward plans for greater co-ordination over development issues and external relations, this report provides a valuable starting point.

Jenny Macgregor
Institute for Security Studies

A people betrayed
The role of the west in Rwanda’s genocide
Linda Melvern
Zed, London, 2000

Much has been written about what happened in Rwanda in 1994, when up to one million people were killed in an orchestrated campaign that exceeds the Jewish holocaust in its speed, brutality and extent. Linda Melvern, an investigative journalist and writer, has written extensively about the genocide in Rwanda since 1996. Her research spans some six years and her book is perhaps the most detailed to have appeared in the public domain on events leading up and including the genocide in Rwanda.

Melvern starts her narrative by recounting events in Kigali during April 1994 at a time when the Belgian forces, the backbone of the small peace mission in Rwanda, were about to be withdrawn. Despite overwhelming evidence that a genocide was in progress, the international community was about to turn its back finally on the people of Rwanda. Ten Belgian peacekeepers had been killed and against logic, humanity and in contravention of international law, the UN Security Council, led in this decision by France, the United States and Britain, pulled the plug on the mission. Melvern is scathing about the international community. "What happened in Rwanda showed that, despite the creation of an organisation set up to prevent a repetition of genocide - for the UN is central to this task - it failed to do so, even when the evidence was indisputable. The combination of revelations about the scale and intensity of the genocide, the complicity of western nations, the failure to intervene, and the suppression of information about what was actually happening, is a shocking indictment, not only of the UN Security Council, but even more so of governments and individuals who could have prevented what was happening, but chose not to do so. It is a terrible story, made worse because its true nature has been deliberately distorted and confused" (pp 5-6).

There is little doubt that the Rwandan genocide could have been prevented or, at least, that the extent of mass murder could have been contained had the Security Council reinforced rather than depleted the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (UNAMIR). Unfortunately for the Tutsi people of Rwanda, the genocide commenced in the aftermath of the US peacekeeping disaster in Somalia that saw 18 Rangers killed in an abortive mission to apprehend a Somali warlord. The newly appointed Clinton administration recoiled in confusion, their well-meaning intent to resolve international crises through the UN system in defence of international norms suffering a near fatal setback. Elsewhere, the impending elections in South Africa drew attention away from the heart of the continent, while the UN system was overwhelmed by large missions elsewhere, those in Cambodia and Bosnia, in particular. Melvern recounts how UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, absent from New York throughout the Rwandan crisis and ever docile in providing leadership that would upset his main sponsor, France, did so little to the extent that the Security Council could subsequently defend its own inaction on the basis of a lack of options and information.

Several chapters in Melvern’s book retraces the policies of the colonial power, first Germany, but more importantly, Belgium, and the practise of the Rwandan people, that made the 1994 genocide the worst, but not the only, in a series of campaigns of mass murder that started in 1959. For Melvern the root of competition between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority is to be found in the colonial policies of Belgium that classified every Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa since 1933. The northern Hutu in Rwanda had remained independent until 1910-12 when they were militarily defeated by Germany and Tutsi-led southern Rwandan troops. No wonder that "[i]t was in the north that Hutu Power, the racist anti-Tutsi ideology underpinning the genocide, was conceived" (p 13). Belgium systematically favoured the Tutsi minority over the Hutu majority, a practice reversed in December 1959 following extensive mass violence and leading to an exodus of some 135 000, mostly Tutsi, refugees.

Rwanda became independent on 1 July 1962 with the UN already convinced that the prospects for peace were bleak without national reconciliation. Within 18 months, the Tutsis who fled the first campaigns of mayhem and murder invaded Rwanda from Uganda, were defeated, and the second organised slaughter of Tutsi followed. Events in neighbouring Burundi also impacted on Rwanda, not least because the two neighbours shared a similar population composition. When an attempted coup against the Tutsi minority government in Burundi failed in 1972, the slaughter of some 200 000 Hutus followed - an event that Melvern tends to underplay. A similar number, mostly Hutus, fled into Rwanda.

In the years leading up to the 1994 genocide, France replaced Belgium as the foremost ally of Rwanda, supplying military training, equipment and diplomatic and political support despite the Hutu military government and one-party system in control of the country since 1973. Tutsis played a crucial role in the military victory of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda during 1986 and it was from here that Paul Kagame would eventually launch his guerrilla campaign against General Juvénal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded that country from the north, but were defeated, serving only to fuel Hutu hatred of the Tutsi scourge.

Events would now gather pace, the author recounts, with Rwanda becoming the third largest arms importer in Africa by 1994, with significant military support, training and equipment from France. International pressure, in the meanwhile, had forced the start of negotiations in Arusha between the government of Habyarimana and the RPF in mid-1992. A peace deal, contained in the Arusha accords, was signed after 13 months, with the active engagement and support of the Organisation of African Unity. It did not manage to stop the ongoing killings. Nor did it prevent a second RPF invasion in February 1993 in clear breach of the accords. Habyarimana’s forces halted the invasion, but the die was cast. "From now on all Tutsis inside the country were labelled RPF accomplices and Hutu members of the opposition were branded traitors" (p 58). Habyarimana’s Hutu government started to create a civilian self-defence network, the Interahamwe.

What followed has been reported widely. Lists of all Tutsis were compiled, and in one purchase alone, one machete was bought for every third adult Hutu male. A local radio station was set up, Radio-télévision libre des mille collines (RTLMC), broadcasting mainly in Kinyarwanda. The purpose of the station was to serve as command and control network for the Interahamwe and the military. The UN dispatched a token peacekeeping mission, the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), under command of a Canadian officer, Major-General Roméo Dallaire - a man who was subsequently discharged from the military as a result of the trauma he was about to experience. The mission of UNAMIR was to monitor the security of Kigali, and the cease-fire, and to help with the formation of a new, integrated army.

The day before Dallaire arrived in Kigali, the first ever elected Hutu president in neighbouring Burundi was put to death by officers in the Tutsi-dominated army. Some 40 000 people were killed in the subsequent violence. The knock-on effect in Rwanda was instantaneous with 300 000 refugees fleeing Burundi in its aftermath. On 6 April 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was either shot down or bombed above Kigali airport. The wreckage had hardly fallen onto the presidential palace when the killings began. Dallaire sent his first detailed report of the organised slaughter to New York two days later. The reaction of the Security Council was first to do nothing, presenting the events as an uncontrolled civil war instead of a systematic campaign, and then to reduce UNAMIR as the RPF raced towards Kigali.

Melvern devotes a large portion of the book to details of the massacres that occurred during the period, the heroism of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the attempts to awaken the world to the catastrophe. By 21 April it was too late. The genocide had spread across the entire country and the Security Council voted to start evacuating UNAMIR. Perhaps only Ghana would emerge from Rwanda with honour, retaining more troops in Rwanda than the 270-strong residual force that the Security Council had authorised. It was to be slightly more than three weeks before the Council would confront events in Rwanda, finally authorising 5 500 troops for UNAMIR in a resolution intended to signify action while at the same time doing nothing. The US, and therefore Britain, insisted that troops would be deployed once the killing stopped - a self-defeating condition. Various African states offered troops, but had no airlift. All wanted the UN to underwrite the costs. Nothing happened. Eventually, France would launch Operation Turquoise on 23 June, crossing from the then Zaïre into Rwanda, largely to establish a safe haven in the remaining areas still controlled by the retreating Hutus. According to Melvern, "[t]he immediate effect of the French humanitarian zone was to provide a secure retreat for the Rwandan government army and the perpetrators of genocide" (p 214).

On 14 July, the Rwandan exodus began. In two days, about a million people crossed into Zaïre, fleeing the advancing RFP. "Sixty per cent of the [sic] Rwanda’s population was now either dead or displaced" (p 218). The flight of the Hutus into Zaïre, into camps at Goma and Bukava, remains the fastest and largest exodus of people ever recorded. To Melvern, the supreme irony was now to follow: "[t]he American administration decided on a major response costing US $300-400 million, with up to 4 000 military to reinforce hundreds of US civilians. It took just three days, once the orders had been issued by the White House to the Pentagon, for the first American troops to be on the ground" (p 219).

The final chapter in Melvern’s book carries the title ‘The Genocide Convention’. She starts by stating: "The failure of the international community to act while one million people in Rwanda were slaughtered was one of the greatest scandals of the twentieth century. But there was nothing secret about it" (p 227).

This is an extremely uncomfortable book, particularly for those who believe in the UN system, despite the unfortunate set of international circumstances that conspired to make Rwanda the tragedy that it became. Melvern writes with dispassion and restraint, but her anger is clear.

Jakkie Cilliers
Institute for Security Studies

Genocide and covert operations in Africa 1993-1999
Wayne Madsen
Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York,
1999

This sizeable volume is the 50th contribution of the Edwin Mellon Press on African Studies. Many of its predecessors have had titles rather more esoteric and less exciting than this one, but maybe their content was somewhat more considered. Madsen’s underlying thesis is that, during the years in question, the United States government waged a covert war in Central Africa designed to undercut France’s pre-eminence in the region to the benefit of American-based multinational corporations. The tools of this victory, according to the author, were intelligence agents thinly disguised as diplomats or businesspeople, private military companies closely associated with the Pentagon, and African political opportunists with a penchant for genocide and regional domination.

In support of this remarkable assertion, Madsen marshals some 540 pages of readable prose, detailing connections and hinting at possible collusion between certain of the agents he has identified as principally culpable for the bloodbath in the Great Lakes.

He begins with a description of what he refers to as ‘Clinton’s victory lap through Africa’ in March 1998 before proceeding to the US government’s disillusionment with overt military intervention on the continent in the wake of Operation Restore Hope in Somalia. He then turns to Uganda, or what he calls ‘America’s African beachhead’, and moves on to show how the weakness and eventual death in 1997 of France’s M Afrique, Jacques Foccart, made Paris uniquely vulnerable to Washington’s wiles. By this stage, Madsen has indulged in names-dropping and making connections for 55 pages, which perhaps explains the following passage:

"There were a few symbolic absences at Foccart’s funeral. One was Felix Houphouet-Boigny ... who had died in December 1993. Houphouet-Boigny had been Foccart’s closest friend in Africa" (p 54).

The reader would be at a complete loss to comprehend in what way the late president’s absence from the funeral of a friend, however close, could be understood as symbolic.

In chapter 4, a glimpse is presented of how the US ditched its old friend Jonas Savimbi, a move far more nuanced and equivocal than is suggested here. Chapter 5 is a veritable who’s who of the fringe world of mining: Boulle, Friedland, Buckingham and Tempelsman are among those given the ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ treatment. A direct approach detailing collusion with the US authorities and citing cases may have been more convincing than the innuendo implicit in statements such as "Tempelsman also developed a reported romantic relationship with Secretary of State Albright in mid 1998" (p 92).

By page 99 Madsen reaches the core of his case: that the US set out in 1994 to destabilise Hutu-governed Rwanda in earnest, because Habyarimana’s administration favoured France and was therefore an obstacle to American designs. This is a remarkable and a serious accusation, certainly warranting more careful inspection and analysis than Madsen is prepared to give it. Nowhere does he attempt to weigh the evidence against his theory, which includes the very serious and explicit suggestion that Paul Kagame may have been the key figure in assassinating President Habyarimana, thus triggering the genocide that immediately followed. This is an allegation that has been in circulation for some time, supported by ‘information’ from groups also involved in reproducing copies of plans for Tutsi domination that make the Protocols of the Elders of Zion look like Holy Writ. In passing, Madsen mentions other theories: that the president’s own security detail, in conjunction with extremist Hutu groups, were responsible. This is a point that is more than merely academic, it is part of the ongoing polemic and lies at the heart of the genocide prosecutions. Conspiracy theory may make for diverting reading, but in the context of the political situation in the Great Lakes, it is a far more serious matter, for it contributes to the welter of disinformation and myth-making that will fuel further rounds of bloodshed. ‘Plan Evil’, the pact between the US, Uganda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, as described by Madsen is, it may be suggested, one of the more irresponsible pieces of fiction to emanate from the Great Lakes rumour mill.

On Washington’s obstruction of the UN process that might have brought timely intervention, it is easier to believe that this mirrored the US’ unwillingness to be drawn into a military operation where there were no vital strategic interests at stake and in which casualties were bound to be sustained. In this cynical view, they were aided and abetted by the British. This seems to be a far more likely albeit broad interpretation, than that offered here in which the UN is deliberately obstructed from interfering with Washington’s secret plan for the region.

The following chapters take the reader through the activities of pro-US guerrilla forces in Central Africa and the DRC, outlining the Machiavellian cleverness of Clinton’s African policy advisors. Nowhere does it seem to occur to the author that Africans, great and small, have other agendas that are notably difficult for outsiders to understand, let alone manipulate. It would also seem that the Pentagon and State Department have a bottomless pit full of expert Africanists whose ability to anticipate events and move them in the desired direction would be the envy even of the characters in a Tom Clancy novel.

In chapters 13 and 14, a glimpse is given of the "Gucci mercenaries" as Madsen calls the private military companies, and an overview of Franco-American rivalry in Africa. The following chapter suggests that the responsibility for the collapse of certain states in West Africa may also be placed at the door of the US and its allies and surrogates in the corporate world.

In his introduction to this book, Edouard Bustin, an Africanist of note, says:

"The chief merit of Wayne Madsen’s book is not only to lift the rock under which such swarming characters proliferate, but also to explore the myriad ways in which their activities may influence the more formal avenues through which policies are sharpened and implemented. Much of the information he gathers is in the public domain, and while the evidence he marshals is, of necessity, fragmentary and partly speculative, its sheer volume and convergence are more than sufficient for the reader to discover patterns in this continent-wide puzzle."

Sadly, the chief merit of this book is that, priced at a few cents short of US $120, few people with any sense will ever read it.

Richard Cornwell
Institute for Security Studies